Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker To Host Community Event In Support Of Background Checks For Every Gun Sale

ALIQUIPPA, Pa., May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker will host a community event with Police Chief Andre Davis, Rob Conroy of CeaseFirePA and community members to demand action from Pennsylvania lawmakers to reduce gun violence. In April, Senators Pat Toomey and Robert Casey stood with 88 percent of Pennsylvania voters and voted to expand background checks to private gun sales at gun shows and online. Pennsylvania Representatives Mike Fitzpatrick, Pat Meehan, Matt Cartwright, Robert Brady and Chaka Fattah have co-sponsored identical legislation in the House.

WHAT: Community event in support of expanded background checks

WHO: Aliquippa Mayor Dwan Walker
Aliquippa Police Chief Andre Davis
Rob Conroy, Western PA Coordinator, CeaseFirePA
Antonio Pitts, Funeral Director, Pitts Funeral Home

WHEN: TOMORROW, Friday, May 3, 2013, 1:00 PM

WHERE: Aliquippa City Hall
581 Franklin Ave.
Aliquippa, PA 15001

RSVP: Dave Scholnick, Dave@MAIG.org

About Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Since its creation in April 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown from 15 members to more than 900 mayors from across the country. We have more than 1.5 million grassroots supporters, making us the largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization in the country.  The bipartisan coalition, co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, has united the nation's mayors around these common goals: protecting communities by holding gun offenders accountable; demanding access to crime gun trace data that is critical to law enforcement efforts to combat gun trafficking; and working with legislators to fix weaknesses and loopholes in the law that make it far too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns.  Learn more at www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org

CONTACT
Dave Scholnick, dscholnick@maig.org or 717-723-8864
Kate Downen at kdownen@maig.org or 406-224-5056

SOURCE Mayors Against Illegal Guns

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Lawmakers question U.S. government failure to protect Iranian dissidents in Iraq, continued funding for Iraq government, says Iranian American Community of Northern California

Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock And Coalition Of Faith And Community Members To Call On Congress To End Gun Violence On The Anniversary Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death

Mayors Against Illegal Guns Releases New Ad and Research on How Weak Gun Laws Turn Domestic Abuse into Murders; www.DemandAction.org

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NEW YORK, April 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Kimberly Brusk, a domestic violence and gun violence survivor and Halsey Knapp, a member of the Trinity Presbyterian Church and lawful gun owner, will call on Congress to support comprehensive and enforceable universal background checks. 

In conjunction with this event, Mayors Against Illegal Guns released on Wednesday new research findings highlighting the disturbing link between guns and violence against women and an ad featuring Elvin Daniel, a gun owner and NRA member whose sister Zina Daniel was murdered in the Brookfield, Wis., spa shooting in October 2012.  Several days after she obtained a restraining order against her violent estranged husband – which made him a prohibited purchaser – he bought a semiautomatic handgun from a private online seller without a background check, which he used the next day to murder her and two other people.  If Zina and her husband lived in nearby Michigan, where a background check is required for every handgun sale, she and the other victims might still be alive today.  In fact, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has found that in states that require a background check for every handgun sale, 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by intimate partners.

The event in Atlanta is part of a series of events hosted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, in conjunction with Organization For Action and other groups supporting background checks, to continue the push for commonsense gun laws like comprehensive and enforceable background checks while members of Congress are back in their home states on recess. The bipartisan coalition has been hosting events across the country featuring mayors, faith leaders, moms, law enforcement officials, gun violence survivors and family members of victims who will speak about the need for comprehensive gun laws and the disturbing link between domestic violence and guns. 

WHAT: Coalition of faith leaders, community members and gun safety advocates will call on Congress to support comprehensive and enforceable background checks.

WHO:  Reverend Dr. Raphael Warnock
Kimberly Brusk, a domestic violence and gun violence survivor
Halsey Knapp, a member of the Trinity Presbyterian Church and lawful gun owner

WHEN:  Thursday, April 4 at 2:30 PM

WHERE: Ebenezer Baptist Church
Horizon Sanctuary
400 Auburn Ave, NE
Atlanta, GA 30312

About Mayors Against Illegal Guns

Since its creation in April 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown from 15 members to more than 900 mayors from across the country. We have more than 1.5 million grassroots supporters, making us the largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization in the country.  The bipartisan coalition, co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, has united the nation's mayors around these common goals: protecting communities by holding gun offenders accountable; demanding access to crime gun trace data that is critical to law enforcement efforts to combat gun trafficking; and working with legislators to fix weaknesses and loopholes in the law that make it far too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns.  Learn more at www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org

CONTACTS
Christina Freundlich: christina.freundlich@gmail.com or 314-302-0602
Erika Soto Lamb: esotolamb@rabengroup.com or 646-580-5281

SOURCE Mayors Against Illegal Guns

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Community, Environmental And Labor Coalition Applaud Missouri Attorney General For Legal Action Against Republic Services

Residents' and Workers' Health and Safety Must Be Protected; Cost of Dealing with Effects of Bridgeton Landfill Fire, Radioactive Wastes and Remediation Should Not Fall on Missouri Taxpayers

ST. LOUIS, Mo., March 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Teamsters Joint Council 13 in St. Louis, Missouri Jobs with Justice and Missouri Coalition for the Environment, applauded Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster for taking legal action against Republic Services [NYSE: RSG] yesterday for the ongoing environmental health and safety crisis at the Bridgeton/Westlake landfill.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100127/IBTLOGO)

Republic's Bridgeton landfill has been in the news recently due to citizen complaints about persistent stench, the expanding underground fire, a recent explosion, and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) investigation of radiation levels and groundwater contamination. The landfill is part of the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site where radioactive nuclear weapons wastes are buried.

According to the Missouri Office of the Attorney General, the lawsuit (docket number: 13SL-CC01088) seeks to force Republic to address the odor problems and correct the environmental violations, as well as to provide remedies to help local residents and businesses deal with the ongoing effects of the burning waste. The lawsuit also seeks to ensure that Republic, rather than taxpayers, pays for the costs of experts hired by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to perform ongoing, intensive environmental testing.

The DNR had officially requested the attorney general bring legal action against Republic Services just last Thursday.

"We commend the Attorney General for taking on Republic Services," said Marvin Kropp, President of Teamsters Joint Council 13. "We also commend the Department of Natural Resources for referring Republic to the AG's office due to its egregious failures.

"Less than two weeks ago our coalition sponsored a briefing, during which independent experts talked with public officials about their assessment of the risks posed by the fire and the nuclear weapons wastes at the site. We have already contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in this regard. Should the landfill fire reach the radioactive wastes it would be catastrophic.

"The families who live, and work around this landfill should not be exposed to these risks for one minute longer. The attorney general's office should also see to it that the full present and future cost of dealing with the Bridgeton landfill fire and its remediation fall squarely on Republic, and not on Missouri taxpayers, local businesses or residents," Kropp said.

"Workers and residents in North Saint Louis County and St. Charles must be protected from Republic's negligence. This is not the first environmental disaster at a Republic-owned landfill - for the past nine years a major uncontrolled underground fire has been raging at Republic's Countywide Landfill in Ohio," said Joan Suarez of Missouri Jobs with Justice. "The company just settled an 800-plaintiff lawsuit there, but the site is still a disaster. We encourage the Office of the Attorney General to do everything in its power to force Republic Services to clean up this site for good."

"Communities around the landfill have long smelled the stench coming from Republic's landfill, but the problem could be much bigger than that," said Ed Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. "The EPA detected radioactivity in the air when it flew its anti-terrorism ASPECT plane over the landfill, we want EPA to disclose its data and infrared readings, and fully characterize the wastes and the site.  Assurances that the landfill fire and radioactive wastes will not become one big problem have not been adequately backed up by data being made available to the public.  Full disclosure is needed."

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Missouri Jobs with Justice, and Missouri Coalition for the Environment

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