Events to mark the 80th anniversary of a town's wartime links with Norway were put on hold by Covid.

Joe Biden has made a fresh call for the banning of AR-15 assault weapons as he marked the one-year anniversary of the Uvalde mass shooting. A gunman murdered 19 students and two teachers at the Robb Elementary School in the Texas city last May, with police heavily criticised for their slow response in taking down the shooter. Mr Biden, who was joined by first lady Dr Jill Biden for the speech, said that at the scene of each mass shooting he attended, he was told the same thing by the families of victims. “At each place, you hear the same message ‘Do something, for God’s sake do something,’” he said. “We did something afterwards but not nearly enough. We still need to ban, in my view, AR-15 assault weapons once again, you know they have been used time and again in mass killings of innocent children and people.” And Mr Biden, who visited Uvalde after the shooting, called on politicians to do more to end the gun crisis in the United States. “We can’t end this epidemic until Congress passes some common sense gun safety laws... How many more parents will live their worst nightmare,” he said. The president, who has lost two children of his own, told the families that he realised that the anniversary represented a “really tough day” for them. “Remembering is important but it is also painful,” said the president, who was surrounded by a lit candle for each victim of the mass shooting. “A year of missed birthdays, school plays and soccer games, just that smile. A year of everyday joys gone forever.” A criminal investigation into the actions of law enforcement reaction to the shooting remains underway in Texas, where it is the worst school shooting in the state’s history. A report by state lawmakers concluded that nearly 400 officers from federal, state and local agencies responded to the school but that those heavily-armed officers waited an hour to confront and kill the 18-year-old gunman. The report accused Uvalde police of failing “to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.” Mr Biden has now made more than 70 unanswered calls for Congress to take action and ban assault weapons, which are commonly used in mass shootings in the country. It’s a demand he has given lawmakers dozens of times since entering office in 2021. Within his first two years in office, there have been roughly 1,400 mass shootings. He has referenced a federal ban on assault weapons, called on Congress to renew an assault weapons ban or pledged that his Democratic allies will do so roughly 70 times since entering office, according to The Independent’s March 2023 review of his public statements and remarks via Factba.se. Read More How Greg Abbott met the murders of 21 children and teachers in Uvalde with silence Chilling video shows New Mexico teen gunman’s shooting rampage: ‘Come kill me’ Supreme Court refuses to block Illinois assault weapons ban Watch as Joe and Jill Biden mark one year anniversary of Uvalde shooting On 1st anniversary of Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, Biden will push for more gun control Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump? These Florida political veterans aren’t so sure

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Ron DeSantis is officially running for president, having filed his statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday. The long-awaited move by the Florida governor follows a campaign announcement video released a day earlier by his wife, Casey, on Twitter. His filing was first reported by The Associated Press. Mr DeSantis is expected to address voters in his first appearance as a candidate for president later Wednesday evening in a Twitter space hosted by Elon Musk ally David Sacks. He will then appear on Fox News for an interview immediately afterwards with Bret Baier. The rising Republican star is in his second term as governor of the trending-red Sunshine State, having won reelection by double digits just last year. He previously won election to office in 2018 by a fraction of a percentage point. He enters the race with one key label tied to his campaign already: The second-place challenger, thanks to months of polling that have shown him firmly behind Mr Trump in a Republican primary matchup. That same polling has shown him consistently in the double digits, however, which is more than can be said for his other Republican rivals — Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and others. Mr DeSantis’s official launch also signals a likely shift in strategy. Whereas for months the governor has sought to avoid a direct confrontation with Mr Trump, that now is unavoidable, even without the near-constant barrage of attacks that his now-official rival has been lobbing his way. That strategic shift has been hinted at for some time now, with a DeSantis-aligned PAC even swiping directly at the former president following his CNN town hall earlier this month. It isn’t clear whether the Jacksonville native, 44, will be successful in his bid to oust Mr Trump as de facto leader of the GOP. But he heads into the 2024 race with all the structural advantages he could possibly hope for: A sympathetic if not outright supportive GOP establishment, a national voter base that has indicated time and time again it does not wish for Mr Trump (or, for that matter, Mr Biden) to run again, and a political pedigree that seems almost lab-generated for a presidential run. He previously served in the House of Representatives as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, and before that was a lawyer for the US military. During his service, Mr DeSantis was stationed at Guantanamo Bay before later being part of the 2007 Iraq troop surge which saw him playing legal adviser to a US commander in Fallujah. More follows... Read More Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump? These Florida political veterans aren’t so sure The War on Terror turned Ron DeSantis into Florida’s anti-woke warrior. Can it win him the White House? Everything we know about Ron DeSantis’ policies as he launches 2024 campaign

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As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis prepares to announce his official bid for president of the United States, Americans are getting a taste of what a future under Mr DeSantis could look like. For months, Mr DeSantis, 44, has been called a possible frontrunner for the GOP nomination in the media because of his reputation for passing conservative legislation and comfortable re-election to the governor’s mansion. From passing a six-week abortion ban to eliminating concealed carry permits, Mr DeSantis has proven he is willing to pass controversial legislation in the name of uniting the state under right-leaning values. And the Florida governor seems to be hoping for the same if he were to become US president. Here’s what Mr DeSantis has said about the future of the US and what he thinks of certain policies. On abortions Mr DeSantis is anti-abortion, believing “The right to life is the most foundational of our God-given rights.” In April, Mr DeSantis quietly signed Senate Bill 300, known as the “Heartbeat Protection Act”, which prohibits abortions after six weeks of gestation with the exceptions to save a woman’s life, a fatal fetal abnormality or in the event of rape or incest so long as the woman can provide documentation such as a police report. The six-week ban will only go into effect 30 days after the Florida Supreme Court rules on a challenge to the state’s current 15-week ban under House Bill 5 which Mr DeSantis signed into law last year. Should SB 300 go into effect, it would make Florida one of the most restrictive states for women to access reproductive healthcare like abortions. On the Supreme Court While giving a speech at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in May, Mr DeSantis advocated for the Supreme Court to become more conservative by replacing moderate or left-leaning justices with conservative jurists. Citing Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as “the gold standard for jurisprudence”, Mr DeSantis said in the future the court should “fortify” itself with the addition of two like-minded Justices. “It is possible that in those eight years we would have the opportunity to fortify Justices Alito and Thomas, as well as actually make improvements with those others,” Mr DeSantis said. “If you were able to do that then you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century, so this is big stuff.” On gun control Mr DeSantis is against gun control, having received an A+, the highest rating, from the National Rifle Association (NRA) “Ron DeSantis vigorously opposes gun, magazine and ammunition bans,” the NRA said. In April, Mr DeSantis signed House Bill 543 into law, eliminating the requirement for permits to carry concealed weapons. On LGBT+ Rights The Humans Right Campaign, one of the state’s largest LGBT+ rights advocacy groups, and Equality Florida issued a traveling warning to those in the LGBTQ+ community in May. “While not a blanket recommendation against travel nor a call for boycott, the travel advisory outlines the devastating impacts of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ community, restrict access to reproductive health care, repeal gun safety policies, foment racial prejudice, and attack public education by banning books and censoring curriculum in order that prospective travelers or residents can make the best decisions for themselves and their families,” the press release said. One of Mr DeSantis’ most controversial legislation, House Bill 1557, involves restricting LGBT+ rights in education. The legislation, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, prohibits classroom education or instruction involving gender identity or sexual orientation. Mr DeSantis has also signed legislation that prohibits transgender people from using public facilities that align with their gender identity and one that prohibits children from attending “adult live performances” like drag shows. On Covid restrictions The Florida governor first made headlines during the pandemic when he emerged as a leader who vehemently opposed Covid-19 protocols like mask mandates, social distancing and vaccine requirements. “Federal vaccine mandates and restrictions were never about protecting Americans from a virus, they were exercising control at the expense of the American economy and the American way of life,” Mr DeSantis said in a press release. Mr DeSantis received harsh criticism from the public for refusing to implement restrictions that were proven to stop the spread of the virus. Read More Ron DeSantis news – live: Florida governor’s 2024 ad mocked for British accent as Twitter launch event nears Ron DeSantis 2024: Everything we know about the Florida governor’s presidential bid DeSantis v Disney: Why Florida’s governor is at war with the Mouse Live view outside Miami hotel where DeSantis expected to launch election campaign Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump? These Florida political veterans aren’t so sure Florida school bans poem recited by Amanda Gorman at Biden inauguration

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He’s a ubiquitous presence in conservative media with a reputation as an anti-woke warrior who has used a compliant state legislature to make Florida a mecca for Trump-era Republicanism. But if Ron DeSantis wants to be president, he has to defeat Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and prominent Florida politicians aren’t so sure either of those things will ever happen. The second-term Florida governor, who for months has sojourned through the traditional primary battlegrounds of Iowa and New Hampshire while hawking his manifesto-cum-memoir The Courage to be Free, was once seen as a formidable obstacle to the twice-impeached ex-president’s dream of reclaiming his place in the White House. But in the weeks since Mr Trump found himself on the wrong end of an indictment from a New York grand jury, the Florida governor has seen his standing in the polls tumble while his fellow Floridian has surged to a commanding lead among GOP primary voters. Still, Mr DeSantis is poised to launch a presidential presidential campaign that has support from a decent chunk of his party and a formidable war chest transferred from his successful re-election run last year. He gained that support — and a national profile — by winning the hearts and minds of some former Trump boosters through his wholehearted rejection of any and all restrictions or mandates meant to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, and he has kept his core support among some GOP diehards by using a compliant state legislative majority to enact a laundry list of conservative priorities and use resulting culture war battles to raise his profile even further. A Republican media strategist who worked on Mr Trump’s 2020 campaign, Giancarlo Sopo, told The Independent he believes Mr DeSantis is “the obvious choice” to lead the GOP in next year’s election because of what he described as the Florida governor’s role in enacting “the boldest conservative agenda this country has seen since Ronald Reagan” and Mr DeSantis’ “unique ability to demoralize and defeat the left”. Yet Mr Sopo’s confidence in Mr DeSantis’ abilities wasn’t shared by many Florida GOP veterans contacted by The Independent. None of the Florida-based operatives would speak on the record for fear of alienating the governor, who has earned a reputation for vindictiveness during his five years in Tallahassee. But the consensus opinion among the GOP political strategists, many of whom have had a hand in national campaigns of years past, was that the governor’s reputation as a lib-triggering prizefighter is a carefully manufactured façade — a recent invention that is a fabrication formed by a coterie of combative press aides and sympathetic media outlets. Mr DeSantis’ reinvention as a woke-battling colossus standing astride the Sunshine State could not be a starker contrast to how he conducted himself during the five years he spent in Washington while representing Florida’s 6th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. The future governor won his first House election in 2012, just two years after the Tea Party movement that arose after Barack Obama’s inauguration helped the GOP retake control of the chamber from the Nancy Pelosi-led Democratic caucus. As he geared up to run in that election, Mr DeSantis found a way to capitalise on the anti-Obama sentiment within the GOP by calling his first book Dreams from Our Founding Fathers — a title that positioned it as a response of sorts to Mr Obama’s best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father. After he was sworn in to Congress in January 2013, he quickly became one of the most conservative members of an avowedly conservative House Republican Conference. After he won a second term in the 2014 midterms, he became a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right Republicans that would become such a thorn in the side of then-House Speaker John Boehner that the Ohio Republican chose to resign rather than suffer the indignity of being forced out for forging one too many compromises with Mr Obama. The Florida Republican compiled as conservative a voting record as any member of the House GOP, but despite arriving on the scene at a time when his brand of hard-right conservatism was becoming more and more en-vogue in the House, he never became as well-known as some of his equally conservative colleagues, such as Reps Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Mark Meadows (R-NC) or Justin Amash (R-MI). One possible reason for that — his reputation as an awkward loner — appears to have already hampered his chances against Mr Trump. A former House GOP colleague, ex-Michigan Representative David Trott, told Politico earlier this month that Mr DeSantis never once attempted to so much as start a conversation with him during the two years they sat next to each other on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I was new to Congress, and he didn’t introduce himself or even say hello,” he recalled in an email to the outlet’s Playbook newsletter. In a subsequent phone interview, Mr Trott also called the Florida governor an “a*****e” and said he does not think Mr DeSantis “cares about people”. Another House colleague who spoke anonymously to NBC News said he “had no friends” in Congress and was “not a backslapping politician”. “He wasn’t a friendly guy. He was a personal-agenda-driven guy,” said one lawmaker. “I was with him in the gym every morning and could hardly get him to say hello. He didn’t seem like he liked being here.” Mr DeSantis’ alleged dislike of the lower chamber became evident after just two terms when he briefly stood as a candidate for the Senate seat held by Senator Marco Rubio, who was then running for president in the 2016 primary. When Mr Rubio lost the Republican primary for president to Mr Trump, Mr DeSantis instead stayed on the ballot for his House seat and won a third term easily. But after a short period of working to gain Mr Trump’s favour by aggressively criticising the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the then-president rewarded Mr DeSantis’ loyalty with an endorsement when he ran in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial primary. After winning the GOP nomination, Mr DeSantis barely beat his Democratic opponent, former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, winning his place in the Florida Governor’s mansion by less than a percentage point. His ascent in Florida coincided with large levels of inward migration into Florida, a state with no income tax. At the same time, a steady drumbeat of GOP messaging which cast even the most moderate Democats as “socialist” helped push Latino voters — many of whom were immigrants from countries with actual socialist governments — to begin casting votes for Republicans. With those winds at his back — and a newfound prominence in right-wing media thanks to his rejection of Covid vaccines and public health measures such as masks — Mr DeSantis won re-election in 2022 by slightly less than 20 points, even flipping historically Democratic areas like Miami-Dade County. His win atop the midterm election ticket coincided with historic Democratic losses on the state level, leaving Florida Democrats in a weaker minority status in the state legislature and leaving the party without a single representative among statewide elected officials. But when Mr DeSantis departed Washington after winning the governor’s mansion in 2018, he did so with few friends other than Mr Trump, whose support among the Florida delegation remained strong enough that the Florida governor’s much-hyped visit to the Capitol earlier this year ended with multiple Florida congresspersons walking out of a meeting with him to declare that they were endorsing the former president once again. One of those members was Representative Byron Donalds, a second-term congressman who represents the Sunshine State’s 19th District. Mr Donalds, who in the past has been a close ally of the Florida governor, said in a statement that he was backing the twice-impeached ex-president over his own state’s governor. “There is only one leader at this time in our nation’s history who can seize this moment and deliver what we need — to get us back on track, provide strength and resolve, and Make America Great Again,” he said. He had previously praised Mr DeSantis as having done a “tremendous job” during a recent appearance on right-wing commentator Megyn Kelly’s satellite radio show, but he also said Mr Trump’s prior experience gives him “muscle memory” that will provide an advantage in next year’s battle with President Biden — and in a second term. “Donald Trump has been through these fights. He knows where these landmines are and so he can walk in and be effective,” he said. That visit and the subsequent loss of support among his own congressional delegation was an early sign that the factors that led Mr DeSantis to newfound celebrity on the right may not be enough to overcome his awkwardness and apparent aversion to social interactions. And those same factors — his rejection of anti-Covid measures, his support for culture war bellicosity, book bans, restrictions on gender-affirming care and opposition to the teaching of Black history — could make him toxic on a national stage. As a result, Democrats hope a White House run will show him to be little more than a delicate flower who will wither under the hot lights of a presidential campaign. Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL), a vocal critic of Mr DeSantis who heckled him at an event years ago, told The Independent that he is relishing the idea of a Trump-DeSantis primary fight. He said he’d take pleasure in “arguably two of the worst people in politics going at each other” and acknowledged that the sniping between the two thus far has provided “some entertainment”. But he also noted that there’s a danger to giving either Mr DeSantis or Mr Trump a chance to get into the White House. “The unfortunate part is that, you know, the impact is real,” he said. “It’s important and I’m gonna be one of the people out there beating the drum for people to know how horrible both of them are, but specifically DeSantis.” Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who briefly served with Mr DeSantis in the House of Representatives, said she took no enjoyment from watching Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis bicker. “There’s nothing pleasurable about Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump,” she told The Independent. “The hell that he’s wreaked on us in our state has been devastating to education, to health care, women’s reproductive decisions.” Ms Wasserman Schultz said she hoped Mr DeSantis’ run would be the beginning of the end of his political career. Read More Ron DeSantis news – live: Florida governor’s wife launches his 2024 presidential run Ron DeSantis 2024: Everything we know about the Florida governor’s presidential bid Who is Casey DeSantis? What we know about Florida governor Ron’s wife who could become America’s first lady Former Guantanamo prisoner: Ron DeSantis watched me being tortured