Club Q Guilty Plea, Nationwide Internet, and Frankenfish Alert

Wagner Group Fallout

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin in a statement yesterday reiterated the private mercenary group didn't seek to overthrow the Russian government over the weekend, but rather protect the group from the country's military.

Prigozhin's statement was the first since the Wagner Group's short-lived mutiny (see our previous write-up). He said the group's march toward Moscow was in response to Russia's defense ministry ordering mercenaries to sign contracts with the military by July 1, thereby dismantling the Wagner Group. Prigozhin further said the group had planned to hand over military weapons it was using in the war against Ukraine by June 30, but the military's alleged attack on Wagner forces pushed them to act.    

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an address to his nation Monday night, noted Wagner mercenaries could sign contracts with the defense ministry or head to Belarus as part of a brokered deal. See all updates on the war here.

Club Q Shooter Sentenced

The suspect in the mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, pleaded guilty yesterday to five counts of first-degree murder, 46 counts of attempted first-degree murder, and no contest to two counts of hate crimes.

The 23-year-old suspect, who is nonbinary, opened fire in November 2022 with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and a handgun at the Club Q nightclub, resulting in five deaths and 17 injuries. The shooter was tackled and disarmed by clubgoers before being taken into custody. The massacre came over a year after the suspect had been arrested and threatened to become "the next mass killer."

As part of the plea deal, the suspect will serve five consecutive life sentences for the murder charges and 46 consecutive 48-year sentences for the attempted murder charges. The deal avoided a trial; however, the victims' family members were allowed to share statements in court. It remains unclear whether prosecutors will file federal hate crimes charges.

Billions for Broadband

The Biden administration announced the release of $42.5B in funding for nationwide broadband internet access yesterday, part of the $1T bipartisan infrastructure law passed in November 2021. The administration plans to extend high-speed broadband access to every American by 2030.

Broadband internet—the nation's default internet infrastructure—is faster than dial-up service and is always on. Average household monthly broadband usage has skyrocketed from 9 gigabytes per month in 2010 to nearly 600 gigabytes in 2023. Plans to deploy these funds have been delayed as regulators sought more accurate coverage maps (see here) for the roughly 114 million homes and businesses in the country, approximately 7% of which reportedly lack adequate internet speeds. Projects could begin construction as early as mid-2024.

The package will see every US state receive at least $107M, with more allotted to those states assessed to have greater need; Texas will receive the largest portion at $3.8B. See what every state will receive here. 

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In-Depth

> Remembering Highland Park

Chicago | Mike Thomas. Six key individuals look back on the mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, in which seven people were killed last summer. (Read)

> Shells to Shoreline

PBS | Roby Chavez. A look at Louisiana’s "living shorelines" project, which since 2016 has protected 8,000 feet of shoreline by recycling 13 million pounds of oyster shells from New Orleans-area restaurants. (Read)

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