In the News

Orlando’s leaders and gun violence survivors met Wednesday with Congressman Maxwell Frost to discuss the city’s Community Violence Intervention program — and the promise it’s shown to reduce shootings and gun homicides in its first year.

The program, known also as CVI, aims to stop violent incidents before they escalate through mediation and resources to get at the heart of confrontations. It initially targeted five neighborhoods citywide, enlisting influential residents known as “Neighborhood Change Associates” as part of the solution.

An Orlando program that helps at-risk youth needs more money to keep saving lives and preventing violence.

The city of Orlando recently voted to expand the Community Violence Intervention program, which is focused on reducing gun violence.

Congressman Maxwell Frost and Democratic Whip Congresswoman Katherine Clark heard from people behind the mission at a roundtable discussion Wednesday.

Members of Congress are devastated by the passing of their colleague U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J., who died on Wednesday at the age of 65. Payne’s death comes after he had been hospitalized for several weeks following a cardiac arrest episode earlier this month. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement that the New Jersey lawmaker is leaving “behind a legacy of relentless determination in the face of adversity.”

House congressional leaders were toiling Thursday on a delicate, bipartisan push toward weekend votes to approve a $95 billion package of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as several other national security policies at a critical moment at home and abroad.

The fate of foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as Speaker Mike Johnson’s job appears to be in the hands of House Democrats, as Johnson aims to pass billions of dollars to support U.S. allies this week. 

Johnson, R-La., told Republicans in a conference meeting Tuesday that the House would hold individual votes on four bills — aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and then a fourth bill with a mix of items — and then combine them into one package to send over to the Senate. 

House Democratic leaders said Tuesday that they’re ready to embrace Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) strategy of splitting an emergency foreign aid package into targeted pieces, but first want assurances that all the components of a Senate-passed bill are a part of the deal.

The Democrats have, for weeks, pushed Johnson to bring a vote on the $95 billion Senate package, which combines military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan with humanitarian assistance for Gaza and other global hotspots.

A two-week recess has come to a close for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday, including Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, who spoke with NBC10 Boston.

The representative wrapped up her time in Massachusetts touting $900,000 in child care investments.

"It's coming right here to SMOC in Framingham, to this child care center that serves 300 children," said Clark.

The House Democratic whip said Thursday that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is free to invite the Israeli prime minister to address Congress, but argued the greater show of support for Israel would be to vote on a foreign-aid package awaiting action in the House. 

“There is one group in Congress that is holding up that national security supplement that is needed, desperately, by the people of Ukraine and so many of our other allies. And that is the House GOP,” Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.) told reporters in the Capitol.