6:05 AM Mon, Oct 12, 2009 | Permalink
Thomas J. Morgan  Email
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On the local front:
A year ago today:
Thousands of doses of flu vaccine are going out to health-care providers around the state, and public flu clinics are already under way, as Rhode Island's unique, centralized flu-shot distribution program moves into its second year. That means that it's time for everyone to get a flu shot. The vaccine is especially important for those at high risk of complications. For the first time, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all children older than 6 months receive the shot. Last year, Rhode Island started a new system in which Medicaid, Medicare, and private health insurers each contributed money based on how many of their enrollees were likely to get shots. The state Health Department used that money to buy vaccine and distribute it fairly.
5 years ago today:
The long-planned new state police headquarters will make the cops and the robbers into neighbors in Cranston. The headquarters, which will also consolidate the state crime laboratory and some state police barracks, will be built in the Pastore Complex on New London Avenue, back-to-back with the medium security facility at the Adult Correctional Institutions, state officials said. The State Properties Committee authorized officials to start negotiations to buy the small part of the site that the state doesn't control. Construction is expected to start in 2 to 2 ½ years. The choice of a site for the new headquarters reflects an effort by the state police to move to a more central location with better interstate highway access than they now have in Scituate, said Robert Brunelle, an associate director of the state Department of Administration who is handling the project. He said the choice also reflects an attempt by Governor Carcieri to centralize state agencies and further develop the Pastore Complex into a center of state government facilities that can't be located in Providence. The site is occupied by a pitch-and-putt golf course, part of Mulligan's Island Golf and Entertainment.
On Oct. 12, 1984
25 years ago today:
In a campus election that drew headlines around the world, Brown University students pass a resolution calling on the school Health Services to stockpile "suicide pills" in case of nuclear war. No sooner had student leaders announced the 1,044-to-687 vote before television lights and radio microphones than Brown vice president Robert Reichley, who was not smiling, took the floor. He wanted to make one thing clear to the 150 cheering students, perhaps to their parents and certainly to the press: Brown University, said Reichley, is not in the suicide business. No pills. Reichley's statement drew no boos or hisses. The backers of the resolution will not get their pills, but they got something they wanted very much: attention for their fears about nuclear war. Reichley himself received more than 80 calls from newspapers and networks around the world. Jason Salzman and Chris Ferguson, students who drafted the resolution, got perhaps 200 such calls, some from as far away as New Zealand, and they traveled to New York and Washington for television interviews.
On the national front:
On this day in 1973, U.S. President Richard Nixon nominates House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to succeed Spiro T. Agnew as vice president. Agnew resigned after the Justice Department revealed he had taken kickbacks.
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