Maria Shriver

Mama & Mama G • Open Hearted Journalist, The Sunday Paper & NBC News • Co-Founder MOSH • Founder Women's Alzheimer's Movement • Publisher The Open Field

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Thank you to everyone who helped make I AM MARIA a No. 1 Instant New York Times Bestseller! I’m humbled, blown away, and thrilled that so many people are reading poetry. I’m honored and grateful that my reflections of heartbreak and healing are resonating with so many of you, and I love seeing the poetry that you are creating as well! Keep going, and keep ordering at https://t.co/McF31qE4wZ

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

This tells us everything about Trump. He will blame, he will try to sow doubt and confusion, he will gaslight. People have had enough, finally.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Most Americans are confident that next month’s midterm elections will be conducted fairly, but 7 in 10 lack confidence that President Trump will accept the results if Republicans lose, according to a poll by The Post, ABC News and Ipsos. https://t.co/MdfXKbQ0bV

[Variety @Variety]

Chris Pratt says Imax drone cameras were used for his new Vatican documentary with Pope Leo, which explores the tomb of St. Peter. He says the experience helped redefine his Catholic faith:

“It was really profound to be encountering the remains of one of Jesus’ apostles. There was prophetic word, he said that the church will be built upon that rock. And Simon Peter is the rock. To see the church some 2,000 years later, and see the prophecy of his words came true, it just was really meaningful to me.”

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Preach. This is a party of mummy’s story. She was relentless, tough, and passionate about so many things, especially science and research. She knew it was the answer to changing people’s lives. Bravo and thank you Eileen McNamara for keeping her legacy alive and well.

[JFK Library Foundation @JFKLibraryFdn]

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the 5th of 9 in President Kennedy’s family, is not as well known as her brothers, John, Robert, and Ted.

But author and journalist Eileen McNamara highlights Eunice Kennedy for her work behind the scenes that changed the world. #womenshistorymonth

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

This is just not true. NIH has an office for women’s health and research!!!

This White House has never done anything on women’s health. President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden launched the first ever White House women’s health initiative in 2024.

What is true is that the NIH spends less than ten percent of its yearly budget on women’s health. The president should focus on that. That’s the truth.

[The Patriot Oasis™ @ThePatriotOasis]

🔥🚨 JUST IN — President Trump says he was SHOCKED that the Government didnt have a HEALTH division for WOMEN!

"The executive order I'll sign in just a moment will direct the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a new women's health division within the National Institutes of Health."

"I don't know why they haven't done things. There's so many things that would seem so basic. Think of it—a women's health division, and it hasn't been done, but it's been done under Trump."

[James Talarico @jamestalarico]

Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat in Texas.

He wants our land, he wants our water, and he wants his own personal U.S. senator. He’s trying to buy Texas.

But on November 3rd, we’ll deliver a clear message to the world’s first trillionaire: Texas is not for sale.

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Nuns have always been on the frontlines of humanity. They have always led the way and they continue to do so today—fighting for social justice, fighting for the values of the church, fighting, fighting, fighting.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

NEW: A Catholic nun pressed Vice President JD Vance on Saturday to justify ICE’s conduct to people of faith at a CBS News town hall in Michigan.

Sister Nancy Sylvester asked how the behavior of ICE agents “can constantly be justified in terms of the kind of values we want to live by.”

Vance never answered. She is the latest Catholic sister to challenge him on immigration.

Last fall, ICE turned away Sister JoAnn Persch, 91, when she tried to bring the Eucharist to detainees outside Chicago. She died two weeks later. https://t.co/MrnOyAuEWR

[Alzheimer's Association @alzassociation]

Now is our moment, and this weekend you proved it. 💜

Nearly 80 communities came together for Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Thank you! Over 150 Walks remain this year. Start or join a team at https://t.co/z8PMBFx4E9

#ENDALZ #Walk2EndAlz

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Tides are changing—actually, they’ve already changed.

[Democratic Wins Media @DemocraticWins]

BREAKING: The Dallas Morning News just announced they are endorsing James Talarico over Ken Paxton. The Dallas Morning News had previously endorsed Senator John Cornyn in every race he ever ran. This is amazing.

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Smart. Serious. True.

[Jake Sherman @JakeSherman]

New Talarico ad running statewide:

"Ken Paxton says, I don't have his experience, and he's right.

"I've never been indicted for fraud. I've never been reported to the FBI for bribery. I've never been impeached by my own party, and I've never given a sweetheart deal to a pedophile.

"I have a different kind of experience. I've worked with both parties to cap the cost of insulin and pass the largest property tax cut in Texas history. I'm James Tallarico and I approve this message because we need a different kind of experience in Washington."

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

This is a WOW piece of writing. This is a story of truth, of love, of loss, of what it means to be alone. Wow.

[Michael & Rebecca @Michaeljos92972]

THE HORROR OF BEING LONELY AT SEVENTY.
by Michael Whelan

The cruelest part of growing old isn't knowing that life is getting shorter. It's wondering how much of it you'll have to spend without being loved the way you once were.

At seventy, loneliness is not simply an empty house.
It is a body that still remembers what it feels like to be loved.

God, how I miss being held.

I miss holding Rebecca's hand. The beautiful simplicity of our fingers finding each other without either of us giving it a thought. I miss cuddling in bed after a long day, feeling her warmth against me, knowing that whatever horrors the world had waiting, for that one precious moment, we were safe.
I miss someone telling me I look handsome.
I miss hearing those three ordinary, extraordinary words: "I love you."
And perhaps most heartbreaking of all, I miss saying them to someone who could whisper them back.

These are the little things we take for granted until death comes along and steals them.

For years, I cared for Rebecca as Parkinson's and dementia slowly took possession of the woman I adored. Cancer had already ravaged my own body. I was exhausted, frightened, and sometimes so overwhelmed that I prayed for one afternoon when nobody needed me.

Now I have more afternoons than I know what to do with.

What a cruel joke.

People think loneliness is about having nobody to talk to. They're wrong. I can talk to friends. I can laugh. I can attend a gathering and appear perfectly happy.

Then I return home.

Nobody asks how my day went. Nobody reaches across the couch to touch my arm. Nobody notices that I've put on a nice shirt or that I'm unusually quiet.

And the bed.

Dear God, the bed.

There is something almost unbearable about having an entire side of a mattress available when you'd surrender everything you own to feel someone breathing beside you again.
At seventy, society seems to assume our need for tenderness has somehow expired.
It hasn't.

My heart is seventy.

My need to be loved is ageless.

I still want affection, companionship, laughter, romance, and the glorious comfort of knowing someone is genuinely happy that I walked through the door.

I don't want to spend my remaining years merely remembering what love felt like.
I want to feel it again.

And perhaps that is what makes loneliness at seventy so terrifying.

I am not finished loving.

I am simply living in a world where the person who knew how to love me best is gone.

But love does not vanish just because the person who awakened it is gone. It remains in the hand that still reaches across the sheets, in the words that rise to my lips with nowhere to land, in the part of me that still believes tenderness is worth wanting.

So every night, when I turn out the light, my hand finds the place where hers used to be. I always tell her how my day went.

And for one aching moment, in the darkness, I am not only remembering what I lost.
I am remembering that I am still capable of love.
And perhaps that is not the loneliest truth of all.

Perhaps it is a promise.

The heart that can grieve this deeply has not gone empty. It is still open. It is still reaching. Somewhere beyond the silence of this house, there may be another hand waiting to find mine—not to replace Rebecca, because no one could, but to meet the love that remains.

Until then, I will keep getting up. I will put on the nice shirt. I will answer the phone, accept the invitation, sit beside someone who needs company, help other caregivers how to get through another day and let the world surprise me when it can.

I have lost the life I knew.

But I have not lost my capacity to live.

And as long as I can still love, still hope, still reach toward another human being, my story is not over.

The bed may be empty tonight.
But I am still here.
And here, even at seventy, is not the end.

[Joyce Carol Oates @JoyceCarolOates]

felt by many. though it is not a solace to be told that you are not alone, in fact you are NOT alone; grief is a vast tide sweeping over us all, in time.

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Well said and totally true, @mitchellreports.

[Andrea Mitchell @mitchellreports]

Christiane Amanpour is the gold standard of foreign correspondents. She is one of a kind - admired worldwide for piercing intellect, courage and integrity. Whatever she does next will be consequential

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

This is one of the many reasons why we need more research on women’s bodies, and how certain diseases impact our lives.

My heart goes out to Christina and I’m grateful for her bravery in sharing this so widely. No doubt doctors will be inundated by other people stepping forward and asking, ‘Do I really have this disease?’ This is why science and research matter and this is why it’s important to fund research on a national level.

[ABC News @ABC]

Actress Christina Applegate says she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a neurological and autoimmune disorder.

"It's hard to say that [my doctor] came into my room and she said, 'Congratulations! You don't have MS,'" she said.

Read more: https://t.co/zOZIofDmdK

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

Facts. Well said, @DrCatharineY.

[Dr. Catharine Young @DrCatharineY]

If you follow me, you know I strongly support women’s health and greater funding investment in science. So a few thoughts on yesterday’s White House announcement.

icymi, Trump unveiled a new women’s health division at NIH as though the federal government had never prioritized this work before.

In fact NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health has existed since 1990.

His executive order also revokes President Biden’s 2023 women’s health research initiative and his 2024 order advancing it.

I was serving in the White House when those efforts began and can say that there was - and remains - an enormous amount to do. Biden called on Congress to invest $12 billion in women’s health research and made concrete funding announcements: in October 2024, ARPA-H announced more than $110 million for 23 teams tackling neglected conditions affecting women.

Let’s not forget that this same administration has done incredible damage to the scientific systems over the past year and a half which has included terminating grants supporting women’s health research, including work on uterine fibroids and pregnancy risks.

But most notably this announcement comes without specifying any NEW research funding commitment, which is what women’s health so desperately needs.

I am absolutely supportive of a spotlight on women’s health but not another rebrand 😭

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

A powerful story from Idaho, where a ban on abortion has led ob-gyns to flee and made childbirth more dangerous. https://t.co/atjvRpaRFL

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

I want always to applaud any advancement in Women's Health by our nation's government. Our government spends less than 10% of its NIH budget on women’s health research, a sad fact, but one a president can change.

Today, First Lady Melania Trump joined the legions of advocates, activists, and doctors who have been aggressively pushing to change how our government looks at and funds women’s health research and care. When First Ladies get involved in an issue, it can change the issue. We saw that when First Lady Dr. Jill Biden joined forces with her husband, President Biden, and launched the White House initiative on Women's Health Research in 2024. I was proud to be a part of that initiative and we saw an explosion of interest in the space. It is unclear whether this new office will change this lack of funding, but I hope it will build on President Biden’s work advancing financial investments into the field, while also ensuring the necessary funding called for recently by the National Strategy to Close the Women’s Health Gap, an initiative backed by nearly 80 leading organizations, which calls for a $20 billion investment to improve women’s health throughout the federal health care system. It’s unclear to me what exactly this initiative will do, but as a woman’s health advocate, it’s always important when a First Lady shows her interest in a cause.

So welcome to the fight, Mrs. Trump. We need you. The women of this country need help, as do the doctors, researchers and scientists who are trying to find cures for Women's Health. I hope you will advocate for an increase in funding so that scientists and researchers can give us the answers we need. This is a non-partisan issue and it’s an immediate issue. We need everyone in this fight, women and men of all parties, all ages. It’s going to take all of us to recitfy the discrepancies in health care funding We are ready for change.

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

This is an amazing unfolding story. Clearly the White House hiring process is a joke. The president ran on the notion that he was a great CEO…not!

You can blame her, but he cannot escape blame here. He’s the boss. We are supposed to trust his vetting process, his judgement. He didn’t check the basics. Another example of the importance of a free press doing its job.

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

BREAKING NYT:

Trump's new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was fired Friday, after less than a week on the job, according to three people familiar with the matter. https://t.co/35TTZSRbp2

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

This should infuriate all of us, not just those in Texas.

[CNN @CNN]

New filings with the Federal Election Commission are shedding light on tech billionaire Elon Musk's heavy influence on the 2026 midterm elections, especially the blockbuster Senate race in Texas. https://t.co/DUW28rugWm

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Elon Musk, who has major business interests in Texas, appeared to funnel $158 million to back Ken Paxton’s Senate bid. https://t.co/dQxX1SQtC0

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

And he’s up and at ‘em—Thank God!! 🙏 Let’s go, your Holiness! Let’s go! 👏

[Vatican News @VaticanNews]

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass at noon on Friday in the room set up on the 10th floor of Gemelli Hospital, according to the Holy See Press Office.

Several members of Gemelli's medical and nursing staff attended the Mass, along with members of the Vatican City State Gendarmerie Corps.

"In his homily, the Pope thanked all the staff—doctors, nurses, and orderlies—for the work they do every day caring for patients in their frailty, and especially for what they have done and continue to do for him," read the statement.