area, fwa, insolutions. >> hi there, you are watching getting answers, live on abc seven. we asked experts your questions every day at 3:00. did you know that maternal mortality rates among black pregnant women are 3.5 times higher than those of white women? it is black maternal health week and today, a santa clara county supervisor will join us to discuss programs to address inequities. also, the tech world is buzzing over elon musk's bid to buy twitter. twitter is holding an all hands meeting right now. and big tech regulations being proposed.

first, a new report in the san francisco chronicle about the cognitive abilities of california senior senator dianne feinstein. she has held the ball for 30 years and according to some, the report, some people in washington, d.c. think it may be time for her to the tire. one of the reporters who did the story joins us now to talk more about this controversial and painful topic. senator feinstein has been a trail blazer and many californians have respect for her career beginning with the moment she became san francisco mayor. that does need to be acknowledged and respected but she is 88 years old and according to your article, some colleagues worry she is mentally unfit to serve. who are these colleagues? >> to your point, every one of the people i spoke with also has

that tremendous respect and admiration for her and the concerns that they are expressing are coming from that place, that place of sadness for what the situation they see today is. to your specific question, i spoke with four members of the senate including three democrats and a california democratic member of congress as well as -- i apologize if you can hear background noise. kristen: no need, work from home. >> as well as three former staffers of the senator. they told me a range of things, all of them expressed concern about the state of the senator's short-term memory specifically. the california democratic member of congress i spoke with had a recent interaction with her that took place several weeks before the passing of her husband which happened in february and over the course of several hours of that conversation, not only did

they not have the type of conversation they were used to having, a detailed, rigorous policy discussion, they found themselves having to introduce themselves to her after years of working together and then reintroduce themselves because she was forgetting parts of the conversation that they had already had in the several hour interaction. so that plus her colleagues who see her every day who were telling me that it is becoming a situation where there are questions about her ability to perform the job, these are people who know the job, some really serious concerns that were raised. kristen: i need to point out that in your reporting, these people you talked to were anonymous. tal: correct. and we as a newspaper do not take that lightly, we have a process for deciding whether to grant someone anonymity to speak

with us. it is a combination of evaluating the credibility of the sources. they were willing to let me cite their offices in their reporting so the credibility of the sources and the importance of the information and we decided that the importance of the information and the credibility of the information, we owed it to the people of california to provide this information. kristen: there have been other moments these past few years that raised eyebrows including the time when she chastised schoolkids from the bay area that went to her office who wanted her to back their green new deal. let's listen to that. >> i hear what you're saying but we are the people who voted you, you are supposed to listen to us. >> how old are you? you did not vote for me. kristen: in that case, it was not a memory issue, but some pointed to her attitude that some thought were kind of testy

giving that she was talking to young kids. she definitely has her defenders. today, nancy pelosi, who goes way back with senator feinstein, said it was unconscionable that weeks after losing her husband of four decades, after four years of outstanding leadership, that she is subjected to these ridiculous attacks. that are beneath the dignity of her office. do you think these are ridiculous attacks? tal: first of all, i would not characterize them as attacks, i would characterize them as concerns. again, everyone i spoke with for this story, there was such a pain and sadness in what they were telling me. no one took any pleasure in this. they all have tremendous respect for senator feinstein, they have affection for senator feinstein and those were part of their concerns about not wanting to

use their names because of the hurt it might cause her even to see their names attached to this. the people i spoke with felt that they owed it to the people of california to make these issues known. that is the place a lot of this was coming from. no one would deny that it is unfortunate timing with her husband, but certainly my reporting and my colleagues' reporting, it predates her husband's decline in health as well, so it is not nearly a situation that arises from that. kristen: some say this could be politically motivated. i know you talked to a lot of democrats as well so that makes that claim a somewhat unlikely but politically, she is a centrist democrat considered too far right for many progressives and they point to her relationship with some of her republican colleagues like lindsey graham.

how do we know that these allegations are not possibly politically motivated? when you google this and you can see it is mostly by leading media outlets reporting underreport. -- reporting on your reports. tal: we present the reporting and the readers are able to draw their own conclusions in that is the beauty of what we do, it is not our job to tell readers what to think, it is to tell them what we know. there is a process we go through when we decide whether to grant someone anonymity and report what they are telling us and that includes us deciding whether we believe the information they are telling us is credible and part of that is us determining their motivations for telling us the information. i share that with your viewers, for them to evaluate whether they feel they can trust our decision-making. i cannot get into specifically the people i spoke with our. kristen: her term does expire in

two years anyway. why do you suppose your sources felt it important to speak out now in terms of the timing instead of letting things take their natural course? few are expecting her to run again. tal: this is an issue that has been an issue for some time. we have new details but there was a round of questions raised in 2020 about this. there was also an instance where at a congressional hearing, she repeated nearly word for word two questions that she was reading offer prepared questions within the span of five minutes without any recognition that she was repeating herself. it was all centered around whether she was able to lead the judiciary committee and alternately, she stepped aside. but there is a question as to whether the people of california , who do not elect a staff, the elect a politician, whether they

have adequate elective representation. she will be able to serve through the end of 2024 if she so chooses. there is almost never used process for expelling someone from the senate that it is a virtual certainty her colleagues would never resort to, it has mostly been used to expel people who supported the confederacy, it is not something that happens often. there is nothing voters can do but there are many who hope that there is someone who can get through to her and convince her to step aside not just for the people of california, also for her own sake, with her career, which no one will deny her career is incredible, trailblazing is a word you use, they are pained to see her like this and fear a public embarrassment if she continues so it is a combination of her help -- of her her own sake as well as the people of california that they would like to see something done. kristen: the last time we saw

her was at soon-to-be justice kentucky brown jackson's confirmation hearing and she seemed perfectly normal and lucid and alert in every way, but i see in your reporting that what you are saying is people are saying it is spotty, that it is sporadic. i do appreciate the reporting and i appreciate with you talking with us about the decision process and use of sources and what you hobo come out of the reporting. i appreciate your time. tal: thank you for having me. kristen: black women are more likely to die from a pregnancy related cost and white women. a santa clara county

kristen: according to the cdc,

black women are 3.5 times more likely to die than white women giving birth. changing the statistics is one of the missions behind black maternal health week. joining us to discuss efforts to support healthy black moms and babies is susan. thank you for joining us. >> glad to be here. >> we see those numbers but what are the causes? why are black women facing higher maternal mortality rates? >> there are a mix of factors, but racism is at the core. black pregnant people may not be heard by their clinicians when they are describing symptoms or concerns that they have. there are higher risks of cardiovascular disease which are said to be related to confronting the daily stressors of life. what is interesting is that

higher rates of mortality are not correlated with level of education or socioeconomic status with black pregnant people as compared to other demographics where those factors may be more highly correlated. kristen: you are saying even being a wealthy black woman, your mortality, being pregnant, giving birth, is still greater? >> in fact, the outcomes are worse. incidence of mortality and morbidity are higher as black women are more highly educated and more financially secure. that is the inverse of what happens in most other demographics. kristen: that in itself is difficult to explain and i imagine there is no easy answer. i want to get to what can be done to address that. i know santa clara and other counties have a new campaign to try to address that. >> we do have a new campaign

called deliver birth justice and santa clara county also has a partnership that i initiated a year ago to improve outcomes for black pregnant people and black infants where we are aiming to. three specific things, increase education amongst health care providers so that they understand the systemic racism that impacts the outcomes, we want them to acknowledge and understand that. we want to make sure they know what resources are available to their black clients and we want black pregnant people, pre-pregnant, postnatal, between kids, to know directly as well what services are available to them. kristen: is there a lot of new federal funding to support such programs? susan: there is new federal funding, there is the new momn ibus bill, there are extensions

to medicaid and expanded options at the state level and we are working to make them happen at the county as well. kristen: what to black expecting mothers need to know? susan: they need to know that this disparity is real, it is not something that they might be believing is an illusion. they need to know that there are culturally specific services and programs and health care providers available to them and they need to know that it is their right to ask questions and to push back if they get answers that do not feel satisfactory or if they feel that their needs or concerns are being dismissed or minimized. kristen: what is the best way to access these resources? susan: one way to access them is through the sarah content -- santa clara county public health department.

we have a program for black infant health. we are also partnering with the hospital councils of northern california and they are working with their partner hospitals to expand resources and make sure medical providers and patients alike are aware of what is available. kristen: one lasting and it is important to address this, we are not only talking about maternal health, we are also talking about the health of the baby, which is closely linked to the health of the mother. susan: absolutely closely linked and one of the most frequent concerns is low birthrate. i should mention the roots family clinic, which is in san jose and provides specific services to black pregnant people and black infants. part of what we do also ask santa clara county is we are making sure to expand developmental screenings at all family resource centers and at

pediatrician visits and other venues and this will benefit not just black infants but infants across the board so we can make sure that we are helping not only to identify early concerns but we are linking people to the appropriate programs and services and providers. kristen: susan ellenberg, keep us posted on the resources and initiatives in york county. thank you so much coming up next, elon musk offers to buy twitter, all of it. the company is

kristen: twitter is holding a meeting to discuss elon musk's bid to buy the company. he offered $54 a share to buy the rest of the company. he already owns over 9% of it. his final offer as he calls it contains a lot of promises and a bit of a threat. joining us to talk about this

news, cnet editor-in-chief. thank you for joining us. how big of a deal would this be? what is the price tag? >> it is a big deal because it is elon musk who likes to make a lot of noise. the price tag is north of 40 million dollars but it is an 18% premium over twitter's share price which some of their top investors have said is not enough. i think the drama is more over idea that elon musk wants to shake up the world of twitter and the world of tech is the talk of silicon valley and i think lots of places today. that impact is on whether he is going to follow through. and if the board thinks it is a good deal. which are both incredibly open questions. kristen: they are having a meeting right now, i can only imagine we want to be a fly on that wall. i imagine a lot of the

executives, the ceo specifically, might be panicked about this. connie: you are dealing with elon musk, who is not the most predictable ceo in the world. he is adept at introducing drama. he is a twitter power user, he has 82 million followers, he loves to make noise and sometimes that noise has been to his detriment as when he said he wanted to take one of his companies private in 2018 and issued a note about how much he would pay to take a -- tickets private, all sorts of market reaction and it turned out not to be true and he got slapped with a fine and a warning from the sec for his statements about tesla need to go through review because it is a publicly traded company. it is interesting that his offer for twitter is about taking the company private, which would change the rules of engagement about what he can and cannot say

about a company that is privately held versus one that is publicly traded as twitter is today. kristen: especially if you had joined the board, which he was going to but backed out, that would really limit what he could say because then his main responsibility is to the company and there are rules and regulations. some think this might be a big head case, messing with the sec. is that possible? they also opened an investigation into how he bought these twitter shares, he hit the 5% mark, did not disclose it properly, so he continued to buy more. he was able to buy at a lower price because had people knowing about it, it would have driven the price higher. the sec is mad at him. connie: and mark cuban, another tech billionaire, said today in an interview that he things elon musk is trolling the sec, that he has put out this offer, the presumption is that it causes a

rise in twitter's share prices. that he could turn around and say, they are not going to get my deal, i'm going to walk away and so shares which have now been to. we are seeing the shares up in afternoon trading, they closed down about 2% in regular trading. if drama continues, there's an opportunity for him to profit. kristen: this is interesting because in that offer that he calls his best and final, there was that threat saying, if you don't take this, i may have to rethink my position, meaning i may sell, dumped my stock, which would send the value of the company tanking. connie: they are definitely an interesting predicament. twitter has its challenges, elon musk aside. they are a social media platform with 200 million users and they are seeing not a lot of growth because other sites are becoming popular including instagram and

tiktok. they have challenges as a social media platform. now you add a noisy and prolific and very washed agitator mike -- watched agitator like elon musk. there is talk of a poison pill so he would not buy a bunch of shares and doing what you were saying, because a lot of hype and then say, never mind, i have sold my shares, he walks away with a profit but the market tanks. it is not how you want to be spending your time especially if you are twitter, which is in the midst of trying to take on the challenges of building their own social media network at a time when they are being challenged. kristen: here is the 64 million dollar question, what does elon musk really want? does he actually want twitter? if he gets twitter, which you can predict, what is he going to do with it?

or those going to be good for consumers? you want to have a go at that? connie: that is a tricky question. he wants to be in the new cycle and he wants people to pay attention to him. he has accomplished that. he wants that twitter border to be in a frenzy. should he do this, shouldn't he do this, it is causing cycles. he has done that. does he want twitter? he has a prolific twitter user and lots of people are and there is power to that platform, it is a place where a lot of people go. his claim is he believes in free speech and does not like the fact that twitter has put in place moderation. they do not want covid misinformation, they do not want election misinformation. if he were to hypothetically buy it and take it private and remove restrictions in the name of free speech, people have been debating whether that surely means that it will be a free speech platform because as we

know, there is a line that has been crossed in the past several years between free speech and disinformation propaganda. is it going to be good for consumers? that is an open question. i think know because i think twitter's moves to moderate its speech came after -- and they have not been perfect at it, but nobody wants covid misinformation where people's lives are on the line, to be out there and proliferating. those are the issues we are going to have to deal with. kristen: please don't go away, we will continue to chat on

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we will be here every weekday at 3:00. brothers tonight with david muir is coming up next. tonight, new details about new york city subway shooting suspect frank james. federal prosecutors calling the attack entirely premeditated. frank james ordered held without bail, accused of shooting 12 people on the sub wail in brooklyn, injuring 29 in all. prosecutors saying he terrified the entire city. abc news learning authorities believe he rushed the attack, setting off smoke grenades on the train earlier than planned. prosecutors also say he had enough supplies to carry out more attacks. his attorney urging against a rush to judgment, praising him for calling crime stoppers to turn himself in. janai norman outside federal court. overseas tonight, a major blow to russian naval forces off ukraine. the russian flagship sinking in the black sea, cripple