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The ACLU was unsuccessful in tightening up language, added at the last minute to a budget article, authorizing the Department of Health to require newborn screening for a variety of unspecified “conditions.”

In approving a complete rewrite of the regulatory statute governing optometrists, the General Assembly – at the ACLU’s urging – took a modest step forward in eliminating troubling and archaic language that appears in most occupational licensing statutes.

Responding to the deaths of two people with mental disabilities last month when confronted by police, eight advocacy organizations today cited a “critical and urgent need for uniform and comprehensive training of all police in Rhode Island to ensure a proper response to persons with mental illness, cognitive impairments or developmental disabilities.” The organizations, many of whom deal with or represent on a daily basis individuals with mental illness, made the comments in a letter sent to all police chiefs in the state.

Despite the state’s difficult fiscal times, the legislature approved a bill that will require public school districts to continue providing certain taxpayer-funded services to students with disabilities in parochial schools.