dangerous people s hands. also this hour, breaking news, a showdown in international waters. the u.s. navy says they stopped iran from suspected attempts to seize two oil tankers. and just 48 hours ago, scorched earth, the new unofficial hottest day in human recordkeeping. we re going to begin the hour, though, with the number 351. that s the total number of mass shootings in the united states so far this year according to the gun violence archive. it affected many american cities this july 4th weekend. a shooting at a block party on sunday in baltimore left two dead and 28 injured. in philadelphia, five were killed including a teen boy. and more than a thousand miles away in fort worth, texas, three people died after gunfire broke out. on independence day, a celebration turned tragic in louisiana leaving three people dead. police there say it was hard to reach victims because of so many parked vehicles belonging to families and friends in the crowds. in our nation s capi
reporter: there s certainly more people out here today than we ve seen in days past, especially because today we know exactly what we will get decisions on because it s the last day. you mentioned those two big cases, of course at the end of pride month. that case that has to do with whether or not a web designer can refuse to design a wedding website for a gay couple. we could see some reaction to that. the biggest one we re watching for is on student loans, whether or not biden s student loan forgiveness program will stand. the biden administration was using a congressional act started after 9/11 in 2003. it was continued through the pandemic, even invoke bid betsy devoss under the trump administration. can student loans be forgiven in their entirety forever? this would affect about 43,000 people, sorry, we re starting to get some decisions just in now. so i m going to go listen for what those are, and i said 43,000, that s 43 million people, and i ll be back to you when
Elon Musk's X Corp. faced a setback as it failed to prevent the implementation of a California law aimed at regulating harmful content on social media platforms.
encourage the proper flow of information, and they also emphasize that in all of these cases that there are independent decisions being made in the ultimate end of the day by the social media companies themselves. so this is very early in the legal process. there s a ladder it still would climb if the white house or justice department does decide to appeal here. a lot of questions about this case and the implications of what the judge is enjoining. let s put those to barbara. the judge hasn t made a final ruling in the case but writes that the republicans attorney general have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far reaching and widespread censorship campaign. and says they re likely to succeed on the merits of their first amendment free speech claim. what do you make of the ruling? i think it s important to separate two things. one is the opinion itself where this judge writes 155 pages is clearly swinging from the fences, buys
this, today s decision seems to erect a bulwark. no, no, no, speech is for everybody. we protect the speech that we hate. racially protected, racially offensive speech is protected. the last thing i ll say on this is going back to masterpiece cake shop, it s a really interesting concurrence that seems salient where thomas writing with gorsuch joining, said there s a strong free speech claim and that the free speech claim cannot be kind of even though it s not at issue in the masterpiece cake case by issues like the come peming governmental interest in restricts race. if you re going to allow individuals to burn a 25 foot cross, which is a prior case, on free speech grounds, why on earth could you not allow an individual to exercise a compelled affirmation case on the basis of race. it seems like a slippery