What you need to know:

• The Mat-Su School Board is considering a districtwide ban on student cellphones and smartwatches during all school hours and activities, including lunch breaks. The ban would start in the 2025-26 school year.
• A yearlong pilot ban at three schools led to significant improvements in student learning and social interactions, officials said.. At Palmer High School, those included a dramatic increase in honor roll students and major drops in drug and alcohol use, reported bullying and disciplinary actions.
• If passed, the policy would be enforced through staff oversight and parent cooperation, officials said. The change also aligns with a pending state law requiring schools to regulate phone use. The policy will go before the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board for a vote later this month.

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PALMER — A proposal before the Mat-Su School Board this week would ban student cell phones in all Mat-Su schools starting next school year, including during lunch breaks.

If approved, the policy would prohibit phones for the entire school day. It would require students to turn off and store their phones during all regular school hours.

The ban would also apply to smartwatches capable of sending and receiving messages, including Apple Watches, officials said. Health-related exceptions would be allowed, according to the proposed policy.

The proposal is scheduled for introduction at a school board meeting on Wednesday, with a vote expected at a meeting scheduled for May 21. If approved, the policy would go into effect in August for the 2025-26 school year.

The proposed ban is intended to improve student health and learning, officials said, and expands on a current district policy requiring that student phones be turned off during class and not disrupt school activities.

The plan follows a one-year pilot ban implemented last fall at Palmer High School, Palmer Junior Middle School and Su-Valley Jr./Sr. High School, which officials said had a dramatically positive impact on students and staff.

At Palmer High, Principal Dave Booth credits the policy with a 50% increase in the number of students making the honor roll with a 3.0 or higher GPA. The policy also coincided with a significant year-over-year drop in drug and alcohol use at the school and a decrease in discipline rates, he said.

“We had a 43% decrease in our use of alcohol. Everything else was 70 to 80% as far as discipline, bullying, tobacco or vape use, drug use – all of those things just dropped,” he said. “We used to deal with a cyberbullying incident two or three times a week for years. I think this year we’ve had two total.”

Booth said he links those declines to students no longer being able to coordinate inappropriate behavior through messaging or isolate themselves with devices during lunch and activities.

Initially, some parents were concerned about students’ ability to make contact during the day, Booth said. Today, those parents instead call the office to relay messages. If a student needs to contact home, they can take the phone to the office, make the call or send a text, and then turn it off, he said.

Booth said that parents also initially expressed concern about reaching students during a true emergency, such as an active shooter situation.

But keeping kids off their phones during such an incident could be a matter of life or death because a large influx of calls could overwhelm networks and hinder emergency response, he said. Phone sounds could also draw unwanted attention during such an incident, he said.

If approved, district officials plan to work with staff at each school to enforce the new rule, they said.

The pilot program initially used special locking pouches for student phones, but school administrators found them unnecessary and stopped using them early in the school year, opting instead to enforce the ban directly, district spokesman John Notestine said in a statement.

“We learned it is possible to achieve similar outcomes without the pouches if there is a strong policy in place, paired with consistent enforcement and parent support,” Notestine said.

Mat-Su’s proposed ban also fulfills a requirement included in a school funding measure passed by state lawmakers and awaiting Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s signature. If approved, that law would require Alaska school districts to develop their own policies regulating phone use during the school day or implement a state-mandated ban.

A draft version of the state policy was approved by the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development earlier this year.

This story was updated May 7 to correctly reflect Palmer High School Principal Dave Booth’s name.

— Contact Amy Bushatz at abushatz@matsusentinel.com

The county judge, two city council members and others are accused of vote harvesting.

West Virginia regulators’ plans to reduce cancer-causing chemicals in the state’s drinking water has stalled because the Trump administration canceled funding for the project. 

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection officials were using a $1 million federal grant to work with communities to address the source of PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in public water supplies. The project was focused in communities with the highest levels of forever chemicals in their water.

Exposure to these chemicals has been linked to several serious health conditions, including cancer, liver and kidney damage, developmental problems and immune system disorders. 

And in West Virginia, such chemical contamination has been a prevalent issue. The former DuPont, now Chemours, Washington Works plant near Parkersburg saw a decades-long legal battle over its use of Teflon and the surrounding community’s exposure to forever chemicals. 

But, earlier this year, the state’s grant to fund the effort was canceled by the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s been a kind of multiyear process to even get the resources to be able to fund these plans. And right now, without it, we’re back at square one,” said Maria Russo, a policy specialist at West Virginia Rivers Coalition, which is working with the DEP.  

The grant was part of the DEP’s effort to fulfill its obligations under a state law that requires the agency to identify sources of the chemicals in drinking water and develop plans to address the contamination. When lawmakers passed the measure in 2023, they didn’t give the agency any additional funding to do the work.

In March, the EPA sent the DEP a memo informing the state agency that it was terminating the grant, stating that its objectives were “no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.” 

The EPA also said that their priority to eliminate discrimination in all programs includes ensuring its grants don’t support programs or organizations that promote or take part in environmental justice as well as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“As with any change in Administration, the agency is reviewing each grant program to ensure it is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and to understand how those programs align with Administration priorities,” an EPA spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement, adding that the agency found that the grant application didn’t support the current administration’s priorities.

The DEP’s grant was one of more than 400 grants totaling more than $1.5 billion canceled by Trump’s EPA. 

The state agency disputed the EPA’s decision to cancel their grant. The federal agency responded, saying it will issue a decision within about six months, said DEP spokesperson Terry Fletcher.

This also comes as the future of two historic EPA rules regulating forever chemicals in drinking water and holding polluters responsible for cleanup face uncertainty. The federal agency asked for additional time in the two lawsuits challenging the rules to decide its next steps. 

The EPA could weaken forever chemicals regulations

Although regulations of forever chemicals in drinking water avoided the initial rounds of slashes and rollbacks by the EPA under the Trump administration, there’s anticipation it’s only a matter of time. 

Last year, the EPA finalized two rules that would help address the emergence of forever chemicals contamination.

In one rule, EPA set limits for six types of the chemicals in drinking water and gave water systems five years to comply. A collection of water utilities and chemical industry groups challenged the limits, arguing that the federal agency didn’t consider “critical data” in establishing the regulations. 

In February, the EPA asked the court to pause the case to allow the agency’s new leadership to review the rule. The agency is due to tell the court its next steps by May 12. 

In the other rule, the EPA also listed two types of forever chemicals as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, which could make a wide range of industries liable for cleanups. That change was also challenged by the chemical industry and other business and industry stakeholders.   

The federal agency, again, asked for a brief hold in this case, which was granted, giving the EPA until May 30. 

In an April 28 press release, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin outlined upcoming moves by the agency to address forever chemicals, including contamination in drinking water and requiring polluters to pay for such clean up. 

“I have long been concerned about PFAS and the efforts to help states and communities dealing with legacy contamination in their backyards,” he said in a statement. “This is just a start of the work we will do on PFAS to ensure Americans have the cleanest air, land, and water.” 

However, public health experts and environmental groups are skeptical, raising concerns that those moves won’t adequately address forever chemicals. 

“If you peeled back the veneer, what you saw is that they failed to directly address the two super important decisions on PFAS that are right in front of them, staring them in the face,” said Erik D. Olson, Natural Resources Defense Council’s senior strategic director for health.  

“They refuse to basically address the most important decisions that are facing them right now,” he added. “And that may not be a great sign, but we don’t know for sure what they’re thinking.” 

Forever chemicals in West Virginia

A 2022 state study found that the levels of four types of forever chemicals exceeded safe limits in the water supply of 136 public water systems.

The discovery meant that more than “700,000 West Virginians are at risk for serious health conditions” because of their exposure to forever chemicals, “with low-income and marginalized communities disproportionately affected,” according to the DEP’s grant application.

While these chemicals were found in drinking water supplies throughout West Virginia, it was most prevalent in the Eastern and Northern Panhandles and the Ohio River Valley.

The study’s findings alarmed Jefferson County resident Greg Welter, a retired environmental engineer, and prompted him to try and find potential sources for the contamination in his community.

“I’m worried about PFAS in anybody’s water, but I’m particularly worried about it in kids’ water,” he said, as children are especially vulnerable to the harmful health impacts.  

The contamination of forever chemicals in drinking water is not a new phenomenon in West Virginia.

After decades of using C8 — a type of forever chemical that resists heat, water, oil and grease — to produce common everyday items, including nonstick pots and pans, DuPont had discovered that the chemical had seeped into the drinking water sources for surrounding communities, including Parkersburg, Vienna and Lubeck. 

The chemical’s contamination of groundwater in the community eventually led to a lawsuit that marked the beginning of what became a series of legal battles against the company that spanned more than two decades. 

In 2017, DuPont and Chemours — a spinoff of DuPont which now owns and operates the Washington Works site — agreed to pay a total of $670.7 million to settle the more than 3,500 cases in the class-action lawsuits against DuPont over health problems, including kidney and testicular cancer, caused from exposure to C8. 

DuPont has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to C8.

In December, the West Virginia Rivers Coalition sued Chemours, accusing the company’s Washington Works site of violating federal law since 2023 by failing to comply with its permit limits and discharging forever chemicals into the Ohio River at levels exceeding the amount allowed.

The lawsuit also alleges that the company has reported “numerous violations” of its permit limits for several chemicals, including PFOA, which is a type of forever chemical that the EPA has determined there is no safe level of exposure to. 

In 2023, the EPA issued an administrative order to force Chemours to take corrective action, but the company failed to do so, and the federal agency has not taken any further action, according to the WV Rivers’ lawsuit. 

In an emailed statement, Chemours spokesperson said that the company “is disappointed at the action given that the coalition’s concerns are already being addressed through an April 2023 Consent Order between U.S. EPA and Chemours.”

The company has submitted a plan to reduce discharges at the site and are waiting for final approval from the EPA. In the meantime, they continue to maintain, operate and monitor the treatment systems the company has installed at 10 public water systems surrounding the Washington Works facility, according to the statement. 

Later this month, U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin is slated to hear the coalition’s request that the court require Chemours to stop discharging forever chemicals into the Ohio River while the case is ongoing.  

Trump’s EPA blocks effort to reduce toxic ‘forever chemicals’ in West Virginia drinking water appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia’s civic newsroom.

Lea este articulo en ingles aquí.

A Cinco de Mayo Festival featured a slate of mariachi bands and drew a big crowd to Las Micheladas Bar & Grill on May 4.

According to Las Micheladas owner David Ramirez, more than 500 people attended the event during the festival’s first year.

“We celebrate this collaboration between the Downtown Association, Las Micheladas, and La Catrina,” Ramirez said.

The plan, Ramirez told BenitoLink, is to have the festival every year

Six bands played at the festival, including  Mariachi Mexico de Gilroy, Nuevo Instinto from Hollister, and Gente de la H from Hollister.

“We have mainliners from Hollister, Salinas and Grupo Desesperado from Watsonville.” Ramirez said.  

He said that there is good local talent and for Sunday’s festival they picked out the best of the best. 

“We celebrate the life and opportunity of our culture. Our transition and how we’ve made it here in the U.S.A.,” Ramirez said. “We are bringing it home and really sharing it with our fellow community members over here.”

He said they had never seen something like Sunday’s festival before. “We are so proud of the community for coming out here and enjoying such a good weekend.”  

One of the attendees, Joe Bonnie Hernandez, said he wanted “Hollister to get to know more Mexicans.” 

He said his favorite band is Mariachis Mariachi de Gilroy.

Daniel Espinosa, who also attended the festival, told BenitoLink he had fun and enjoyed watching the bands. “When you’re with family and you embrace your culture, why would you not have a good time?” 

We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. Producing local news is expensive, and community support keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service nonprofit news.

The post Cinco de Mayo Festival held in Downtown Hollister appeared first on BenitoLink.

President Donald Trump recently took aim at the federal Department of Education, casting doubt over the future of various forms of financial support to local districts across the country and San Joaquin Valley. 

In a “skinny budget” proposal released May 2, the president recommends slashing the federal department by more than 20% – cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from programs that aid English learners and migrant students. 

California is home to more than one million multilingual learners, according to state data. In the central San Joaquin Valley, where roughly one in five students are English learners, federal dollars account for a notable portion of funding in school districts. 

In counties like Fresno and Merced, education leaders are keeping a close eye on how changes in the federal government will affect local schools. 

Trump’s budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year recommends completely abolishing a funding stream for migrant education and English learners, known as Title 3. 

“To end overreach from Washington and restore the rightful role of State oversight in education, the Budget proposes to eliminate the misnamed English Language Acquisition program which actually deemphasizes English primacy by funding NGOs and States to encourage bilingualism,” the budget reads in a one-paragraph explanation of the funding cut. 

“The historically low reading scores for all students mean States and communities need to unite—not divide—classrooms using evidence-based literacy instruction materials to improve outcomes for all students,” the budget reads.

The attacks on the federal agency come after the president issued an executive order in late March mandating the full closure of the Department of Education. 

The order also required that any program receiving federal funds must stop any progression on “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs. 

Following the executive order, the Department of Education issued a statement expressing its intention to continue to “empower states to take charge and advocate for and implement what is best for students, families, and educators in their communities.”

The full closure of the department and implementation of the budget will take an act of Congress. It’s unclear when legislators will decide the department’s future.

What are these funds for?

Title 3 provides districts with dollars to provide professional development for EL teachers, principals, school administrators and create EL parent and community engagement opportunities.

The funding also provides resources to help recently-arrived immigrant and migrant students reach state academic and achievement standards.

In Fresno County, where one of the state’s largest – and some of its most rural – districts reside, federal funds are “critical,” according to the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools.  

“[Title 3] is particularly important to us in the Central Valley because they’re designed to ensure all our students can achieve English proficiency and high academic achievement,” said Superintendent Michele Cantwell-Copher.

On average, Copher said the county receives between $4.5 million to $5 million of Title 3 funding annually. Each district then receives funding based on the number of English learners and immigrant students enrolled in schools. 

Fresno Unified – the third-largest district in the state– receives the highest allocation in the county, with more than $1.8 million granted for the last academic year. 

“Without [this funding] we would be concerned about program objectives, instructional opportunities being diminished,” Copher said. “There would be curriculum materials, software and assessment opportunities that would be negatively impacted. We need that funding to meet the unique needs of our under-resourced students.”

The county office is keeping a close eye on how federal funding may shift in the near future, Copher said. 

“We have been very persistent about communicating to the leaders of the state on how critical this funding is [for our students], but right now there’s no reason for districts to worry,” Copher said.

Some rural districts say federal funding is ‘very small.’

Small, rural districts in Fresno County are also not yet alarmed about the federal funding cuts. Mendota Unified in west Fresno has a student body of 4,000 – with nearly half designated as English learners and almost all coming from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. 

The district receives up to $400,000 in Title 3 funding annually. The district uses the funds to support their English learning programs, after-school tutoring and summer school courses.

“It’s a very small amount of money, considering our overall budget is $80 million,” said Jose Ochoa, the district’s director of state and federal programs. 

According to Ochoa, the district receives more than half of its overall funding from the state Local Control Funding Formula, which finances districts through a combination of local property taxes and state funding based on student demographics. Federal grants make up about $5 million of Mendota Unified’s annual budget.

In Merced County, the Merced Union High School District is also not concerned about major financial changes. The district – serving 11,000 students – receives more than $12 million in federal funding, making a fraction of its nearly $250 million annual budget. 

According to district spokesperson Viviana Fuentes, EL programs at MUHSD are primarily funded through its general fund and the Local Control Funding Formula. 

Meanwhile, the federal Title 3 funds allotted to the district are used primarily for its community liaison staff – which serve as communication links between home and school for parents and guardians. The district would continue to have those positions without federal funding, Fuentes said.

In the case of more federal funding cuts, Ochoa of Mendota Unified said the district is able to operate and serve its students with LCFF funds. The district is anticipating a small roll back of about $300,000 in its federal funding next year, Ochoa said. 

“Obviously we’d miss it, but I don’t believe our kids will be impacted negatively to the point where we can’t continue to offer our current programs,” Ochoa said. “But anytime we can have federal funding, we’re taking it.”

The post President Trump slashed the Department of Education. What does it mean for the Valley’s multilingual learners?  appeared first on Fresnoland.

Testifying for the second time in front of a House investigative committee examining the agency she leads, Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Allie Friesen went on the attack this morning, accusing former department officials of “abuse, negligence and likely corruption” that has led to the payroll problems revealed to legislators […]

The post In fiery testimony, Friesen says ODMHSAS has ‘likely’ been plagued by ‘corruption’ appeared first on NonDoc.

MENDOCINO CO., 5/5/25 – Mendocino County firefighters are preparing for a difficult fire season this summer. 

The latest seasonal outlook report from the National Interagency Fire Center Predictive Services released Thursday predicts an early fire season, with significant fire potential for June, July, and August, further complicating difficulties created by federal budget cuts. 

Brett Lutz, fire meteorologist for the Northern California Geographic Area Coordination Center, said the seasonal outlook combines two factors: predicted warmer-than-normal temperatures and fuel characteristics. The latter includes fuel loading, or the amount of grass, brush, and trees on the land, and the moisture contained in those live and dead fuels. 

While consistent rain and snow over the past few years have lifted much of Northern California out of drought conditions, they have also supported high growth rates for fuels like grass and brush. When these fuels dry out, they become an important factor in large fire growth.

“You’re likely to see some fuel curing in the herbaceous fuels, the grass and to some degree brush as well,” Lutz said.

Especially in inland areas, this curing is happening earlier than usual, which signifies an early start to fire season. 

The seasonal outlook report also noted a heightened risk of “flash drought,” which occurs when there are intense heat waves capable of drying out fuels to dangerous levels over a short period of time. As an example, Lutz pointed to the record-breaking heat wave in early July of last year, which created conditions that allowed the Park Fire to expand to the fourth-largest in California history, burning through nearly 430,000 acres in Butte and Tehama counties in 2024. 

Wind, though harder to predict months in advance, plays a considerable role in the spread of wildfires, as seen recently with the disastrous wildfires in the Los Angeles area. According to Lutz, July and August face a higher likelihood of northerly dry wind events, which, when coupled with dry fuels, create red flag conditions. 

Outside of these key months, May is predicted to remain sporadic in its weather, with cool and moist periods mixed with warming and drying periods. The warming and drying trend should become strong in the summer in the inland Bay Area, Lutz said. 

“The grass is definitely turning a little sooner than expected,” said Shane Lamkin, battalion chief for the Cal Fire Mendocino Unit. “It usually starts around this time of year anyway, but we’re already seeing those greens turning yellow — especially in the valley, and particularly the Ukiah Valley.” 

This observation is backed by data, noted Kevin Osborne, a fire analyst with the U.S. Forest Service. “It’s just happening earlier, which means then curing happens earlier and once the brush fuels are available, then you have that alignment between the valley floor and the foothills with all the grass and then the mid elevation with all the chamise and manzanita,” he said. “Once those both are available, the opportunities for large fire really increase because you can transition the same fire from the lower elevations to the upper elevations or mid elevations.” 

Local winds also become a bigger factor as summer heats up, Osborne said, especially those that blow down the lee slopes of the coastal ranges during hot inland days. 

“Those thermal trough winds that blow down the slope into the valley – those are going to be driven by long periods of hot dry weather, and we’re expecting a really warm and dry summer,” Osborne said. “We’re always warm and dry, right? But extended warm dry periods tend to really help develop the trough and make those winds pretty strong.” 

In addition to these predictions, cuts at the federal level affecting the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service will play a significant role in how fires are fought. Federal agencies like these employ the majority of wildland firefighters across the nation, including thousands in California. 

In the past few months, many employees were laid off or took buyouts. Though the cuts have largely affected non-firefighting employees, many red-carded employees — qualified firefighters who are able to leave their day jobs to assist firefighting efforts — have been affected. This can hamper fire response, especially during large fire years, when firefighting resources are already stretched thin. 

“It’s definitely possible that people with qualifications that support firefighting on those larger fires could be missing because of that,” Osborne said. However, he emphasized the cuts have not targeted frontline firefighters. 

 “Staffing challenges that forests have faced in the past they’re going to continue to face because it’s just difficult to find employees to work hard in rough terrain and remote locations,” he said. “But currently the federal government has specifically avoided targeting fire.”

The majority of Mendocino County is state and private land, and Cal Fire is preparing earlier than ever for the coming fire season, Lamkin said.

“On the state side we’ve been getting ready as early as January this year to hire back our seasonal workforce. I’d say several months earlier than we normally have,” Lamkin said. “All of our engines are staffed up to their full capacity and we’re taking the measures that we need to be ready for an early fire season.”

Lamkin also stressed the work property owners can do in the coming weeks to assist with fire prevention.

“Right now, we encourage residents to take advantage of the time to clear any kind of vegetation that’s unwanted on their property, or anything that would pose a risk to their homes. But we encourage them to do it in a safe manner. And to do so, you can apply for a burn permit by going to burnpermit.fire.ca.gov.” 

More information on how to prepare a home for fire danger can be found at readyforwildfire.org. For active incidents throughout the state and information about them, including evacuations, go to fire.ca.gov. Mendocino County emergency information can be found at mendoready.org. 

Caio Driver is a freelance writer and a firefighter.

The post Mendocino County braces for early, intense wildfire season amid federal cuts appeared first on The Mendocino Voice | Mendocino County, CA.

” width=”224″ height=”168″ align=”right” hspace=”10″ alt=”President Donald Trump’s budget proposal includes allocating $1.1 trillion to defense spending while reducing non-defense federal spending by $163 billion” title=”President Donald Trump’s budget proposal includes allocating $1.1 trillion to defense spending while reducing non-defense federal spending by $163 billion” />Recommendations include new consolidated wildfire service, more tasks in state hands, less science.

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This article is part of a collaboration with the Associated Press, Capital B, and Flint Beat. The work is part of the AP Inclusive Journalism Initiative supported by the Sony Foundation.

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Chimére L. Sweeney, a Maryland middle school teacher, was preparing to lead one of her first online classes after the pandemic shutdowns in March 2020 when she said she suddenly felt like someone placed a lit match on her spine.

Over the next several weeks, Sweeney’s vision became blurry, she frequently experienced vertigo, and she had difficulty processing basic information. She figured she had COVID-19, but because she didn’t have any of the primary symptoms — cough, fever, and shortness of breath — she was unable to qualify for a hard-to-find diagnostic test. 

In the ensuing weeks and months, Sweeney said she often felt like she had to convince her physicians that she was truly in pain. Ultimately, it took Sweeney two years to be formally diagnosed with a long-term case of COVID-19.

“No one can save this body like me,” said Sweeney, who’s 42 and lives in Baltimore. “The goal for me was to live.”

For Black Americans with long COVID, the first 100 days of the Trump administration have been particularly challenging. The White House has ordered drastic cuts to federal programs that provide funding for research for long COVID and other chronic diseases, including the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. Those living with or working to treat patients with these illnesses are afraid of how these changes will impact them. 

The administration canceled a National Institutes of Health grant that supported an effort called Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, or RECOVER. That $1.7 billion program was the single largest federal funding mechanism for research into long COVID, which is generally defined as instances when symptoms of the illness last for three months or longer.

And these changes are occurring at a moment when the nation’s top public health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promotes conspiracy theories about COVID’s origins and questions the efficacy of the vaccine.

Taken together, those cuts disproportionately affect Black Americans, who, according to a 2023 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, make up about 32% of long COVID cases — second only to Hispanic Americans, who comprise about 36% of those patients. As many as 20 million Americans are estimated to have contracted long COVID.

Sweeney said she’s increasingly concerned about the reductions to these essential programs. 

“Long COVID has been one of the most devastating attacks on our workforce and economy because healthy people who became infected with COVID and now live with long COVID simply can’t work or have been forced to reduce their hours,” she said. “Black people are often more likely to be ill with the condition, but they often do not have the money or privilege to retire or stop working. They must return to work.”

Even before the administration’s cuts to programs designed to help the nation address the disease, studies have shown that Black Americans with long COVID encounter significant disparities in health care when compared to their white counterparts.

Researchers have found that Black long COVID patients report experiencing implicit bias, microaggressions, and other forms of discrimination when seeking treatment for their symptoms.

“They would ask questions like, ‘Are you on drugs? Or do you work? Or, what do you do for a living? Do you have insurance?’” Sweeney said of her physicians. “I’m, like, ‘You all must not be reading my chart because I am an educated Black teacher. I am generally healthy.” 

Discouraged by her own encounters with the medical system, and similar accounts from other Black Americans, Sweeney in 2024 founded the Black Long COVID Experience, a website dedicated to providing information about the illness and a resource for patients to find doctors or, as she calls it, “long COVID advocacy for Black folks.”

A cure for long COVID

Brooke Keaton, of Charlotte, North Carolina, is a former elementary school teacher, who — because of her long COVID diagnosis —  is dependent on government disability.

The 44-year-old mother of two — Bria, age 6 and Jaren, age 14 — said that she has experienced cognitive decline, asthma, heart issues, neuropathy, extreme spinal pain, numbness and weakness in her hands, and severe fatigue. 

Keaton says she belongs to several long COVID support groups, partly to make sure there are Black faces in the groups and also to learn what treatments and diagnoses non-Black patients are receiving.

She said she’s struggled to get physicians to take her symptoms seriously. One of her health care providers recently misdiagnosed a heart condition as anxiety. A new doctor finally helped uncover that she had inappropriate sinus tachycardia. 

“I don’t know that if I were not Black, if things would have gone differently,” Keaton said.

Keaton said Black people with long COVID have had to advocate to be included in research studies. Some patients have testified before Congress and written letters to representatives, all to make sure their voices were being heard.

“We are sick people, but we’re doing it to help find a cure,” Keaton said. “We need research. Our ultimate goal is for us to find a cure.”

Long COVID awareness in Black communities

Zanthia Wiley, an associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, said the difference in treatment plans and outcomes between Black and white patients with long COVID often comes down to socioeconomics and access to medical care.

“If you are a bus driver and you have to drive your bus from 8 to 5 every day and you cannot take time off to go and see a doctor, then that is going to decrease the likelihood of your long COVID being diagnosed,” said Wiley. “I think also there is decreased awareness — and not just in Black people, but in the community — with respect to long COVID.”  

There are around 400 long COVID clinics in the nation, according to a report by the Long COVID Alliance, a network of patient advocates, researchers, and drug developers who inform the public about post-COVID care.

Wiley said most of the clinics are in urban areas or close to academic institutions. That reality can affect access for Black patients living in rural or exurban areas, particularly in the South.

In communities without long COVID clinics, Wiley said, physicians are seeking three key pieces of information: If a patient’s symptoms stem from other medical problems; if what a patient is reporting is actually long COVID; and how the disease can be treated.

Wiley said the lack of resources is all the more troublesome when you add deep federal cuts to research. 

“I am definitely worried about the tragic, chaotic loss of funding that is going to affect people and populations in general,” Wiley said. “And a lot of times in these scenarios, those who are affected the most are those who have, unfortunately, the smallest voice.”

Heather-Elizabeth Brown contracted COVID in 2020, before the release of the vaccine. She spent 31 days on a ventilator in a coma in a Royal Oak, Michigan, hospital, just outside of Detroit. When she finally woke up, she had to relearn to walk and eat. 

Brown is a member of the Long COVID Alliance.  She said to understand the racial disparities in how long COVID differs for Black patients, it’s vital to go back to 2020 and the start of the pandemic.

“I definitely think that what we saw a lot was patients — and Black patients, first of all — not even having access to the same type of care when the COVID infection happened, not being taken as seriously with some of their symptoms, or not being able to access the tests,” Brown said.

Brown, like other long COVID patients, enjoys legal protections through the Americans with Disabilities Act, which compels employers and others to provide accommodations, such as hybrid work arrangements, for those who are ill with the disease. 

Brown said she is deeply concerned that the Trump administration, which has already reversed policies regarding the needs of people with disabilities, might also roll back aspects of the ADA.

“Even just thinking about the fact that some of that could be rolled back or changed or challenged is terrifying, to be honest, because one of the ways that I’m able to do my job and do it well is because I was able to get accommodations,” Brown said.

Predominantly Black cities like Flint have “been hit in different ways” 

Aisha Harris, a family medicine physician in Flint, Michigan, said she is nervous about the effect of more cuts in funding for long COVID studies, particularly in places such as Flint. 

“Flint has made a lot of small steps as far as progress, even though with those steps, we’ve been hit in different ways,” said Harris, a professor at the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University. “But the idea of those cuts happening will be devastating and will cause a crisis in Flint that I don’t really want to imagine,” she said. 

According to the July 2024 Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study, a joint project between the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, of the 17,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2022, 22.7% of Black adults reported symptoms of long COVID. 

In addition to Sweeney and Brown, several Black long COVID patients who spoke with Capital B said they often aren’t believed by doctors, that they have to push to be included in studies, and that receiving a diagnosis and treatment can be a challenge.

Raven Baxter, who works on educational initiatives at the Mount Sinai Health System’s Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses in New York City, said clinicians failing to believe Black patients when they report symptoms is a significant issue. 

Baxter, herself a former long COVID patient, said that during a recent seminar she led, about 10% of the health care providers who were in attendance strongly doubted the actual existence of the conditions being reported by those seeking help.

“So education really goes a long way,” said Baxter, who is a molecular biologist and educator. “Unfortunately, people from all walks of life are already experiencing gaslighting in other dimensions, and it’s just unfortunate that that continues and is compounded by what’s happening with the onset of long COVID.”

Although the clinic where Baxter works is privately funded, she said any disruption in federal dollars for researchers could be devastating to the long COVID community. 

The youngest long COVID patients

Stephanie Cunningham, who lives in Warren, Michigan, about 20 minutes outside of Detroit, says doctors suggested that her 8-year-old daughter, Peyton Lee, had invented her symptoms and encouraged her to take Lee to see a psychiatrist. 

“Every time we would go to a doctor, they would dismiss me,” said Cunningham, who works with the Michigan Department of Corrections probation department. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told through this process that, ‘You appear to be educated, so I’m going to provide you with knowledge, more information than I normally would.’

“What? That’s devastating to hear,” she said, “Not only for my child, but what about the families that are not educated? What about the families that don’t know how to advocate for their child?” 

Amy Edwards is a pediatric infectious disease specialist at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. Peyton is one of her long COVID pediatric patients. 

Edwards said children over the age of 10 are at the highest risk of developing long COVID. 

“Think about your life from 10 to 20 and everything that you did and everything that you learned and how much it shaped who you are as a person,” Edwards said. “Then imagine you’re already struggling with racism and classism, if you’re also poor, on top of being non-white. And then imagine having chronic fatigue syndrome or something, and long COVID just dropped right on top of that and how much that takes away.” 

Now, with the cuts to federal funding for COVID research, Cunningham said she’s scared for her daughter. 

“This is so new, and no one knows enough about it,” she said. “So, how does this affect Peyton? How does it affect her quality of life? She doesn’t have four years to wait on a new administration. We need this information now.”

The post The Fight to Be Believed: Long COVID’s Toll on Black Americans appeared first on Capital B News.

The counties and municipalities that receive a direct share of the settlement funds from opioid manufacturers, distributors and retailers have spent less than half of the money paid out so far, a Maine Monitor survey found.

Since payments began three years ago, the counties and municipalities have received about $20.3 million out of the $66.4 million they’re set to receive by 2038. The money has been used for a wide range of initiatives, from grants to community organizations providing recovery services to scholarships for residential treatment beds.

Over the past five years, nationwide settlements were reached with 10 pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis as the result of a years-long, massive multidistrict litigation case. The settlements, with household names like Johnson & Johnson and Walgreens, will pay out billions of dollars over 18 years, approximately $230 million of which will go to Maine.

Maine’s share is split in three ways, including 30 percent divided up among the “direct share subdivisions” — the 39 counties, cities and towns that were either party to the multidistrict litigation case and/or have a population of at least 10,000. (The percentage each subdivision receives is determined by the settlement agreements.) That includes all 16 counties, the 21 largest municipalities, Rockland and Calais. 

Fifty percent of Maine’s share goes to the Maine Recovery Fund overseen by the 15-member Maine Recovery Council and the remaining 20 percent goes to the state and is overseen by the attorney general’s office, per the state’s memoranda of understanding.

The settlement agreements say that the money must be used for “opioid abatement” and lay out a long but fairly open-ended list of approved uses. Oversight is scant, however: outside of public access laws, subdivisions are under no obligation to publicly report how they are spending their money. And the trusts themselves have limited oversight power.

While subdivisions can spend up to 15 percent of their funds on “non-opioid remediation,” disclosure is all self-reported to the trusts. As of early May, no subdivisions in Maine had reported any spending on non-opioid remediation.

As part of ongoing efforts to shed light on how the millions from these landmark settlements are being spent, The Monitor has sent three surveys to the subdivisions since 2023. Thirty subdivisions responded to The Monitor’s latest survey from mid-March on how they are spending their funds.

Results show that spending for programs within county jails, sheriff’s offices and police departments remains a popular choice. Ten counties have used nearly a third of all funds expended so far to help pay for medication-assisted treatment, counseling services and other costs related to substance use treatment in jails. 

At least seven counties and municipalities have put the funds toward hiring mental health liaisons to work directly with law enforcement. Several others used the funds to purchase equipment for police departments, including Saco and Falmouth, both of which bought handheld drug-checking devices, and Lewiston, which purchased a vehicle for its mental health worker ride-along program.

Ten subdivisions used at least some of their funds to provide grants to local organizations working on substance use response. Cumberland County, for example, put out a request last year for proposals that “support treatment innovations and capacity building projects.”

Greater Portland Health’s proposal to launch a mobile medical van to conduct outreach among populations most at risk of overdose, including people experiencing homelessness and those recently released from the Cumberland County jail, was selected among nine proposals, according to public health director Liz Blackwell-Moore.

The only subdivision that has spent all of the money it has received so far, about $1.4 million, is York County, which decided early on to allocate all of its funds to build a new regional recovery center in Alfred.

In mid-March, The Monitor sent administrators from all of the subdivisions a survey asking how much money has been spent or allocated so far and the process for determining how the funds are spent. Using those responses — together with data compiled from two previous Monitor surveys conducted last spring and summer of 2023 — The Monitor created a database of estimated spending so far.

Each subdivision has responded to at least one survey, with the exception of Waterville. Gorham, Lewiston, Oxford County, Piscataquis County, Sanford, South Portland, Wells and York did not respond to the Monitor’s March survey, so data from the most recent survey they responded to was used. For all except Sanford, that was April 2024. Sanford last responded to The Monitor’s June 2023 survey.

Administrators from six subdivisions — Auburn, Calais, Kennebunk, Orono, Oxford County and Wells — said they have not spent any money yet, leaving nearly $1.6 million untouched. (Standish signed an agreement with Cumberland County to provide its entire estimated $44,100 payout to the county.)