Spencer Brittian shovels ice in front of East Nashville's Bad Luck Burger Club days after Winter Storm Fern hit Middle Tennessee with a layer of ice. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) President Donald Trump has not yet approved federal assistance for individuals affected by a severe ice storm that caused extensive damage to power lines in late January, at one point leaving more than 300,000 Tennesseans without electricity. Trump approved a major disaster declaration for Tennessee on Feb. 6, opening up federal funding opportunities for longer-term recovery. The declaration approved public assistance — including federal cost sharing for debris removal, emergency measures and the repair or replacement of roads, bridges and public facilities — for 15 counties. An additional eight counties were previously approved for emergency assistance. But programs that could help uninsured or underinsured individuals recoup some of their losses remain under federal review, according...
Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence, R.I. A new study shows that women with breast cancer living in Rhode Island and other states that expanded Medicaid eligibility were less likely to die from the disease. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current) Women with breast cancer living in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility were less likely to die from the disease — but not everyone benefited equally, according to a recent study published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open. Researchers from Howard University, the University of Alabama, Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, and others looked at data from about 1.6 million women ages 40 to 64 who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2006 and 2021. They compared survival rates among women living in states that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, with the rates in states that did not expand. About 58% of the women lived in expansion states, and roughly 42% lived...