The week in wildlife – in pictures

A hare in a buckwheat field and armadillos and snakes challenged by wildfires in Bolivia and the Amazon

A rabbit sits in a buckwheat field at twilight near Herrnleis, Austria

Photograph: Christian Bruna/EPA

A wild forest elephant and calves bathe in the marshes of Bayanga Equatorial Forest, part of the Dzanga Sangha Reserve, the last refuge of forest elephants and central African gorillas, in south-western Central African Republic

Photograph: Florent Vergnes/AFP/Getty Images

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As the death toll in a mass shooting in Texas on Saturday rose to seven, Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic presidential candidate, used an appearance on live television to denounce America’s epidemic of gun violence as “fucked up”.

The former congressman from El Paso broke with convention when he told CNN’s State of the Union the polite rhetoric deployed by most politicians, of “thoughts and prayers”, was no longer adequate.

He was speaking hours after a chaotic shooting spree in Odessa and Midland left seven people including the gunman dead and a 17-month-old child shot in the face among more than 20 wounded.

Odessa police spokesman Steve LeSueur announced the rise in deaths from five to seven and said at least one person remained in a “life-threatening” condition.

Soon after 3pm on Saturday a man was stopped by Texas state troopers for failing to signal a turn. The man opened fire then fled, hijacking a mail truck and embarking on a rampage in which he shot people at random.

On Saturday officials said the 17-month-old boy was airlifted to Lubbock. A medical update on Sunday suggested the young boy was in “satisfactory condition”.

It was the second mass shooting in Texas in a month. O’Rourke, who has been at the forefront of calls for tougher gun laws since 22 people were killed at a Walmart in his home town on 3 August, recited the stark statistics.

On average, he said, the US was suffering 300 mass shootings a year. In a New York Times survey, 51 people were recorded to have died in such events in August alone.

“So yes, this is fucked up,” he said. “If we are not able to call it out we will continue to have this kind of bloodshed.”

As a sign of how polarised the gun debate is in Texas, no fewer than eight new laws came into effect on Sunday, dramatically loosening already lax controls. The legislation will allow Texans to carry guns into churches, synagogues and other places of worship, permit more guns to be deployed in schools and remove restrictions on licensed gun owners on how they store their firearms in vehicles.

O’Rourke is calling for universal background checks on all gun sales, a ban on the sale of AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles and a mandatory buy-back of those weapons.

The suspect in Odessa, described as a white male in his 30s, was chased and shot dead in a parking lot outside a cinema between Odessa and Midland, more than 10 miles from where he was pulled over.

A police update was expected later on Sunday.

In the aftermath of the shooting, confusion reigned. Police said two suspects were on the loose. The location of the shooting was wrongly announced.

The shooting began when state troopers pulled over a gold car on Interstate 20 for failing to signal a left turn, said a Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman. The driver “pointed a rifle toward the rear window of his car and fired several shots”, striking one of two troopers inside a patrol car. The gunman fled and two other officers were shot.

The gold car pulled up and the man was there and he had a very large gun and it was pointing at me

Shawna Saxton

Witnesses described gunfire near shopping plazas and busy intersections. One woman, Shauna Saxton, said she was driving with her husband and grandson in Odessa and had paused at a stoplight when they heard loud pops.

“I looked over my shoulder to the left and the gold car pulled up and the man was there and he had a very large gun and it was pointing at me,” she told TV station KOSA. Saxton said she was trapped because there were two cars in front of her.

“I started honking my horn. I started swerving and we got a little ahead of him and then for whatever reason the cars in front of me kind of parted,” she said, sobbing. She said she heard three more shots as she sped away.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, O’Rourke made reference to a video, apparently of the shooting in progress, which spread on social media on Saturday.

“I also just watched a video on Twitter of a family that is pinned to the ground, the children are crying,” he said. “They’re all Mexican American in a part of our country where Mexican Americans were targeted and hunted for their very ethnicity.”

The suspect in the El Paso shooting has been linked to a “manifesto” posted online which detailed far-right positions.

“People are living with fear,” O’Rourke said, “feel like they have targets on their backs right now. Kids afraid to go to school tomorrow morning. This is not right. Unacceptable.

“And I won’t accept it.”

Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, this week held two meetings about how to prevent mass shootings. He said he would visit Midland-Odessa on Sunday.

The vice-president, Mike Pence, said Donald Trump and his administration “remain absolutely determined” to work with Congress to “address and confront this scourge of mass atrocities in our country”. Trump, monitoring Hurricane Dorian from Camp David in Maryland, said he had spoken to attorney general William Barr.

Democrats competing with O’Rourke for the nomination called for gun reform. Days after El Paso, Trump said he was eager to implement “very meaningful background checks” and told reporters there was “tremendous support”. He later backed off.

Trump has called for greater attention to mental health. Some mental health professionals say such thinking is outdated and would have a minor impact.

In Odessa, Dustin Fawcett told reporters he was sitting in his truck at a Starbucks when he heard at least six gunshots less than 50 yards behind him. He spotted a white sedan with a shattered passenger window.

“Oh man,” he thought. “This is a shooting.”

Just two days after Thunberg disembarked from a yacht in New York, following two weeks on rough seas crossing from the UK, young protesters dominated the crowd of up to 1,000 outside the United Nations skyscraper in Manhattan.

They came together to demand politicians and older generations take urgent and comprehensive action to reverse the climate crisis.

Carrying hand-drawn placards with messages such as “United behind the science” and “Act now or we will”, children and young people of all ages surged into a park in front of the flags of the world outside the UN on Friday morning.

Thunberg sat cheerfully but pensively in the middle of the rally, which had a rather more earnest than festive atmosphere. Young speakers gave spontaneous speeches or led chants of “System change, not climate change” and “Don’t just watch us, join us”.

Alexandria Villaseñor, 14, who has been protesting every Friday outside the UN since December, was in her usual spot and said she had been inspired by Thunberg’s school strike campaign.

She said: “Greta being here will really galvanise students just because of how much of an inspiration she is. Everyone who’s been striking on Friday was really empowered by Greta and the action she was taking.”

Thunberg held her trademark “skolstrejk för klimatet” (Swedish for “school strike for climate”) sign, which she was seen carrying from the racing yacht on Wednesday, after refusing to take a flight to the US because of the polluting emissions.

Greta Thunberg outside the UN headquarters in New York, on 30 August. Photograph: Alba Vigaray/EPA

For Dana Henao, 16, from Brentwood, Long Island, Friday marked her first climate protest.

“The government isn’t taking enough action to protect the environment and all they care about is the money they make with corporations polluting the planet and I think we should put a stop to it,” she said. “The young people are the only ones taking action and we want to call attention to this.”

She added: “She [Greta] is really popular and she’s, like, the face of the movement.”

On Friday afternoon, Thunberg, Villaseñor and Xiye Bastida Patrick, 17, a Fridays for Future organiser, went inside the UN for an impromptu meeting with general assembly president María Fernanda Espinosa after receiving an invitation during the protest.

The trio were given a tour – including a preview of the general assembly podium, at which Thunberg will speak during next month’s climate action summit, and had a meeting with Espinosa, where they spoke about the summit, global heating, forest fires around the world, the Amazon fire and single-use plastics.

Villaseñor said the president was “very supportive”.

She said: “I said I want to see world leaders take climate action to reduce global greenhouse emissions and stay in line with the Paris agreement and also September 20 we will continue pushing and demanding that they do.”

Thunberg told the Guardian in an interview shortly after disembarking from the special “zero emissions” yacht that she wanted “a concrete plan, not just nice words” from leaders about taking urgent and comprehensive action to head off the climate crisis.

Villaseñor, who is thought to be America’s first school striker to join the movement and has been exchanging tips with Thunberg online, had been among the group of American climate activists who welcomed her to the US when her yacht docked at North Cove Marina.

She said: “What’s really important about Greta being here today is it’s the start of something new. Because with the climate summit coming up it’s the way for all the youth to unite here and send a message to world leaders at that climate summit. So even though Greta’s voyage on Malizia ended a couple of days ago, the climate action we will take on this continent has really just begun.”

Alexandria Villaseñor participates in a youth climate change protest in front of the UN headquarters in New York, on 30 August. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters

On Wednesday, Thunberg said her generation is having to “clean up” the climate crisis. She also told Donald Trump, who denies there is a climate crisis, to “listen to the science”.

On Friday, Almy Batis, 21, a student at Arizona State University, said she saw Friday as a landmark moment for America’s climate movement.

“This is a huge moment that Greta is finally here and there are Fridays for Future events scattered across the US. Her movement is going to be amplified in North America … and grow a lot.”

Esme Ruiz, eight, from New York, attending with her father, said: “The world is literally melting right in front of our eyes and no-one even realises it. We need to teach them..It’s hard to make changes sometimes, but if you need to save the world, I’d do it rather than die.”

Meanwhile, a Brooklyn teacher said she has seen a “Greta effect” in her school.

With her coincidental name, but with different spelling, Gretta Reed, 28, said: “In the last two years I’ve seen a big surge in kids really vocalising. Now that they’re organising together, I think it’s really powerful.”