Senate to vote today on background-check bill
WASHINGTON – The Senate set a long-awaited vote for today on a bipartisan plan for expanding background checks to more firearms buyers, with supporters facing a steeply uphill path to victory.
By scheduling the roll call, Senate leaders ensured a showdown about the cornerstone of an effort by gun control supporters to tighten firearms laws after December’s killings of 20 students and six aides at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
The Senate planned to vote on eight other amendments as well to a Democratic gun-control bill that besides expanding background checks, would tighten laws against gun trafficking and boost school safety aid.
They included Democratic proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, which are expected to lose; a Republican proposal requiring states to honor other states’ permits allowing concealed weapons, which faces a close vote; and a broad GOP substitute for the overall gun measure.
Russian mob ran celebrity poker games
NEW YORK – Nearly three dozen people were charged on Tuesday in what investigators said was a Russian organized crime operation that included illegal, high-stakes poker games for the rich and famous and threats of violence to make sure customers paid their debts.
Federal authorities in New York City weren’t naming names but said the poker players included pro athletes, Hollywood celebrities and Wall Street executives. None of them were charged.
The money-laundering investigation led to arrests Tuesday in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and elsewhere around the country. There also were FBI raids at a $6 million apartment in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and a prestigious Madison Avenue art gallery owned by two of the defendants.
George Venizelos, head of the New York FBI office, said the charges against 34 individuals “demonstrate the scope and reach of Russian organized crime.”
Associated Press
