News Coverage
People: Senators Introduce 'Much Needed' Bill to Address Coronavirus' Racial Disparities
The novel coronavirus pandemic has impacted people from racial minority groups at a higher rate than it has white people, and two senators now say they have a "much needed" plan to address the virus' disparities.Sens. Bob Menendez, of New Jersey, and Maryland's Ben Cardin, both Democrats, introduced the COVID-19 Health Disparities Action Act to Congress on Wednesday, saying the bill — if passed into law — would improve contact tracing, testing and provide public awareness campaigns in minority … Continue Reading
July 22, 2020
CNN: Senators accuse White House of belittling pandemic by ignoring long-term effects of Covid-19 infection
A group of senators accused the White House of downplaying the dangers of the coronavirus pandemic by ignoring the serious and long-term effects the virus can have on some patients.They wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday, asking him to outline how the White House Coronavirus Task Force plans to address the issue of lasting health effects from infection....Read the full article on the CNN website … Continue Reading
July 22, 2020
ABC News: Senate Dems warn of 'catastrophe' if eviction protections expire
Federal protections that have prevented millions of renters across the country from being evicted are about to expire and could leave them at risk of losing their homes if Congress does not act by Saturday.Senate Democrats are urging an extension of the eviction protection program, but it is unlikely that a new coronavirus relief bill will make it across the finish line before the current protections lapse at the end of the week, as Republicans scramble to put their plan forward.More than 12 … Continue Reading
July 21, 2020
Politico: Senators request ethics probe after Ivanka Trump’s Goya endorsement
Days after Ivanka Trump created an uproar for endorsing Goya Foods after its CEO praised her father, a pair of senators want an investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s daughter violated federal ethics rules.Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics inquiring about possible disciplinary action for Ivanka Trump, who serves as a senior adviser in the White House....Read the full article on the POLITICO website … Continue Reading
July 21, 2020
CNN: Warren asks CDC to mandate masks, citing Georgia's local ban
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is requesting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention use its existing powers to implement and expand mask requirements, and asked whether the agency could intervene in situations like Georgia's ban on local mask laws. The Massachusetts Democrat appealed to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield in a new letter sent Monday, suggesting that the public agency already has the authority to institute mask mandates and local gathering limits -- beyond … Continue Reading
July 21, 2020
Bloomberg: Warren Uses Dodd-Frank Anniversary to Signal Crackdown on Banks
Wall Street critic Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats signaled Tuesday that if they regain power, the lax oversight the financial industry has enjoyed during the Trump administration is coming to an end.Senator Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, was among current and former politicians who participated in a virtual conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act. She said President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have failed in their attempts to gut the law, and now … Continue Reading
July 20, 2020
Boston.com: 'Just plain wrong': Elizabeth Warren calls on Stop & Shop to reinstate hazard pay
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is at the helm of the charge of Washington lawmakers demanding the country’s major grocery retailers, including Stop & Shop, Wegmans, and Whole Foods, reinstate hazard pay for hourly workers as companies have peeled back the compensation even as coronavirus cases have skyrocketed in recent weeks.“Frontline workers are taking all of the risk,” Warren said Friday on a video press conference call alongside fellow Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, and the United Food and … Continue Reading
July 19, 2020
Forbes: Elizabeth Warren: Cancel Student Debt In The Next Stimulus Package
Senator Elizabeth Warren is making her closing pitch to include student debt cancellation in the next stimulus package. In two recent tweets, Warren reiterated her position linking to two Forbes articles about student loan forgiveness in the next stimulus. Senator Warren has been a leader on student debt issues in her time in the Senate, taking on for-profit colleges and pushing the Obama administration to grant student debt forgiveness for defrauded students. In her presidential campaign, … Continue Reading
July 17, 2020
WGBH: Lawmakers Leverage Defense Bill To Address Police Reform, Racial Injustice
Maryland Democratic Rep. Anthony Brown is African American, and as an Army combat veteran he knows first hand about the military's tributes to the Confederacy.Brown served at four of the 10 Army installations named for Confederate officers."I went to flight school at Fort Rucker. I learned to jump out of airplanes at Fort Benning. I deployed to Iraq from Fort Bragg," the House Democrat says, respectively, of the bases in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina. He also spent time at Fort Hood in … Continue Reading
July 17, 2020
NBC News: Elizabeth Warren requests investigation into relief funds
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is asking the newly confirmed head of Coronavirus relief oversight to investigate millions of dollars of relief funds that went to companies who employed lobbyists with close ties to the Trump administration.Warren, who has been publicly skeptical about the Trump administration's oversight efforts, made her request in a letter to Brian Miller, President Donald Trump’s former White House counsel who was appointed to oversee more than $2 trillion of … Continue Reading
July 16, 2020
CNBC: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders slam Trump for giving Gilead ‘windfall’ deal for coronavirus drug
Former presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders slammed the Trump administration Thursday for giving Gilead Sciences a “windfall” deal to secure most of the pharmaceutical company’s supply of its coronavirus-fighting drug remdesivir with the United States.In a new letter addressed to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that was obtained by CNBC, Warren, Sanders and other lawmakers said the deal will give Gilead up to $500 million in revenue borne almost … Continue Reading
July 16, 2020
Vox: Elizabeth Warren wants answers on Facebook’s fact-checking loophole
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tom Carper, Brian Schatz, and Sheldon Whitehouse are demanding more information from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about a reported “loophole” for climate misinformation in Facebook’s fact-checking program.In a letter sent to Zuckerberg on Wednesday, the senators reference a widely reported-on incident from last year that involved a story about climate change models written by two people from an organization called the CO2 Coalition and published by the Washington … Continue Reading
July 16, 2020
The Boston Herald: Massachusetts officials, doctors, concerned over CDC coronavirus data streamlining with HHS
Massachusetts officials and health experts voiced concern over a recent move brought on by the Trump administration to funnel coronavirus hospital data to a private technology firm rather than the CDC, a policy that was quickly revised following public outcry.“As this virus has continued to grow around the country, it’s more important than ever that the CDC be able to produce what I would describe as a daily statement on truth, with regards to hospitalization, cases, ICU utilization and all … Continue Reading
July 16, 2020
Common Dreams: 'Dangerous' and 'Horrible': Lawmakers Demand Answers After Trump Upends CDC's Covid-19 Reporting System
Lawmakers and public health experts are demanding that the Trump administration answer for its abrupt decision this week to cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out of the coronavirus data-collection process, a move critics warned could impede state efforts to combat the pandemic and leave crucial information open to politically motivated spin."The Trump administration is going to have to give a full justification for this, because until they do, it's hard to see how this step … Continue Reading
July 15, 2020
The Washington Post: Some researchers and politicians call for pregnant women to be included in coronavirus vaccine testing
As Washington spends billions of dollars to fast-track a coronavirus vaccine, a number of medical researchers and Democrats are calling on Congress to guarantee that pregnant women are involved in federally supported trials — an inclusion that is not guaranteed though research shows they could be particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus.Of the six pharma companies with government contracts to develop a vaccine, four — Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax — have not included or … Continue Reading
July 15, 2020
WGBH: Mass. House Coalition Lays Out Path Toward Maternal Health Equity
One of the first things the House did after Speaker Robert DeLeo committed in June to addressing systemic racism in Massachusetts was to push forward with a bill to study disparities in maternal health for women of color.The legislation called for a new commission to examine racial disparities in maternal mortality and make recommendations to improve access and quality of care for Black and Hispanic women who are pregnant or new mothers.With that bill now waiting for action in the Senate, a … Continue Reading
July 14, 2020
Politico: Warren, Pressley demand action from HHS on coronavirus' impact on minority communities
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley issued a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday requesting a report detailing the Trump administration's response to racial health disparities exacerbated by the Covid-19 outbreak.The letter, which highlights the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on communities of color, represents another push from Democrats for President Donald Trump to take action to alleviate the damage of … Continue Reading
July 12, 2020
One Green Planet: Why Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren’s Factory Farm Bill is So Important
Senator Cory Booker is hard at work to get rid of factory farms. Joined now by Elizabeth Warren, Booker is working to promote his new bill The Farm System Reform Bill. Originally unveiled in late 2019, the bill is arguably even more crucial in light of the coronavirus pandemic. At the center of the bill is the need to reform large industrial animal operations like factory farms. The bill focuses on four items: Help farmers currently running factory farms transition … Continue Reading
July 10, 2020
The Boston Globe: Members of Mass. congressional delegation say Brooks Brothers should pay severance to Haverhill workers
Three members of Congress from Massachusetts called on Brooks Brothers Friday to provide severance pay to workers at the company’s Haverhill factory, which is set to close next month.The storied apparel maker, founded in 1818, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week and is closing 51 stores and three US factories. Workers at two of the factories, in New York and North Carolina, will receive the separation pay guaranteed in their union contract. The union representing nearly 400 workers in … Continue Reading
July 09, 2020
WBUR: Warren Pressures Prison Accreditor Over COVID-19 Response
After reports of mismanagement and inadequate pandemic responses at prisons across the country that put incarcerated individuals at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is asking the nation’s primary prison accreditor to detail what correctional officials are doing to stop the spread of the coronavirus.In a letter to American Correctional Association executive director James A. Gondles Jr., Warren asked what the trade group is doing to ensure “that facilities provide … Continue Reading
