A business executive who spent his childhood in what he calls unstable, cruel and at times violent foster homes announced a primary challenge Tuesday to Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Markey.
Steve Pemberton, 52, whose memoir about his time as a foster child was turned into a movie, released a YouTube video highlighting his past and scheduled campaign events in New Bedford, Boston and Worcester.
"I am running to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate because we need leaders who understand the human toll of failed policies and the cost of willful indifference to our families," Pemberton said in a statement.
Businessman Steve Pemberton, 52, center, greets people Tuesday, July 23, 2019, during a campaign stop at Doyle's Cafe, in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Pemberton, a business executive who spent his childhood in foster homes, announced a primary challenge Tuesday to Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Markey. (AP PhotoSteven Senne)
He is the second person to challenge Markey in the September 2020 primary. Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Brookline-based workers' rights lawyer, said in May she would run.
An email was left with a spokeswoman for Markey.
Markey, 72, served in the U.S. House for 37 years before winning election in 2013 to the Senate seat previously held by Democrat John Kerry.
Pemberton, a New Bedford native, Boston College graduate and married father of three, recently moved to Framingham. A former college admissions counselor, he has been an executive at pharmacy company Walgreens and is currently chief human resources officer at Workhuman, a Framingham-based technology company.
In the statement announcing his run, he said he was born to a single alcoholic mother and an absent father lost to gun violence. His memoir, "A Chance in the World," was published in 2012 and later made into a movie.
He also condemned the tactics of Republican President Donald Trump in his announcement.
"At a time when we have a president who wakes up each day more focused on who he can hurt rather than who he can help — from his racist attacks on congresswomen of color to his destructive immigration policies — we need elected officials that can help restore trust and integrity to a society whose norms have been shattered."
Trump has denied that his comments were racist.
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping met with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing Wednesday in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949.
Ma stepped down as president in 2016 and was largely excluded from the opposition Nationalist Party’s failed campaign to retake the presidency in January, a concession to the electorate's strong opposition to political unification with China and politicians seen as willing to compromise Taiwan's security.
He follows a long line of politicians from the Nationalists, also known as the KMT, who have been invited to China by its authoritarian one-party government and given VIP treatment on visits around the country.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. Beijing sends navy ships and warplanes around the island on a daily basis in hopes of wearing down Taiwan's defensives and intimidating the population.
“The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are all Chinese. There is no dispute that cannot be resolved, there is no problem that cannot be discussed, and no force can separate us," Xi told Ma.
"Differences in systems cannot change the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to the same country and nation,” he added.
Ma responded that a new war between the sides would be “an unbearable burden for the Chinese nation.”
"The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait will definitely have enough wisdom to handle cross-Strait disputes peacefully and avoid conflicts,” Ma said.
Independence leaning president-elect Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won the January election handily and his vice president-elect Bi-khim Hsiao has been visiting nations friendly to Taiwan in Europe and elsewhere ahead of taking office.
Ma's 11-day trip, ostensibly at the head of a student delegation, underlines continued interactions in education, business and culture despite Beijing’s threat to use military force against the self-governing island democracy to achieve unification.
Toward the end of his second term in 2015, Ma held a historic meeting with Xi in Singapore, which has close contacts with both sides. The meeting — the first between the leaders of China and Taiwan in more than half a century — produced few tangible outcomes, and Ma’s Nationalist Party lost the next presidential election to Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP.
Lai Ching-te, currently vice president, is despised by Beijing for his opposition to unification. The Nationalists recovered a narrow majority in the legislature but their influence on foreign policy and other national issues remains limited.
Taiwan has been boosting military relations with allies such as the U.S. and Japan while maintaining close economic ties with the Chinese mainland.
In this image taken from video by Taiwan's TVBS, Chinese President Xi Jinping at right meets with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing on Wednesday, April 10, 2024 in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949. (TVBS via AP)
In this image taken from video by Taiwan's TVBS, Chinese President Xi Jinping at right meets with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing on Wednesday, April 10, 2024 in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949. (TVBS via AP)
In this image taken from video by Taiwan's TVBS, Chinese President Xi Jinping at right meets with former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing on Wednesday, April 10, 2024 in a bid to promote unification between the sides that separated amid civil war in 1949. (TVBS via AP)
