Tuesday morning news - May 31, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Biden presses for new gun laws in wake of Uvalde shooting » President Biden is renewing calls for new gun laws in the wake of last week’s Texas school shooting.

Speaking outside the White House, next to his Marine One helicopter, he told reporters that high capacity magazines should not be available to the general public.

BIDEN: Makes no sense to be able to purchase something that can fire up to 300 rounds.

He also wants to ban what he calls assault weapons, AR-15s and the like. The shooter in Uvalde reportedly wielded an AR-style rifle.

Republican Congressman and Afghanistan War veteran, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, said he is among a growing group of Republican lawmakers who are open to those discussions.

KINZINGER: Look, it’s a journey of getting sick of seeing the mass shootings. And one of the things that I believe that for some reason is a very rare thing is that as a person that appreciates and believes in the Second Amendment, we have to be the ones putting forward reasonable solutions to gun violence.

Kinzinger said he supports raising the minimum age to own a firearm to 21.

But fellow GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy Seal, says we should be focused on securing our schools.

CRENSHAW: What we need to do is harden schools in a very serious way. There is no reason every school can’t have an armed guard at it at all times.

He noted that there was not an armed officer inside the school at the time of the shooting.

The Justice Department is also probing the police response.

Pacific season's 1st hurricane makes landfall in Mexico » A powerful hurricane slammed into tourist beaches and fishing villages in Mexico on Monday. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Hurricane Agatha roared ashore about 5 miles west of Puerto Angel as a strong Category 2 storm.

It whipped palm trees and drove tourists and residents into shelters with sustained winds of more than 100 miles per hour.

National emergency officials have assembled a task force of thousands of people to assist in search and rescue efforts as needed. Officials warned of dangerous storm surge and flooding from heavy rains. And, authorities have reported rock and mudslides blocking some area roads.

Agatha is the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in May in the eastern Pacific.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

EU leaders divided over Russia oil embargo » European Union leaders huddled on Monday in a renewed show of support for Ukraine. But they are still struggling over how to end Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.

At the start of a two-day summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tried to manage expectations, regarding new sanctions on Russian oil.

LEYEN: My expectations are low that it will be solved in the next 48 hours. But I’m confident that thereafter, there will be a possibility.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the bloc's 27 leaders by video.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking in Ukrainian]

He again urged leaders to step up sanctions against Russia’s energy sector. The EU gets about 40 percent of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia.

Von der Leyen recently announced a sixth round of sanctions against Russia, but those plans have hit a snag. The EU initially aimed to phase out imports of Russian crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.

But some countries that are especially reliant on Russian energy are reportedly telling EU leaders that they cannot sign on to tougher measures anytime soon.

Hungary, for example, gets more than 60 percent of its oil and 85 percent of its natural gas from Russia.

Gas prices hit another record high » Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has of course contributed to rising gas prices, which have hit another record high in the United States.

Patrick De Haan with Gasbuddy.com said Monday…

DE HAAN: The national average is up about 2.5 cents per gallon in the last week. We are looking at the highest Memorial Day ever at the pump. The national average at $4.60. That’s nearly $1.60 higher than where it was just a year ago.

And De Haan said gas prices will likely head higher. He added that demand for gas is already seasonally soft, and as prices continue to climb, demand will likely dip further, which could eventually put some downward pressure on prices.

Kansas has the lowest average price at the moment, $4.13 per gallon. California, as usual, the highest in the nation with a per gallon average of $6.15.

3 more bodies found after Georgia boat crash; man charged » In Savannah, Georgia, Coast Guard searchers have recovered the bodies of three missing boaters after two vessels collided on a Georgia river, raising the death toll of the weekend crash. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Authorities found two people dead shortly after the vessels collided on Saturday on the Wilmington River. The recovery of three more bodies brings the death toll from the accident to five.

Police arrested one of the surviving boaters and charged him with boating under the influence. They identified him as 45-year-old Mark Christopher Stegall.

The Coast Guard said one of the boats had six people aboard and the other carried three people. At least four people were taken to hospitals.

The crash is the second involving a boat and serious injuries on the Wilmington River this month. A local businessman was killed in a crash on May 5th.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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