This hearing will get underway. My apologies for being tardy. Im running around a lot today but thank you all for your patience and welcome to todays hearing on the telephone Consumer Protection act. When passing tcpa 25 years ago congress sought a balanced approach that protects the privacy of individuals and permitted legitimate telemarketing practices. A as a result a number of telemarketing pract is have been significantly reduced or eliminates. For example companies have to maintain donotcall list and could not make solicitation calls before 8 00 a. M. Or after 9 00 p. M. But tcpa is showing its age and there are opportunities to build on the consumer benefits and ensuring consumers fully benefit from modern communications. Consumers should be able to take advantage of technology to help them fall victim to actors though those who ignore do not call requirements. I doubt there is a person in this room whos that not received a recorded mobile voice call telling them theyve won a cr
Research and quality has found the reduction in nursing staffing has a direct relationship to negative Patient Outcomes with regard to the treatment of their conditions. So the more resources that have to be dedicated to the nonuse of up to date technology, calls from that pool of talent that is not being directed to patient care. And i dont think thats something we want to do as a nation. My time has expired. Ia ill hand it over to mr. Nelson. Im going to defer my questions until later. I want to introduce a thought. The law says its illegal robo calls callsen cell phones. Yet consumers receive millions of those robo calls on cell phones. Can you imagine if we made it legal what would happen . Im going to defer and let our members ask their questions first. Senator blount. Im sorry, thats right. Well keep it even. Blumenthal not here. Senator mccaskill. So this is not that complicated. All you have to have is the permission of the person youre calling and call them. I mean you guys ma
And that the party left them with little to celebrate. In the san jose, devin fehely, kpix 5. A different kind of mess in santa clara where a worker at a waste water plant accidentally turned the wrong valve and released nearly a million gallons of sewage into the bay. Now, thats enough to fill about 50 backyard swim pools but its not quite as bad as it sounds. The mercury news reports the water from the alviso plant had already gone through the first two levels of treatment, so most of the contaminants were already gone. And the spill is no threat to Public Health or the environment. A big fire burning near big sur doubled in size overnight to almost 5 square miles. The soberanes fire is threatening about 1,000 homes near garrapata state park. So far no burned structures but the fire is still zero percent contained. Some San Francisco firefighters are now headed to the site to help. Meanwhile, Southern California another big wildfire scorched 11,000 acres in the hills just north of lo
New york city and baltimore travel bans have been lift as millions of americans are trying to dig out of snow packed cities after a massive blizzard slimmed the east coast at least 18 didnt survive after two feet of snow fell in places and Hurricane Force winds caused blind whiteout can can whiteout whiteout conditions. Crews were worried the snow could slow 911 response times. Our interest is Public Safety moving First Responders and getting the city back open. Im well beyond the idea of Winter Wonder land. Theres no romance to a blizzard. 250,000 are without pow they are morning. If snow wasnt enough, major coastal flooding pushed water up lets head over to ashley now. What can folks expect who have head there today . Were starting to clear out. Winds are slowing down. You saw whiteout conditions there. Now seeing bright sunshine out the door for them this morning. Thousand that clean up has started as the system is pulling off to the northeast. Were talking about several areas, big
Vaccine for people when there is one for pets . And the new fallout after that intense u. S. Open final Serena Williams has been fined. You owe moon an apology. Ive never cheated in my life. And we talk with the new champion naomi osaka. This the nbc nightly news with kate snow. Gene. Hurricane florence is still far out over the atlantic but is still strengthening and could become a major hurricane as soon as tomorrow. The forecast right now puts it on a track to hit the east coast later this week. That would make it the first of the season to strike the eastern seaboard. And while the u. S. Braces for that storm, today rain pounded parts of the northeast and ohio valley delaying sporting events and flash flooding this weekend turning deadly. Our Steve Patterson has more. Reporter tonight millions battling surging floodwater, torrential rain across the country. In north texas severe flash flooding turned fatal. Saturday a teenage mother and toddler drowned in fort worth, their car swep