WASHINGTON (AP) — The House sent President Joe Biden the widest ranging gun violence bill Congress has passed in decades Friday, a measured compromise that at once illustrates progress on the long-intractable issue and the deep-seated partisan divide that persists.

The Democratic-led chamber approved the election-year legislation on a mostly party-line 234-193 vote, capping a spurt of action prompted by voters’ revulsion over last month’s mass shootings in New York and Texas. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by a bipartisan 65-33 margin.

The White House said Biden would sign the bill and deliver remarks on it Saturday morning.

Every House Democrat and 14 Republicans — six of whom won’t be in Congress next year — voted for the measure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., underscored its significance to her party by taking the unusual step of presiding over the vote and announcing the result from the podium, to huzzahs from rank-and-file Democrats on the chamber’s floor.

Among Republicans backing the legislation was Rep. Liz Cheney of gun-friendly Wyoming, who has broken sharply with her party’s leaders and is helping lead the House investigation into last year’s Capitol insurrection by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. In a statement, she said that “as a mother and a constitutional conservative,” she believed the bill would curb violence and enhance safety, adding: “Nothing in the bill restricts the rights of responsible gun owners. Period.”

Impossible to ignore was the juxtaposition of the week’s gun votes with a pair of jarring Supreme Court decisions on two of the nation’s most incendiary culture war issues. The justices on Thursday struck down a New York law that has restricted peoples’ ability to carry concealed weapons, and Friday it overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the protection for abortion that case had ensured for a half-century.

The bill, crafted by senators from both parties, would incrementally toughen requirements for young people to buy guns, deny firearms from more domestic abusers and help local authorities temporarily take weapons from people judged to be dangerous. Most of its $13 billion cost would go to bolster mental health programs and for schools, which have been targeted in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida and many other infamous massacres.

It omits far tougher restrictions Democrats have long championed like a ban on assault-type weapons and background checks for all gun transactions, but is the most impactful firearms violence measure Congress has approved since enacting a now-expired assault weapons ban in 1993.

The legislation was a direct result of the slaying of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, exactly one month ago, and the killing of 10 Black shoppers days earlier in Buffalo, New York. Lawmakers returned from their districts after those shootings saying constituents were demanding congressional action, a vehemence many felt could not be ignored.

“This gives our community the sorely needed hope that we have been crying out for, for years and years and years,” Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., whose 17-year-old son was shot dead in 2012 by a man complaining his music was too loud, told supporters outside the Capitol. “Understand and know that this bill does not answer all of our prayers, but this is hope.”

Speaking haltingly, Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., said he was backing the bill for his father, shot to death 30 years ago to the day, the 58 people killed in a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas “and so many other Americans who are victims and survivors of gun violence.”

For conservatives who dominate the House GOP, it came down to the Constitution’s Second Amendment right for people to have firearms, a protection key for many voters who own guns. “Today they’re coming after our Second Amendment liberties, and who knows what it will be tomorrow,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the House Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, said of Democrats.

Pelosi said with Thursday’s gun ruling by the justices, “the Trump-McConnell court is implicitly endorsing the tragedy of mass shootings and daily gun deaths plaguing our nation.” That was a reference to the balance-tipping three conservative justices appointed by Trump and confirmed by a Senate that was run by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

But House Republicans used the gun debate to praise both court decisions. “What a great day for the babies, and as the speaker described it, the Trump-McConnell Supreme Court,” said Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis.

Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., said the firearms decision has “electrified the country and left radicals seething — the Constitution means what it says.”

In the Senate, every Democrat and 15 Republicans backed the compromise. Just two of those GOP senators face reelection next year.

But overall, fewer than one-third of GOP senators and just 1-in-15 House Republicans supported the measure. That means the fate of future congressional action on guns seems dubious, even as the GOP is expected to win House and possibly Senate control in the November elections.

McConnell kept careful tabs on the negotiations that produced the bill and voted for it, partly in hopes it would attract moderate suburban voters whose support the GOP will need in its November bid for Senate control. In contrast, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and other GOP leaders of the more conservative House opposed it.

The legislation was opposed by firearms groups like the National Rifle Association. But groups backing gun curbs like Brady and Everytown for Gun Safety weren’t the only ones backing it. Support also came from the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

The talks that produced the bill were led by Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Under the compromise, background checks for gun buyers age 18 to 20 will now include an examination of their local juvenile records. The accused shooters in Uvalde and Buffalo were both 18.

People convicted of domestic abuse who are current or former romantic partners of the victim — not simply spouses or people who lived or had children with the person they abused — will be prohibited from acquiring firearms. That closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”

There will be money to help states enforce “red flag” laws that help authorities temporarily take guns from people considered threatening and for other states’ violence prevention programs. More people who sell weapons would have to become federally licensed gun dealers and need to conduct background checks.

Penalties for gun trafficking are strengthened, billions of dollars are provided for behavioral health clinics and school mental health programs and there’s money for school safety initiatives, though not for personnel to use a “dangerous weapon.”

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AP reporter Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday embraced calls for an international war crimes investigation of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, citing the “atrocities” of bombing civilians, including a maternity hospital.

Speaking alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda at a press conference in Warsaw, where she is demonstrating U.S. support for NATO’s eastern flank allies, Harris expressed outrage over the bombing Wednesday of the maternity hospital and scenes of bloodied pregnant women being evacuated, as well as other attacks on civilians. She stopped short of directly accusing Russia of having committed war crimes.

“Absolutely there should be an investigation, and we should all be watching,” said Harris, noting that the United Nations has already started a process to review allegations. “I have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities.”

Harris’ visit to Poland came amid a kerfuffle between Warsaw and Washington over a Polish proposal to send its Soviet-made fighter jets to a U.S. and NATO base in Germany so they could then go to Ukraine. Poland, in turn, would receive American F-16s.

Poland had publicly floated the proposal without first consulting the U.S. Just as Harris arrived in Warsaw late Wednesday, the Pentagon definitively rejected the idea, saying it would run the risk of escalating the Russia-Ukraine war.

At Thursday’s news conference, both Harris and Duda sought to brush aside differences on the fighter jets issue.

“I want to be very clear, the United States and Poland are united in what we have done and are prepared to do to help Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, full stop,” she said.

Duda for his part sidestepped questions about why Poland announced its proposal without first consulting the United States. He stressed his government’s intention was driven by a desire for “NATO as a whole to make a common decision” on the matter.

“In a nutshell we have to be a responsible member of the North Atlantic Alliance,” Duda said.

Harris’ embrace for an investigation of war crimes came after the Biden administration on Wednesday warned that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine as the White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country it has invaded.

The White House raised the notion after Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — accused Ukraine of running chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor announced last week he was launching an investigation that could target senior officials believed responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide amid a rising civilian death toll and widespread destruction of property during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But investigations at the ICC take many years, and relatively few convictions have ever been won. The ICC was set up in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The crime of aggression, which can’t be investigated in Ukraine because neither Russia nor Ukraine is a member of the court, was added later.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the hospital bombing “horrific” and said the U.S. is going through a “legal review process” to determine whether to label the bombing a war crime.

Duda said “it is obvious to us that in Ukraine Russians are committing war crimes.” He added that in his view the invasion was “bearing the features of a genocide — it aims at eliminating and destroying a nation.”

Harris praised the Polish people for their generosity for taking in nearly 1.5 million refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine last month.

“I’ve been watching or reading about the work of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and so I bring you thanks from the American people,” Harris said earlier during a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hours after the U.S. House passed a massive spending bill that includes $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine and its European allies.

The legislation includes $6.8 billion to care for refugees and other economic aid to allies.

Harris also met Thursday with seven refugees who have fled from Ukraine to Poland since the Russian invasion began. She praised the refugees for their “courage” and said the conversation would help inform U.S. assistance efforts. The group included a Ukrainian advocate for people with disabilities, a Moroccan university student, a professional film producer from Odessa, a Senegalese community leader and teacher, a LGBTQIA+ rights activist from Kyiv, and a Ukrainian energy expert and her young adult daughter.

“We are here to support you, and you are not alone,” Harris told the group. “And I know there’s so much about the experience that you’ve had that has made you feel alone. You are not alone. We around the world are watching.”

The vice president also met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while in Warsaw. The Canadian leader has been in Europe in recent days meeting with allies about Ukraine. Trudeau credited the Biden administration for rallying Europe’s largely unified response.

“Vladimir Putin totally underestimated the strength and resolve of the Ukrainian people,” Trudeau said. “But he also underestimated the strength and resolve of democracies to stand up in support of Ukraine, (and) in support of those values, and principles that underlie everything we do.”

Harris’ whirlwind visit to Poland and Romania was billed by the White House as a chance for the vice president to consult with two of the leaders from eastern flank NATO nations about the growing humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Already, more than 2 million refugees have fled Ukraine — with more than half coming to Poland — and even more expected to arrive in the days ahead.

Duda warned of a “refugee disaster” if Poland doesn’t receive more assistance to help house and feed Ukrainians fleeing the conflict. He said he asked Harris for the U.S. to “speed up” the process for those Ukrainian refugees who would want to go to the U.S. and might have family there.

“The United States is absolutely prepared to do what we can and what we must to support Poland, in terms of the burden that they have taken on,” Harris said.

Harris will travel on Friday to Bucharest, where she will meet Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

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Miller contributed from Washington. Associated Press writers Mike Corder at The Hague, Netherlands, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed reporting.