Magaziner Leads Effort to Double the Pell Grant

Make Higher Education More Affordable 

Representative Seth Magaziner (RI-02) announced that he is leading 104 of his colleagues in requesting increased funding for the Federal Pell Grant Program and to double the maximum annual Pell Grant to $13,000. 

Magaziner and his colleagues also asked that appropriators secure the long-term affordability impact of the Pell Grant program for future years by indexing the maximum award amount to inflation and ensuring that funding for the program is fully mandatory.

 

“For nearly 50 years, Pell Grants have provided much needed financial assistance to low-income families, unlocking higher education opportunities for millions of students. However, Pell Grants are simply not keeping up with the rising cost of tuition,” said Rep. Seth Magaziner. 

“Building on the outstanding legacy of Senator Claiborne Pell, we must make sure that all students, no matter their socio-economic status, can access a college education. By investing in Pell Grants, we will reinforce our national commitment to progress, moving our country forward by ensuring that the next generation of leaders has access to the education they deserve.”

 

Pell Grants are a cornerstone of our nation’s student financial aid system, but today they cover less than one-third of the average cost of attendance at a public four-year university, the lowest share of tuition in the program’s history. 

Increased tuition costs, as well expenses like textbooks, housing, food, and transportation, have drastically diminished Pell Grant’s purchasing power, placing greater strain on the students and families that the program was designed to help.

 

Congress increased the maximum annual Pell Grant to $7,395 for the 2023-2024 award year, reflecting an increase of $500 and the largest increase in 10 years. However, this still falls short of what is needed to make college affordable to the lowest-income students. 

Congress must increase the annual Pell Grant to $13,000, which on average would cut student debt at least in half for eligible recipients, helping an estimated 25.2 million students per year. 

Read full text of letter here: 

Attending live sport improves wellbeing

Unless you catch COVID

Anglia Ruskin University

New scientific research has found that attending live sporting events improves levels of wellbeing and reduces feelings of loneliness.

Published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health, the research is the first large-scale study to examine the benefits of attending any type of live sporting event.

The study, carried out by academics from Anglia Ruskin University's School of Psychology and Sport Science, used data from 7,209 adults, aged 16-85, living in England who participated in the Taking Part Survey, which was commissioned by the British Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

It found that attending live sporting events results in higher scores of two major measurements of subjective wellbeing -- life satisfaction and a sense of "life being worthwhile" -- as well as lower levels of loneliness.

These results are significant as previous studies have shown that higher life satisfaction scores are associated with fewer life-limiting conditions and better physical health, successful ageing, and lower mortality rates.

Looming Medicaid Tsunami

Overburdened Rhode Island DHS Faces Renewal Crisis

By Steve Ahlquist For UpRiseRI

With the end of the COVID emergency all states, including Rhode Island, must begin the process of annually renewing those who receive Medicaid benefits starting in April. 

Unfortunately, under the administrations of former Governor Gina Raimondo and present Governor Daniel McKee, the Department of Human Services (DHS) has experienced a dramatic shortage of workers, which may cause the 300,000+ people in need of Medicaid renewal long wait times, unnecessary stress, and possible gaps in medical coverage. 

An already overburdened DHS will be seeing an increase of 15,000 renewal applications per month, rising to 25,000 later in the year. With roughly half the renewals being passive, that is relatively automatic, it still leaves DHS with 7,000-12,500 renewals per month, on top of the regular work they already do.

On March 8, Stacy Smith told the Rhode Island House Finance Health and Human Services Subcommittee that DHS is unprepared for the “tsunami” of Medicaid renewals that will be starting in April. 

Smith is the President of Council 94 AFSCME/AFL-CIO Local 2882, representing 280 workers who make eligibility determinations for programs such as Medicaid, SNAP benefits [formerly food stamps], cash assistance, and child care.

“While things have improved slightly under the McKee administration, Director Brito’s leadership, and the General Assembly’s required reports on hiring, we are still desperately short staffed,” said Smith.

Speaker Joseph Shekarchi (Democrat, District 23, Warwick) held a Medicaid Renewal Information session for House members and reporters. Uprise RI asked Director Merolla-Brito about the 120 unfilled positions at DHS. 

Director Merolla-Britto countered that the most recent numbers she had indicated that there are 117 open positions throughout the entirety of DHS, and 75 open positions that affect field operations, including eligibility technicians.

Tik Tok

By Mike Luckovich

 

I'd like to think they all live in Florida (and Texas), but sadly that's not true

 

Lobby For Gun Sanity — Tuesday, April 4 at the State House

Enough is enough!

By Beth Comery for the Providence Daily Dose

This is the xmas card photo used by US Rep. Andy Ogles
(R-TN) whose district includes the Nashville school where
three 9 year olds and 3 teachers were murdered with AR-15s. 

Tell the nine-year-old child in your life, I am doing something! The RI Coalition Against Gun Violence (RICAGV) will be hosting a Lobby Day next Tuesday, April 4th, at the State House. All are welcome. 

Feel free to bring like-minded friends and family, members of your organization, and anyone who wants to show their support of gun violence prevention. This event had been scheduled before Nashville.

You will receive a brief training about how to lobby legislators and will be partnered with others who have done this before. It’s a great way to have your voice heard. Wear orange: organizers will have orange RICAGV tee-shirts available.

The legislative goals this session:

Regulating Assault Weapons: House bill sponsored by Representative Jason Knight/ Senate bill sponsored by Senator Josh Miller.

This act would ban the possession, sale and transfer of assault weapons. Possession of assault weapons owned on the effective date of this act would be “grandfathered” subject to certain registration provisions.

Safe Firearm Storage: House bill sponsored by Representative Justine Caldwell/ Senate bill sponsored by Senator Pamela Lauria.

Rhode Island has already enacted sensible gun regulation. In 2022 we passed legislation limiting magazine capacity to 10 rounds, prohibiting loaded long guns in public, and raising the age to buy long guns and ammo from 18 to 21. These are very persuasive advocates.

RICAGV is the organizer of this campaign. They have many local and national partners, including: Moms Demand Action, The Nonviolence Institute, RICADV, United Way of RI, The Womxn Project, AFL-CIO, RI Black Business Association, RI Kids Count, and more.

Go here to sign up for Lobby Day.

Can’t make it? Go to their 401Gives page and help fund the efforts. Find your legislators here.

Learn more at the Washington Post: The Blast Effect: This is how bullets from an AR-15 blow the body apart. This includes 3D animations.

Lobby Day, 3pm to 4:30pm, Tuesday, April 4, State House, 82 Smith Street, (directions)

They all want to kill us

Warmer climate may drive fungi to be more dangerous to our health

Duke University

The world is filled with tiny creatures that find us delicious. Bacteria and viruses are the obvious bad guys, drivers of deadly global pandemics and annoying infections. But the pathogens we haven't had to reckon with as much -- yet -- are the fungi.

Pathogenic fungi (Candida, Aspergillus, Cryptococcus and others) are notorious killers of immune-compromised people. But for the most part, healthy people have not had to worry about them, and the vast majority of the planet's potentially pathogenic fungi don't do well in the heat of our bodies.

But all that may be about to change.

A new study out of Duke University School of Medicine finds that raised temperatures cause a pathogenic fungus known as Cryptococcus deneoformans to turn its adaptative responses into overdrive. This increases its number of genetic changes, some of which might presumably lead to higher heat resistance, and others perhaps toward greater disease-causing potential.

Specifically, higher heat makes more of the fungus' transposable elements, or jumping genes, get up and move around within the fungal DNA, leading to changes in the way its genes are used and regulated. The findings appeared Jan. 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Public radio can help solve the local news crisis

Needs more funding to expand staff and coverage

Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard Kennedy School

Can public radio fill the hole left by the decline of local
news outlets? Talaj/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Since 2005, more than 2,500 local newspapers, most of them weeklies, have closed, with more closures on the way.

Responses to the decline have ranged from luring billionaires to buy local dailies to encouraging digital startups. 

But the number of interested billionaires is limited, and many digital startups have struggled to generate the revenue and audience needed to survive.

The local news crisis is more than a problem of shuttered newsrooms and laid-off journalists. It’s also a democracy crisis. Communities that have lost their newspaper have seen a decline in voting rates, the sense of solidarity among community members, awareness of local affairs and government responsiveness.

Largely overlooked in the effort to save local news are the nation’s local public radio stations.

Among the reasons for that oversight is that radio operates in a crowded space. Unlike a local daily newspaper, which largely has the print market to itself, local public radio stations face competition from other stations. The widely held perception that public radio caters to the interests of people with higher income and education may also have kept it largely out of the conversation.

But as a scholar who studies media, I believe that local public radio should be part of the conversation about saving local news.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I agree. You won't find more in-depth coverage of South County news than the coverage of Alex Nunes, South County Bureau Chief for the Public's Radio. - Will Collette

The Deadly Results of Economic Inequality

It hits real people in terrible and tangible ways

EMILY MCCLOSKEY for Patriotic Millionaires Blog

If you grew up in America, then you almost definitely have heard some variation of the refrain: “America is the greatest country in the world.”

It’s an idea that’s so commonplace that it’s more or less taken for granted. We boast of inventions like the airplane, the light bulb, the internet, and even the humble chocolate chip cookie. We are home to some of the best universities in the world and most of the largest corporations.

But when we look more closely at other metrics, America’s position as the top country in the world is called into question. There are many such metrics, but perhaps none more important than life expectancy.

According to a report released last year by the National Center for Health Statistics, the average American can now expect to live 76.4 years. Life expectancy in the US has dropped off in recent years; as life expectancy in other wealthy countries rebounded after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it continued to decline in the US. 

All in all, the US now ranks 53rd among 200 countries in life expectancy. Citizens of all developed countries suffer from things like heart disease, cancer, and liver disease, but Americans suffer more and, as a result, live shorter lives.

Countries where life expectancy is the highest ( > 82 years) include places like Japan, Australia, Switzerland, South Korea, Norway, Sweden, and Canada. What are these countries doing differently than the US, you may ask? Why are their citizens living longer?

It all comes down to one word: inequality. The US is not poorer than any of these countries – year after year, we have the highest GDP in the world. And on a per-capita basis, we’re consistently in the top 10, far from 53rd in the world. But the difference between the US and other developed countries is that we do a much poorer job sharing wealth (and all the benefits that come with it) among our citizens. 

Among developed countries, the US has one of the highest rates of inequality, both in terms of wealth and income – and we can, unfortunately, see that disparity in health and life expectancy as well.

Just because the average American life expectancy is 76.4 years doesn’t mean that all Americans can expect to live that long. It’s sad, but in America how long you live has a lot to do with how much money you have. 

People with high incomes can live 10 to 20 years longer than people with low incomes, even if they live just miles apart in the same metro area. For example, rich residents in Columbus, Ohio can expect to live close to 85 years while poor residents in the very same city typically live just 60 years.

Woke nonsense

By Nick Anderson

 

Poison?

 

As long as it isn't Barry Manilow

Turn up your favorite song to improve medication efficacy

Michigan State University

While listening to a favorite song is a known mood booster, researchers at Michigan State University have discovered that music-listening interventions also can make medicines more effective.

"Music-listening interventions are like over-the-counter medications," said Jason Kiernan, an assistant professor in the College of Nursing. "You don't need a doctor to prescribe them."

While previous research studies have used music-listening interventions as a tool to treat pain and anxiety, Kiernan took a novel approach by studying the effects of music-listening interventions on chemotherapy-induced nausea.

"Pain and anxiety are both neurological phenomena and are interpreted in the brain as a state," Kiernan said. "Chemotherapy-induced nausea is not a stomach condition; it is a neurological one."

Ancient Plant Family, New Medicine

Tasty and good for you

By EMILIE LORDITCH, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY  

The mint family, also known as Lamiaceae, is a diverse group of herbs that are widely used for culinary, medicinal, and ornamental purposes. The family is comprised of over 7,000 species, including popular herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, mint, and sage.

The mint family of herbs, encompassing sage, rosemary, basil, and even woody plants like teak, provides a stimulating burst to our sense of smell and taste. Researchers at Michigan State University have discovered that the evolution of these plants have diversified their specialized natural characteristics through the evolution of their chemistry, opening up the possibility of future uses in fields such as medicine and pesticide production.

What did we learn from COVID?

Pandemic Center analyzes the lessons of COVID-19

Brown University

In March 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus took the nation by storm. The COVID-19 pandemic blindsided leaders and forced hasty decisions that came with long-term repercussions for the health and well-being of Americans, and local, national and global economies.

In 2022, the Brown University School of Public Health launched its Pandemic Center with the goal of reducing the chance for repeat mistakes. There’s no doubt that future public health emergencies will arise, said founding director Jennifer Nuzzo, and the country urgently needs to be better prepared.

“The reality is that we have seen over time an increasing number of new infectious disease threats,” said Nuzzo, an epidemiologist who focuses on global health security, public health preparedness and response, and health systems resilience. 

“That has to do with several factors, including how we've changed our relationship with the environment and how we, as humans, have changed behaviorally. In the future, we could see events that have an even greater potential to negatively impact society than COVID-19.”

At the outset of the pandemic, she said, the nation launched into crisis mode, and leaders made decisions quickly with the best information they had at the time. But the next emergency should come as less of a surprise: “Three years later, we should absolutely be asking what worked and what didn’t, so that next time we can do better.”

Don't Look Now, But the Far Right May Be Trying to Steal the Future

Bold political thievery gets you only so far

STEVEN DAY for Common Dreams

By Ed Hall

If you're a well-informed Republican leader, you know you have a problem. The extreme right-wing, which is really the only right-wing that exists these days, is losing the future. 

Baby boomers may still love them, but millennials and Generation Zers largely reject their agenda. Year by year, as more boomers disappear, Gen Zers, the age group Republicans do by far the worst with, are not only coming of age, but also voting in greater numbers than many expected. 

Meanwhile, while the data is somewhat mixed, recent evidence suggests millennials may actually be growing even less conservative as they age.

So, what's a political party facing this reality supposed to do? They could try making themselves more attractive to young voters. But for that to be successful they would have to be willing to alter their positions on the social and cultural issues that have made them a pariah to the young. And that is something their base, voters they can't afford to lose, will never allow.

Talk of a more moderate GOP is a pipe dream. The hate-based politics the party embraced in supporting Donald Trump (and embraced well before that in their racist southern strategy) has become a trap. The GOP is now inexorably affixed to a policy agenda that is anathema to young voters.

But before we are foolhardy enough to count the GOP out, we need to remember the secret sauce that fuels its successes—the money: billions of dollars tossed their way, spare change from America's increasingly wealthy plutocratic class.

By far the most important thing this lucre has provided right-wing politics is a series of decades-long crusades designed to fundamentally change the nation's courts and educational system, destroy unions, end, or drastically curtail, government programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and drastically reduce the share of the tax burden assessed to the wealthy. Taken together, these interlocking crusades have already changed America in profound and troubling ways.

All of these projects share one important characteristic—a commitment to playing the long game. This isn't about winning one election, though there is money enough to fight those battles as well. No, this is nothing less than a decades-long effort by American plutocrats to change this nation in fundamental ways.

Probably the best known of these long-term-conservative projects has been the effort to remake the nation's judiciary, spearheaded by The Federalist Society. The extent of the far-right's victory in this decades-old project was demonstrated, in devastating fashion, when the Court announced the Dobbs decision, overruling Roe v. Wade.

We are discussing here, however, a different crusade—but one with the potential to be every bit as impactful.

As we have seen, the right is losing the future politically. They are also extremely unlikely to modify their positions enough to win over young voters. They are not, however, without remedy. They may not be able to win the future, but that doesn't mean they won't try to steal it. 

Audacious political thievery is, after all, one of the GOP's modern-calling cards. Year after year, they've been stealing elections through vote suppression and extreme gerrymandering.

In 2020, they came within a whisker of successfully stealing the presidency through a multi-headed conspiracy of fake electors, efforts to suppress the vote count, false accusations of election fraud, a violent insurrection and, most remarkably, through the act of 147 Republican members of Congress in voting to overturn the will of the American people in a presidential election.

But how do you steal the future? If you're playing the long game, and you don't like the voters the future is likely to produce, you can try growing different ones. What follows includes speculation. But it's informed speculation that makes sense based upon established fact. 

Think about how you would proceed if you had almost limitless resources and wanted to change the political vision of future voters. You would want to gain control of the institutions that will influence their worldview. And if we set aside parents and friends, the biggest such influence is their schools.