(Washington, DC)—Today, U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) led a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Samantha Power calling for action and accountability following multiple reports of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic.
In what law enforcement officials describe as a new front in international smuggling, global traffickers and cartels are increasingly turning to a new source for couriers to smuggle drugs across international borders: vulnerable American older adults.
The traffickers deceive seniors with promises of prizes or relationships, setting them up to unknowingly try to carry luggage filled with cocaine or other items through customs, hoping they will not arouse suspicions. Such cases have been seen in nearly a dozen foreign countries, officials say. Details of the smuggling and a counteroperation that officials called Operation Cocoon were disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security during a hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
Chairman Collins Leads Committee in Examining How Global Drug Traffickers Are Deceiving Seniors to Unknowingly Smuggle Drugs Across International Borders
WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. Senator Susan Collins released the following statement on President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Proposal:
Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) led a bipartisan delegation of 26 U.S. Senators in writing to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, regarding one possible contributing factor to the opioid crisis and heroin epidemic facing our country. The letter urges HHS to conduct a robust examination of whether or not certain questions on patient satisfaction surveys may inadvertently encourage treatment with opioid pain relievers, contributing to the vast supply of prescription opioids currently in circulation in our country. According to the CDC, health care providers wrote 259 million prescriptions for painkillers in 2012, enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills.
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Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King released the following statement today in response to the U.S.
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Susan Collins today announced that the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development and Coastal Enterprises Inc. received grant awards of $390,000 and $250,000, respectively, from the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) 2015 Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program.
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King and Representatives Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin sent a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Robert McDonald urging him to take immediate action to improve the implementation of the Choice Program and ensure that all veterans in Maine receive timely care.
When I ask employers in Maine what Washington needs to do to help them add jobs, they tell me this: reduce the cost and complexity of the federal regulations imposed on them. And this is not just a concern voiced by Maine businesses. Earlier this year, a poll of small business owners across the country found that the vast majority aren’t hiring new workers right now, and more than six in ten pointed to government regulations as the reason why.
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