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Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action after a massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, during an interview in Washington on May 5, 2023

Having traveled across the United States for a decade to campaign against the ceaseless round of shootings that have claimed thousands of lives, Shannon Watts believes she has heard a very clear message.

"Americans want the gun violence to stop," she said during a recent stop in Washington.

One of the country's most prominent faces in the fight against gun violence, Watts met with AFP journalists in her hotel room in an interview sandwiched between a live Instagram talk and lunch with Hillary Clinton and other influential women.

While the battle to reduce firearm deaths has exacted a price -- amid furious responses from some far-right gun lovers she often travels under an alias -- this 52-year-old mother of five remains undeterred.

And after devoting countless hours to her cause, she insists that "we are winning."

It doesn't always feel that way. On Saturday, a man armed with an assault rifle killed eight people in a shopping center near Dallas, Texas.

"We are not numb," Watts tweeted afterwards. "We are traumatized."

By now, she told AFP, even Republicans, traditionally fierce defenders of the right to own arms, "are scared their kids aren't safe."

It was that sort of fear that prompted Watts to found Moms Demand Action. The galvanizing spark was the Sandy Hook massacre of December 14, 2012 -- when a disturbed young man opened fire in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 26 people, including 20 children aged six and seven.

That night, Watts said, she went to bed "devastated," in tears but also "full of rage" and overwhelmed by "this feeling of needing to do something."

The next morning she went to work. Scouring the internet, she found a few anti-gun violence groups, but all were headed by men. That wasn't for her: "I wanted to be part of a badass army of women," she said.

So she set out to create one.

From humble beginnings as a small Facebook group, Moms Demand Action has grown into a powerful organization with chapters in all 50 US states and claiming some 10 million supporters.

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The association -- part of the umbrella group Everytown for Gun Safety -- enjoys key financial support from billionaire and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

- Red T-shirts -

The red T-shirts worn by MDA members have become a familiar sight at demonstrations or outside state capitols, where many legislators have firsthand experience with the group's influence at the ballot box.

A master of social media, Watts claims the group has scored 500 legislative victories on the local or national level, nearly always in opposition to the country's powerful pro-gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

There have also been setbacks, which can fuel a sense of fatalism: Mass shootings have become so common, so unexceptional, that they no longer prompt big demonstrations across the country.

But according to Watts it takes more than individual protests to "change legislation and culture." What's needed, she said, is "what I call the unglamorous heavy lifting of grassroots activism."

So she keeps pressing for ambitious federal actions -- even if those seem doomed by Republicans' current control of the House of Representatives.

A key goal is a nationwide requirement for potential gun buyers to undergo background checks -- to weed out those with criminal records or serious psychiatric problems.

Watts also wants to see a ban on military-style assault weapons of the type so frequently used in mass shootings. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, shares that goal but has been unable to push a ban through Congress.

- 'Not anti-gun' -

But there is one step Moms Demand Action will not take: seeking an outright ban on private gun ownership.

"There are a variety of different reasons you may want or need a gun," she told AFP. Her father owned one, as do many members of her organization, Watts said.

And countries like Israel and Switzerland have "high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence," she noted. "Those two things can co-exist."

This year, after 10 years heading Moms Demand Action, Watts will pass the reins of leadership to Angela Ferrell-Zabala.

Watts, for her part, would not say what her next act might be -- though she wouldn't rule out a future in politics.

Given the national prominence she has earned through her MDA work, that would seem a logical move.

But her high profile has also made her a target, in a country where love of guns is deeply visceral for many.

From her earliest days of activism she has been marked with threats. Heavily armed men have been expelled from events where she appeared.

She travels with "someone who specializes in security," whose responsibilities include always knowing the location of "the nearest hospital to take me to if there's a shooting."

But Watts insisted she will not be silenced.

"If we lose our children," she said, "we have nothing left to lose."

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In America, the gun lobby's nightmare is named Shannon Watts - Yahoo News

NEW YORK (AP) A judge known for his care and cautiousness in presiding over litigation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was selected Friday to decide whether Donald Trump s criminal case proceeds in state or federal court.

Alvin Hellerstein, a Manhattan federal judge for a quarter century, picked up the case after it was originally assigned to a colleague whose husband was a key prosecutor in special counsel Robert Mueller s investigation of the former president.

Trumps lawyers petitioned Thursday to have a federal court seize control of his criminal case, arguing that the case involves important federal questions and shouldnt be tried in the state court where his historic indictment was brought.

Such requests are rarely granted in criminal cases, but Trumps request is unprecedented because hes the first former president ever charged with a crime.

The matter was initially assigned Friday to Judge Ronnie Abrams. Hours later, the docket showed it had been reassigned to Hellerstein. Abrams previously recused herself from a Trump-related case in 2017 because of husband Greg Andres' work investigating ties between Russia and Trumps 2016 presidential campaign.

Case assignments are random in federal court and the parties could choose to proceed before a federal magistrate judge who has been designated to the case, Barbara Moses.

Trump, a Republican, was indicted in March and pleaded not guilty at an April 4 state court arraignment to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments and subsequent reimbursements made during the 2016 campaign and early in his presidency to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.

Messages seeking comment were left with Trumps lawyers and the Manhattan district attorneys office, which is prosecuting the criminal case.

Hellerstein, now 89, was appointed to the federal bench in 1998 by Bill Clinton, a Democrat whose wife, Hillary Clinton, was Trumps 2016 election rival. He served as a district judge until moving to senior status in 2011. Before that, he was as a litigator in Manhattan.

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In the aftermath of the 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center, Hellerstein presided over dozens of wrongful death, injury and property damage lawsuits a years-long effort that shaped his legacy on the bench.

Some of the judge's former clients died in the attack and, lawyers say, he showed great empathy to victims and their families, meeting with them for hours in his chambers and rejecting what he felt were low-ball settlement offers.

Others were dismayed when, in 2008, Hellerstein put an end to an effort to force New York City government to keep searching for human remains in debris moved from ground zero to a Staten Island landfill.

In 2020, Hellerstein ordered Trumps estranged former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen released from prison after the Justice Department revoked his home confinement in an attempt to thwart him from publishing a book or talking to the media. The governments action, he ruled, was retaliatory and a First Amendment violation.

In 2015, the judge made headlines when he ordered a New York City cable company to pay a Texas woman $229,500 to a Texas for flooding her phone with 153 robocalls.

Moses, the federal magistrate, was selected to the bench by a judicial panel in 2015. She was previously the director of Seton Hall University's Constitutional and Civil Litigation Clinic. She also worked at a Manhattan law firm whose partner, Elkan Abramowitz, represents a key witness in Trumps case: David Pecker, the former National Enquirer chief executive who was involved in some of the hush-money payments.

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Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/

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Veteran jurist picked to weigh moving Trumps criminal trial - Yahoo News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should be cautious about making the same mistake with Pierre Poilievre as Stephen Harper did with him when the Conservative prime minister mischaracterized his Liberal opponent only to see him surpass expectations.

Back in 2015, Harpers director of communications, Kory Teneycke, told reporters that expectations of Trudeau were so low going into the first election debate that if he comes on stage with his pants on, he will probably exceed expectations.

The Conservatives spent years telling each other and Canadians that Trudeau wasnt up to the job of prime minister. Their first attack ad, in 2013, used footage of Trudeau pretending to strip at a charity fundraiser to mock him as a pretty-boy lightweight who was in way over his head.

That framing, pounded through a series of other ads, suggested Trudeau couldnt protect the country from terrorism, or handle the nations finances, or lacked the experience to lead the country because hed been a camp counsellor, a rafting instructor and a drama teacher.

For two years, Conservatives lowered expectations so much that when the 2015 election came around and Canadians had a long look at Trudeau, his team, and his Liberal platform, enough voters felt the Tories attacks didnt ring true and they handed the untested leader a majority government.

The Liberals would be wise to remember that.

At the Liberal partys national convention this past week, the prime ministers team portrayed Poilievre as a far-right-Donald-Trump-MAGA (Make America Great Again) extremist.

In a speech to convention delegates Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mlanie Joly pointed to the current Conservative leader and declared the rising tide of the far right has already reached our shores.

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Poilievre, she said, stood shoulder to shoulder and gave a platform to conspiracy theorists to get elected, and after he won, Canadians got more of the same.

Behind closed doors, the following morning, Joly went further. She told Liberal delegates this would be the ballot question at the next election. Youve heard me in the speech yesterday saying that the far right has now reached our shores. And thats the real choice that Canadians will have to be facing in the next election, is do we accept that or not?

The campaign, Joly said, has already begun. Were a minority government, she noted, and the party will soon face five by-elections (two in Manitoba, and one each in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec).

Every election is a new election. Its a new narrative. Its a new choice. What we know is that Poilievre has imported, in Canada, the MAGA extremist, you know, rhetoric, she said. When you watch [controversial Florida Republican Governor] Ron DeSantis in speeches or [former U.S. President] Trump you see the same type of vocabulary that is used by Poilievre.

She predicted the 2024 presidential election in the United States likely another faceoff between Trump and President Joe Biden will influence Canadians, and stressed how important it is for Liberals to make extremely clear the choice between Trudeau and Poilievre is stark.

Liberal MP Tim Louis, who was on the same panel with Joly, suggested this might make the difference between a Liberal minority or a majority mandate.

On stage Friday, Hillary Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state, New York senator, and Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump, echoed these themes, warning delegates that a lot of democracies are being undermined by forces largely on the political right who deny minority rights and dismiss a free press. You just have to be highly alert to this, do not dismiss it.

She spoke of her former Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate and said she no longer recognizes them. I dont recognize people who I worked with who are now willing to engage in election denial. Who are claiming that there are outlandish conspiracies, that the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 didnt really happen, even though we saw it with our own eyes. It is shocking to me what has happened to the Republican Party in the United States.

Trudeau himself, in a speech to the party faithful, sought to paint the Conservative party as conspiracy laden and out of touch with mainstream Conservatives.

The Liberal leader suggested Poilievre and his brokenness Conservative party would be unable to help Canadians get better access to a family doctor, or help young people buy their first home. Pierre Poilievres populism, his slogans and buzzwords are not serious solutions to the serious challenges were facing, he said.

Yes, Poilievre rails against wokeism. He frequently spreads disinformation and mischaracterizes Liberal policy. (His latest attack suggesting the Grits would legalize crack, cocaine and heroin is particularly egregious.) He placates conspiracy theorists. He seeks to defund the CBC, and he muzzles his backbench. The Liberals arent wrong to say the Conservative leader is for freedom for some but not for all.

But Poilievre has not shown himself to be an apologist for authoritarian regimes, or to embrace anti-immigration policies, or attack LGBTQ rights.

The more the Liberals seek to paint Poilievre as Trump or DeSantis, the further they risk alienating voters who once they take a good look at the Conservative leader discover hes not quite what was portrayed.

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Liberals are painting Pierre Poilievre as the next Donald Trump. Thats a risky strategy - Toronto Star

Hillary Clinton, former first lady of the United States and the countrys 67th secretary of state, will speak at the 2023 Liberal National Convention in Ottawa also known as Lib2023 on Friday, May 5.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton has a lifetime of experience in American politics and public service, and has dedicated her career to promoting human rights around the globe, growing a strong middle class, and delivering economic growth that works for everyone," Liberal Party of Canada national director Azam Ishmael said in a bulletin.

Ishmael adds Clinton will join Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for a conversation about how Canada "can continue to work together to keep moving our countries and the world forwardand onward."

"Since 2015, Justin Trudeau and our Liberal team have been delivering progress for Canadians. From holding important conversations with Canadians to running successful campaigns, we are interested in hearing from Canadians and turning their big ideas into action," the bulletin reads.

During the 2021 federal election campaign, Clinton also endorsed the federal Liberals and called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau her "friend."

Additional keynote speakers set to attend the convention include Trudeau, former prime minister Jean Chretien, and Liberal Party of Canada president Suzanne Cowan, among others.

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Hillary Clinton to speak at Liberal convention - CTV News

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the first woman to run as a major party candidate for United States president, will headline the Liberal Party of Canadas national convention on May 5.

Clinton will join Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for a fireside-style chat onstage on the second day of the three-day event in Ottawa.

Clinton rose to national prominence first during the presidential terms of her husband, Bill Clinton, in the 1990s, before her launching her own political career as a senator from New York.

She was the 67th secretary of state during the first term of president Barack Obama before securing the Democratic nomination for the 2016 presidential election, which she lost to Donald Trump.

In 2021, Clinton endorsed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, calling him her friend and wishing our progressive Canadian neighbours the best just three days before the vote.

Trudeau will speak at the convention May 4 but is expected to miss much of the event to travel to London for the coronation of King Charles on May 6.

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Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to join Liberal convention in Ottawa next week - The Globe and Mail