President Biden opens application process for student loan debt forgiveness program
Although legal battles continue in many states and in Federal courts thoughout the nation, President Biden has opened the registration and application process for the student loan forgiveness program he announced in August. While the likelihood remains that the program will drastically change, if even surviving judicial review, the current plan is for the debt relief to kick in on January 1, 2023.
The State of Indiana announced that any Student Debt Relief will be assessed taxes for the following filing period.
One qualifies to have up to $10,000 forgiven if the student loan is held by the Department of Education and made less than $125,000 individually or $250,000 for a family. If one received Pell grants, which are reserved for undergraduates with the most significant financial need, they can have up to $20,000 forgiven. If one is a current borrower and a dependent student, they will be eligible for relief based on their parents’ income.
Start the process by clicking here following “Apply Now”
Evidence thrown out in murder trial of Caden Smith
Caden Smith, a teenager who stood trial for last year for 3 murders is now at home with a GPS device. after a significant amount of evidence in the case has been ruled out by a Marion County Judge. Judge Jennifer P. Harrison ruled that Smith’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated through the search warrant which was obtained in the matter. Smith is believed to have killed Michael James Jr., Abdulla Mubarak and Joseph Thomas over two days in October of 2021. Court documents state that IMPD claims to have found the gun matching bullet fragments along with a bulletproof vest, bags of drugs, and several cell phones with internet searches on incriminating topics with the searches that have been ruled out.
$5.1M grant to help prevent Hoosier overdose deaths
Indiana University researchers are working to reduce the number of opioid deaths in Indiana by providing timely data to improve resources and services that help people who use drugs stay as healthy as possible. Using a five-year, $5.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s HEAL Data2Action Initiative, the researchers will work with overdose fatality review teams in 19 Hoosier counties to measure and improve the effectiveness of harm reduction practices. The goal is to save more lives by providing more timely reporting of data, including which local systems individuals interact with on a broader scale.
Modeled after other mortality review teams, overdose fatality review teams review the factors that may have contributed to a person’s death from overdose and then use that information to inform local policies, procedures and interventions. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which ranked Indiana 13th in the nation with 36.7 overdose deaths per 100,000 people in 2020, considers the teams a best practice for addressing overdose deaths.
Using data available through state partners, including the Indiana Department of Health, the researchers will work with county-based local overdose fatality review teams to provide timely overdose event and death data to improve local action. Overdose fatality review teams often review a single death or a small group of cases at a time, which does not provide generalizable data about what is occurring within the community.
This Week in Hoosier History
1938 – More than 2000 people attended a reception held at the home of former president Benjamin Harrison on North Delaware St. in Indianapolis. In attendance were his widow, Mrs. Mary Lord Harrison, and daughter Mrs. Elizabeth Walker.The Harrisons expressed pleasure over the way their former home had been restored and opened to the public. Harrison built the home in 1875 and lived there before and after his term in the White House.
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