Today is Friday, March 12th, and you're listening to The Morning Announcements.

I'm Sammy Sage.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which

is legislation aimed at strengthening background checks on firearm sales and transfers.

The bill passed by a 237-203 vote.

Eight Republicans supported the bill and just one Democrat voted against it.

However, the chances of this bill passing the Senate and becoming law are extremely low.

Due to...you guessed it, the filibuster.

Next, we have quite a groundbreaking headline.

Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, is expected to become the first city to give black residence reparations.

In 2019, the city approved a measure to build a reparations fund that would financially

compensate its black residence in order to address the wealth and opportunity gaps due to historical racism.

The revenue for the fund comes from community donations, as well as a 3% tax collected on the sale of recreational cannabis.

Horace Marijuana saving the day as usual.

The city is expected to vote at the end of the month to distribute the money and under the first phase,

residents who qualify would get $25,000 to use towards home ownership,

home improvement, and mortgage assistance.

To qualify, residents need to have either lived in or been a direct descendant of a black person,

who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, who suffered housing discrimination

because of the city's policies.

Time for another Cuomo update.

The latest sexual harassment allegation that surfaced against Cuomo has been referred to the Albany

...