NYC Office Shooting, Trump In Scotland, Gaza Aid Latest

Speaker 1 Security cameras captured an armed man walking into a lobby in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 He then shoots a woman who took cover behind a pillar and proceeds through the lobby, spraying it with gunfire.

Speaker 3 Who was the Las Vegas man holding the gun?

Speaker 1 Jamie Martinez with Steve Inskeep, and this is up first from MPR News.

Speaker 1 President Trump responds to televised images of desperate people in Gaza.

Speaker 3 We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are, that's real starvation stuff.
I see it.

Speaker 3 And you can't fake that.

Speaker 1 He talked of setting up food centers. What could the United States do differently?

Speaker 3 Also, how did the world respond to a trade deal? American businesses get added access to European markets. American importers face the highest tariffs in close to a century.
Stay with us.

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Speaker 3 An image from a security camera shows a man in New York City. He is walking across a plaza toward toward the doors of a skyscraper on Park Avenue.

Speaker 1 The man is wearing a blazer, striding in a businesslike manner, and looks unremarkable except for the rifle he's holding at his side.

Speaker 3 And Pierre Sarah Ventry is on the line from New York City and is putting together what happened next. Sarah, good morning.

Speaker 5 Good morning, Steve.

Speaker 3 What is the sequence of events here? That image I mentioned is in the middle of it, I guess.

Speaker 5 Yeah, exactly. So according to the NYPD, the gunman got out of his car.
It was a double-parked BMW. He was carrying a military-style M4 rifle.
Then he walked into that office building on Park Avenue.

Speaker 5 And remember, this was in the middle of rush hour in one of the busiest and most crowded parts of the city.

Speaker 5 Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch spoke at a press briefing and explained what happened next.

Speaker 2 The building's security camera footage shows the shooter enter the lobby, turn right, and immediately open fire on an NYPD officer.

Speaker 2 He then shoots a woman who took cover behind a pillar and proceeds through the lobby, spraying it with gunfire.

Speaker 5 From there, he made his way to the elevator bank where he shot a security guard who was taking cover behind a desk. One other man was also shot in the lobby.

Speaker 5 That man was taken to the hospital and is in critical condition.

Speaker 5 After that, the gunman went to get on the elevator, but a woman was getting off as he was getting on, and he actually let her walk away.

Speaker 5 He made his way up to the 33rd floor where he continued firing rounds. One person was killed there.
That makes a total of four, but four authorities say he shot and killed himself.

Speaker 3 Who was this gunman and what was he doing in New York City?

Speaker 5 Well, not a lot is known yet. I mean, police identified him as 27-year-old Shane Tamora from Las Vegas.
He was licensed to carry firearms.

Speaker 5 And when police searched his vehicle, they also found a handgun, more ammunition, and prescription medication. Authorities say he'd been driving across the country leading up to the shootings.

Speaker 5 Tamora was apparently a star high school football player. And we should note that the building where this happened also houses the offices of the NFL.

Speaker 5 But at this point, we don't know if there's any connection.

Speaker 3 Well, what have authorities said about a motive? Right now, not a lot.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's still very early in the investigation. NYPD Commissioner Tisch said there is no known motive.

Speaker 5 She did say that law enforcement in Las Vegas told the NYPD that the suspect had a documented mental health history, but the FBI said their initial checks showed no initial information about the subject.

Speaker 2 There are still many questions that we have to answer and we will answer them. But for now, our city is in mourning for the innocent lives lost.
May their memories be a blessing.

Speaker 5 So investigators are still trying to understand why he drove across the country, why he chose this building in particular, and really why this happened at all.

Speaker 3 What's known about the victims?

Speaker 5 So far, authorities have only identified one person, the police officer who was killed. His name is Didarul Islam.
He was 36 and he had been on the force for three and a half years.

Speaker 5 At that time that the shooting happened, he was working something called Paid Detail. That's a program the NYPD has where companies can hire off-duty officers in uniform to provide extra security.

Speaker 5 We know that Islam was an immigrant from Bangladesh. He was married with two kids and his wife is pregnant with their third child.

Speaker 5 And Mayor Eric Adams described him as a person of faith and a true blue New Yorker.

Speaker 3 And Pierre Sarah Ventry in New York. Thanks so much.

Speaker 5 Thanks, Steve.

Speaker 3 President Trump departs Scotland later today.

Speaker 1 He's played some golf and also made some news. He announced a new framework for U.S.
trade with the European Union and what could be a major recalibration of U.S. policy toward Gaza.

Speaker 3 And Pierce Lauren Freyer has been covering the President's trip and joins us now from Aberdeen, Scotland. Hi there, Lauren.

Speaker 7 Hi, Steve.

Speaker 3 What have you been seeing through the day?

Speaker 7 So Trump met this morning with Scotland's top official official First Minister, John Swinney, for about 15 or 20 minutes. And then today is all about one of the president's favorite pastimes, golf.

Speaker 7 He's playing first round on a new golf course he owns on the North Sea coast of Scotland, a course that's dedicated to his mother, Mary MacLeod, who happens to have been born and raised in Scotland.

Speaker 7 I got up to the golf course, visited some neighbors around there who say the course severs their access to a stretch of pristine beach, that it hasn't brought as many jobs as they hoped for their community.

Speaker 7 And basically, this is kind of representative of the welcome or lack thereof Trump got here, mostly resistance from locals.

Speaker 7 And he's met with protesters or been met with protesters in pretty much every city he's visited. But he also has managed to get a lot of work done here.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about some of that work then. 15% tariff now on European goods sent to the United States in a deal that we discussed yesterday, although many details are still unknown.

Speaker 3 What does it mean for Trump's overall tariff policy?

Speaker 7 Well, the EU is the world's biggest single trading bloc, and it's now facing significant U.S. tariffs.
And this is kind of a blueprint for what could be coming.

Speaker 7 Trump has been talking here in Scotland about blanket global tariffs for other countries with which he has yet to make trade deals. And he describes the rates he wants to charge.

Speaker 3 I would say in the range of 15 to 20 percent.

Speaker 3 Probably one of those two numbers.

Speaker 7 Now, this is higher than a baseline 10 percent tariff Trump announced back in April.

Speaker 7 The president says he's going to impose this new baseline tariff of 15 to 20 percent on what he described as essentially the rest of the world, because he said, quote, you can't sit down and make 200 different deals.

Speaker 7 Now, this is for countries where Trump has not already specified higher tariffs. He set this Friday, August 1st, as a new tariff deadline for dozens of countries, including Canada and Mexico.

Speaker 3 How are people responding?

Speaker 7 Well, the Euro currency fell more than 1% against the dollar. France and Germany, the two largest economies in the EU, both expressed concerns about this deal.

Speaker 7 For Americans, economists say they'll be paying more for foreign goods than any other time since the 1930s. But Trump says it's worth it to boost domestic U.S.
industries and raise revenue.

Speaker 3 I noticed that he also spoke about the Middle East yesterday when talking with reporters. What came out of that?

Speaker 7 Yeah, he spoke about starvation in Gaza in a way that he really hasn't before. And he contradicted his ally, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Netanyahu has said there is no starvation in Gaza.

Speaker 7 But here is what Trump told reporters.

Speaker 3 We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are - that's real starvation stuff.
I see it.

Speaker 3 And you can't fake that.

Speaker 7 And Trump kept repeating, we've got to get those kids fed. And he said the U.S.
would set up food centers in Gaza.

Speaker 3 The U.S. has already been involved in various efforts there.
This sounds like a rebuke of Netanyahu.

Speaker 7 Absolutely. I mean, Trump said this while sitting next to Prime Minister of the UK, Kier Starmer, who's been weighing whether to follow France's lead and recognize a Palestinian state.

Speaker 7 Trump said he doesn't mind if Starmer does that. Now, that's something Netanyahu opposes, that Netanyahu has said rewards terror.

Speaker 7 Netanyahu has said that a Palestinian state would be used to annihilate Israel. And so Trump rebuked Netanyahu and also kind of gave a tacit nod to a boost for the Palestinians.

Speaker 3 NPR's Lauren Frere in Aberdeen, Scotland. Thanks.

Speaker 7 You're welcome.

Speaker 3 Now, for a third day, Israel will be trucking aid and allowing airdrops of some food into Gaza.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's letting that food enter during daily 10-hour pauses in the fighting against Hamas militants. Is that food aid, though, enough?

Speaker 3 MPS Emily Fang is in Tel Aviv. Hi there, Emily.
Hey, Steve.

Speaker 3 So how has the global attention, the really difficult-to-watch images out of Gaza in the last few days, affected Israel's approach to the situation?

Speaker 6 Most immediately, it's led Israel to loosen its restrictions on Gaza. So on Sunday, about more than 100 trucks of food entered.
Yesterday, Israel said more than 200 trucks of food and aid entered.

Speaker 6 That is, however, a fraction of what aid organizations say they have ready to cross into Gaza and what one called a drop in the ocean of what they say Palestinians need in order to make a dent in the levels of malnutrition across the Gaza Strip.

Speaker 6 We have a producer in Gaza and Pierrez Ahnaz Baba.

Speaker 6 He's been trying to track every truck of food crossing into Gaza, and that's been difficult because these deliveries, he says, come at irregular hours and there's relatively little of it.

Speaker 6 So every aid truck he's been able to see is immediately looted. He's witnessed the strongest swarming these trucks that come in and taking the food before it can reach the weakest people in Gaza.

Speaker 6 Israel's military has said repeatedly, the problem is not that they're blocking ward food from going in, but that it's aid organizations who cannot deliver that food.

Speaker 6 So we've been reaching out to every aid organization who say it's Israel's military that's making it difficult and unsafe for them to drive and deliver that food into Gaza.

Speaker 6 And so aid organizations are continuing to call for all land crossings into Gaza to open. There's just one open right now, and for a ceasefire.

Speaker 3 Given the discussion of starvation, Prime Minister Netanyahu saying there's no starvation, President Trump saying, obviously there is, what are the experts saying?

Speaker 6 So there was a group of UN-backed experts today that issued an alert this morning saying, quote, the worst case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.

Speaker 6 It did not outright declare a famine, but they said they're going to conduct a new analysis without delay on updated data, and they warned that without immediate action, there would be more deaths due to malnutrition in Gaza.

Speaker 6 In order for this panel to reach what they called the famine threshold, which is the worst degree on the standardized scale of hunger that people use, that means they found at least 30% of children in Gaza are experiencing acute malnutrition.

Speaker 6 But a caveat, they use data on malnutrition that was collected up to four days ago. So that's before Israel started letting in more food.

Speaker 6 But the fact that this panel felt that it was necessary to issue this alert at this particular time shows how dire the situation has become.

Speaker 6 And Israel's foreign minister Gideon Tsar was asked this morning about starvation in Gaza after this alert went out. And he told reporters, quote, the reality is the opposite.

Speaker 6 And he said Israel's been working hard to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Speaker 3 How are Israelis debating what's happening there?

Speaker 6 The issue of Gaza has really divided Israelis. Many of them, at this point disagree on what the ultimate aim of Israel's war in Gaza is, and they're now debating whether hunger in Gaza is real.

Speaker 6 We've reported it is and we stand by that reporting. But what has changed a bit in the Israeli mainstream is before, very little news or images about Gaza made it into mainstream Israeli media.

Speaker 6 But yesterday for the first time, two Israeli human rights organizations said Israel's war in Gaza amounts to a genocide.

Speaker 6 And this month, images of hungry, starving children are being shown on some outlets. It's a limited change, but it is a change nonetheless.

Speaker 3 And Pierce Emily Fang, thanks so much.

Speaker 6 Thanks.

Speaker 3 And that's Up First for this Tuesday, July 29th. I'm Steve Inscape.

Speaker 1 And I'm A. Martinez.
Thanks for listening to Up First. You can find more conversation about the stories we covered today on NPR's Morning Edition.

Speaker 1 That is the radio show that Steve Inskeep, Layla Foddle, Michelle Martin, and I host. You can find Morning Edition on your local NPR station at stations.npr.org.

Speaker 3 You know, it's my turn to give the the credits, eh? And I like that. I like giving credits.

Speaker 3 Today's Up First was edited by Russell Lewis, Miguel Macias, Hannah Block, Janea Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Bach, Ben Abrams, and Christopher Thomas.

Speaker 3 We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Lestrange. Oh, that's Carly Strange.
Join us tomorrow.

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