State using emergency pact for vaccine rollout
A Maryland state agency has entered into an emergency contract with Hagerty Consulting, a business management firm, to assist with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the state acting health secretary confirmed Monday.
It is at least the third emergency contract disclosed in recent weeks that the state has entered into over the past three months to aid with the immunization campaign.
Dennis R. Schrader did not specify the amount of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency’s contract with Hagerty, but said the advisory group had been assisting with staffing at the vaccination sites.
“By contrast, we spent probably $600 million on [personal protective equipment], so what we’re spending now on vaccine pales in comparison,” Schrader told lawmakers at a virtual state Senate Vaccine Oversight Workgroup meeting.
He said as many as 10,000 individuals had been deployed to work on the vaccination program in all.
Schrader on Monday touted the vaccine rollout’s success; at least 1.9 million shots had been administered over the past 14 weeks, he said, with much more to come over the next several weeks as more doses of the three authorized vaccines flow into states from the federal government.
The contract also, at least partially, helps satisfy some lawmakers’ questions about how the state has organized the immunization rollout. Several state senators have called on Schrader to release more information about the decision-makers behind the vaccine allocation.
They also have called for more transparency, as racial and geographic disparities persist in the vaccine data, and many still do not have access to shots.
Spokespeople from Hagerty and the state of Maryland did not respond Monday evening to requests for comment about the specifics of the contract.
State Sen. Clarence Lam, a Democratic member of the vaccine oversight committee, said the Hagerty contract could be worth as much as $17.5 million, a figure not immediately confirmed by the state.
Lawmakers and elected officials previously expressed concerns about the state’s use of emergency contracts, arguing they can lead to higher costs and lower value. The state is spending as much as $46 million on contracts with consulting firms Ernst & Young and Digital Mobile Innovations, which are providing support services for supply chain management and the state’s appointment booking call center, respectively.
In a Thursday letter, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, a Democrat, called on state lawmakers to appoint an independent commission to conduct an audit of all state and federal dollars that have been spent on relief for the coronavirus pandemic.
“I believe we urgently need this independent commission to monitor and investigate the use of such large sums of taxpayer dollars to ensure that the public treasury is protected in the future and accounted for in the past,” Franchot, the state’s top financial officer, said in a letter.
Schrader, on Monday, said several states had entered into contracts with accounting and health care firms — Ernst & Young, included — to understand the sophisticated supply chain processes inherent in vaccine distribution.
“They’re helping us where we can get value,” Schrader said of the state’s contracts.
On Monday, health officials also sent lawmakers more information about the contracts with Ernst & Young.
In addition to supply chain management and forensic accounting, Ernst & Young’s responsibilities include providing “immediate initial staffing and technical consulting services,” including information technology, planning and data analytics workers; offering recommendations to senior leadership about how to improve workflow; and providing an “end-to-end” assessment of the program. The Maryland Board of Public Works, which approves such state spending, will review the Ernst & Young and DMI contracts March 24.
ROME — The Vatican declared Monday that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since God “cannot bless sin.”
The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy have the authority to bless gay unions. The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was “negative.”
The note distinguished between the church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions. It argued that such unions are not part of God’s plan and that any sacramental recognition of them could be confused with marriage.
The note pleased conservatives, disheartened advocates for LGBT Catholics and threw a wrench in the debate within the German church, which has been at the forefront of opening discussion on hot-button issues such the church’s teaching on homosexuality.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater acceptance
of gays, predicted the Vatican position would be ignored, including
by some Catholic clergy. “Catholic people recognize the holiness of the love between committed same-sex couples and recognize this love as divinely inspired and divinely supported and thus meets the standard to be blessed,” he said in a statement.
The Vatican holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered.”
Catholic teaching says that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God’s plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life. Since gay unions aren’t intended to be part of that plan, they can’t be blessed by the church, the document said.
Francis has endorsed providing gay couples with legal protections in same-sex unions, but that was in reference to the civil sphere, not within the church. Those comments were made during a 2019 interview with a Mexican broadcaster, Televisa, but were censored by the Vatican until they appeared in a documentary last year.
While the documentary fudged the context, Francis was referring to the position he took when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. At the time, Argentine lawmakers were considering approving gay marriage, which the Catholic
Church opposes. Then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio instead supported providing legal protections for gays in stable unions through a so-called law of civil cohabitation.
Francis told Televisa: “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God.”
Speaking of families with gay children, he said: “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”
Bill Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League, praised the decision as an “end of story” declaration by the Vatican.
But Esteban Paulon, president of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, said the document was proof that for all of Francis’ words expressing outreach to gays, the institutional church wouldn’t change.
“Saying that homosexual practice — openly living sexuality — is a sin takes us back 200 years and promotes hate speech that unfortunately in Latin America and Europe is on the rise,” he said. “That transforms into injuries and even deaths, or policies which promote discrimination.”
MINNEAPOLIS — An attorney for a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death asked the judge Monday to delay the trial, saying the announcement of a $27 million settlement for Floyd’s family could make a fair trial impossible.
Defense attorney Eric Nelson also raised the possibility of renewing his previously unsuccessful motion to move Derek Chauvin’s trial to another city.
“I am gravely concerned with the news that broke on Friday,” Nelson said, adding that the announcement “has incredible potential to taint the jury pool.”
Nelson also noted that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s son, Jeremiah, sits on the City Council that unanimously approved the settlement, and questioned the timing, though he said he was not making accusations.
Keith Ellison heads the prosecution team and often has been present in the courtroom.
Mayor Jacob Frey deferred questions about the timing of the settlement to City Attorney Jim Rowader, who declined to comment. Representatives for both said they were following the judge’s guidance to not comment on the criminal proceedings.
Prosecutor Steve Schleicher said the state had no control over Frey and the City Council, who announced Friday that Minneapolis had agreed to the settlement that Floyd family attorney Ben Crump called the largest pretrial settlement ever for a civil rights claim.
Interior secretary: The Senate on Monday confirmed New Mexico
Rep. Deb Haaland as interior secretary, making her the first Native American to lead a Cabinet department and the first to lead the federal agency that has wielded influence over the nation’s tribes for nearly two centuries.
Haaland was confirmed by a 51-40 vote.
Democrats and tribal groups hailed Haaland’s confirmation as historic, saying her selection means that Indigenous people — who lived in North America before the United States was created — will for the first time see a Native American lead the powerful department where decisions on relations with the nearly 600 federally recognized tribes are made. Interior also oversees a host of other issues, including energy development on public lands and waters, national parks and endangered species.
“Rep. Haaland’s confirmation represents a gigantic step forward in creating a government that represents the full richness and diversity of this country,’’ said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Nashville bomber: The man who blew himself up inside his recreational vehicle in a Christmas Day bombing in Nashville, Tennessee, was grappling with paranoia and eccentric conspiracy theories, but there are no indications he was motivated by social or political ideology, the FBI said Monday in closing out the investigation into the blast.
The FBI statement sets out to resolve some of the lingering mysteries of an explosion that initially perplexed investigators and the public because it appeared to lack an obvious motive or fit a clear profile.
Though the blast damaged dozens of buildings, it
took place early on a holiday morning well before downtown streets would be bustling with activity and was preceded by a recorded announcement warning anyone in the area that a bomb would soon detonate.
The FBI concluded that the bomber, Anthony Quinn Warner, chose the location and timing so that it would be impactful while still minimizing the likelihood of “undue injury.”
Despite online speculation that Warner may have been motivated by conspiracy theories about 5G technology, given the proximity of the explosion to an AT&T building and the resulting havoc to cellphone service in the area, FBI spokesperson Joel Siskovic said the investigation found no indication that AT&T had anything to do with Warner’s selection of the location.
The divorce between the U.K. and the EU is turning nastier by the day.
Brexit objections:
The European Union said Monday that it is starting legal action against the United Kingdom, arguing the former member does not respect the conditions of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and is violating international law.
The 27-nation EU is objecting to Britain unilaterally extending a grace period beyond April 1 that applies to trade on the island of Ireland, where the EU and the United Kingdom share a land border and where a special trade system was set up as part of the Brexit divorce deal.
It marks a further worsening of relations between the two sides since a divorce transition period ended Jan. 1. Disputes have ranged from fights over vaccines, to the full diplomatic recognition of the EU in Britain and now again the terms of the divorce agreement.
Denver’s airport reopened Monday after a powerful late-winter
Rockies storm:
snowstorm dumped over 3 feet of heavy, wet snow on parts of Colorado and Wyoming, shutting down roads, closing state legislatures in both states and interfering with COVID-19 vaccinations.
The 27 inches that had fallen by the end of Sunday at Denver International Airport on the plains east of downtown made it the fourth biggest snowfall in the city’s history, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.
A driver lost control and veered onto a sidewalk Monday dotted with homeless tents in downtown San Diego, killing three people and injuring six others, police said.
The driver, whom authorities identified only as a 71-year-old man, was heading through a tunnel underneath a community college campus when he drove his Volvo station wagon up on the sidewalk shortly after 9
3 die when car hits 9:
a.m., said San Diego police Chief David Nisleit.
The man was arrested on suspicion of driving while impaired.
Three people died at the scene. Five of the six others who were injured were taken to hospitals, including two who were in critical condition, authorities said.
Police raid over hack:
Swiss authorities Monday confirmed a police raid at the home of Tillie Kottmann, a software engineer, who took credit for helping break into a U.S. security-camera company’s online networks, part of what the activist hacker cited as an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of mass surveillance.
Kottmann had identified as a member of a group of hacktivists who say they were able to view live feeds and peer into hospitals, schools, factories, jails and corporate offices last week after gaining access to California startup Verkada.