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Podcast: Seeking common ground in Congress

Podcast: Seeking common ground in Congress

As election day nears, the Let's Find Common Ground podcast speaks with two members of Congress, one Republican and one Democrat, who are reaching across rigid partisan divides, recognizing the value of compromise and seeking constructive change.

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Notre Dame at night

People gather to watch the reopening ceremony of the Notre Dame Cathedral on Dec. 7.

Telmo Pinto/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Cherishing our institutions: Notre Dame’s miraculous reopening

We witnessed a marvel in Paris this weekend.

When a devastating 2019 fire nearly brought Notre Dame Cathedral to the ground, President Emanuel Macron set the ostensibly impossible goal of restoring and reopening the 860-year-old Gothic masterpiece within five years. Restorations on that scale usually take decades. It took almost 200 years to complete the cathedral in the first place, starting in 1163 during the Middle Ages.

Could Macron’s audacious challenge — made while the building was still smoldering — be met?

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Two men sitting on a couch

Sen. Marco Rubio (left), President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be the next secretary of state, meets with Sen. Lindsey Graham on Dec. 3, in advance of Senate confirmation hearings.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Does it take six months on average for the Senate to confirm a president's nominees?

This fact brief was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Does it take six months on average for the US Senate to confirm a president's nominees?

Yes.

The average time the U.S. Senate takes to approve nominees to a president’s administration is more than six months.

The nonprofit Center for Presidential Transition reported that as of Nov. 11, 2024, the average number of days has more than doubled under presidents elected since the 1980s:

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Closed pharmacy

Pharmacies are closing all across the United States.

J. Michael Jones/Getty Images

28 miles to the nearest pharmacy? For many, that's the only option.

Pharmacies in the United States are closing at an alarming rate. The ACT Pharmacy Collaborative, a partnership between community pharmacy networks and academia, reported that 244 pharmacies closed in just the first six weeks of 2024. Similarly, Rite-Aid has closed 500 stores, CVS will close another 300 stores by the end of the year and Walgreens will close 1,200 over the next three years.

In my home state of Oregon, pharmacists are constantly facing untenable scenarios. At a recent hearing, a pharmacist from a rural community testified how a woman from a neighboring town called his pharmacy late in the day needing to urgently fill a prescription. Unfortunately, the only pharmacy in her town had permanently closed, so she was stuck frantically attempting to locate someone who took their insurance and had the medication in stock. His pharmacy had the medication, so while she drove 28 miles on rural roads, the pharmacy stayed open — 30 minutes after closing because that’s what pharmacists do. We take care of patients.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking while Donald Trump looks on

President-election Donald Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

RFK Jr. as secretary of HHS is a departure from Project 2025

The American voters bought a ticket to a second Trump administration, but the ride that will be the Department of Health and Human Services might just be a bit crazy, if not downright dangerous.

While President-elect Donald Trump did not seem to follow Project 2025’s recommendations for HHS, the American people should be no less afraid of how the second Trump administration might affect their health outcomes.

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