OnPolitics: The Senate bill that could protect abortion rights

Hello, OnPolitics readers!

Millions of low income Americans will pay no more than $30 a month for high speed internet access under a new agreement reached between the Biden administration and 20 internet providers.

The providers, which include AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, will increase their internet speeds or cut the price of their services for eligible households. The plan is part of an initiative to expand access to fast, affordable internet service in rural areas and on tribal lands.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced the deal from the White House Monday. Under the bipartisan infrastructure law passed last year in Congress, certain low income families are able to receive a $30 monthly benefit, or $75 monthly on tribal lands, to help pay for broadband service.

Households that choose to apply the benefit to one of the broadband plans covered under the new deal will essentially receive high-speed internet at no cost. About 48 million households, or nearly 40%, are eligible for the benefit.

It's Chelsey with today's top stories out of Washington. 

What's in the Senate bill to protect abortion rights?

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., knows the Women's Health Protection Act of 2022, introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., doesn't have the 60 votes to reach overcome a filibuster or perhaps even the support of all Democratic senators. 

But the bill, introduced days after a leak of a  draft opinion that would overturn the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade, is an opportunity to show which side U.S. senators are on in the debate before the November midterm elections.

The proposed act is simple, in that it gives patients the right to receive abortions and medical workers the right to provide them, according to Democrats. It also prevents states from making it harder to have abortions, such as adding "medically unnecessary" mandatory waiting periods.

The Senate bill would also supersede restrictive abortion laws in individual states, prohibit states from going after clinics for not meeting arbitrary physical standards and bar states from prohibiting abortion services before or after fetal viability.

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FLOTUS Jill Biden meets Ukraine's first lady

Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine Sunday to meet with the country's first lady, Olena Zelenska, who has been in hiding since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

The women met at a school that is being used as temporary housing and shelter for 163 displaced Ukrainians, including 47 children. 

Biden was already in the region for a Mother’s Day weekend trip where she met with displaced Ukrainian refugees in Romania and Slovakia. The first lady said she wanted to come on the holiday, “to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop, and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.”

Biden exchanged flowers with Zelenska and the women hugged each other upon meeting. They met privately for about an hour.

The first ladies had corresponded over the past few weeks, according to a pool report. Zelenska called Biden's visit a “very courageous act.”

“Because we understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when the military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day even today,” Zelenska said, according to a translation provided to reporters.

Happy graduation season! An anonymous donor paid off the balances of over 100 graduates of Wiley College, a historically Black college in east Texas. — Chelsey