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HEALTH DEPARTMENT UPDATES STATEWIDE COVID-19 CASE COUNTS
Governor Eric Holcomb Directs Flags To Be Flown at Half-Staff
Governor Eric J. Holcomb is directing flags across to be flown at half-staff to honor U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Flags should be flown at half-staff from sunrise to sunset until the day of her interment.
Gov. Holcomb also asks businesses and residents to lower their flags to half-staff to honor Justice Ginsburg and her service.
USI Cross Country opens 2020 season with GLVC Triangular
University of Southern Indiana Men’s and Women’s Cross Country returns to action, kicking off their 2020 campaigns Friday September 25 when the Greyhounds of UIndy will host the GLVC Triangular.
The Lewis Flyers are the third and final team at the meet vying for early season success.
USI’s men are led by junior Titus Winders the NCAA II All-American, reigning Midwest Region and GLVC Runner of the Year in 2019. Seniors Wyat Harmon and Gavin Prior look to complement Winders as they finished third and fourth respectively for the Screaming Eagles at the 2019 NCAA II National Championships. One of Harmon’s last events of the year happened to be an Indoor GLVC title in the 5,000 meters, so he hopes to harness that championship mindset once again. Last, senior Grady Wilkinson returns having been a member of the 2019 NCAA II National Championship team after an impressive 29th overall finish at the Midwest Regionals.
USI’s women will be headed by senior Jennifer Comastri, the 2019-20 NCAA II All-American, also receiving All-Midwest Region and All-GLVC recognition for her efforts. Alongside Comastri, senior Doriane Langlois figures to pace close behind as she finished third for the Eagles at the NCAA II National Championships as well as being named All-GLVC.
USI Cross Country Notes:
Men’s Conference Dominance: USI has been long respected and regarded as a powerhouse in Division II cross country as they seek their 16th consecutive title, the 17th in the last 18 years.
Women’s Conference Dominance: USI has won ten of the last 12 conference team titles.
Others To Watch: Men- junior Noah Hufnagel transferred late in the Summer from Indiana State where he was the Sycamores’ top finisher at the Missouri Valley Conference Championship, finishing 23rd overall. Sophomore transfer Braden Nicholson was the top freshman in the country in NCAA III last indoor season in both the three and five. Freshman Silas Winders was a Foot Locker Cross Country national finalist and Tennessee state cross country champion. His high school personal bests of 8:57 (3200 meters) and 14:29 (5k Cross Country) ranked among the best in the country.
Women- sophomore McKenna Cavanaugh returns, having received All-GLVC honors and crossing line fifth for the Eagles at the National Championships last season.
Runs In The Family: Between the men and the women’s teams there is a trio of siblings. On the men’s side, it is junior Titus Winders and his younger brother freshman Silas Winders along with twin freshmen Luke Heinemann and David Heinemann. For the women, it is senior Jennifer Comastri and younger sister freshman Audrey Comastri.
Hillyard Quote: “We’re excited and grateful to finally get an opportunity to return to competition. We expect there to be some cobwebs and rust early, but I am very optimistic about this group. We have a great mix of veteran leadership and very talented newcomers. I’m looking forward to seeing this group continue to develop as a team.â€
Vaughan, Burton Receive 2020 McGary Jones Visionary & Humanitarian Award
Mayor Lloyd Winnecke proclaimed Lisa Vaughan and Alex Burton as recipients of the 2020 McGary Jones Visionary & Humanitarian Award.
Burton and Vaughan created Feed Evansville, an initiative that focuses on providing food and meals to those in need.
“At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Feed Evansville identified a gap in our community’s food security,†said Mayor Winnecke. “Lisa and Alex truly embody the spirit of the award’s namesakes. They created and executed a strong community vision, while simultaneously supporting all of Evansville’s citizens in the most humanitarian manner.â€
The award is announced every year at United Way of Southwest Indiana’s Day of Caring event. However due to COVID-19 restrictions, the announcement was made virtually on Friday during United Way’s Day of Sharing Facebook event.
“I’m so grateful and honored to receive this award,” said Vaughan. “This award belongs to our volunteers and community partners. Feed Evansville would not exist without them. Together we will continue to work for our city.â€
“I’m deeply honored to accept this award,” said Burton. “We will continue to work with our partners to meet the needs of our community as it relates to accessing food.â€
The award, named for both the City of Evansville’s founder, Hugh McGary, Jr. and retired bank executive Bob Jones, was established to honor special citizens who offer distinguished service for the advancement of the city and region.
Jones was the first recipient of the award in 2019
AG Curtis Hill Announces $4.2 million Settlement With Pharmacy That Allegedly Paid Kickbacks
Attorney General Curtis Hill today announced that Indiana has joined with other states and the federal government to reach an agreement with National Cornerstone Health Services (NCHS) to settle allegations that NCHS violated the False Claims Act.
NCHS allegedly paid kickbacks to parents of children with hemophilia to induce purchase of NCHS’s blood-factor products. As a result, NCHS will pay the Medicare and Medicaid programs more than $4.2 million, $1.3 million of which goes to state Medicaid programs. As part of the settlement, the Indiana Medicaid program will receive $408,202.82 in restitution.
NCHS is a California-based specialty and wholesale pharmacy that provides blood-factor products, including anti-hemophilic factors and other plasma-derived therapeutic agents, to patients with hemophilia. At issue in this settlement are 12 products — NCHS’s Advate, Benefix, Eloctate, Feiba NF, Helixate FS, Humate-P, Kogenate FS, Mononine, NovoSeven RT, Recombinate, Rixubis, and Stimate.
The federal and state civil settlement resolves allegations that from January of 2009 through November of 2014, NCHS recruited certain individuals whose relatives required one or more the above-listed blood-factor products. NCHS then allegedly provided those individuals illegal remuneration to induce them or their relatives to purchase the drugs from NCHS, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.
An investigation revealed that NCHS recruited parents whose children have hemophilia as marketers — paying the parents a commission each time they purchased their children’s medication through NCHS. These medications can cost tens of thousands of dollars per dose. The parents’ commission consisted of the profit NCHS made for each claim submitted to Medicare or Medicaid.
NCHS allegedly carried out these activities through its subsidiary Home Health for the Cure LLC.
“We cannot tolerate fraudulent activity on the part of companies wanting to funnel taxpayer funds for their own gains,†Attorney General Hill said. “This investigation and resultant settlement underscore our commitment to hold accountable those who would seek to circumvent our laws.â€
This resolution arose from a joint investigation by the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin, and the attorneys general of other affected states.
A National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units Team — including representatives from the Office of the Indiana Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit — conducted the settlement negotiations with NCHS on behalf of the states.
The Indiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit receives 75 percent of its funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under a federal grant. The remaining 25 percent is funded by the State of Indiana.
High School In Pandemic Times
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BY ERIC GORSKI FOR CHALKBEAT
It wasn’t supposed to start like this.
The 13- and 14-year-olds who make up the Class of 2024 did not expect to begin their high school careers clustered in Zoom rooms or passing temperature checks and shuffling past masked classmates at a safe distance.
The pandemic has rewritten the script of a traditional rite of passage — the beginning of the end of a long K-12 journey for students growing into young adulthood.
It is a story Chalkbeat will be following over the next several months as the 2020-21 school year unfolds. Our reporters will introduce you to a cast of ninth graders across the country trying to figure it all out in this most challenging school year.
We chose to focus on this grade for a number of reasons. For one, it’s when school truly starts to count. A student’s grades, attendance, extracurricular activities, and relationships with classmates and school staff will leave a lasting mark.
In fact, there is little margin for error.
How a student fares in ninth grade goes a long way toward determining academic, and life, success. Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research found that students who failed more than one semester of a course during their freshman year almost always dropped out. Other studies have found that students struggle to maintain their grades and friendships as they transition to high school.
Many schools — including some we will feature in this series — have taken this to heart by launching ninth-grade academies and other efforts to rein in high dropout rates and steer ninth graders toward academic success. Now they face pulling it off in a pandemic.
The stakes are especially high for students of color and those whose families live in poverty, the communities hit hardest by COVID-19. As classes resume, these families face hurdles, rooted in longstanding inequities, that influence how students learn — the digital divide, food and housing instability, transportation challenges, and more.
Our first installment, which publishes Thursday, will bring you into a corner of a Memphis living room that student Jalan Clemmons has carved out as his remote classroom.
A relative newcomer to Memphis, Jalan joined students from across Shelby County Schools in logging onto school and receiving live instruction from teachers after a spring of learning lessons though paper packets and televised instruction.
The first day of school brought unexpected choices for Jalan — like whether to turn on his laptop camera and face classmates he had never met.
No matter whether students are learning at home, together in small cohorts in classrooms, or experiencing some of both, this is high school at a distance.
Students are either separated from their teachers and friends by sometimes shaky Wi-Fi signals or kept physically apart in school buildings in keeping with health department recommendations.
We hope to still bring readers close to these students — sharing their hopes, fears, victories, and setbacks in a year unlike any we’ve seen.
EPA Proposes 2020 Financial Capability Assessment for Water Services in Disadvantaged Communities
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its proposed 2020 Financial Capability Assessment (FCA) for the Clean Water Act, which will help communities plan for water infrastructure improvements.Through the 2020 FCA, EPA is seeking to support water utilities that serve economically disadvantaged communities and provide vital clean water services that support public health, the environment and local economies. This is the first time in more than 20 years this document has been updated.
“EPA is working to ensure that all Americans—regardless of their zip code—have clean water for drinking and recreation,â€Â said EPA Assistant Administrator for Water David Ross. “With this action, the agency is supporting wastewater utilities to help them better serve disadvantaged communities that have financial challenges.â€
The 2020 FCA proposal explores how customers’ ability to pay for service impacts planning for capital expenditures and operation and maintenance needed to support Clean Water Act compliance. This guidance is used to evaluate the financial capability of a community when developing a schedule (i.e., plan) for water infrastructure improvements. EPA’s proposed FCA 2020 guidance includes new metrics to inform a community’s implementation schedule, including indicators that more accurately reflect how much low-income communities can afford to pay for water infrastructure upgrades.
“It has been a long time since the 1997 Guidance for Financial Capability Assessment and Schedule Development reflected EPA’s actual practices when reviewing the affordability of Clean Water Act control measures,â€Â said EPA Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Susan Bodine. “I am glad we finally are providing transparency regarding the tools available to communities to inform EPA enforcement decisions and how we use that information.â€
“The Conference of Mayors has been working with the US EPA since the 1990s outlining the growing burden of financial impacts that unfunded Clean Water Act mandates have on our poorest and most vulnerable citizens. This new affordability guidance provides greater transparency and additional tools to allow cities to work in conjunction with EPA to find solutions that protect public health in a more affordable manner. We appreciate EPA’s willingness to listen to our concerns and work with us to develop solutions,â€Â said U.S. Conference of Mayors Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director Tom Cochran.
“Affordability is a pressing concern for water and wastewater utility customers, even more so in this time of pandemic. The American Water Works Association (AWWA) is pleased that EPA has released this proposal for public review and comment. It is a genuine effort to ensure that clean and safe water is affordable for low-income customers,â€Â said AWWA Executive Director of Government Affairs G. Tracy Mehan.
“NACWA applauds EPA’s hard work over the past several years to advance a proposed financial capability assessment that strives to better account for potential impacts on low-income populations,â€Â said NACWA CEO Adam Krantz. “This has never been more important than now as utilities and ratepayers struggle with the financial impacts caused by the ongoing pandemic.â€
“WEF is excited to see EPA move forward with the proposed 2020 Financial Capability Assessment for the Clean Water Act,â€Â said WEF President Jackie Jarrell. “We believe this new guidance, when finalized and implemented, will help utilities across the country to more accurately ascertain how much their customers and communities can afford to pay for compliance with Clean Water Act requirements, particularly by considering household-level affordability that better reflects the financial situation for lower-income ratepayers.â€
When finalized, the 2020 FCA will support negotiations of schedules for implementing Clean Water Act requirements for municipalities and local authorities. Upon publication in the federal register, EPA will accept comment for 30 days via the Federal eRulemaking portal at http://www.regulations.gov/, referencing Docket ID No. EPA–HQ– OW–2020–0426.
Apply Today For Paid Statehouse Internship
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Are you or is someone you know a college student or recent graduate looking for a paid internship to gain valuable work experience in state government? If so, apply today for an internship with Indiana House Republicans.
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Internships are open to sophomores, juniors and seniors, as well as recent college graduates, and law school and graduate students. It is a full-time commitment Monday through Friday, lasting from January through April 2021 at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. Interns receive biweekly compensation of $750, and can earn academic credit through their college or university. A competitive $3,000 scholarship is also offered, which can be used toward undergraduate and graduate expenses.
All majors are welcome to apply online for internships in a variety of areas, including legislative operations, communications and media relations, policy and fiscal policy. Political or government experience is not required.This is a great opportunity, so don’t miss the Oct. 31 application deadline! Be sure to share this information with others who could benefit from an internship. Click here to apply or learn more. |
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