A 21-year old man identified as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa has been charged with the murders of ten people in a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado on Monday. The shooting took place at a grocery store called King Soopers and left ten people dead including a 51-year old Boulder Police Officer named Eric Talley who responded to an emergency call. The victims are: Denny Strong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowika, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65. So far there is no known motive for the killings but Alissa’s brother who spoke to the Daily Beast said, “[It was] not at all a political statement, it’s mental illness…The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school, he was like an outgoing kid but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social.” The shooting comes less than a week after a horrific series of three linked shootings in and around Atlanta, Georgia that left 8 people dead.

The Boulder shooter used an AR-15 style assault rifle. The mass shooting came just days after a judge overturned a Boulder city ban on assault rifles that had first been enacted after the Parkland mass shooting in Florida. The U.S. Senate Judiciary committee held a hearing on Tuesday titled “Constitutional and Common Sense Steps to Reduce Gun Violence.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill) opened the hearing calling the issue of gun violence a “public health crisis,” and added, “We won’t solve this crisis with prosecutions after funerals. We need prevention before shooting.” Senator Richard Blumenthal responded to the standard conservative response of sending “thoughts and prayers” to families of victims. In 2020 alone, gun violence claimed more than 41,000 lives in the U.S. The progressive group Indivisible posted a tweet saying, “You’re going to see another round of ‘we can’t do anything yet, there was a tragedy’ hand-wringing, but we must end gun violence now. Let’s eliminate the filibuster and pass real gun violence prevention legislation.” 

In other news, U.S. health officials have cast doubt on the just-published clinical trial results for the already embattled AstraZeneca vaccine. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases took the unusual step of releasing a statement after midnight saying it was concerned that, “AstraZeneca may have included outdated information from that trial, which may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data.” According to AP, “AstraZeneca responded that the results, which showed its shot was about 79% effective, included information through Feb. 17 but appeared to be consistent with more up-to-date data. It promised an update within 48 hours.” Meanwhile the Biden Administration is taking steps to inc...