The Shooting Gallery: Twenty Democratic and Republican senators announced that they have reached a bipartisan deal on gun control that would create some minimal new hoops to jump for owning a gun.

  The agreement provides time to check the juvenile and mental health records of gun buyers under age of 21 and, for the first time, would bar gun ownership for domestic abusers who are just dating or living together rather than being married. It’s a removal of what’s been called “the boyfriend exception.” 

  The bill would also provide money to states for “red flag” laws that would allow them to confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous.

  It’s far from what many Democrats and gun control advocates want, which is an outright ban on the sale of assault weapons, or at least banning the sale of those guns to people under 21.

  Since Friday, while senators were debating what they wanted and what they would accept, 11 people died and 48 were wounded in 12 shootings in which four or more people were hit.

House Hearings: The House Committee investigating the January 6^th insurrection and efforts to overturn the 2020 election continues its public hearings today with testimony from Bill Stepien, the last chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign, who is expected to answer questions about what the former president knew about the absence of election fraud.

  In a televised hearing set to starting at 10 this morning, the committee plans to lay out how Trump refused to heed advisers who told him he had legitimately lost. The committee also will attempt to show that Trump’s words claiming election fraud provided the motivation for the rioters who stormed the Capitol.

  CNN and MSNBC will carry the hearing live.

The War Zone: Russian forces  could encircle the eastern city of  Sievierodonetsk, the governor of Luhansk province said yesterday as Ukrainian forces are getting slowly ground down. Russia is making slow and steady progress as it levels cities toward the goal of taking all of eastern Ukraine.

  Ukraine is suffering a shortage of artillery in what has become a war of artillery. They are low on Soviet era shells while new western artillery and ammunition are slow getting to the front. Even after the new hardware arrives, Ukrainian soldiers will have to be trained how to use the more technological weapons.

  But despite the grim picture for Ukraine,  The Institute for the Study of War reports that after getting badly chewed up, “Russian forces continue to struggle with generating additional combat-capable units.”

McMoscow: McDonald’s hamburger restaurants in Russia are beginning to re-open but without the name or the golden arches. McDonald’s abandoned all of its 840 Russian stores because of the invasion of Ukraine. A Siberian oil mogul snapped up all of them and plans to serve basically the same food.

  Russia has suffered as much as 17 percent inflation since the invasion, but the McDonald’s conversion is just one example of how the know out how to survive in an economy cut off from the civilized world. They’ve done it before. 

Gender  News: The number of young people in the US who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report based on surveys performed by the Centers for Disease Control.

  The analysis conducted from 2017 to 2020 estimated that 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared to about 0.5 percent of all adults.

  Researchers seem to have surmised that the numbers are growing in part because younger people are more comfortable with exploring their sexual identity or coming out with it if they are trans or nonbinary. Also it’s unclear whether there’s really a jump in trans-sexuality or that previous estimates were just low. The US Census Bureau began asking about it only last year.

The Spin Rack:  Thirty-one people affiliated with the White nationalist group Patriot Front were arrested Saturday and accused of planning to riot at a Pride parade in the city of Coeur d’Alene. The group was said to be equipped with “shields, shin guards and other riot gear.” — Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin leads in the 48-candidate field in a special primary election for the state’s only congressional seat. The top four candidates will have a runoff in August. Alaska’s Rep. Don Young died in March. — Andrew Giuliani, a Republican candidate for Governor of New York and son of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, said he will be barred from a WCBS television debate because he has refused the coronavirus vaccine. He claims to have “natural” immunity to the virus that has killed more than a million Americans. —The Washington Post reports that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressured 29 Republican Arizona state lawmakers to ignore Joe Biden’s popular vote victory in 2020 and “choose” presidential electors who would vote for Donald Trump. She asked the recipients to “consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead.” 

Chocolate!: Back in the 1960s the comedian Tommy Smothers used to do a routine with a song about how he fell into a vat full of chocolate. “I fell into a vat full of chocolate. Well, I fell into a vat of chocolate …” 

  It finally happened for real. Two people were rescued after falling into a vat of chocolate at the Mars M&M factory in Pennsylvania last Thursday. Fire crews had to cut a hole in the side of the tank to make the extraction.

  In the Smothers Brothers routine Tommy yells “Fire!” when he falls into the chocolate, “Because no one would save me if I yelled, “CHOCOLATE!”

   There’s no word on what the M&M employees yelled.

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