Alabama
Why Republican-led states keep leaving a group that verifies voter rolls
Eight Republican-led states this year left an interstate cooperative that seeks to maintain accurate voter registration rolls, and three more may join them — a move that election security experts say is fueled by conspiracy theories. Earlier this month, Virginia’s top election official said the state would become the latest to stop participating in the […]
Looming Court Rulings to Decide Future of Abortion Pills
Read more Stateline coverage on how states are either protecting or curbing access to abortions. Medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of all abortions in the United States, has become more common since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion this summer. But in federal courts and state legislatures, abortion opponents are trying […]
Yes, Slavery Is on the Ballot in These States
More than 150 years after it was officially outlawed in the United States, slavery will be on the ballot in five states in November, as a new abolitionist movement seeks to reshape prison labor. Voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will decide on state constitutional amendments prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, in some […]
Public Health Agencies Lack Money to Combat Climate Threats
Medical experts say climate change will affect nearly every aspect of public health. Many of those impacts already are being felt. Heat deaths in the United States are severely undercounted, researchers say, with some studies putting the actual total at thousands each year. Scientists are working to understand the health effects of wildfire smoke, which […]
Critics Fear Abortion Bans Could Jeopardize Health of Pregnant Women
Read more Stateline coverage on how states are either protecting or curbing access to abortions. The 17 states that ban abortion after 20 weeks make exceptions to protect the life or health of the woman. But doctors and reproductive health advocates worry such exceptions are so vague or narrow that abortion providers are unlikely to invoke them—especially […]
Hawaii and Maine Have Scored Highest on Health Care During Pandemic
The health systems in Hawaii and Maine have performed best of all the states during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new rankings that weighed such factors as vaccination rates, capacity in hospital and intensive care units, and death rates. Alabama ranked at the bottom in the scorecard, followed by Oklahoma, Kentucky, Mississippi and Georgia. The […]
Governors Push New Gun Restrictions in Wake of Massacres
Several governors and state lawmakers this week proposed additional restrictions on gun purchases, background checks and sales in the wake of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, this week and the slaying of 10 Black shoppers at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket last week. The suggestions, almost exclusively from Democrats, ranged from restricting firearm advertising […]
Teens’ Period Poverty Activism Has Stirred Lawmakers to Action
For many years, Laila Brown, a 16-year-old from Vicksburg, Mississippi, and her peers had conversations about the stigma of periods and the lack of period products at school. After learning about “period poverty,” or inadequate access to menstrual hygiene products and education, Brown and her older sister, Asia, 21, wanted to help. In January 2021, […]
Pandemic Sweetens Lure of Smaller Cities’ Relocation Incentives
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Aaron Miller’s title and to correct the spelling of Grant Bumgarner’s name. TULSA — Moving from New York City to Tulsa, Oklahoma, might seem an unlikely choice for a young African American scientist like Christopher Bland. His new home is known as an old oil boomtown—and […]
Amid Omicron Uncertainty, States Resist New Mandates
In the coming weeks, scientists will have many more answers regarding omicron, the new COVID-19 variant that has quickly engulfed South Africa and spread across the globe, including the United States. Is omicron more transmissible than delta? Does it cause more severe disease? Is it more resistant to vaccines or anti-viral treatments? Does it cause […]
Texas Governor Signs Transgender Youth Sports Ban
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott this week became the latest governor to sign a bill to bar transgender youth from competing on high school sports team that don’t align with their biological gender at birth. The legislation, which failed to pass at least five times during the regular legislative session, advanced at a state Senate […]
More Governors End Pandemic Unemployment Benefits
At least four more states have announced they will opt out of federal COVID-19 unemployment assistance programs before the official Labor Day expiration date, Sept. 6. Louisiana, the first Democratic-led state to end benefits, and the Republican-led Florida, Maryland and Nebraska, became the latest states to end the additional -a-week federal unemployment assistance and other […]