News in :90 – March 28, 2023

Six people were killed at a small, private Christian school just south of downtown Nashville on Monday after a shooter opened fire inside the building containing about 200 students, police said.

Police received a call about an active shooter at The Covenant School — a Presbyterian school — around 10:15 a.m. Authorities said that about 15 minutes after that call to police, the shooter was dead. The remaining students were ferried to a safe location to be reunited with their parents.

Ukraine’s president visited the Sumy region in northern Ukraine on Tuesday, continuing his tour over recent days of areas of the country that have felt the brunt of Russia’s full-scale invasion and as the stage increasingly looks set for a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with officials and local people in two cities in the region, which borders Russia. It was partially occupied by Russian forces after the war started more than a year ago. The Russians withdrew from the region by early April.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is slated to lead off opening statements expected for Tuesday in his state’s lawsuit against Juul Labs – marking the first time any of the thousands of cases against the e-cigarette maker over its alleged marketing to young people is going to play out in a courtroom.

Minnesota sued Juul in 2019, accusing the San Francisco-based company of unlawfully targeting young people with its products to get a new generation addicted to nicotine. Ellison has declined to put a dollar figure on how much money the state is seeking in damages and civil penalties. But he said when he announced the lawsuit that it could be in the ballpark with Minnesota’s landmark $7.1 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998.

Ornery Walker can be reached at walk3519@stthomas.edu.