Middle class economics means that a hard day’s work should lead to a fair day’s pay. For much of the past century, a cornerstone of that promise has been the 40-hour workweek. But for decades, industry lobbyists have bottled up efforts to keep these rules up to date, leaving millions of Americans working long hours, and taking them away from their families without the overtime pay that they have earned. Business owners who treat their employees fairly are being undercut by competitors who don’t.
Today, President Obama announced that the Department of Labor will propose extending overtime pay to nearly 5 million workers. The proposal would guarantee overtime pay to most salaried workers earning less than an estimated $50,440 next year. The number of workers in each state who would be affected by this proposal can be found here. 
Halfway through her undergraduate studies at Brown University and not quite done with her teens, Soumitri Barua is the lead author of a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that raises troubling questions about how states have responded to the hepatitis C epidemic.
New medicines can cure the infectious liver disease, but at a cost of roughly $90,000. Analysis by Barua and her co-authors shows that in 2013, caught between the cost and the need, most Medicaid programs across the country rationed the treatment sofosbuvir. 
Dee DeQuattro
Terrible news: the Rhode Island General Assembly recessed and they didn’t even vote on the chicken coop bill. They couldn’t agree, so what did they do they recessed before their pesky duties as law makers could interfere with any of their Fourth of July plans. Sorry Cranston, if that Park Avenue Bridge closure is a royal pain you will just have to deal with it until after our lawmakers return from their summer vacations and can focus again. But before we can even consider discussing an infrastructure plan or a plan to keep the PawSox in Rhode Island we need to solve the most pressing issue of the day: the size of chicken coops. 
Dennis Bernard, 29, of Cranston, arrested by Cranston and Warwick Police on Thursday on federal drug trafficking charges, was ordered to home confinement with GPS monitoring following an initial appearance today in U.S. District Court in Providence, announced United States Attorney Peter F. Neronha, Cranston Police Chief Colonel Michael J. Winquist and Warwick Police Chief Colonel Stephen M. McCartney.
 Annie Russell says ruling is monumental and life-changing
The University of Rhode Island’s Gender and Sexuality Center is hosting a barbecue Monday, June 29 to celebrate a recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide.
“We’ll provide food, music, and an atmosphere of complete elation,’’ says Annie Russell, center director. “Just bring yourselves to join in our celebration.’’ The event will start at 3 p.m. at the newly opened center, 19 Upper College Road, on the Kingston campus. The public is invited. The landmark opinion, released Friday, ruled that same-sex couples can marry nationwide – a historic victory for gay rights advocates. Married same-sex couples will now enjoy the same legal rights and benefits as married heterosexual couples. “Mark this date in your calendars,’’ says Russell. “June 26, 2015 is a date that fundamentally changes the discourse in the United States on LGBTQ identity, affirmation of identity and legal validation of LGBTQ lives.’’ As a young person growing up in Indiana – in the country’s heartland – Russell, who identifies as a lesbian, says that one of the most difficult things for her to imagine was that she would never be able to marry legally. |
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