Children’s Health Defense and RFK Jr publicly dispute recent measles deaths to ‘distract’ from damage caused and question vaccines, experts say

The six-year-old girl at the children’s hospital in Lubbock, Texas, burned with fever and struggled to breathe. Doctors soon put her on a ventilator, snaking a thick tube down the child’s throat so a machine could breathe for her; they placed IVs to rehydrate her tiny body and they prescribed antibiotics for any bacterial infections that may have taken hold in the weeks she had spent at home battling measles.

But it was too late. Within a day of being ventilated, the child went into shock, her blood pressure crashed and she went into cardiac arrest. She could not be resuscitated. Her family, and the nation, mourned: she was the first child to die of measles in the US in a decade.

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© Photograph: Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images

Father of toddler killed in Erie mass shooting says reported gunman never seemed distressed or out of the ordinary

The man who killed eight people, before turning the gun on himself, in a mass shooting in a home in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Friday was a grandfather who had not shown signs that he was capable of such violence, according to people who knew the shooter.

A man whose toddler was among those killed said on Sunday that the man never seemed distressed or out of the ordinary, the Associated Press reports.

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© Photograph: Ted Shaffrey/AP

© Photograph: Ted Shaffrey/AP

© Photograph: Ted Shaffrey/AP

Comments were among the most direct overtures by Trump to woo Democratic senator into his Republican party

Donald Trump on Saturday openly encouraged Democratic US senator John Fetterman to switch parties and become a Republican just weeks before the federal midterm elections could reshape control of Congress.

“I’d love to see him as a Republican,” the presidents told reporters at Joint Base Andrews as he returned to Washington DC from a rally in Tennessee. “He does better as a Republican than he does as a Democrat.”

Guardian staff contributed reporting

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© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters

© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters

© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters

10-year police veteran Shane Seiber was killed after responding to a report of a man with a gun

A Philadelphia police officer was fatally shot and another was wounded on Saturday after responding to a report of a man with a gun, authorities said.

Shane Seiber, 40, was killed early on Saturday morning in West Philadelphia, according to the city’s police commissioner, Kevin Bethel.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Authorities say suspect among dead in house after standoff with police in Erie and there is no ongoing threat

A man fatally shot eight people, including a pregnant woman and children, at a Pennsylvania residence on Friday before killing himself, police say.

The victims have not been publicly identified, but seven relatives and a family friend died in the rampage.

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© Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

The dead included a pregnant woman, a 5 year old and a toddler. The shooter was also dead, city officials said.

© Matt Barnum/WJET via AP

The Trump administration is investigating nonprofits that it says may be recruiting noncitizens for voter registration, documents show, even though noncitizen voting in the United States is rare.

© Will Warasila for The New York Times

The spread of measles in Pennsylvania and Ohio is largely affecting Amish communities where vaccinations levels are low.

© Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times