Several Supreme Court justices on Monday questioned the wisdom of an Oregon city’s ordinance that penalizes homeless people for sleeping in public, but the court’s conservative majority seemed wary of having federal courts intervene. The case from Grants Pass, a small city in southern Oregon, has drawn national...

This story is republished from Stateline original article. In Humphreys County, Mississippi — about 70 miles north of the state capital, in the heart of the fertile Delta region — a third of the residents live in poverty. In Belzoni, the county seat, there are just a handful of health care clinics. The town’s only major hospital closed more than a decade ago, around the same time its catfish industry collapsed.

This article is republished from The Conversation original article. The right-wing political campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion policies taking place in several states across the U.S. has called into question the nation’s commitment to achieving racial equality. In this landscape, Seattle is marking a milestone of sorts –...

This article is from a partnership that includes WHYY, NPR, and KFF Health News. Read the original here. On a narrow street lined with row houses and an auto body shop in the Kensington neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Marsella Elie climbs a home’s front steps and knocks hard on the door.

With few signs of the nationwide opioid crisis slowing down, it’s critical that individuals who have started addiction treatment stay on the path to recovery. One of the best ways is with medications for opioid use disorders, or MOUD, that help lessen the user’s cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

For nearly six years now, states have slowly been plugging a gaping hole where a national data privacy standard should be. As Congress has failed to advance legislation, states have written and passed their own comprehensive data privacy laws. Starting with California in 2018, more than a dozen states today...

This story was first published by Chalkbeat original article. After preschool enrollment took a nosedive during the pandemic, a new report offers some encouraging news. A record share of young children enrolled in preschool last school year, and state spending on preschool reached an all-time high. New universal preschool initiatives...

This article is republished from The Conversation original article. When the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to get an abortion in June 2022, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the court “should reconsider” other rights it currently recognizes—like the rights for same-sex couples to have sex and marry.

You're reading Route Fifty's State and Local Roundup. To get the week’s news to use from around the country, you can subscribe here to get this update in your inbox every Saturday. In the meantime, be sure to read to the end as we've rounded up headlines from the week.

Wisconsin became the latest state to ban using private funds for election administration earlier this month, part of an ongoing trend that has swept the nation in the wake of the 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic. Voters in the Badger State approved two Republican-initiated ballot measures to amend the...

HERNDON, Va. — Juan Ramirez, watching his dog play in Chandon Park here in suburban Virginia on a Saturday morning, tries to imagine the massive office buildings next to the park becoming apartments and townhouses. “I guess it’s inevitable. People don’t use offices as much now. I hope it’s...

In the immortal words of the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want.” But state attorneys general, who have been lobbying Congress for the past two years for the ability to sue airlines in state courts for consumer protection violations, might get what they need. On Tuesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the Denver International Airport to announce a partnership with 18 states and territories that will empower AGs to help investigate airlines and hold them accountable when they violate aviation consumer protection laws.

Governments, universities and philanthropies often target the same problems. But when they don’t work together to solve them, money, energy and momentum can be wasted. Beginning with the creation of one position five years ago, North Carolina has built a widely praised Office of Strategic Partnerships, or OSP, designed to whittle away the communication and logistical problems that often interfere with government, academic and philanthropic relationships.

This story was originally published by Floodlight. It’s been nearly two years since President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act won Congress’ approval, but it’ll likely be months before that cash starts trickling into the marginalized communities it’s supposed to help. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency...

This story was originally published by The 19th. The majority of American K-12 public school teachers say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting at their school, according to a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. Fifty-nine percent told Pew researchers that they...

Insulin prices have risen so much over the years that state and local governments are going to court to help knock them down. Indeed, insulin spending has nearly tripled from $8 billion in 2012 to $22.3 billion in 2022, according to the American Diabetes Association. One reason for the stark increase in costs is the “pay-to-play” relationship between drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers, one legal expert says.

Government websites are often riddled with accessibility challenges for people with disabilities—everything from small text, sites that are not mobile friendly, live audio that lacks captions, forms with hard-to-follow instructions and poor color contrast. These issues make it harder for users with disabilities to access services and interact with their localities.

This story was originally published by Grist. Read the original article here. When the sharing economy took off in the 2010s and upended entire industries, the firmest proponents of the model heralded it as an economic revolution that would help slash emissions. Of all the ideas that emerged and dissolved over the years, shareable electric scooters seemed to possess the most promise for climate. Almost anyone with a smartphone and a credit card could grab one and ride it down the block or across town, eschewing automobiles.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Nearly half of Americans live in a state that allows legal access to recreational marijuana. Eleven more states, including Wisconsin and Florida, are considering legalization in 2024. One of the most common rationales for...