Senatory Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is planning to introduce legislation to extend the TikTok ban deadline by 270 days. TikTok has warned of a looming shutdown in just five days, but the new legislation, officially called the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, would give TikTok more time to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, if approved by Congress.

TikTok is currently expected to “go dark” on January 19, unless the Supreme Court intervenes to delay the ban. The Supreme Court is weighing the ban, and is expected to decide sometime this week whether the law behind the ban violates the First Amendment.

“As the January 19th deadline approaches, TikTok creators and users across the nation are understandably alarmed,” Markey said in a Senate floor speech on Monday. “They are uncertain about the future of the platform, their accounts, and the vibrant online communities they have cultivated. “These communities cannot be replicated on another app. A ban would dismantle a one-of-a-kind informational and cultural ecosystem, silencing millions in the process.”

Markey noted that while TikTok has its problems and poses a “serious risk” to the privacy and mental health of young people, a ban “would impose serious consequences on millions of Americans who depend on the app for social connections and their economic livelihood.”

Markey and Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), along with Congressman Ro Khanna (CA-17), recently submitted a bipartisan amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit Court’s decision that upheld the TikTok ban. The trio argued that the TikTok ban conflicts with the First Amendment.

WELLESLEY – A Wellesley father of three and his dog are home safe after first responders rescued them from a freezing lake on Sunday.

Dramatic drone video shows the daring rescue on Sunday as a first responder crawls on thin ice to help Ed Berger struggling in a frigid icy Lake Waban. But it wasn’t just Ed in the water, his 8-year-old Cockapoo Tommy had fallen in the lake first.

“Traumatic experience”

“It was definitely a pretty traumatic experience,” said Ed Berger. “I think anybody who owns a pet would do the same thing, I just knew I had to do something.”

It began on a walk when Tommy saw birds, then ran off, but tumbled into the freezing lake.

As fast as Ed could act, he grabbed a boat from Wellesley College, then went after Tommy, putting his Mass. Maritime cold-water training to the test.

“I did a couple of things right and I did a couple of things wrong because obviously becoming part of the problem was not my intention,” said Ed Berger. “I knew the first thing I needed to do was control my breathing and not panic and I had the boat.”

But boat tipped over. Within minutes, firefighters and police teamed up to first pull the father of three out of the water. Then they got Tommy out too.

“I kept telling the fire department, ‘I’m fine I’m totally fine go save the dog,’ but they said ‘no sir, people first, it must be people first,’” said Ed Berger.

Tommy was taken to the Veterinary Emergency Group where Dr. Allan Heuerman treated the dog.

“Our first concerns are hypothermia,” said Dr. Heuerman. “Tommy’s a fighter, that definitely helped him stay alive and breathing and fighting throughout this whole process, so definitely lucky.”

Ice warning  

It’s a dangerous time on the ice that can lead to tragedy, like in Atkinson, New Hampshire where a 56-year-old mom fell through ice and drowned over the weekend.

In Wareham, first responders found a man clinging to a kayak after he had fallen through an icy pond.

“Even though we’ve had cold temperatures. We don’t really recommend going in there at all because you never know if the water is moving, if there’s a pocket of warmer water underneath,” said Wellesley Fire Chief Matthew Corda.

What could have ended in tragedy, became a happy ending for Ed and Tommy, and for that they’re so thankful to the first responders and medical staff who made it happen.

“The fact that they got me, and they got him was just absolutely amazing, so incredibly thankful,” said Ed Berger.

First responders say the lesson here is to keep your dogs on leashes and if they go out into the ice, don’t follow them, just call 911. 

NORWOOD – As harrowing images of homes burning to the ground come in day after day from California, Massachusetts homeowners are understandably questioning whether they are prepared and properly insured should a catastrophe hit our coast.

“There’s a ripple effect”  

“Whenever you see catastrophic losses like they’re seeing in California right now, there’s going to be ramification, repercussions across the country, if not across the world,” explained local insurance agent and former chair of the Mass. Association of Insurance Agents, Patrick Dempsey of Norwood.

“That could mean rates go up for people across the country, even though it’s not happening in our backyard. It’s happening to a market that’s going to impact ours here. So, there’s a ripple effect for sure,” he said.

Dempsey explained that insurance companies are not equipped to cover sudden losses of hundreds of billions of dollars, and in a time like we’re seeing in California, they tap into their own insurance companies in the “reinsurance” industry.

Fortunately for now, Massachusetts doesn’t seem poised to experience fires like the West Coast does as weather intensifies worldwide. “[Fires] haven’t really been prominent here, although we did have some this past year in kind of the Milton Blue Hills area there. There were legitimate forest fire concerns,” he said.

One huge challenge in California right now, Dempsey explained, is that the state “has been noted to go through some struggles in the recent past with certain larger carriers kind of pulling back in large scale.”

Massachusetts safety net

Since insurance is governed on a state level, Dempsey feels Massachusetts residents should be comforted by our state’s safety net. 

“I think it is a little bit of a feather in the cap for Massachusetts, that the Insurance Commissioner’s office and the companies work quite well together in the sense that they’re not taking aggressive rates that are unnecessary, but they’re keeping the companies in a way that they’re bringing enough premiums to pay out the claims. It’s a delicate balance,” he said. “Other states might be jealous of how well it’s being done right now, and I’m proud that that’s going so well in our state, so hopefully good things in the future.”

Dempsey’s advice to Massachusetts homeowners is likely not surprising, given that he is a local agent. He recommends staying local and using an agent to find the home insurance policy that’s right for you.

“When you deal with an agent, they can really take you through these steps, and they also know their backyard,” he said. “You know, if I’m writing a policy in Norwood, I’ll know when certain homes are going to be near, say, a brook or a stream that might put it in a flood zone.”