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Cohen: Police violence, voter suppression are 2 ‘sides to the same coin’
WASHINGTON — As demonstrators continue to flood streets around the country to protest police brutality and racial inequality, communities of color remain disproportionately threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic and voter suppression, a Tennessee Democratic lawmaker warned this week. The pandemic “has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, disproportionately impacting African Americans among other historically disadvantaged people,” Rep. Steve […]
Trump’s TVA nominees pressed on climate views, IG firings
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats grilled President Donald Trump’s nominees for the Tennessee Valley Authority on Tuesday about climate change and the administration’s recent firings of top agency watchdogs. Trump nominated former Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell and East Tennessee State University President Brian Noland to fill out TVA’s board of directors. The president also […]
Fauci: UT students shouldn’t expect COVID-19 vaccine before fall term
WASHINGTON — Students preparing to head to the University of Tennessee this fall shouldn’t expect to get a COVID-19 vaccine before then, a top public health official told Congress on Tuesday. Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the U.S. Senate committee that oversees health and education, asked top Trump administration health officials at a […]
GOP Senate hopeful serves with his donors on White House panel
WASHINGTON — Tennessee Senate candidate Bill Hagerty is serving on a White House economic advisory panel alongside several of his highest-profile campaign donors. Hagerty — who served as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Japan until last July — was named by the president in April as a “thought leader” on the panel aimed at reopening […]
From hospital, Justice Ginsburg slams Trump birth control rules
WASHINGTON — Hospitalization for a gallbladder condition didn’t stop U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from assailing Trump administration’s birth control rules on Wednesday. Ginsburg, 87, was hospitalized at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Tuesday night, but was animated as she participated in an oral argument via teleconference surrounding a Trump administration policy that allows […]
Trump’s order to keep meat plants open imperils workers, critics say
Democratic senators are accusing President Donald Trump of putting workers at risk by ordering meat and poultry processors to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic. Senate Democrats are asking Trump to amend an executive order he signed last week, which declared meat plants to be “critical infrastructure” and ordered his administration to ensure that they […]