All posts tagged "Domesticpolicy"

For any Washington farmer, 2020 was a desperate year. That spring, with a COVID-19 vaccine still distant, disruptions to the economy and supply chains sent unemployment, poverty and food insecurity rates soaring, magnifying inequities. Food systems broke and farmers' key customers — restaurants, hotels and schools — shut down. Farmworkers became scarce. But that first devastating pandemic year also brought a windfall as federal food assistance funding surged to keep Americans from going hungry. And, unusually for the subsidy-soaked agricultural sector, that federal aid cleared a path for farme......

The median age rose in almost every state last year, census estimates show, continuing a long-term trend that is pushing states to prepare for aging populations. Seventeen states had median ages over 40 in 2022, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates of the age at which half of residents are older and half are younger. That’s up from 12 states in 2020 and just seven in 2010. Nationwide, the median age was below 30 until 1980, but it rose to 38.9 as of 2022, according to the bureau estimates. That leaves more states planning for future health and housing challenges for older residents. S......

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Joining the growing list of legislation related to transgender North Carolinians, access to gender-affirming care for some transgender minors may be on the line this year. A new proposal would prohibit the use of public health care facilities or state money for various forms of gender-affirming care for transgender minors. That includes puberty-blocking drugs, hormone-replacement therapy or gender transition surgery. The plan by Republican lawmakers also outlines a list of public health care facilities that would be barred from such practices, including the UNC Health Care sy......

As hot days become more extreme and common, California education researchers are urging that school districts be required to develop heat plans to keep students safe, just as they have policies for severe storms and active shooters. A policy brief published last month by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation offers a series of recommendations on how education and building codes can help schools become more heat-resilient in the face of global warming. State Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat, introduced legislation this year requiring schools to have heat plans by 2027, and another bill would ......

SAN DIEGO — The first day that asylum seekers could make appointments through their smartphones to request protection at U.S. ports of entry, a 22-year-old mother and her three children in Tijuana rushed to try to secure their own place in the digital line. More than three months later, she and thousands of other asylum seekers waiting in Mexico are still trying. Though the pandemic-era policy that created this smartphone appointment process — Title 42 — is set to end Thursday, asylum seekers’ experiences aren’t likely to change anytime soon. A decades-old measure invoked by the Trump administ......

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday granted Gov. Ron DeSantis’ call for a grand jury to investigate COVID-19 vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific consensus they have saved millions of lives in the U.S. and across the world. The court issued an order stating the grand jury can investigate “pharmaceutical manufacturers (and their executive officers) and other medical associations or organizations” involved in almost any way with the use of “vaccines purported to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission.” The grand jury can also look into “other criminal activ......