Biden signs gun safety bill into law : NPR

Biden signs gun safety bill into law : NPR
Biden signs gun safety bill into law : NPR

President Biden signs into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act gun safety bill, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Saturday as first lady Jill Biden looks on.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP


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Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

President Biden signs into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act gun safety bill, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Saturday as first lady Jill Biden looks on.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

President Biden on Saturday signed into law the first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years.

The signing comes just over a month after the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school killed 19 children and two adults. That attack came 10 days after a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket killed 10 Black people.

“While this bill doesn’t do everything I want, it does include actions I’ve long called for that are going to save lives,” Biden said just before signing the measure.

“Today, we say more than enough. We say more than enough,” he added. “At a time when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential.”

The legislation, which passed the House

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July 4, 2022 by LAW

Flood insurance fight in Mayfield

Though the community of Mayfield hasn’t had a flood for decades, residents are now shelling out thousands for flood insurance.

MAYFIELD, Pa. — Editors note: A previous version of this story indicated a $2.3 million federal grant was awarded to Mayfield Borough for the completion of a levee project. While the borough has been awarded a grant to clean the river of vegetation, the article has been updated to reflect that a possible $2.3 million grant has not yet been awarded.

Mayfield Borough officials tell Newswatch 16 that water from the nearby Lackawanna River hasn’t threatened this community in more than 50 years.

Despite a significant levee, many of the homes and businesses are now considered to be in the flood plain, and that distinction is costing them. 

The Lackawanna River flows gently on the outskirts of Mayfield, the water seldom rising up the walls of the levee that stretches more than a mile and a half. 

Mayor Al Chelik says the borough has seen significant flooding once, back in the early 1960s, but since the levee was installed, it hasn’t flooded at all. 

Still, FEMA says the levee doesn’t meet its criteria and recently changed the floodplain to

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July 3, 2022 by INSURANCE

Florida man wrongfully convicted of murder is freed by an attorney fresh out of law school

Florida man wrongfully convicted of murder is freed by an attorney fresh out of law school

“Who remembers where they were on a given night five months ago?” Figgers said.

“I never asked anybody to believe what I was saying,” James said. “What I did was say for any and everybody to simply admit that if what I was saying was true, that I had been wrongly convicted. But the only way you can reach that conclusion is to delve into the depths of my situation. Natlie Figgers did. I owe her my life.” 

Figgers, the wife of Freddie Figgers, an inventor and founder of Figgers Communication in Florida, where she had been head of HR, said releasing her emotions helped break the case, especially when in May 2021 she approached Dorothy Wilson, the prosecution’s crucial witness. 

“She didn’t want to give any statements,” Figgers said of Wilson. “She didn’t want to talk to people for years. When I went to interview her, she cracked the door open. I knew at that time she was giving me an opportunity to show her why she should do the right thing. It was such an emotional point for me, I couldn’t help but cry to her. And I told her, ‘If God tells you to give me

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July 3, 2022 by LAW

Fired-up N.J. Senate President calls opposition to costly auto insurance plan ‘nonsense’

New Jersey’s top lawmaker came out swinging in fierce defense of his legislation that could force more than 1 million people in the state to pay more for car insurance each year.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari on Monday defended the bill that would hike the minimum amount of liability insurance in the Garden State from its current $15,000 coverage to $25,000 beginning in 2023, and a minimum of $35,000 starting in 2026. He says it’s long overdue to protect victims of crashes.

“This is all nonsense,” said Scutari, D-Union, during a Senate committee hearing, arguing the cost to drive in the state would not immediately increase.

“(Insurers) cannot raise rates for a minimum of three and a half years. They cannot substantiate a raise in rates when we go to $25,000 in coverage. The industry cannot substantiate it. It is an impossibility. The Department of Banking and Insurance will not allow it,” he said.

“The people of New Jersey need this Legislature to protect them from themselves because we tell them what they need to get, and that’s what they get.”

He added taxpayers are the ones who are stuck with the costs to “subsidize unpaid medical bills” and

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July 2, 2022 by INSURANCE

Texas abortion law: What the Supreme Court ruling means here

Abortions up to about six weeks in pregnancy can resume at some clinics in Texas for now after a Harris County District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday that blocks an abortion ban that was in place before Roe v. Wade.

“It is a relief that this Texas state court acted so quickly to block this deeply harmful abortion ban,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a press release. “This decision will allow abortion services to resume at many clinics across the state, connecting Texans to the essential health care they need. Every hour that abortion is accessible in Texas is a victory.”

A hearing has been set for July 12 to decide on a more permanent restraining order.

However, Tuesday’s ruling is only a stopgap measure that, at most, will extend abortion access in the state for two months.

Paul Linton, an attorney for the anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life, said he thought a higher court would soon vacate the temporary restraining order and that the pre-Roe abortion ban should stand.

“I don’t think it has any merit,” Linton said. “I don’t think there’s any plausible argument

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July 2, 2022 by LAW
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