america becomes the first country in the world to approve covid vaccines for babies. hello and welcome to bbc news. polling stations have opened across france in the final round of voting for parliamentary elections. at stake is control of the 577 seat national assembly, where the liberal party founded by president emmanuel macron has held sway for the last five years. but, president macron s candidates are facing strong opposition in the form of an alliance of left wing parties. i m joined now by our correspondent hugh schofield. only two months since emmanuel macron won the presidency convincingly, much of a challenge that he face this time round? it is that he face this time round? it is a big challenge. that he face this time round? it 3 a big challenge, surprising challenge, not from the far this time. but from the left. this coalition which has been created by the force of will of one man, jean luc melenchon, the man who came third in the presidential election, who ca
hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world. polling stations have opened across france, in the final round of voting for parliamentary elections. at stake is control of the five hundred and seventy seven seat national assembly, where the liberal party founded by president emmanuel macron has held sway for the last five years. he held sway for the last five years. is just voting here placed he isjust voting here. he has placed his vote and we saw earlier marine le pen and jean luc bell on show, his two main rivalsjust two months ago, also placing their votes. the situation with the presidential election was that in the end, emmanuel macron won with a fairly decisive victory, but marine le pen had a lot of popular support and it was predicted that the vote may have been tighter than it was in the end, but the issue at stake there was the cost of living and french voters voicing concern that emmanuel macron was not focusing on it in the same way that mari
set to bring the rail network to a grinding halt from tuesday they are the biggest strikes in decades. instead of 20,000 trains on a normal day, just one in five services may run. government says children heading to take exams or patients to medical appointments will face disruption. but under pressure to take part in talks with the unions it says it won t. train operating companies have to settle this. i don t think there is any need for the strikes at all and i appeal directly to people working for the railways, you are being led down a cul de sac by the union leadership telling you there is no pay rise when there is, trying to create some kind of class war when there is none to be had. we want people to be paid more, we want to sensible reforms and modernisation of our railways so we can run it for the passengers. the government says it has spent billions propping up the railways in the pandemic and it now wants to see them modernised. the union which was part of the cost
participate in vent which is what they were planning. people don t want everyone to forget what happened in orlando six years ago. senseless. happens all the time. really we need to pay respect for things like that. i m pamela brown in washington. you are live in the cnn newsroom. . it is 19 days since 19 young children were slaughtered in uvalde, texas, with 2 teachers and the senate is taking a step to gun safety. here are the provisions under discussion. funding for mental health resources. red flag laws. expanded background checks. addressing the boyfriend loophole and straw purchasing and clarifying the definition of a firearms dealer. if there s attempt to filibuster the legislation you need ten members from the gop and the democrats to end it. saying we can t fail the american people again president biden is pushing for a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, strengthening the background checks and enacting safe storage and repealing gun mrveers.
thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell has more news right now. right now on andrea mitchell report, ukraine s president zelenskyy is in washington in a last ditch effort to persuade reluctant lawmakers for billions more in aid. republicans are tieing it to more money for the border. also, president trump reverses course at the last minute and says he will not testify as a closing defense witness in today as new york civil trial despite previous claims that he would. this is our new nbc des moines register poll shows president, former president polling higher with iowa caucusgoers than any previous republican at this stage. steve kornacki will break it all down at the big board. plus, the recognition of penn s president shifts the attention to harvard and mitt after last week s testimony by the presidents of all three universities. leaders of harvard are meeting today. and the abortion debate heating up in texas with a state supreme court court now bloc