The Shooting Gallery: It’s that ritual time once again in America for thoughts and prayers but not for doing anything about military-grade weapons in civilian hands.

  Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke angrily interrupted a press conference yesterday held by Gov. Greg Abbott about Tuesday’s elementary school massacre in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead. O’Rourke, a former member of Congress, shouted at Abbott, “This is on you until you choose to do something.”

  Abbott had been speaking about the 18-year-old gunman in the case regarding the role of mental illness but not the ability of the shooter to buy a military-grade rifle. Only days after he turned 18, Salvador Ramos bought two AR-15 assault rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition.

  Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin shouted at O’Rourke, “You’re a sick son of a bitch. It’s on assholes like you!”

  After O’Rourke was escorted out of the building, Abbott went on, still not mentioning guns, saying, “We need to focus not on ourselves and our agendas, we need to focus on the healing and hope that we can provide to those who have suffered unconscionable damage to their lives and loss of lives.”

  Abbott, who last year signed a law ending the requirement to have a license for carrying a handgun in his state, blamed the problem on mental health care.

  Outside, O’Rourke said, “It is insane that we let an 18-year-old go in and buy an AR-15. What did we think he was going to do with it?”

90 Minutes: Investigators say they received their first report of a gunman at the elementary school at 11:30 Tuesday morning and he was not confirmed dead until 1pm.

  The gunman, Salvador Ramos, had posted threats on the internet shortly before starting his rampage. He told an internet friend, a 15-year-old girl in Germany, that he was about to go shoot up an elementary school.

  Ramos shot his grandmother in the face at her home about a mile away from the school and then left for his primary target. He got past an armed school officer and wounded two responding cops before holing up in a classroom.

  The officers who collected at the school waited for a special weapons team to handle the situation and Ramos was ultimately killed by a border patrol officer.

The War Zone: After failing to take Ukraine in one sweep, the Russians have narrowed their focus to a 75-mile front in the Donbas region, now attempting to shut down the one remaining Ukrainian supply line into the city of Sievierdonetsk.

  Russian forces yesterday also fired four cruise missiles into the city of Zaporizhzhia on the Dniepro River, killing one, wounding three, and damaging 62 houses, according to local authorities.

  Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to Russify the occupied territories as quickly as possible, providing a fast track for Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship. The decree includes  residents of the Kherson and Zaporozhzhia regions. 

  Ukraine, on the other hand, is fighting to retain control and reclaim “all of its territories,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said via video link to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. It was an evident  reference to Ukraine’s lands taken by Russia in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014.

  Attempting to show a human side, Putin visited wounded soldiers yesterday. The Kremlin released clips of Putin dressed in a white gown greeting patients at a Moscow military hospital. He told one wounded trooper with a 9-month-old son, “He’ll be proud of his dad.” 

Business War: Marks & Spencer, the British retailer, announced that it will quit business in Russia, shutting down about 45 stores. M&S has already ceased shipments to Russia and its stores were partly closed. The company says the cost of getting out of Russia will be $38.8 million.

Family Values: Josh Duggar, once a star of the TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting” about a conservative Christian family, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for downloading images of child sex abuse. 

  According to a US Attorney’s sentencing memo the 34-year-old Duggar, who is married with seven children, downloaded around 600 photographs and seven videos of violent child sexual abuse.

The Strictest State: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law that bans nearly all abortions starting at fertilization. The new law took immediate effect and is the most restrictive abortion ban in the country. The law makes exceptions to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest if they have been reported to law enforcement.

  Stitt said after signing the bill, “From the moment life begins at conception is when we have a responsibility as human beings to do everything we can to protect that baby’s life and the life of the mother.” 

The Obit Page: Thomas Murphy, who as chairman and chief executive of Capital Cities Communications stunned Wall Street in 1985 by swallowing the larger American Broadcasting Company for $3.5 billion, has died at 96. Buying ABC was not the real stunner. Selling it was. Murphy turned around 10 years later and sold the network to Disney for  $19 billion. — Roger Angell, who wrote articles about baseball for the New Yorker that were longer than baseball games themselves, has died at 101. He described Willie Mays chasing down a ball hit to deep center as “running so hard and so far that the ball itself seems to stop in the air and wait for him.”

Hang Mike Pence: Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told the January 6^th committee that President Donald Trump muttered words of approval as rioters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”

  Pence had refused to block certification of the Electoral College vote that confirmed Joe Biden won the presidency. 

  Meadows, according to the Times report, said Trump was complaining that Pence was whisked to safety by the Secret Service and said something to the effect that maybe Mike Pence should  be hanged. 

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