Politics

There are many ways to skin a cat and, in the General Assembly, there appear to be many ways to confront the climate crisis. On Thursday, the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee held hearings on eight bills designed to address the ravages of climate change and make Maryland communities safer and more resilient.

Following Maryland’s recent reckoning with socio-economic and criminal justice inequities in its communities of color, House Health and Government Operations Committee Vice-Chair Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Prince George’s) has presented three bills that seek to identify and eliminate health disparities, too. “It’s really clear: the data consistently shows ongoing and, in some cases, growing health disparities in Maryland, including the impact of COVID-19,” she told members of that committee at a hearing Tuesday.

President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his administration is working with coronavirus vaccine makers to buy another 200 million doses that would arrive this summer — raising the total to 600 million and ensuring the U.S. will eventually have two shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for nearly every American. Biden also said the federal government will be increasing the number of doses shipped to states — from 8.6 million doses a week to 10 million a week for the next three weeks, and will start notifying states how many doses they will receive three weeks in advance.