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A 40-year-old suspect is in custody after a shooting in southwestern Philadelphia killed five people and injured two boys, ages 2 and 13, Monday evening, police said.

The latest: Police said at a briefing Tuesday afternoon the injured children were in stable condition in a local hospital following the shooting, which Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney noted involved the suspect "with an AR-style rifle and shooting randomly at people while wearing a bulletproof vest with multiple magazines."

Staff inspector Ernest Ransom said at the briefing the suspect was wearing a ski mask as he "began shooting aimlessly at occupied vehicles and individuals on the street as they walked."

One of those vehicles was driven by a mother who was taking her twins home. "One of the twins suffered a gunshot wound to the leg; their sibling sustained injuries to the eyes from shattered glass."

Of note: Police identified those killed as 15-year-old Daujan Brown; 20-year-old Lashyd Merritt; 29-year-old Dymir Stanton; 31-year-old Joseph Wamah Jr.; and 59-year-old Ralph Moralis. All of the victims were male. 

The big picture: The shooting happened about 8:20pm in the Kingsessing neighborhood of Philadelphia. Police initially said eight people were shot.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference late Monday police pursued the suspect on foot while he was shooting before he surrendered in an alley. He had a handgun in addition to the "AR-style rifle" and a police scanner, per Outlaw.

Another person whom Outlaw said picked up a firearm and returned fire was also taken into custody.

What we're watching: Police were still trying to determine a motive for the shooting.

What they're saying: "Horrified by the reports of a shooting in Southwest Philadelphia," Kenney tweeted.

"My heart is with the loved ones and families of everyone involved, and I send my prayers to the victims," he added. "This devastating violence must stop."

The big picture: At least 348 mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. so far this year as of Tuesday, per the Gun Violence Archive. 

This includes a shooting in Fort Worth, Texas, that police said Tuesday left three people dead and eight others wounded the previous night.

The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as a situation in which at least four people are shot and either injured or killed, not including the shooter.

Go deeper: Biden calls for stricter gun laws after spate of mass shootings

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

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Police attend the scene of a mass shooting in Philadelphia on Monday night. Photo: Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

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A federal judge restricted Biden administration officials and agencies from communicating with social media companies on content moderation in a preliminary injunction Tuesday.

Why it matters: The decision in an ongoing lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege the Biden administration's efforts to encourage social media companies to crack down on COVID disinformation and other matters is "sprawling federal 'Censorship Enterprise,'" could have major First Amendment implications.

The attorneys general in court filings accuse the Biden administration of "the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America" through its communications with companies including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Driving the news: Although he has yet to produce a final ruling in the case, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana said in the injunction Tuesday the attorneys general "have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content."

The Trump-appointed judge consequently blocked certain officials from calling, emailing, sending letters or text or meeting with social media firms "for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted" online.

Of note: Officials affected by this ruling include Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, along with Department of Justice and FBI employees.

Zoom in: "During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth," Doughty wrote.

Doughty said the evidence produced thus far depicts an "almost dystopian" scenario.

"This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech," he said. "American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country."

What they're saying: A White House official said in a statement to media the DOJ is reviewing the injunction and will evaluate its options.

"This Administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections," the official added.

"Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present."

Judge limits Biden officials' contact with social media companies

The "government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth," judge wrote of anti-disinformation efforts.

President Biden in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Photo: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Social media

Joe Biden

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

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After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

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The U.S. health system faces critical questions about cost, access and equity. Technological advances and new discoveries about diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s are transforming patient care and reshaping public health.

Health

From tennis to push-ups to running, candidates challenging former President Trump and President Biden are emphasizing their athletic abilities. 

Why it matters: The messaging from the challengers is clear: They're young, they're energetic and in better physical — and perhaps mental — shape to do the job.

What we're watching: Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, has incorporated tennis into his campaign schedule, hosting events like "Tennis with Vivek" and posting videos of himself playing. 

A recent video of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 69, doing push-ups and incline presses shirtless and in skinny jeans went viral. 

The super PAC aligned with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 44 — former captain of Yale's baseball team — mailed out baseball cards featuring DeSantis at bat and highlighting his stint in the Little League World Series. He even sat for a whole interview with Fox on his own hometown baseball field.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), 57 — a high school football standout — has blasted out a photo of himself sweaty, mid-workout on a treadmill, tossed around a football with his campaign manager, and filmed selfie messages while at the gym. 

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez's entire campaign announcement video features Suarez, 45, running through the city of Miami. 

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, 56 — who's mulling a presidential bid — has been on the basketball court with state lawmakers. 

Between the lines: Biden, 80, bikes and uses the Peloton — working out at least five days a week — and Trump, 77, golfs. 

"There's an inherent contrast — that none of them will come right out and say," Chris Cillizza, author of "Power Players: Sports, Politics, and the American Presidency," told Axios. 

"When you have a Democratic president who is 80, and about whom the public has major doubts that he is up to the job, having RFK Jr. doing pushups and showing off his physique is an obvious way to compare the two."

Flashback: Former President Obama was a huge basketball fan and frequently sank 3-point shots dressed in business attire at opportune moments, including days before the 2020 election in a Michigan gym while campaigning with Biden.

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, wrote in his memoir, "Audacity to Win": "Obama looked like the future."

The bottom line: "Voters like the idea of their leaders as hale and hearty — representing the best of us," Plouffe wrote. "Sports is the easiest — and most easily digestible — way to do that."

Younger 2024 candidates highlight athletic prowess

"There’s an inherent contrast — that none of them will come right out and say."

2024 elections

Elections 2024

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Axios Latino

As the nation celebrates its 247th birthday, some Native Americans will use social media posts, T-shirts and other messaging to draw attention to three words written in the Declaration of Independence to describe their ancestors: "merciless Indian savages."  

Why it matters: Indigenous activists and scholars say the phrase — which Thomas Jefferson used in airing a grievance against King George III — shows how racism and Indigenous removal were baked into the nation's founding document. 

Zoom in: The phrase has become popular among Indigenous activists in recent years. It's often used with a mix of humor and irony to remind others of the conflicting feelings that Indigenous Americans can feel around Independence Day.

"It's making people think about how we're seen in this country today," Rhonda LeValdo, host of the "Native Spirit" radio show on KKFI-FM in Kansas City, Mo., tells Axios. "We're still not seen as human beings."

The phrase is memorialized on a shirt designed by Kiowa-Choctaw artist Steven Paul Judd and sold on the Native American-owned clothing website NTVS. It's often seen at powwows and around July Fourth.

The dark shirt has "Merciless Indian Savages" in white type, with "Declaration of Independence" in smaller type below — a play on shirts with inspirational quotes.

Native Americans also have used the phrase in social media memes, comedy shows and art to draw attention to Indigenous history in the U.S.

Catch up quick: Jefferson's reference to Indigenous people as "merciless Indian Savages" was in his 27th grievance against King George, in which he accused the king of encouraging "domestic insurrection" by Native Americans against white colonists.

Jefferson also faulted the king for refusing to allow colonists to seize more land from Indigenous people farther west. 

What they're saying: LeValdo notes that the Declaration of Independence is widely known for the phrase "all men are created equal." But most Americans dismiss — or are unaware of — what it says about Indigenous people. The shirt is supposed to make you pause and think, she said.

"There's this moment of shocking people to the realization of how racist the Declaration of Independence was toward Indigenous peoples," Joseph M. Pierce, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, tells Axios. He takes a selfie with the shirt every July Fourth. 

"Most Native people see it as a moment of solidarity," said Pierce, an associate professor of Hispanic languages and literature at Stony Brook University in New York.

He said many people laugh at the shirt, while others tell him Native Americans should be grateful to the U.S.: "Taking that phrase, that's literally in the Declaration of Independence, forces us to reckon with it." 

Zoom out: In recent years, Native American scholars and lawyers have stepped up their challenges to the traditional, often romantic narrative of how the U.S. spread westward — a story that often ignores Indigenous voices.

Yale historian Ned Blackhawk's newly released book, "The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History," is part of that trend in recent scholarship.

"I think that there's a realization that this country is built on something that was bad for Native Americans," Tulsa attorney Brett Chapman, a member of the Pawnee tribe, tells Axios. 

Yes, but: Many Indigenous tribes use July Fourth to hold powwows to pay homage to Native American veterans. 

Lake Traverse Indian Reservation holds an annual powwow on July Fourth to honor veterans.

Other tribes sell fireworks leading up to the holiday on tribal lands, free from local and state ordinances governing what they can offer.

Chapman, a descendant of Standing Bear, a Ponca chief and civil rights leader, said tribes are defining the holiday on their own terms:

"It's honoring the sacrifices of our warriors."

Native American-owned clothing website NTV

A "merciless" reminder of Indigenous history on July 4

Phrase in Declaration of Independence reflects how racism was baked into nation's founding document.

Stony Brook University Hispanic and Literature associate professor Joseph M. Pierce, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, poses with "Merciless Indian Savages" t-shirt.

Stony Brook University associate professor Joseph M. Pierce, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, poses with "Merciless Indian Savages" T-shirt. Photo courtesy of Pierce

Native Americans

Data: Martin-Quinn scores; Note: 2005 term refers to the median justice score after Justice Samuel Alito joined the court; Chart: Simran Parwani/Axios

The Supreme Court continued to lean conservative during its most recent term, according to preliminary data. 

Why it matters: After overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the court continued to push American law toward the right — including in its historic decisions last week on affirmative action and gay rights.

Driving the news: Preliminary data following a contentious 2022-23 Supreme Court term shows Justice Brett Kavanaugh remained the court's "median justice." 

That means the court is conservative enough that its center falls squarely on the right.

Justice Samuel Alito became the court's most conservative member, surpassing Justice Clarence Thomas for the first time since both have served on the high court. 

How it works: The "Martin-Quinn score," developed by Andrew D. Martin of Washington University in St. Louis and Kevin Quinn of Emory University, measures the ideology of Supreme Court justices dating back to 1937.

The score is calculated using data from each Supreme Court term and measured on an "ideological continuum." 

The current estimates are preliminary, and final versions of the scores will be available later in the summer.

Details: In her first term on the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was on the liberal side, but less so than justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Historically, the court's most conservative median justice was Byron White in 1988, with a Martin-Quinn score of 1.096, compared with Kavanaugh's 0.524 this term. 

The big picture: The recent term also saw wins for voting rights, including the justices deciding that states' election laws can be challenged in court and striking down a Republican-drawn congressional map in Alabama.

Go deeper: The political leanings of the Supreme Court justices

states' election laws can be challenged in court

striking down a Republican-drawn congressional map

The political leanings of the Supreme Court justices

Supreme Court ideology continues to lean conservative, new data shows

After overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the court continued to push American law to the right.

Supreme Court justices

The Israeli military on Monday deployed hundreds of soldiers and launched air attacks on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, killing at least eight Palestinians and vowing to continue the operation for "as long as it takes." 

The big picture: It's one of the largest assaults on a West Bank city in nearly 20 years. 

The raid and drone strikes began early Monday, with Israel saying it had launched an operation targeting "terrorist infrastructures" in the densely populated Jenin refugee camp, which is a militant stronghold.  

Gunfights between the Israeli military and Palestinian militants were reported to be taking place by Monday afternoon. At least 50 Palestinians have been injured, with 10 in critical condition, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. 

The Jenin municipality accused Israel of "deliberately destroying" the city's "water networks’ main lines." 

What they're saying: “What the Israeli occupation government is doing in the city of Jenin and its camp is a new war crime against our defenseless people,” Palestinian Authority spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.

The PA was holding an emergency meeting Monday evening local time about the escalating situation in Jenin.

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the Israeli military will continue the operation for "as long as it takes."

"We want to break that mindset of a safe haven" for "terrorists," Hecht told reporters.

Neighboring Jordan and Eygpt as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation quickly condemned the raid.

The operation “constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law and obligations of the [Israeli] occupation," Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sinan al-Majali said in a statement. 

UN envoy Tor Wennesland said on Twitter that the escalation "is very dangerous" and "reminds us of the extremely volatile & unpredictable situation across the occupied West Bank."

"All must ensure the civilian population is protected," he said. He added he has been in touch with "all relevant parties to urgently de-escalate the situation."

Palestinian factions in the West Bank and Gaza said they will not abandon Jenin. 

The "Israeli occupation’s attempts to take the battle to the streets of Jenin and the West Bank would be in vain, assuring that Jenin would not be left alone,” senior Islamic Jihad member Khaled Al-Batsh told Al Jazeera. 

State of play: The Israeli military over the last year has stepped up its raids in Jenin, where Israel says several attacks against Israeli citizens have been planned and launched. The IDF also conducts near-daily raids in other Palestinian cities and towns. 

The Israeli military has killed at least 130 Palestinians in the West Bank in this year, per the UN and news reports. Many have been militants but several civilians, including children, have also been killed. 

Last month, the Israeli military killed several Palestinians, including two 15-year-olds, in a large-scale Jenin raid that included the use of armed drones for the first time in about two decades.

Nearly 30 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Arabs inside the West Bank and in Israel over the last year, AP reports. 

At the same time, Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians and their homes and cars have increased as well. 

Israel launches massive deadly attack on West Bank city of Jenin

It's the largest such assault on Jenin in about 20 years.

Smoke billows during an Israeli military operation in Jenin city in the occupied West Bank, on July 3, 2023.

Smoke billows during an Israeli military operation in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, on July 3. Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

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Macro

Axios Macro

Gloom-and-doom pessimists who predicted 2023 would be a year of economic misery have been wrong (at least as the second half gets underway). Those who predicted a gradual rebalancing with limited pain have been right.

Why it matters: Things could obviously go wrong in any number of ways from here, but so far the immaculate disinflation — what had seemed a remote scenario in which inflation comes down without a recession — has materialized.

That said, it has been slower than ideal, with inflation still tracking well above what most Americans — or Federal Reserve policymakers — consider acceptable.

By the numbers: The labor market has shown only the mildest slippage from a super-hot 2022. The unemployment rate was 3.7% in May, up from 3.5% in December (the June number is due out Friday).

Employers have added an average of 314,000 jobs a month, robust by any historical standard but slower than last year's pace of 460,000 per month.

The share of 25- to 54-year-olds who are employed has kept rising this year, to 80.7% from 80.1% in December, a sign this economy keeps putting more people in their prime working years into jobs.

The number of new jobless claims averaged 213,000 a week in 2022 — and 231,000 so far in 2023. Higher, yes, but hardly crisis-level.

Back in December, Fed officials projected that unemployment would be around 4.6% at the end of 2023. Unless the labor market falls off a cliff in the next few months, they were too pessimistic.

State of play: The inflation trend is in the right direction, though with less alacrity than would be desirable. Over the past 12 months, the overall Consumer Price Index is up 4.1%, compared with 6.4% as of December.

But that has been driven by energy and other commodity prices normalizing after their surge in the early days of the Ukraine war. Core inflation, excluding food and energy, is coming down more slowly.

Core CPI was 5.7% for the 2022 calendar year and has been an annualized 5.1% through the first five months of 2023.

Yes, but: The disinflation has been enough to leave workers with more purchasing power. Average hourly earnings have been growing more slowly than they were in 2022, but inflation has come down by more, and so real wages are slightly up.

Average hourly earnings for all private-sector workers are up 4.3% over the last year, compared to 4.1% headline inflation.

The mid-year picture in financial markets is similarly benign, though not without some bumps along the way.

State of play: A strong first half of the year for the stock market has driven the S&P 500 index up 16.4% (16.9% including reinvested dividends). The S&P is now only about 7% below its early 2022 peak.

That has been enough to boost Americans' wealth, improve CEO confidence and prompt some chatter of a new bull market being underway.

Yet beneath the surface, bond prices tell a somewhat more complicated story.

Interest rates, as reflected in the market for Treasuries, have experienced a round trip so far in 2023. For example, the two-year yield — a good proxy for market expectation of medium-term Fed policy — soared from the low 4% range in January to over 5% in early March.

It collapsed following the demise of Silicon Valley Bank in mid-March, amid fears of a systemic banking system crisis.

Then, it rebounded to nearly its pre-SVB highs, as a much-feared credit freeze failed to materialize. It was 4.9% as of Friday.

Between the lines: Markets have become more confident that the economy is strong enough to shrug off banking system troubles, but that also means the Fed will have to keep rates higher for longer.

It's a big contrast with last year, when higher rates tended to trigger a stock market selloff.

Now, higher rates have coincided with a stronger stock market, suggesting conviction that the corporate sector can weather the storm of higher rates from the Fed.

The bottom line: So far so good for the economy and markets in 2023. The question now is whether it will last.

A mid-year assessment for the U.S. economy

So far the immaculate disinflation — what had seemed a remote scenario in which inflation comes down without a recession — has materialized.

Illustration of a one hundred dollar bill on a monthly calendar

Labor economics

Finish Line

Axios Finish Line

Destinations that were once ideal for summer travel are now on the decline because of extreme heat and other effects of climate change.

Why it matters: Many of the world’s natural wonders have been so severely altered by our warming planet that it’s getting too late to save them.

“The number one message is that nowhere is safe.” said Kate Marvel, a senior climate scientist at Project Drawdown. “There’s always the potential for a nasty surprise.”

What’s happening: Travelers are rethinking their plans — skipping some former hot spots altogether, or visiting earlier in the year, before extreme heat sets in;

And travel itself is getting interrupted by climate change as extreme heat and smoke from wildfires grounds planes.

Popular spots in Italy, Greece, France and Spain, which typically see peak tourist traffic around July, are notching record temperatures and even dealing with wildfires, the New York Times reports. 

As a result, people are choosing cooler places — like Amsterdam and Copenhagen — for summer travel and saving the warmer countries for September or October, Dolev Azaria, who owns a travel agency, told the Times.

Coastal towns in New Jersey and Florida that are typically popular in the summer are also becoming unpleasant and unsafe as they're hit with "sunny-day floods," which is flooding that occurs due to rising seas as opposed to storms, Marvel said.

The stakes: Some of the world's most stunning destinations have already undergone drastic changes.

The world has lost about 15% of its coral reefs in the last decade, per the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network

Some of Glacier National Park's glaciers have lost more than 80% of their size in the last 50 years, CNN reports.

Mount Everest's highest glacier has lost 2000 years worth of ice in the last 30 years, one recent study found. The mountain's rapidly changing conditions are also making climbing it even more dangerous, according to Nepal's tourism board.

What to watch: Climate change is also introducing wholly new destinations that were previously too cold to visit but have warmed enough for tourists, Axios' Andrew Freedman notes.

Climate change upends summer travel

Extreme heat is prompting tourists to rethink their plans.

Axios

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