WASHINGTON — What was meant to be a moment of silence in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday for the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk erupted in shouting and finger-pointing, an episode that provided a bitter illustration of a nation divided by political acrimony.

As news of Kirk’s fatal shooting at a Utah university spread, lawmakers began to argue how to best honor him. US Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, raised her hand and asked for someone to lead a prayer, adding, “Silent prayers get silent results.”

Some Democrats then questioned why other killings that involved less prominent figures were not getting the same attention, according to one lawmaker present, which resulted in swearing and accusations about politicizing tragedies.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson pounded the gavel for order, while an unidentified person shouted, “Pass a gun law!”

Kirk, 31, co-founder of the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA and a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, was shot while speaking at an event in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday. The motive is unknown and it was not clear whether a suspect had been arrested.

His death left many of his fellow conservatives seething and blaming liberals for the assault, while Democrats largely kept to a more reserved tone, decrying political violence generally and again calling for stronger gun laws.

It was a debate far too familiar – and personal – for lawmakers.

“There’s no excuse for political violence in our country, it’s got to end,” said Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, who survived being shot in 2017 at a congressional baseball practice.

“It’s a problem that we’ve seen grow and it’s got to be addressed. It’s got to stop.”

According to the most recent data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 46,728 people died from gun violence in the US in 2023, the third-highest figure ever recorded.

Two years ago, Congress passed the first sweeping gun-control measure in 30 years, a bipartisan bill that tightened loopholes and increased background checks but has done little to stem shootings.

YAWNING POLITICAL DIVIDE
The differing reactions suggested that Kirk’s death likely will only deepen America’s yawning political divide – as two assassination attempts on Trump did last year. Almost a quarter century has passed since the nation was last unified by tragedy, following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Before the identity of the shooter was known, prominent right-wing figures were framing the incident as a part of a broader assault by the left against conservatism.

“America has lost one of its greatest champions,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. “All of us must now dedicate ourselves to defeating the evil that stole Charlie from this world.”

Laura Loomer, a MAGA loyalist who has Trump’s ear, called for “cracking down on the Left with the full force of the government. Every single Left wing group that funds violent protests needs to be shut down and prosecuted. No mercy.”

Elon Musk, the X platform’s billionaire owner, was even more blunt. “The Left is the party of murder,” he wrote.

Trump – who routinely refers to his political rivals as “radical left lunatics” who he warns represent an existential threat to America – called the shooting an outgrowth of overheated rhetoric.

“Violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree – day after day, year after year – in the most hateful and despicable way possible,” Trump said in a video posted to his Truth Social platform.

The reaction from Democrats was more muted. “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Democratic former US Representative Gabby Giffords, who was critically wounded by a gunman in 2012, said, “Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.”

One exception was Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential candidate who placed his finger squarely on Trump for encouraging political violence.

“It’s gotta stop,” Pritzker told reporters. “I think there are people who are fomenting it in this country. I think the president’s rhetoric often foments it.”

PUBLIC REJECTS POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Americans overwhelmingly reject political violence.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in October of last year asked if Americans agreed with a statement that it was “acceptable for a member of my political party to threaten and/or intimidate others to achieve a political goal.” Just 6% of respondents – a trivially small share in terms of an opinion survey – said they agreed.

Ruth Braunstein, a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied Kirk and the right, said the shooting had the potential to spike already heated political tensions in the country.

“It is obviously a tragedy on a personal level, but it also does have the capacity to further inflame a political environment where the temperature is already way too high. That’s a real possibility, and a real risk,” Braunstein said.

Christian Heyne, chief policy officer at Brady – a gun violence protection group named for James Brady, a former White House press secretary shot and seriously wounded during a 1981 assassination attempt against Republican President Ronald Reagan – urged the parties to find common ground on guns.

“Gun violence doesn’t check party ID. It is indiscriminate. And the American people always lose,” Heyne posted on the social media site BlueSky. “We know change is possible. We must stop pretending there are ‘sides’ and fight together to build a safer future.”

Kirk’s shooting came as the conservative media ecosystem had been convulsing for several days over the political significance of violence.

In recent days, its prominent voices including Trump have been spotlighting the August 22 killing of a Ukrainian refugee in North Carolina, claiming it was a product of liberal criminal-justice policies.

Kirk, no stranger to fanning the flames of controversy, had taken a deep interest in the case. In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Kirk said the “narrative” advanced by liberals “in the past 10 years (is) that there is a relentless assault against Black people on behalf of white people.”

Kirk said that was not true. “White individuals are more likely to be attacked, especially per capita, by black individuals in this country.”

One Republican who was trying to lower the temperature was Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who said Kirk’s death should not serve as an excuse for further strife.

“Every single person who encourages aggressive responses to it rather than civil discourse owns a certain amount of responsibility for his death and anyone else’s,” Tillis said in an interview.

Few on either side are likely to listen to Tillis, however. He is retiring from politics. — Reuters

WASHINGTON – US right-wing activist and commentator Charlie Kirk, an influential ally of President Donald Trump, was fatally shot in the neck on Wednesday during an event at a Utah university that the governor described as a political assassination.

Authorities had yet to publicly identify a suspect some six hours after the shooting. No suspect was in custody, US media reported, citing law enforcement sources.

FBI Director Kash Patel said an unnamed person had been detained for questioning, then released.

“Our investigation continues,” he wrote on social media.

Governor Spencer Cox had said at an earlier press conference that police were interviewing a “person of interest” but gave no details about the person’s identity or how the individual was believed to be connected with the shooting. At the same press conference, Beau Mason, the Utah Department of Public Safety commissioner, said the perpetrator suspected of firing the single shot that killed Kirk, 31, remained “at large.”

In a video message taped in the Oval Office and posted to his Truth Social online platform, Trump vowed that his administration would locate the suspect.

“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it,” Trump said.

Cellphone video clips of the killing posted online showed Kirk addressing a large outdoor crowd at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, around 12:20 p.m. MT (1620 GMT), when a gunshot rang out. Kirk moved his hand toward his neck as he fell off his chair, sending the attendees running.

In another clip, blood could be seen gushing from Kirk’s neck immediately after the shot.

The suspect likely fired from a rooftop at a significant distance, authorities said, adding that there were about 3,000 people attending the event. Jeff Long, chief of the university police department, said that he had six officers working the event, and that he coordinated with the head of Kirk’s private security team, which was also on site.

Trump ordered all government US flags flown at half-staff until Sunday in Kirk’s honor.

The killing was the latest in a series of attacks on US political figures, including two assassination attempts of Trump last year, that have underscored a sharp rise in political violence.

“This is a dark day for our state, it’s a tragic day for our nation,” Cox said at the press conference. “I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination.”

Trump, who routinely describes political rivals, judges and others who stand in his way as “radical left lunatics” and warns that they pose an existential threat to the nation, decried violent political rhetoric.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said in the video. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”

An attempt at a moment of silence for Kirk in the US House of Representatives degenerated into shouting and finger-pointing.

Kirk’s appearance on Wednesday was the first in a planned 15-event “American Comeback Tour” at universities around the country. He often used such events, which typically drew large crowds of students, to invite attendees to debate him live.

ASKED ABOUT SHOOTINGS, THEN SHOT
Seconds before he was shot, Kirk was being questioned by an audience member about gun violence, according to multiple videos of the event posted online.

“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America in the last 10 years?” Kirk was asked.
He responded, “Counting or not counting gang violence?” He was shot moments later.

Kirk and the group he co-founded, Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth organization in the country, played a key role in driving young voter support for Trump in November.

After winning his second presidential term, Trump credited Kirk for mobilizing younger voters and voters of color in support of his campaign.

“You had Turning Point’s grassroots armies,” Trump said at a rally in Phoenix in December. “It’s not my victory, it’s your victory.”

Kirk had 5.3 million followers on X and hosted a popular podcast and radio program, “The Charlie Kirk Show.” He had also recently appeared as a guest co-host on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”

He was part of an ecosystem of pro-Trump conservative influencers – including Jack Posobiec, Laura Loomer, Candace Owens and others – who helped to amplify the president’s agenda. Kirk frequently attacked mainstream media and engaged in culture war issues around race, gender and immigration, often in a provocative style.

At the White House, staff members, many of them young and admirers of Kirk, were ashen-faced as news of the shooting spread. Kirk was married and had two young children.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE ON THE RISE
While the motive for the shooting is unknown, the United States is undergoing its most sustained period of political violence since the 1970s. Reuters has documented more than 300 cases of politically motivated violent acts since supporters of Trump attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In July 2024, Republican Trump was grazed by a gunman’s bullet during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania. A second assassination attempt two months later was foiled by federal agents.

In April, an arsonist broke into Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence and set it on fire while the family was inside.

Earlier this year, a gunman posing as a police officer in Minnesota murdered Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife. And in Boulder, Colorado, a man used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to attack a solidarity event for Israeli hostages, killing one woman and injuring at least six more.

In 2022, a man broke into Democratic then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, leaving him with skull fractures and other injuries. In 2020, a group of right-wing militia members plotted unsuccessfully to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

Republican and Democratic politicians alike expressed dismay over the shooting.

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” Vice President JD Vance, who was close to Kirk, wrote on X.

“I am shocked by the murder of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “Political violence of any kind and against any individual is unacceptable and completely incompatible with American values. We pray for his family during this tragedy.” — Reuters

STOCKHOLM – Executive overreach and foreign aid funding cuts during US President Donald Trump’s first six months in office have hurt international democratization efforts and encouraged populist leaders around the world, an intergovernmental democracy watchdog said on Thursday.

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said it issued 20 alerts between January and April 2025 – twice as many as in any of the previous two full years – documenting instances in which the US government eroded rules, institutions and norms that shape the country’s democracy.

It named efforts to restrict academic freedom, criminalize protest activity, question the legitimacy of certified elections, selectively restrict media access to the executive and circumvent normal due process.

“In less than six months, US domestic political institutions have also lost much of their symbolic sheen, increasingly serving as a reference point for executive overreach and offering more encouragement to populist strongman leaders than to pro-democracy hopefuls,” IDEA said in its annual Global State of Democracy report.

The Trump administration has frozen and then cut back billions of dollars of foreign aid since taking office, saying it wants to ensure US taxpayer money goes only to programs that are aligned with Trump’s “America First” policies.

The cutbacks have effectively shut down the US Agency for International Development, a move that could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal.

IDEA’s report also showed its global democracy index declined for a ninth consecutive year in 2024. Some 54% of countries went backwards in 2024 versus five years earlier in at least one of the IDEA’s key indicators, which range from credible elections to freedom of expression.

Last year’s electoral “super-cycle” – when around 1.6 billion people globally cast ballots – saw the indicator for credible votes fall to its worst in 30 years, with declines in a fifth of the 173 nations surveyed.

“To fight back, democracies need to protect key elements of democracy, like elections and the rule of law, but also profoundly reform government so that it delivers fairness, inclusion and shared prosperity,” the IDEA said. — Reuters

BEIJING – China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, the government said on Wednesday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims and maritime rights in the contested region.

Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island and which is known in the Philippines as the Panatag Shoal, has long been a flashpoint in the dispute between Beijing and Manila over sovereignty over and fishing access to a conduit for more than $3 trillion of annual ship-borne commerce.

The Philippine embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, overlapping the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Unresolved disputes have festered for years over ownership of various islands and features.

In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled that China’s sweeping claims in the region were not supported by international law, a decision that Beijing rejects.

Tensions have simmered in recent years in the strategic waterway. Last month, Manila and Beijing traded accusations over an encounter at the Scarborough Shoal that resulted in the first known collision between Chinese vessels in the area.

The designation of the nature reserve is “an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability, and sustainability of the atoll’s natural ecosystem,” China’s State Council said.

The specific boundaries and zoning of the reserve will be announced separately by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, it added. — Reuters