This is VOA News. Via remote, I’m Diane Roberts.
U.S. President Joe Biden has signed into law the most sweeping American gun violence legislation in decades. AP correspondent Ben Thomas reports.
Saturday morning at the White House, President Biden signed the bipartisan compromise bill that seemed unimaginable until a recent series of mass shootings, including the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school.
“While this bill doesn’t do everything I want, it does include actions I’ve long called for that are gonna save lives.”
It toughens background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keeps firearms from more domestic violence offenders and helps states put in place laws making it easier for authorities to take weapons from people who are judged to be dangerous.
Most of its $13 billion cost will help bolster mental health programs and aid schools.
“I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never gonna give up. But this is a monumental day.”
Ben Thomas, Washington.
Another day, protests around the country after Friday Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. AP correspondent Mike ??? reports from outside the Supreme Court in Washington.
Here outside the Supreme Court where barricades are up and police stand guard, protesters continue to gather. Sarah Bentley says abortion is healthcare.
“If the Supreme Court is going to strike down the right to privacy and the right for women to access healthcare, I think that’s a very dangerous precedent for everyone.”
Claire ??? says overturning Roe v. Wade puts other laws in jeopardy.
“They’re coming after contraception, they’re coming after marriage equality.”
She is a lawyer who drove from Pittsburgh to protest.
“I had to come here because otherwise I would have sat in my house and cried.”
This is VOA News.
U.S. President Joe Biden is out to sustain the global alliance punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as he embarks on a 5-day trip to Europe as the four-month-old war shows no sign of abating and its aftershocks to global food and energy supplies are deepening.
Biden first joins a meeting of the Group of 7 leading economic powers in the Bavarian Alps of Germany and later travels to Madrid for a summit with leaders of the 30 NATO countries.
The visit comes as the global coalition to bolster Ukraine and punish Russia for its aggression has showed signs of fraying amid skyrocketing inflation in food and energy prices caused by the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his counterpart from Belarus Saturday that Moscow would supply Minsk with missile systems capable of carrying nuclear weapons, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
At a meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko expressed concern about what he calls “aggressive”, “confrontational” and “repulsive” policies of its neighbors Lithuania and Poland.
Lukashenko asked Putin to help Belarus mount, quote, a “symmetrical response,” end quote, to what he said were nuclear-armed flights by the U.S.-led NATO alliance near Belarus borders.
Up to 40,000 American National Guard (Army National Guard) soldiers across the country, or about 13 percent of the force, have not yet gotten the mandated COVID-19 vaccine, and as the deadline for shots looms, at least 14,000 of them have flatly refused and could be forced out of the service. More from VOA’s Tommie McNeil.
Guard soldiers have until the coming Thursday to get the vaccine. And according to data obtained by The Associated Press, between 20 percent to 30 percent of the Guard soldiers in six states are not vaccinated, and more than 10 percent in 43 other states still need shots.
Guard leaders say states are doing all they can to encourage soldiers to get vaccinated by the time limit. And they said they will work with the roughly 7,000 who have sought exemptions, which are almost all for religious reasons.
Tommie McNeil, VOA News, Washington.
Healthcare workers in Zimbabwe halted a five-day-old pay strike and returned to work Saturday, but union leaders warned they would resume the walkout if the government failed to make an improved wage offer within two weeks.
Thousands of nurses and doctors at state-run hospitals in the southern African country are demanding a hefty raise and wages in U.S. dollars due to a slide in the local currency and brisk inflation that has eroded the value of their earnings.
And recapping our top story, U.S. President Joe Biden has signed into law the most sweeping American gun violence legislation in decades.
Via remote, …