Minnesota Gov Tim Walz strongly criticized Ohio Sen JD Vance's recent remarks about school shootings during a speech at the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner in Washington, DC, on Saturday, according to USA Today.

"It's a fact of life that some people are gay," Walz said. "But you know what's not a fact of life? Our children being shot dead in schools."

Walz was responding to comments Vance made Thursday at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, where the senator called school shootings a "fact of life" and advocated for increased school security measures. Vance's remarks came one day after a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, that left four people dead and injured eight students and one teacher.

"I don't like that this is a fact of life," Vance had said. "But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools."

Speaking to approximately 3,500 attendees at the HRC dinner, Walz highlighted his and Vice President Kamala Harris' records on LGBTQ+ rights. He noted that Harris was among the country's first officials to officiate same-sex marriages.

Walz also shared his personal experience as a high school teacher in Minnesota, where he served as the faculty advisor for his school's first gay-straight alliance club in 1999. He mentioned that one of the students who helped start the alliance, Jacob Reitan, was present at the dinner. "It's easy to be an ally, what really matters is knowing who's going to be at your side to stand up when it's hard," Walz said.

Throughout his speech, Walz repeatedly criticized Vance and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. He accused the Trump administration of inaction on issues like childhood poverty and childcare costs. "They didn't do anything on lowering childcare costs," Walz said, before referencing a recent Trump proposal to use tariffs to fund childcare. "Did you hear? He's got a plan on childcare costs that no one in the world understood a damn word about."

Here's Colin Gray, the father of the Apalachee High School shooter, at his first court appearance after being charged with murder in Georgia.

He's facing up to 180 years in prison for giving his son the AR-platform gun to use in the shooting.

Good!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/FKytbTVGBJ

— Art Candee (@ArtCandee) September 6, 2024

 While criticizing the Republican ticket, Walz emphasized the importance of Democrats running on a concrete plan rather than simply hoping for victory. He outlined several policy goals, including lowering taxes for working families, enacting family and medical leave, and passing the Equality Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

"You look around this room, you can feel hope. We hope we win this election. We hope we pass these laws. We hope we lift people out of poverty," Walz said. "But my wife always reminds me of this, it's not a damn plan. It's not a plan to hope we win this election. We've got to have a plan. We've got to work for it," he added.

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Two students wounded in Serbia's first mass school shooting were in critical condition on Thursday, health officials said, as the country prepared for three days of national mourning.

The suspected shooter, a 13-year-old boy, surrendered on Wednesday, police said, after taking two handguns belonging to his father and killing eight students and a security guard in their school in the capital Belgrade. A teacher and six students were wounded. They are being treated at the Tirsova Hospital and the city's University Hospital.

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"The girl who underwent an urgent surgery yesterday due to head injuries... remains in critical condition and in intensive care," Sinisa Ducic, the acting director at the city's Tirsova hospital, told reporters. Mass shootings in Serbia are rare and this was the first-ever school shooting in the Balkan country, prompting the government to announce tougher curbs on gun ownership and to declare three days of national mourning from Friday. President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday announced a moratorium on new gun licenses other than for hunting, a revision of existing permits, enhanced surveillance of shooting ranges, and of how members of the public store their weapons.

The suspected shooter used two pistols that belonged to his father, police said on Wednesday. The guard and three girls were shot in a hallway. A teacher and students in a history class were then shot, police said.

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"There's a shooting at my school I think," Ben texted to his father.

"So you are safe. Tell me that you are safe. Please," his father texted back.

"There's dead people … omg abba [Dad]… scariest shit ever abba," Ben responded.

When his father begged his son to assure him he was safe, Ben wrote, "We can't make noise … don't call me … I love you too."

Ben's mother, Levana, said that her son, who is in the ninth grade, was in a classroom on the third floor, where the shooter opened fire.

"I tried to contact with my son and he didn't answer. From the moment it happened, only eight minutes went by until he made contact, but in my mind, it was an eternity," Levana said. She said her son had seen "difficult sights, bodies lying on the floor covered with flowers and teddy bears they'd gotten for Valentine's Day."

Levana said her family had been in Parkland for 17 years.

"It's a really quiet suburban neighborhood. Everyone here is well-off. The school is one of the best high schools in the area," she said.

Noa Golan, 16, another Israeli student at the school, said, "We heard shots and screams. My teacher told us to run outside, so that's what I did. When I left the school gates I called my mom in hysterics."

Noa's mother, Limor Golan, said, "Noa called, frightened, and screamed that she had heard shots. She could barely breathe. She couldn't get the words out. I told her to lie down on the ground and not move, but in the end, she left school and made it home. The rest of the parents and I had a hard time getting to the kids because all the streets were blocked off."

Limor Golan said that when her daughter arrived home, she texted her friends who were still at the school.

"So as not to stress them [further], she texted that no one had been killed and they told her that they were hiding under a table, with orders from the teacher to silence their phones so the shooter wouldn't hear them," Golan said.

"The school is fenced and guarded, so we can't understand how the shooter got into the ninth-grade building holding a really big gun. I would never have believed something like this could happen in our area," she added.

Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan from the local Temple Beth Chai told Israel Hayom that he had met with the family of Jaime Guttenberg, 14, one of the 17 students murdered on Wednesday.

"I met Jaime's brother, Jesse. He's in the 11th grade. He heard the shots. He lost his sister, and now he's saying he's not going back to school. What do you do with that?" Kaplan said.

Kaplan has lived in Parkland for 30 years and says the excellent schools are one of the things that attract people to the community. He said the Jewish community – which lost five young people in the shooting – is occupied with arrangements for the funerals and the shivas, the traditional seven-day mourning period.

In a heartbreaking post on his Facebook page, Jaime's father, Fred Guttenberg, wrote: "My heart is broken. Yesterday, Jennifer Bloom Guttenberg and I lost our baby girl to a violent shooting at her school. We lost our daughter and my son Jesse Guttenberg lost his sister. I am broken as I write this trying to figure out how my family gets through this. … Hugs to all and hold your children tight."

As Parkland mourned, authorities said Thursday that shooter Nikolas Cruz, 19, had legally purchased the assault rifle he used and may have foreshadowed the attack in a social media comment investigated by the FBI last year.

New details about Cruz's troubled background and gun ownership emerged as he appeared in court to face formal charges of carrying out the second-deadliest mass shooting at a public school in U.S. history.

Authorities also shed more light on how he managed to get away after the massacre by blending in with students fleeing the school, then casually spent more than an hour drifting through a Walmart store and visiting two fast-food outlets before he was arrested.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation disclosed that it received a tip in September about an online message that read: "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." The comment had been posted to someone else's YouTube video by a person using the name Nikolas Cruz, now presumed to be the same person as the suspect in the Florida shooting.

However, FBI agents had no information pointing to the "time, location or true identity" of the person behind the message, Robert Lasky, special agent in charge of the FBI's Jacksonville office, told reporters.

YouTube ultimately removed the message, and the FBI's inquiry was dropped until the name Nikolas Cruz surfaced again in connection with Wednesday's massacre.

Authorities say the gunman, identified as a former student at the school who had been expelled for disciplinary problems, walked into the school shortly before dismissal time, pulled a fire alarm, and began shooting as students and teachers streamed out of classrooms into the halls.

The suspect was armed with an AR-15-style semiautomatic assault rifle and numerous ammunition cartridges. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz legally purchased the weapon.

Cruz was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and made a brief initial court appearance on Thursday, in which he was ordered to be held without bond. He spoke only two words – "Yes ma'am" – when the judge asked him to confirm his name.

Cruz's court-appointed lawyer said her client had expressed remorse for his crimes.

"He's a broken human being," public defender Melissa McNeill told reporters.

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