May 18, 2018

At Least 10 Dead in Texas High School Shooting

The gunman was allegedly a student, and a security officer is reportedly injured.

A Santa Fe High School student is comforted by her motherStuart Villanueva/The Galveston County Daily News/AP

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Update, 3:16 p.m.: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says 10 people were killed and 10 people were injured in today’s shooting.

Multiple students are dead after a shooting at a high school near Houston. According to law enforcement officials, a gunman entered a classroom in Santa Fe High School early Friday morning and began shooting.

The shooter, allegedly a student at the school, is in custody, and there are conflicting reports about how many fatalities have occurred, but Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez has said 8 to 10 people have been killed and that a school officer has been injured.

Shortly after news outlets began reporting on the shooting, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his condolences, saying early reports were “not looking very good.”

This is the fifth mass shooting incident of 2018.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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