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SALEM — Sixth District Rep. Seth Moulton said Saturday that no one commanded more respect in the House of Representatives chamber than John Lewis. 

“When I grew up, we seemed to have a lot of great American heroes around. From the greatest generation who won World War II,” said Moulton, a congressman since 2015. 

“‘”Good Morning, Sir!’ was my usual greeting, not because of my Marine background or his age — most people in Congress are older than me — but simply because there is nobody in Congress who had more respect. Nobody.”

Summoning the police or fire department is an act so straightforward, children are drilled to remember the significance of dialing “911” before they show up for the first day of kindergarten. Digits for directory assistance — 411 — are nearly as identifiable. Less widespread, though every bit as sticky in memory, are the municipal information lines such as Boston’s “311.”

Soon enough, a lifeline for those in the throes of a mental health crisis will be just as casually memorable.

SALEM — It was held outside the hospital, not inside, and during a lull in the COVID-19 pandemic, not at its height.

But a meeting between Congressman Seth Moulton and a group of doctors and nurses at North Shore Medical Center on Wednesday provided a glimpse of what has gone on inside the walls of the hospital since the arrival of the pandemic in March.

Scores of academics and prominent figures, including several Nobel laureates from Massachusetts, have signed an open letter calling for consideration of human challenge trials of coronavirus vaccines, saying such trials might be able to speed up development of the shots desperately needed to stop the pandemic.

Delays in sending unemployment checks to scores of jobless workers shows just how far the states and federal government have fallen behind in updating decades-old technology, experts say, and they need to upgrade quickly to better serve the public.

The situation has become especially acute as old government computer systems buckle under the weight of record unemployment claims and a massive shift in state and federal employees working from home during the coronavirus crisis, technology leaders told a congressional panel on Wednesday.

It’s a given that Google and Amazon are listening to you, even when their devices are “off.” But what about your refrigerator? Or toaster?

Would that be enough to make people mind their language in the kitchen?

And imagine if those devices were watching you, too. It introduces a whole new level of paranoia to toasting a slice of bread.

To address the proliferation of eyes and ears in new devices, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton has introduced bipartisan legislation to give people a clearer view of their household technology.