you are live in the cnn newsroom. i'm jim acosta. another holiday weekend in america marred by gun violence from coast to coast. random and mass acts of gun violence that have taken five lives and left dozens more traumatized. the long holiday weekend is far from over. willowbrook, a juneteenth celebration last night, ended with one person dead and 22 others injured. some by gunfire.

what can you tell us? >> reporter: authorities are saying they are still trying to talk to witnesses and victims, trying to figure out exactly what happened. they say there is no suspect or suspects in custody and they don't have a motive. they don't understand why this happened just yet but they are giving us a timeline of how it happened yesterday because what they are saying is this event began around 6:00 p.m. and there were officers there. there were law enforcement that were there for the event, but at 12:25 in the morning, they received a 911 call and the call reported a fight nearby. some of the law enforcement officers went over to see what was going on with this fight as they are trying to respond to this 911 call. they realize and hear the shots. so they go back to this event and it is chaos.

take a listen to two witnesses. put >> we were out and we hear shots and everybody ran. yeah. it was chaos. >> i will just say, i have a headache from the whole thing. all i can do is check with my friends and see if everything was okay. >> reporter: some people went to the hospital on their own. there were 12 ambulances at the scene. they had the opportunity to transport a lot of these victims to the hospital and authorities, at the moment,

trying to figure out exactly what happened and what the motive was behind this shooting because this was supposed to be a celebration. unfortunately, this joins the list of 310 mass shootings. >> police recovered several weapons including an ar style

weapon. st. louis is mayor is frustrated by their inability to pass meaningful gun reform. >> it's tragic, especially with the proliferation of guns in our country, how our children now have access to guns and are using them on each other. in missouri, we don't have any laws when it comes to guns. not even common sense gun safety laws. and the legislature has preempted cities from an acting on the local level. especially the bill that they didn't take any action on this year, would have kept guns out of the hands of minors. >> chief, thanks for being with us. i wish we could say this was an

unusually violent weekend but more and more it seems the status quo for too many cities. let's start with the situation outside of chicago. a juneteenth celebration turning into a deadly shooting. police had in there earlier in the evening but had left. what is your response to that and what is going on in this country? it seems we are talking about this far too much. >> we are talking about it far too much and it's not just weekends but every day of the week that we have something like occur. it may not be classified as a mass shooting but there are homicides taking place on the streets of our cities every single day. and guns are largely responsible for that. guns and the idiots that use guns to commit crimes. it's not unusual. it's a shame you can't even have a celebration or a gathering without the fear of

it turning into a mass shooting of some kind. apparently they did have officers assigned there but some call was made probably to take them away or distract them to go somewhere else so they could commit whatever the crime that they ultimately committed. but it's just one more and more to come. >> absolutely. no question about that. and the shooting last night in downtown st. louis, police say 10 teenagers were shot. it's hard to hear the words coming out of my mouth. this happens so much. the victims range from 15 to 19 years old. one seven-year-old died from his injuries. you heard what the mayor had to say that the missouri legislature won't pass meaningful gun reform and it sounds like a lot of these mayors and a lot of cities are kind of at the mercy of state lawmakers that are sitting on their hands, not really doing anything to solve the problem. >> yeah, many are. i've worked with the u.s.

conference of mayors and mayors are very frustrated but something has to be done nationally because part of the problem, people simply leave the jurisdiction that has tougher gun laws and go somewhere that it's more relaxed and purchase the guns. it's complicated and it's going to take effort on all levels in order to put together any kind of meaningful legislation that could begin to even try to curb some of the gun violence that we see on the streets. >> it is a national crisis. let me ask you about a different scenario in pennsylvania. a man firing on squad cars at a state outpost and then getting into a shootout with state troopers. it sounds like it was a gunfight. one trooper was killed and another is fighting for his life area and one official is saying it was one of the most intense, unbelievable gunfights he's witnessed in his career

and we've just gotten some sound in from the shootout. let's listen and get reaction after that. >> an officer involved shooting. an officer down. heavy police presence in the area. shot in the shoulder. shallow breathing. high-powered rifle. >> sometimes we forget that first responders are caught up in this too. they are not just responding to the scenes of these mass shootings. they are caught up in these acts of violence as well. and a gunfight sounds like it was just a horrific situation. >> you got a 29-year-old trooper now that's dead. a 45-year-old lieutenant who is shot and fighting for his life right now. the suspect is dead. i don't believe they have a motive yet, but they will be trying to figure out what prompted him to do this. it sounds like it was a little bit of suicide i cop involved in this too because there's no

way he could possibly think that he could attack police like that and not ultimately wind up killed. so it's just the kind of violence that takes place. unfortunately, sometimes police are the targets. other times, it's ordinary citizens. but i've seen it time and time again in my career. not necessarily a tax on a police station, but i've varied a lot of police officers in my time. it's incredibly tragic and something that people need to really think about the families that they leave behind, because that's the -- that is a true tragedy in and of itself. >> so many lives shattered by these acts of mass gun violence in this country. our condolences go to the family as well. i wish we didn't talk about this subject so much but i suspect we will be talking about it again, soon. thank you for your time. we appreciate it. >> thank you, jim.

let's go to china were secretary of state antony blinken met with his counterpart in beijing to steer the u.s. china relationship back on course. we are seeing a historic spike. china's foreign minister said relations are at their lowest point since the nations established ties. we are joined now from beijing. that is tough talk coming from the chinese foreign minister. what can the secretary of state do to turn this around? getting a dialogue going is something. >> when we talk to senior state department officials after the first round of meetings, what they said was that the meetings were direct. that both sides expressed a willingness to engage in conversations that would drive down tensions and there were agreements on a number of fronts. state department officials

noted they were in the middle of this two day visit to beijing. they didn't get into specifics in terms of agreements, whether military to military channels. we know the biden administration wants to stand up regular military to military channels with china. whether it's the issue of fentanyl and the opioid crisis in the united states, and a lot of the precursor chemicals for fentanyl come from china. whether it's america or taiwan. but on the issue of taiwan, specifically, the chinese foreign minister made it clear that was an issue that appeared to be quite sticky in the meeting yesterday. foreign minister -- said it was clear that there were demands from china on taiwan. that is the most pronounced risk to the u.s. china relationship and made it clear that china does not want the united states to support taiwan's independence. the united states doesn't

officially support taiwan's independence. they support strategic ambiguity when it comes to taiwan. president biden has made comments that have concerned officials in beijing and there are sales to taiwan that they continue to advance with. in terms of where the conversation goes on its second day, china's foreign ministry also said that they accept it an offer from the secretary of state for him to visit washington. that indicates that even after today in beijing there's going to be continued meetings between secretary of state antony blinken and his chinese counterpart. that is hopeful in the eyes of u.s. officials but what we are looking for today, when the secretary holds a press conference later in the day is the substance. did they actually get ahead in any of these issues that are really critical to the attention between the two countries right now? jim?

>> all right. thanks so much. appreciate it. coming up, why haven't more republicans criticize donald trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents including his opponents. our political panel weighs in. ukraine is gaining ground in its battle against russia. we look at what that means for the war over there and the new effort to use hallucinogenic magic mushrooms as therapy. we talk with someone who has tried it. that's coming up. you are live in the cnn newsroom .

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shelves. shelves smart enough to see, sense, react, restock. so caramel swirl is always there for the taking. ukrainian president zelensky max is the toughest fighting is taking place on ukraine's southern front. troops are gaining ground there today. ukraine's air force claims to have hit a russian ammunition depot in the occupied her sans region.

one of several targets. ukraine's military has hit over the past 24 hours. in the southern part of the country, officials say a russian occupied village has fallen. russia for its part denies that report. the governor of russia's -- region says they endured more than two dozen strikes. they damaged several buildings including a sugar factory and knocked out power lines. mason clark joins us now. the lead analyst for the institute for the study of war. a lot happening on multiple fronts. walk us through what you are seeing. >> absolutely. ukrainian forces are still in the preparatory phases of their much-anticipated, long prepared for counteroffensive. they are attacking at four different points along the line. bakhmut in eastern ukraine, -- city in southeastern ukraine and in two areas near

zaporizhzhia. and in the west, south of the city of -- which is where many of their attacks have been. they've been making some progress but are running into quite well-prepared russian defensive positions and we are seeing a number of pauses by ukrainian forces as they re- evaluate tactics and we are likely a ways away from the main efforts of their 12 or so counteroffensive gates being committed to counter operations. >> we are not really seeing that counteroffensive in earnest at this point, right? we are beginning to see the early elements of that, but, what does that mean in the long term? once the counteroffensive gets started, it sounds as though there is potential for them to be fairly successful in this counteroffensive once it starts gets going in earnest.

>> i think so. what we are seeing right now is what is generally known as probing attacks. finding gaps in the russian defensive lines and giving some experience to these units and preparing for large-scale attacks in the future. ukrainians have a few options of where they could launch that attack. it seems likely it could be in the south but there are several areas they could get attacked as well. they are hitting the defensive line, which in some areas is quite well defended but they are 10 kilometers from the main belt of russian fortifications. what we will likely see in the next few weeks is ukrainians finding gaps in those lines before committing a broader number of gates that of been held back in reserves to a larger effort and i'm confident that they will be able to push through russian defenses in some portions of the line. >> your organization looked at this recent dam explosion in ukraine that got the world's

attention. what can you tell us. >> we have about all the proof we are likely to get. there was a russian detonation of the dam. there was a number of assessments by experts, seismologists, and others that it's highly likely that the explosion that destroyed the dam only could have come inside and the control room was under russian control at the time. our assessment is that it was a russian attempt to slow down or prevent any sort of ukrainian offensive across the river, possibly even by a local commander. i'm not sure i would even say it was directed i the kremlin. we know russian forces prepared the dam for detonation as far back as september and it's likely they were alarmed by ukrainian cross river raids and landing actions and islands in the river and decided to blow the dam prematurely in order to preclude that option for

ukrainian forces. >> all right. thanks for your expertise. we appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. >> we will be right back. atate. ♪ - elites. now that we've made travel so expensive, we have this hotel to our...selves..? how'd you get here? - kayak! they compared hundreds of travel sites to find a great deal on my flight, car, and tel. - kayak. search one and done.

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don't let the door hit you on your way out. the republican party's message to its 2024 presidential candidate. don't sign a pledge to eventually support the gop nominee even if it's a tried and convicted donald trump. chris christie making it clear he doesn't think much of the loyalty oath this august.

this is what he said earlier today on cnn. >> i'm going to take this pledge just as seriously as donald trump took it in 2016. i will do what i need to do to try to save my party and my country from going down the road of being led by three time loser donald trump. >> joining us now to discuss, political commentator. chris christie doesn't seem like he is on board with that pledge. >> he is right. and he probably has a pretty good memory of september, 2015. i trace the fate of the republican party back to that time when -- rushed up to new york from washington, d.c., paper in hand, to get donald trump to sign a loyalty pledge.

that worked both ways. it married donald trump to the republican party and the party to donald trump. and we all know how that went. i believe chris christie and others might be skeptical of this, not just because it would adhere them, potentially, to trump, but because of what it would do to the republican party. it is a waste of time and the republican party should be more discerning in determining who gets to wear the banner. who gets to take the mantle. and i think they were a little too cavalier about that and willing in 2015 and later 2016 to let donald trump decide he was a republican when we all know he had little affection for the party, conservatism, or any of that. >> do you think the party will give candidates a hall pass on this pledge? what do you think ? >> i think if trump hadn't won

the nomination, i don't think he would have honored the pledge and i think that's clear. i thought the most interesting thing about the pledge was that they rejected asa hutchinson's very low bar of wanting the pledge to say that it's only if the candidate has not been criminally charged and the rnc was like, no, it's too high a bar. if that isn't a really great metaphor for whether this republican party is, i don't know what is. >> and last evening, i saw them talking about the documents case. i spoke with a former congressman, a former cia officer and he said that mama when i asked him if trump placed the lives of u.s. intelligence officers at risk over his mishandling of classified documents. let's listen. >> he absolutely could have put people's lives at risk for not returning these documents. and when i first read the indictment, it's shocking. we would not be in this

situation if donald trump just gave the documents back. >> we also had leon panetta on earlier who said the same thing. that lives were put at risk and even vladimir putin would've been salivating over the fact of documents floating around at mar-a-lago. are you surprised republicans haven't more forcefully condemned trump for this? >> know. i watched republicans for four years defend the absolute worst. stuff that ranged from abuses of power to bad policy decisions, abandoning conservative policies to terrible rhetoric, defending anti-semites, white nationalist, q and on -- i could go on and on. this is bad, but is it really worse than the six or seven years of stuff that we watched trump do? i'm not surprised at all.

and the fact is, they haven't been punished for defending him. in fact, they've been punished for criticizing him. they've been kicked out of the party in the cases of liz cheney and -- name your good conservative. defending donald trump is the norm. >> yeah. it's sometimes a one-way ticket out of the party. i wanted to switch gears and ask you about joe rogan. he is offering vaccine researcher dr. peter hotel is 1000 -- anti-fax or robert f kennedy jr. on his podcast. is this even a debate worth having? i've had the doctor on this program many times and he was one of so many experts in the field of virology and so on, who helped the public get through the covid pandemic. but, what do you think?

should he do that kind of debate? >> no, he should absolutely not. and dr. lopez is a lifelong public servant, working on a low cast cost vaccine for developing countries. he has devoted himself to science. he is a pediatrician and an incredibly good man. and an anti-vaxxer and we all know why these very wealthy tech bros are pumping him up at the last minute. because they know or are pretty sure that republicans are going to nominate an unelectable candidate, in general. it's very possible they will nominate trump and they are trying anything they can to prevent biden from getting re- elected. so they are propping up a third- party candidate. this is not rocket science. it's what's happening and it's

clear. you listen to him and the stuff he says and it doesn't make any sense and there is no reason that dr. peter should even bother with it. >> how do you think this rfk jr. situation should be handled? he is a crank. an anti-vaxxer and he's going to be part of the political dialogue for months on end because he is running in the democratic primary. what do you think? should people be debating him? should public health experts be debating him? >> yeah, but you want to do it in a fair setting. i don't think joe rogan as moderator would be the best setting in which to have a important and serious debate. i wish they would let joe biden debate because i would like to see in a better setting with a moderator who is may be a

journalist to do fact checking and push back, rfk and marianne williamson and anyone else who gets into the race. these are important topics and it's not just qualifying to be a crank. it's not disqualifying to be ignorant when you run for president. we all know that's the case. so, i wouldn't underestimate his appeal, with or without the propping up by the tech arose. he could appeal, so, yeah, he should debate, but in a setting that takes into account the seriousness of the topics. >> what should the white house or biden campaign do about this? if anything. should they just spend the next several months ignoring rfk jr.? >> he is an incumbent. generally parties don't have primaries when they have an incumbent president running again. i think they should ignore him.

he should not be the only person running for the primary in new hampshire. the biden administration if they have a primary, should have him on the ticket, but this idea that this guy has magically appeared who has connections to a lot of the right wing media is suddenly a challenger for the incumbent president is completely insane and i would not let these people set the narrative. he is an incumbent president running for re-election. he doesn't need to debate rfk jr. >> thanks so much, ladies. we really appreciate it. we will be right back. onor to the leukemia and lymphoma society. subaru. more than a car company.

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♪ farxiga ♪ some japanese-americans who are forced into internment camps during world war ii are speaking out in favor of reparations for black americans. >> thank you so much. thanks for your comments. >> reporter: their pain is

real. their vision, clear. >> let's ensure we craft legislation that preserves our land and our history. >> reporter: black californians being heard in california. their passion understood by amy. >> we trusted the country that we loved. >> the nation to which we had pledged loyalty had turned against us. >> reporter: she too. she was a first grader when she and her family and other japanese-americans were rounded up to the federal government and sent to internment camps. the united states is response during world war ii after japan bombed pearl harbor in 1941. >> they can have their guns out protecting us from the outside

they had their guns pointing at us. >> reporter: by the time her family left the wyoming camp months later -- >> i knew the united states experience took its toll. within four decades later, japanese-americans were granted $20,000 and a formal apology. >> if we didn't get reparations, we are still being put down by the government. i think that for me it would be hard. >> reporter: she's part of a growing wave of some port for black reparations, many jewish organizations among them. >> there's a growing realization that in 1865, slavery ended but that the bias morphed into other forms that not only put a target on the backs of americans, but also other people of color. >> reporter: don is one of nine

members on the task force, the first of its kind in any state. his parents, natives of the san francisco bay area were also in an internment camp. he even has a copy of the check his mother received from the federal government. >> there is no equivalence between four years in a concentration camp and 400 years of systematic discrimination. but i think japanese-americans do understand what it's like to be excluded on the basis of race and i think there is a sense that african-americans opened the door and everybody else walked through it. >> reporter: the task force is suggesting more than 100 proposals for california to address issues that have historically set the black community back. including health harms, mass incarceration and over policing, and housing discrimination. >> is tragic we are seeing this

decline in population. >> reporter: timothy allen simon says he's seen his black neighbors move out of his community. citywide in 1970, 13% of the population identified as black. now, that number stands at less than 6%. >> san francisco has lost the aliens and the cultural value and the economic contribution and innovation. all that has come out of the african-american community. >> reporter: simon says educating the public about that loss is key and allies are helping to shine light on that pain by exposing their own. is it important for black americans to get support from other americans? >> absolutely because when we were having trouble, black people were being good to us. it's not the race. it's human beings. >> let's lift every voice for special holiday. some of the biggest names in music return.

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federal reserve chief jerome powell hit the pause button on interest rate hikes and new evidence shows consumers keep spending as mortgage rates retreat. >> it is safe to peek at your 401(k) again. stockmarkets have been buoyant this summer. the s&p 500 posting its longest winning streak since 2021.

the stock market is entering a new market up more than 20% from the low. investor sharing evidence the economy remains resilient despite 15 months of aggressive rate hikes. the rate held steady last week, pausing to assess how well its inflation fighting campaign worked. inflation is still above the 2% target has clearly peaked and the fed chief almost marveled at how strong the market is. >> the labor market has surprised many, if not all analysts over the last couple of years with its extraordinary resilience. it's supporting spending, which is supporting hiring and it's really the engine that is driving the economy. >> consumer spending unexpectedly rose in may. the recession so many experts have predicted has not materialized yet. >> one of the defining features of a recession is jobs growth in aggregate and we have never

met that criteria over the last two years while everyone has been on recession watch. i do think it will become harder and harder for the economy to add jobs in the second half of the year. >> the rate hikes have an unpredictable lag time and the fed chief indicated two more to come. markets have been closed for the juneteenth holiday. congressional testimony from the fed chief wednesday and thursday. jim? an update on tonight's top stories. at deadly mass shooting in chicago. police have no suspects in custody. in st. louis missouri, one teenager is dead and nine others injured after a mass shooting there. another green was critically injured. police have a 17-year-old suspect in custody. secretary antony blinken met with his counterpart and other top candidates in china today.

if all goes well, he may get a face-to-face meeting with china's president, xi jinping. in other news, new video obtained exclusively by the british tabloid "the mirror" shows aides of former prime minister boris johnson partying it up at a 2020 christmas event and openly mocking the government's own covid lockdown rules. >> the footage shot at the conservative party headquarters is the first video evidence of a series of lockdown parties known as party-gate. its release comes just days after johnson resigned as a member of parliament after a powerful committee determined he had misled parliament about the gatherings.

th there is a new effort to use magic mushrooms as therapy. we'll explain it all next. we'll talk to somebody live who has tried it. that is our cnn correspondent david culver. he tried it. he'll talk about that next. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." that is a legitimate tax credit. so innovation refunds has really helped guide me through the process. just had to get a few of my records together, submit that, and they made it as painless as possible. i can't thank innovation refunds enough for what they did. ♪ ♪ let your love shine. book an appointment now with a bridal jewelry expt. at zales, the diamond store. i brought in ensure max protein with 30g of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uh...

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could so-called magic mushrooms be key to easing depression and anxiety or even to fighting substance abuse? they're being studied for potential therapeutic effects. just minutes from now, cnn's david culver takes us on a mind-altering journey on "the whole story." here's a preview. >> you describe a psilocybin experience as shaking the snow globe. what do you mean by that? >> sometimes, you know, to make progress, you've got to break things down. so there's something about how these compounds like psilocybin stimulate the serotonin system that opens up the mind and the brain to potential change.

>> dr. harris is going to see if psilocybin physically changes anything in my brain. >> how's is going in there? >> all good. >> we're going to do some structural scans now. >> with the cabling scan, we can look at the health of the fibers. we'll see their health before and after your trip to jamaica. >> and the trip while in jamaica. t trips. i guess there will be two of them. >> david culver joins us now. david, you tried magic mushrooms twice. what can you tell us about those experiences? >> yeah, two different trips as i mentioned in that clip, jim. these are two different dosing ceremonies as they call them as part of this therapeutic retreat. we have to stress it is a therapeutic retreat. this wasn't recreational. the retreat structure required preparation leading up to it and an integration period that followed the five-day retreat.

the biggest takeaway for me was two parts. one was certainly the personal experience of finding what i didn't really expect, and that was encountering kind of a peacefulness of some guilt that i had carried from losing loved ones in recent years and not being able to be there towards the final grieving period in particular. but then i think the other aspect, it's the folks you see there in these clips. it's the other participants. my being there and going through with this as a participant was, i think, primarily just to be a conduit of their stories. i think initially when we approached this and talked to them about doing it, they weren't comfortable having somebody who was going to be this outside observer. when we talked about my taking as a participant, that changed the dynamics. they open up in a very intimate, personal way. >> this is illegal at the federal level, but just this year, oregon legalized it for therapeutic use. are a lot of people using it there? what did you find?

>> so the rollout is just happening now. that's part of the reason why we wanted to go through with this jamaica retreat. they're operating in oregon, and they're one of many companies in what's a burgeoning billion dollar industry that's now rolling out. and the implementation, while it was legalized a couple years back in oregon, the implementation is just happening. there's a lot of regulations. there's licensed centers, so folks aren't going to be able to go in, pick up some mushrooms and take them. you have to do them on-site with licensed facilitators, and you've got to use mushrooms from licensed labs. so there's a lot of restrictions that are in place to try to keep this safe and secure. and the rollout is happening as you and i talk, jim. >> and what did doctors tell you about psilocybin, the long-term effects, what it might do to you? what can you tell us about that? >> naturally given i was going to participate in this, i

actually checked with my own doctor. she was fine with it. you know, she wanted to understand a bit about the setting and how it was not recreational so much as a therapeutic one. the preparation leading into this. i mean there's a lot of group therapeutic zoom calls that you're starting to get to know the other participants, starting to understand the science behind what the psilocybin might do to you and how quickly it might take effect. as far as the lingering effects, i think you could say i've had more of a profound, maybe even a spiritual takeaway than any sort of physical impact. overall it's been just something that i've sat with and kind of a peace of mind. >> that's what they call reporter involvement. david culver, thanks very much. can't wait to see the episode. really appreciate it. don't miss this new episode of "the whole story" with anderson cooper. it starts next only on cnn. reporting from washington, i'm jim acosta. i'll see you next weekend. have a great week, everybody.