Massachusetts county debuts jail program with focus on older adults
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(MIDDLESEX, Mass.) — To step inside the Older Adult Re-Entry unit, or OAR, at the Middlesex County, Massachusetts, jail is unlike entering any jail in the United States.
The walls are adorned in a soothing paint color, and there is fitness equipment, specially designed beds in cell units, better lighting so older inmates do not fall and a puzzle-making table to “stimulate the mind cognitively,” according to Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian.
OAR is designed for inmates who are over the age of 55 and need to get ready to reenter the public, but Koutoujian said older inmates have different needs than younger ones who get released into the community.
“We designed this unit from the ground up with the unique needs of this population in mind, from treatment programs focused on specific needs of this population, cognitive behavioral treatment, social enrichment, education and occupational therapy,” he said, adding that the Middlesex Sheriff’s Office worked with researchers from Boston University to have the older inmate population’s best interests in mind.
Older inmates make up about 10% of the jail’s population, and entry into the program is voluntary. OAR serves both those who are awaiting trial and those who are set to be released in the next few months or years. There are 20 inmates currently in the unit, which just launched in March.
He said OAR helps stimulate inmates minds with different classes and activities to prepare for their reentry into society.
“This is much more than just: This is how to get a job, this is how to get your driver’s license back, this is how to do these basic things that we deal with everywhere in our facility,” he explained. “This is about how to live your life so that you can live more happily, more safely and longer. [It] is much different than any other unit in the entire country for those very reasons.”
In working with researchers, Koutoujian found that older men need friendships to live healthy lives.
“We’ve seen much more research recently showing especially men, as they age, become more socially isolated. It impacts them mentally and physically and affects their mortality,” he said.
“I’m trying to make sure that they are more aware of so that it’s not just the fact that we’re giving them this lesson, but what are the activities they can engage in?” he added. “They can build new relationships, new friendships, new support systems, healthier social networks. That is a critical part to this population’s reentry.”
The sheriff said he believes the program, with the research and data OAR is collecting, can be replicated throughout the country.
“What do the incarcerated individuals in the unit get out of it? They get a great deal out of it, and let’s just say, what do the officers that are involved in this unit get out of it? They get a feeling of well-being, of partnership, of doing something good,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The deadline has quietly passed on Attorney General Pam Bondi delivering a report to President Donald Trump on whether any leftover Biden administration policies infringe on Americans’ right to bear arms. It came just days after Democratic leaders sent her a letter suggesting there is “plainly no need for any new plan of action.”
Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 7 after making campaign promises to gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) that “no one will lay a finger on your firearms.”
The president instructed Bondi to “examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies” and determine if any of them violate the Second Amendment.
“The Second Amendment is an indispensable safeguard of security and liberty. It has preserved the right of the American people to protect ourselves, our families, and our freedoms since the founding of our great Nation,” Trump’s executive order reads. “Because it is foundational to maintaining all other rights held by Americans, the right to keep and bear arms must not be infringed.”
The 30-day mark for Bondi to report back to Trump through his domestic policy director would have been this past Sunday.
Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law, told ABC News the broadly written executive order “signals to me that this isn’t a top priority” for the Trump administration.
“Obviously, if there were things that were on the administration’s radar as possibly violating the Second Amendment or violating the rights of gun owners in some way, they could have started to roll those back right away and wouldn’t have needed to take this intermediate step of issuing a directive to the Attorney General to figure out what those were,” Willinger said. “That suggests that there’s nothing out there that the administration viewed as so pressing that they have to get rid of it right away.”
‘Perfectly consistent with the 2nd Amendment’
After Trump signed the executive order, NRA Executive Vice President Doug Hamlin released a statement praising the president’s move.
“Promises made to law-abiding gun owners are being kept by President Donald J. Trump,” Hamlin said. “NRA members were instrumental, turning out in record numbers to secure his victory, and he is proving worthy of their votes, faith and confidence in his first days in office.”
John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, also released a statement, saying, “After a long four years, law-abiding gun owners no longer have to worry about being the target of an anti-gun radical administration. NRA looks forward to the advances and restoration of our rights that will come from President Trump’s respect for the Constitution.”
It is unclear whether or not Bondi met the deadline on delivering the report — nothing had been publicly released as of Wednesday. When ABC News asked this week about the Bondi’s pending plan of action, Department of Justice officials said they would check but had no immediate information on the report’s status. The White House also did not respond to ABC News’ inquiry about Bondi’s pending report.
Earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Georgia, ranking member of the House subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, sent Bondi a letter.
“We are determined to protect our communities against lethal gun crime in a manner consistent with the Second Amendment,” they wrote.
The letter said that if Bondi carried out her examination “objectively and in good faith” she’ll find that actions taken by the previous administration to fight gun violence are “perfectly consistent with the Second Amendment.”
“There is plainly no need for any new plan of action to, in the words of the executive order, ‘protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans,'” the letter said.
In his executive order, Trump instructed Bondi that in addition to reviewing all presidential actions taken on gun control from January 2021 to January 2025, he wanted her to review rules about firearms and federal firearm licensing implemented by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
Trump specifically asked Bondi to review the ATF’s “enhanced regulatory enforcement policy” — also called the “zero tolerance policy” — implemented in 2021 under Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland to identify federal firearms dealers who violate the 1968 Gun Control Act.
Under the policy, firearms dealers had their licenses revoked for willfully transferring firearms to prohibited people, failing to conduct the required background checks, falsifying records and failing to respond to a gun trace request. The policy prompted several lawsuits from gun dealers who argued their licenses were revoked over minor clerical errors.
Raskin and McBath claimed that in the three years since the policy was implemented, about 0.3% of the nation’s roughly 130,000 federal gun dealers had their licenses revoked.
“Through this policy, ATF has enforced the Gun Control Act as passed by Congress and had revoked the licenses of a tiny fraction of gun dealers who willfully violated the law,” Raskin and McBath said in their letter to Bondi. “The ATF’s enhanced regulatory policy has not prevented a single American who may lawfully possess a firearm from exercising his or her Second Amendment rights.”
The ATF reported that in fiscal year 2023, the agency found 1,531 violations after conducting 8,689 firearm compliance inspections. The inspections, according to the ATF, prompted 667 warning letters and 170 revocations.
“Law-abiding gun dealers remain in business throughout the country. In fact, there remain more gun dealers than there are locations of Starbucks, McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, Subway, and Chick-fil-A combined,” Raskin and McBath said in their letter.
The Democratic lawmakers asked Bondi to respond to their letter by the end of the business day on Monday, explaining what standards she will use to determine if policies taken by the Biden administration violate the Second Amendment and how she will ensure her plan of action “does not increase the risk of violent crime, including gun deaths.”
Majority of Americans favor stronger gun laws
A Pew Research Center poll released in July 2024 found that 61% of respondents agreed that it is too easy to legally obtain a gun and 58% favored stricter gun laws.
“We know that the vast majority of Americans — including gun owners and Trump voters — support basic safety laws that crack down on crime and keep all communities safe. These policies are in no way inconsistent with the Second Amendment,” Kris Brown, president of the gun-safety advocacy group Brady United, said in a statement after Trump signed the executive order.
Brown noted that policies under Biden included expanding background checks for gun buyers and “cracking down on rogue gun traffickers.”
“They must be continued if this President actually wants to achieve any of his campaign promises around reducing crime, cracking down on drug traffickers, and reducing the flow of trafficked weapons across the southern border,” Brown said.
In the aftermath of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major piece of federal gun reform to clear both chambers in 30 years.
The law enhanced background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21 by giving authorities up to 10 business days to review the juvenile and mental health records of young gun purchasers, and made it unlawful for someone to purchase a gun for someone who would fail a background check. This legislation closed the so-called “boyfriend loophole” preventing individuals convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing a gun.
The law included $750 million to help states implement “red flag” laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, as well as other violence prevention programs. It also provided funding for a variety of programs aimed at shoring up the nation’s mental health apparatus and securing schools.
Willinger told ABC News that “short of asking Congress to appeal it,” there is little the Trump administration can do about the law.
“It’s possible that the administration could do stuff to hold up that money,” Willinger said. “I don’t know what wiggle room they have to do that.”
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — In dramatic fashion, House Republicans passed a bill to fund the government through the end of September 2025 — a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has previously relied on Democrats for bipartisan support to avert a shutdown.
The House voted 217-213 to pass the spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, days before some funding runs out.
Following the House vote — which saw just a single Republican defection — Johnson thanked President Donald Trump, who helped convince GOP holdouts to support the bill.
“We are united in our mission to deliver the America first agenda,” Johnson said in a post on X.
The spending bill now heads to the Senate — where it requires 60 votes to pass, and its fate is uncertain.
The House’s approval has left Senate Democrats divided on the “stark” decision ahead.
What will Senate Democrats do?
“There are really only two options: One is vote for a pretty bad CR. Or the other is to vote for a potentially even worse shutdown,” said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, following the House vote. “So it’s a very tough choice,”
Democrats met for two hours Tuesday with no consensus on how they planned to handle the vote on the bill — and the fissure is palpable.
Some Democrats are clearly leaning toward casting a painful vote to oppose the House package and effectively shut down the government.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., branded the House-passed CR a “shutdown bill” that Republicans will bear responsibility for in a floor speech Tuesday night.
“A budget is a reflection of our values,” Warren said on the floor. “This proposal makes crystal clear where Republicans’ values lie. After months of bipartisan talks, they’re walking away from the negotiating table and offering a non-starter House bill that forces us to the brink of a full government shutdown. The Republican shutdown playbook is dangerous, and it will hurt working families.”
Though she did not expressly state how she plans to vote on the package, she said House Democrats were right to oppose the measure, and said the Senate should follow suit.
“Democrats in the House have showed us they are united,” Warren said, when asked if Senate Democrats should be united in their opposition to the House package. “Why should it be different in the Senate?”
Separately, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries suggested Tuesday that Senate Democrats should oppose the measure.
“The strong House Democratic vote in opposition to this reckless Republican spending bill speaks for itself,” Jeffries said.
Senate Dem: Vote ‘like a bad dream’
Pointing to the “stark” choice Senate Democrats face, King said he has concerns that the “uncharted” territory of a shutdown under the new Trump administration that has already laid off federal employees.
“A shutdown is uncharted territory when you’ve got an administration that at least in some ways probably would welcome a shutdown because that would give the president almost unlimited power: deciding who is essential who is not unessential, folding up agencies,” King said. “So that is the dilemma that is being discussed.”
The House has left town for the week after passing their bill. If Democrats in the Senate want to avoid a shut down on Friday night, they’ll have to furnish at least eight votes to do it, with Republican Sen. Rand Paul already stating he’ll oppose the package.
It’s unclear what route they’ll ultimately choose but some members are clearly plagued by the choice.
“They made a bunch of changes, I want to see what they’re changing,” Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo. said.
“I’m not happy … It’s one of those things once we go through it, it’s going to feel like a bad dream. I’ve got to go through it.”
House vote: 1 Republican ‘No,’ 1 Democratic ‘Yes’
In the House vote, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie voted no — despite pressure from the president in the form of a primary threat. In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump suggested that the defection warranted mounting a primary campaign against Massie.
To pass the measure Tuesday afternoon, Johnson relied on some GOP support from Republicans who had never voted in favor of a continuing resolution.
Rep. Jared Golden was the only Democrat who voted with Republicans. All other Democrats voted against the measure — potentially previewing the posture of Senate Democrats.
“This CR is not perfect, but a shutdown would be worse. Even a brief shutdown would introduce even more chaos and uncertainty at a time when our country can ill-afford it,” Golden posted on X.
He also slammed Democrats for using what he called “messaging gimmicks” about the bill.
The bill funds the government at current levels through Sept. 30, 2025.
What’s in the bill?
The 99-page bill decreases spending overall from last year’s funding levels, but increases spending for the military by about $6 billion.
While there is an additional $6 billion for veterans’ health care, non-defense spending is about $13 billion lower than fiscal year 2024 levels.
The legislation leaves out emergency funding for disasters, but provides a boost in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation operations.
It also increases funding for W.I.C. by about $500 million, a program that provides free groceries to low-income women and children.
Now that the House has dispatched its bill to the Senate, it’s not yet clear how it will fare as it will require significant bipartisan support to pass the upper chamber.
Vote was major test of Johnson’s leadership
The spending bill was a major test for Johnson. In the absence of Democratic support, Johnson could only afford to lose one Republican vote before a second defection killed the bill.
In a statement following the vote, Johnson said Republicans “stood for the American people” and blasted Democrats who he said “decided to double down on partisan politics.”
Johnson had crucial allies in Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who lobbied House Republicans to shore up support ahead of the vote.
In the final hours before the Tuesday vote, Trump worked the phones, reaching out to the House Republicans who remained undecided.
On Tuesday morning, Vance attended a closed-door House conference meeting where he urged House Republicans to get on board with the vote and emphasized the importance of not shutting the government down, members said to ABC News.
Government funding is set to lapse at the end of the day on Friday, March 14.
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer defended his choice to vote with the minority of his party to keep the government open last week and his position as leader in an appearance on “The View” on Tuesday.
His comments come as some Democrats have publicly raised questions about their confidence in Schumer’s role as party leader following his move to allow Republicans to advance their led funding bill.
Schumer doubled down on the assertion he made on the Senate floor ahead of Friday’s closely watched vote: The Republican funding bill, called a continuing resolution or CR, was bad, but a government shutdown would have been worse.
“I knew it was a difficult choice, and I knew I’d get a lot of criticism or my choice, but I felt as a leader I had to do it,” Schumer told “The View” hosts.
Schumer said he and fellow Democrats “hated” the funding bill because it creates a “slush fund” for President Donald Trump, his adviser Elon Musk and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to “push around.”
But a shutdown, Schumer said “would have devastation like we have never seen.”
He said it would have given the Trump administration the freedom to slash programs it views as nonessential, with little to no recourse for Democrats to pursue. Programs like Medicaid and SNAP or funding for mass transit could have been indiscriminately slashed, he said.
“You have two choices: one bad, the other devastating,” Schumer said. “One chops off one of your fingers, the other chops off your arm.”
He said he was being “trolled” by Trump when the president congratulated him for passage of the bill on Trump’s Truth Social platform.
“He was trolling me. I know this guy. He’s trying to confuse people he always tries to confuse people,” Schumer said.
As a leader, Schumer said he had to act to avert a crisis down the road that would have been caused by a shutdown. But his position has not quelled calls within his own party for new leadership after Democrats appeared to some to be lacking in a strategy during Friday’s vote.
Schumer defended his role atop the caucus from ongoing criticism.
Responding to concerns that the party is somewhat aimless without an official leader, Schumer said Democrats have many talented leaders.
“When we don’t have a president, there is a lot of leaders. We have a great bench,” he said. “As for the Senate caucus, of which I am the leader, I should be the leader.”
Schumer touted his ability to recruit talent to win seats in the Senate, pointing to the 2020 election when Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff successfully claimed both seats in Georgia.
He also likened himself to an “orchestra leader” conducting his caucus to help their talents come through.
“We have a load of talent in our caucus, and I’ll tell you one thing: We are united in going after Trump and showing the American people that he is making the middle class pay for the tax cuts on the rich.”
Schumer also promoted his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A warning.”
He encouraged a number of individuals to read the book, including the president.
“He doesn’t understand what Jewish people are like. And he does things that can lead to antisemitism,” Schumer said. “He should read the book. He could learn something.”
He also warned against the left “sliding into” antisemitism.
