Senator Lautenberg
When Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) passed away Monday at the age of 89, the Senate lost one of its longest-serving members and the US lost a public-health champion. Brad Plumer at the Washington Post's Wonkblog describes several of Senator Lautenberg's achievements, including banning smoking on airplanes, preventing people convicted of domestic violence misdemeanors from owning guns, and requiring states to raise their drinking ages to 21 and lower the drunk-driving blood alcohol threshold from .10 to .08. The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin writes about Lautenberg's environmental…