Elisabeth Harrison

How many hospital beds does Rhode Island really need?

That’s one question being considered in a new report from a state health care planning council. It comes at a time when a number of hospitals in the state are either up for sale, looking at new partnerships or struggling financially.

Rhode Island Public Radio’s health care reporter Kristin Gourlay joined Elisabeth Harrison in the studio to talk about the health of the state’s hospitals and some of the surprising findings from this report.

New data from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show nearly one out of every five high school boys has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The data also show an  overall 11 percent of American schoolchildren have received a diagnosis for the condition, which is characterized by difficulty paying attention and controlling impulsive behavior.

The family of a missing Brown student has found what they hope will be a break in the case.  New surveillance video shows a man believed to be 22-year-old Sunil "Sunny" Tripathi on a street near Brown University.  The footage was taken around 1:30 a.m. on March 16th, the last day Tripathi was seen.  The family believes it may provide clues about the route Tripathi took before he disappeared.  

Leaders in East Providence will soon be back in charge of city finances, after a state budget commission stepped in to solve a financial crisis.  After 15 months Governor Lincoln Chafee says the commission is now ready to put budgeting authority back in the hands of local city and school officials.  In a statement, Chafee declares East Providence well on the way to financial stability.

Governor Lincoln Chafee is requesting a 6 percent wage hike for members of his cabinet after shooting down a proposal to raise salaries for state university and college professors. According to The Providence Journal, the governor’s plan would provide a 3 percent increase to 14 state employees in June, followed by another 3 percent increase in December.

Rhode Island has a poverty rate of 14%, according to a scorecard from the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a national think-tank.

The Economic Progress  Institute of Rhode Island holds  its annual policy conference Thursday to tackle the complex issue of poverty in the Ocean State.  Rhode Island Public Radio's Elisabeth Harrison sits down with that organization’s executive director, Kate Brewster.

Freelance policy analyst and liberal blogger Tom Sgouros is one of a number of critics raising questions about Rhode Island's use of the New England Common Assessment Program, or NECAP, as a graduation requirement. Specifically, Sgouros has argued that by its very nature, NECAP was designed to magnify differences in student achievement, thereby ensuring that a certain number of students will score poorly every year.

The House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare will consider adding two students to the State Board of Education at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

The bill, sponsored by Providence Democrat Edith Ajello, proposes two additional seats on the board, one for a college student and one for a high school student. Both positions would be non-voting, but the students would have their opinions recorded in official minutes from any meeting.

The FBI has joined the search for a missing Brown University student, who disappeared from his Providence apartment earlier this month. Sunil Tripathi was last seen on March 16th. His sister, Sangeeta Tripathi, says the 22-year-old philosophy student had taken a leave of absence from Brown, but his disappearance came as a shock to friends and family.

Chinua Achebe, author of the classic novel "Things Fall Apart," has died at the age of 82. The Nigerian-born Achebe was a professor in Brown's Africana Studies Department.

UPDATE:

Brown University officials have released a statement, excerpted below: