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The 28-year-old who shot dead six people at an elementary school in Nashville was able to buy and conceal multiple weapons in the family home despite evidence of mental health issues, police said Tuesday.
Two nine-year-old girls, a nine-year-old boy, two teachers and a school custodian died in the Monday attack, which recharged the bitter debate over gun rights in the United States.
Parents with their children joined a steady stream of mourners in front of a makeshift memorial to the victims of the massacre at the Covenant School in Nashville as the sun set Tuesday, many of them in tears.
"It's just unimaginable to think that these beautiful kids are not going to come home again," Lisbeth Melgar, who brought her two children to see the memorial, told AFP as she gently tucked her daughter's hair behind her ear.
Earlier, Nashville police chief John Drake told reporters that the shooter, Audrey Hale, had been receiving treatment for an "emotional disorder," and that Hale's parents believed their child -- who lived at home with them -- had bought and later resold a single gun.
But Hale, who was killed during the attack, was armed with two assault rifles and a handgun upon entering the small Christian academy of about 200 students, which the shooter had once attended as a pupil.
Identified by police as a female who had used male pronouns on social media, the shooter had maps of the school and left a manifesto that suggested more attacks were planned.
"Audrey bought seven firearms from five different local gun stores here legally," Drake said.
"She was under doctors' care for an emotional disorder... Her parents felt that she should not own weapons."
"As it turned out, she had been hiding several weapons within the house," he continued.
Drake added that pupils and staff were not targeted individually and there was no known motive.
Video of police response
In security camera footage, Hale is seen shooting through doors to enter the school before stalking the empty halls as emergency lights flash.
Hale, wearing a black military-style vest, camouflage pants and red baseball cap, moved through the building, opening fire on children and staff.
Officers were on the scene within about 15 minutes of the first emergency call.
Bodycam footage showed police moving through classrooms filled with small desks and paper craftwork.
Multiple gunshots are heard as officers close in on a sun-filled atrium, where the assailant was shot dead.
A former schoolmate, Averianna Patton, told CNN Hale sent an Instagram message the morning of the shooting.
"One day this will make more sense," Hale wrote. "I've left more than enough evidence behind. But something bad is about to happen."
Patton said she called police to alert them at about the time the attack started.
In the search for a motive, Drake told NBC News that "there's some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school."
One of the young children killed was Hallie Scruggs, the daughter of the church's pastor, Chad Scruggs.
"We are heartbroken. She was such a gift," the pastor told local media.
Gun rights
Asked whether Hale's gender identity may have been a factor, police said they were investigating all leads.
A rally that had been scheduled for Friday supporting queer and trans youth in Nashville was cancelled "both for the safety of the youth and to focus on the healing of the Nashville community," according to an email sent by organizers.
Mourners left flowers and stuffed toys at the growing memorial outside the school. Some knelt in prayer.
"I carry a gun with me most days, but I don't need an assault rifle," Chad Baker, 44, told AFP. "I don't think it should be as easy to buy flowers as it is a gun."
There were more than 24 million AR-15-style assault weapons circulating in the United States by mid-2022, according to the NSSF firearm trade association.
President Joe Biden warned that gun violence was "ripping the soul of this nation," and urged Congress to reinstate the national assault rifle ban, which existed from 1994 to 2004.
Efforts to ban the powerful weapons have run up against opposition from Republicans, staunch defenders of the constitutional right to bear arms.
The political deadlock endures despite an uproar over recurring school massacres, including last year when a shooter in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 students and two teachers.
Last year also marked 10 years since 26 people, mostly children, were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut -- deeply shocking the nation, yet failing to produce meaningful gun control.
Without that progress, many schools have turned to security measures such as metal detectors and active shooter drills instead.
"It's not on schools to figure out more security," said Nina Dyson, a mother of four attending a small demonstration in Nashville Tuesday seeking gun control.
"There are parents all over the country demanding change for decades, and there (has) been none," the 35-year-old said at the protest, which had been planned before Monday's attack took place.
© Agence France-Presse
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Bitter and earthy. Fit for instant brews only. Robusta coffee has a dire reputation, but a small group of farmers in Vietnam is trying to turn the bean's fortunes around as a warming world threatens the industry.
As an interior designer in trendy Ho Chi Minh City, Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, 42, largely stayed clear of Vietnamese coffee, puzzling over why it didn't taste as good as cups from abroad.
Now, nearly a decade later, she runs her own coffee farm -- "Mori" -- in the remote Central Highlands, cultivating robusta she believes can match the world's favorite bean, arabica, in quality and flavor.
"My beans have a fruity, flowery smell, and they taste strong -- but in a gentle way," Ngoc told AFP at her farm close to the city of Pleiku, in the heart of the Vietnamese robusta region.
"Vietnamese farmers need to know it is possible to make these beans taste good."
'Vicious circle of bad quality'
Long scorned by giants such as Starbucks, robusta -- which has almost double the caffeine content of arabica -- is found in most instant coffees, as well as some espresso blends.
Most experts agree that the bean has potential, but is stuck in a "vicious circle of bad quality", said Mario Fernandez of the Specialty Coffee Association.
"We get bad quality from robusta, therefore it gets a bad reputation, therefore no one wants to pay a premium for it, therefore there's no motivation to improve the quality," he said.
But robusta has advantages over its competitor: the yields are greater, and it can better cope with higher temperatures.
Climate change presents a serious concern for the multi-billion-dollar coffee industry, with scientists predicting lower yields and fewer areas suitable for growing.
Arabica, which makes up around 60 percent of the world's coffee production, originates in the highlands of Ethiopia and South Sudan, and prefers average annual temperatures of around 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit).
Robusta, although by no means immune to a warming world, may be able to endure up to around 23C.
Should global production of arabica start to fall short, "people will have to find an alternative supply", said Pham Thi Diep Giang, deputy director general of Trung Nguyen, one of Vietnam's top coffee brands.
A tumble in arabica supply caused by extreme weather in Brazil already helped Vietnam earn $4 billion in 2022, a 32 percent rise from a year earlier, the government said in a recent report.
At a coffee fair in Buon Ma Thuot city, farmer Hoang Manh Hung tries his best to convince visitors to take sips of his "fruity and elegant" robusta.
"I really wish more people would love robusta, as it's truly a 'wow' drink," Hung told AFP.
The 53-year-old transformed a farm that had produced low-quality coffee cherries for decades, first under the French and then his parents.
"We can now produce robusta with a completely different taste, and a scent that anyone would love," Hung said.
Key to the change, Hung said, is that the cherries are now hand-picked, and only when they're fully ripe.
"And they're fully organic," he added.
Gaining recognition
Robusta was first brought to Vietnam by the French in the late 19th century, and in 1991 the country exported its first beans -- 104,000 tonnes.
By 2022, that figure had climbed to 1.8 million tonnes -- almost all of it as raw material for instant coffee and other blends -- making it the world's largest robusta producer and the second-largest coffee producer overall, after Brazil.
Still, outside the country, "Vietnam is regarded as the lowest-quality coffee there is", Fernandez of the Specialty Coffee Association said.
Producers aiming for high quality will have "a harder time because of this perception", he added.
But there are some positive signs. The trend forecasting company WGSN says a change in attitudes toward robusta has already begun.
And Nguyen Coffee Supply -- which says it is the first specialty Vietnamese coffee company in the United States -- is now being sold by the high-end supermarket chain Whole Foods.
Meanwhile, at their hilly farms in Vietnam's Central Highlands, Hung and Ngoc are beginning to see their hard work pay off.
Their produce is gaining recognition domestically and is also being sold by online roasteries in Germany, the United States and elsewhere in Asia.
"It's the perfect time for Vietnamese fine beans to find their place in the world," Ngoc said.
© 2023 AFP
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Omar Buddakey emerges from a nondescript building in Los Angeles with a joint in his hand.
Five years after cannabis was legalized in California, black market transactions like this one -- where no one pays any taxes, and the product is not regulated -- remain commonplace.
"Legal shops are too expensive," the 27-year-old tells AFP, as he lights up his preroll.
Over the course of a year Buddakey estimates he saves the equivalent of a paycheck from his patient transport job by avoiding the state-sanctioned outlets.
"I'd rather pay less for the same thing. And I know it's the same thing, because it gives me the same feeling."
Buddakey's working-class neighborhood in east Los Angeles is teeming with stores like this one, many marked by a green cross.
Although they are illegal, they openly advertise online, and many have their own websites.
Inside one of them, a man who gives his name only as "Joe" welcomes a steady stream of customers who are offered a selection of buds and leaves.
Here, an ounce (30 grams) of weed sells for $100 -- $35 less than at a state-regulated store.
"Cops have raided this shop probably eight to 10 times," he tells AFP. "They take the weed, our cameras and all the cash.
"We just re-open the next hour or the next day."
'Nickelled and dimed'
A 2016 referendum legalized recreational use of cannabis in California, 20 years after it was permitted for medical use with a prescription.
The idea was to rid the streets of illegal sellers, to regulate the substance to ensure it was of sufficient quality, and to raise tax for state coffers -- goals shared by other jurisdictions, including Canada, Uruguay and Germany.
The first legal shops opened in 2018, and are now found in many cities throughout the state.
Few thoroughfares in Los Angeles are without one, from straightforward holes-in-the-wall to glitzy boutiques, where a cannabis sommelier -- or "budtender" -- can recommend the right blend, and expects a tip for their services.
But the rush of stores has not dented the size of the underground market, which has remained steady at around $8 billion a year, according to Tom Adams of Global Go Analytics.
The legal business is struggling. In 2022, sanctioned cannabis sales fell 8.2 percent to $5.3 billion.
"California is now paying for the two fatal errors it made when designing its program," says Adams. "They loaded it up with too many taxes, and too many regulations."
Indeed the rules around cannabis selling are complicated, and -- like many things in California -- are subject to separate, and sometimes overlapping, jurisdictions.
Each city or county has the final say in whether to allow the sale of recreational cannabis on its turf. As a result, less than 40 percent of them have given the green light.
The state's 40 million inhabitants can buy cannabis from 1,100 legal stores, but they are far from evenly spread, leaving a large base of customers who have no option but to buy from illegal vendors.
And in areas where trade is allowed, "we're just nickelled and dimed to death," says Nathan Holtz-Poole, of Green Goddess Collective in Venice Beach, which employs 18 people.
"Unfortunately, that is putting a real strain on the industry."
Excise and sales taxes imposed by both the California government and the city add 35 percent to the cost of weed bought legally, Holtz-Poole explains.
His lavishly decorated, herbalist-like dispensary offers everything from home-grown plants to ultra-potent cannabis concentrates, from gummies to drinks.
Despite chasing the premium sector of the market, he's not exactly coining it in, the 57-year old businessman says.
"We're barely surviving. We break even, at best."
Competition from illegal sellers eats into his bottom line, he says, estimating that he loses 30 percent of his customers to outlets who don't have to file tax returns.
It's common knowledge, Holtz-Poole says, that you can get products containing THC -- the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that causes a high -- from some places that are only supposed to be selling CBD, a marijuana derivative that doesn't give users a buzz.
Despite his regular reports to police, "there is just no enforcement at all," he sighs. "We feel completely abandoned."
Police officers say they are climbing a mountain with one hand tied behind their backs.
"We're working our butts off," says Michael Boylls, who heads the Cannabis Support Unit in the Los Angeles Police Department's Gang and Narcotics Division.
His men carry out 300 to 400 searches a year and sometimes have illegal businesses shut down.
But sellers rarely face more than a fine and quickly return to business.
"The problem is there's no teeth in the law," he says.
© Agence France-Presse
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