NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
_1 Health care law: Senate Democrats are asking Republican leaders to drop their effort to repeal former President Barack Obama’s health care law. If they do, they’re offering to help them “improve the health care system for all Americans.” Democrats say they’d work with the GOP to reduce premium and drug costs, stabilize insurance markets and help small businesses provide health coverage. The plea comes in a letter signed by all 46 Democratic senators and the two independents who usually side with them. Democrats noted that the Housepassed measure would take coverage from an estimated 24 million Americans, cuts Medicaid and pares back protections for people with preexisting conditions and others.
_2 Seattle mayor: Seattle Mayor Ed Murray on Tuesday dropped his re-election bid for a second term after four men claimed he sexually abused them when they were teenagers, claims vehemently denied by Murray as an antigay political conspiracy aimed at derailing his campaign. Murray said for weeks after the allegations emerged that he would press on in his campaign for a second term but told reporters that he decided it was best for Seattle to not seek another term. He said he will serve out his term through the end of this year. Murray, 62, was elected in 2013 and successfully pushed to raise Seattle’s hourly minimum wage to $15.
_3 Narcan access: Across the country, someone dies of an opioid overdose every 24 minutes. In Massachusetts, the death toll is five a day. Cambridge could become the first city to take a step that until recently might have seemed unthinkable: It might place lock boxes on street corners to give the public easy access to Narcan, a medication that can rapidly revive people who have overdosed.
_4 D.C. tourism: The number of U.S. tourists visiting Washington reached 20 million for the first time in 2016, thanks in part by a high-profile new museum on the National Mall, the city’s tourism bureau said Tuesday. According to Destination DC, the 20 million visitors was an increase of 700,000 over the previous record for domestic visitation, which was set in 2015. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, opened in September and has already drawn more than 1 million people.
_5 Lobster decline: New restrictions are coming to southern New England’s lobster fishery in an attempt to save the area’s population of the crustaceans. The population of lobsters off of Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts has declined as waters have warmed. An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission of Arlington, Va., voted on Tuesday to pursue new management measures to try to slow the lobster decline. Management tools will include changes to legal harvesting size, reductions to the number of traps and seasonal closures to fishing areas. Crafting the specifics of the measures will take months. A final vote is expected in August.
Chronicle News Services