5 things to know Wednesday

Uvalde and Buffalo survivors, families to testify before House committee

Nine witnesses will testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday about the mass killings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the racially motivated massacre of 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in a Black neighborhood. Lawmakers are holding the hearing amid a scourge of gun violence that has resulted in more than 200 mass shootings this year, according to statistics compiled by The Washington Post. In the past three weeks, mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde and Tulsa in Oklahoma, have shocked the nation and driven debate. Witnesses will, most notably, include Miah Cerrillo, an 11-year-old who smeared herself with her slain friend’s blood and played dead to survive the Uvalde shooting. Victims’ parents, a pediatrician, gun safety advocates, the president of a teachers’ union and the Buffalo police commissioner also are expected to participate. A package of gun-control legislation is expected to pass the House this week. But it will likely stall in the Senate.

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