WASHINGTON

Biden introduces new steps to curb U.S. gun violence

Vice President Joe Biden stood shoulder to shoulder Thursday with the attorney general and the top U.S. firearms official and declared the Obama administration will take two new steps to curb American gun violence.

One new policy will bar military-grade weapons that the United States sells or donates to allies from being imported back into the United States by private entities.

In the last eight years, the United States has approved 250,000 of those guns to come back, the White House said, arguing that some end up on the streets.

From now on, only museums and a few other entities like the government will be eligible to reimport military-grade firearms.

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SEOUL, South Korea

N. Korea kills entertainers for violating ban on porn

A North Korean firing squad last week executed a former girlfriend of leader Kim Jong Un and 11 other entertainers for allegedly violating laws banning pornography, a South Korean newspaper reported Thursday.

The report by Chosun Ilbo, an English-language newspaper of a Seoul media conglomerate, deemed the reported Aug. 20 executions a death blow to expectations that Kim would oversee a transition of his isolated and tyrannized people into a more open era.

Among the dozen performers shot to death while their families and former band members were forced to watch was Hyon Song Wol, a singer Kim reportedly courted a decade ago but was forced to abandon by his dictatorial father, Kim Jong Il.

Hyon was pictured by North Korean state television performing at a concert Aug. 8 in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, less than two weeks before her execution, Chosun Ilbo reported, posting a picture of the singer juxtaposed against one of Kim applauding at the concert.

The 12 members of the Unhasu Orchestra and the Wangjaesan Light Music Band were accused of violating anti-pornography laws by videotaping themselves having sex and selling copies of the tape to North Korean fans and in China.

 


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