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The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission has been working with several other organizations to establish a regional clearinghouse for broadband policy development and implementation with federal infrastructure funds.
State officials urged city residents to avoid drinking and cooking the city’s tap water as testing has revealed high-levels of lead. Benton Harbor is also a majority low-income, Black community.
Florida state legislators have been caught between Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts to ban COVID-19 vaccine mandates across the state and businesses that want to require them. A special session hopes to resolve the issue.
The federal funding will be used to reduce air pollution and encourage the use of electric vehicles and charging stations, which are crucial to EV growth. The state will add $10.6 million to the funding.
President Joe Biden, announcing his step toward banning oil and gas development outside the boundaries of Chaco Culture National Historic Park in hopes of improving public safety and justice for Native Americans. Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan includes a record $13 billion for tribal infrastructure. (Reuters — November 15, 2021)
The amount that Washington state is seeking from three drug distributors for their role in the nation’s opioid epidemic. The money would be used to pay for treatment services, criminal justice costs, public education campaigns and other programs over 15 years.
Transportation experts say that much of the funds in Biden’s big bill just go towards highways and a carbon-intensive status quo.
Taking public meetings online was supposed to broaden civic engagement, but little has changed: The same vocal residents, interest groups and activists still dominate them. We need to find better ways.
With the passage of the federal infrastructure bill, transportation leaders in Illinois are gaining hope that the high-speed rail project that would connect Chicago to St. Louis can gain momentum.
Our resident humanities scholar has been thinking about whether we can learn to live up to the Declaration of Independence’s aspiration that all of us are created equal.
Research shows there are ways to fight fraud, but the bill contains very little language aimed at doing so.
The state had a fairly good digital response to the pandemic, given the low technology and training capacity that public health departments had prior. But the response wasn't perfect, especially for those with limited English or Internet access.
From 2010 to 2019, the state’s median household income rose 44 percent, from about $47,000 to $67,000, the most of any state. Experts are not yet sure what caused the large increase.
A study found that, between 2017 and 2019, 52 percent of the city’s police use-of-force cases were against Black residents who comprise less than 30 percent of the city’s population.
The Department of Workforce Development has adjusted training and workload, but high demand has led to turnover among judges, significantly delaying the unemployment claims process.
The state will spend $800,000 to offer free credit monitoring to teachers whose Social Security numbers were left vulnerable from a flaw in the education department’s database that was found by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski in a video announcing her 2022 re-election campaign, pushing back against former President Trump’s endorsement of her opponent, Kelly Tshibaka. Murkowski has been a senator since 2002. (Associated Press — November 12, 2021)
The amount of proceeds that Miami, Fla., has earned from the city’s cryptocurrency, MiamiCoin. Mayor Suarez has said he intends to give the proceeds directly to city residents.
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Ethics rules require judges to recuse themselves from cases involving relatives or their own partisan or political interests. But it doesn't always work out that way.
Gavin Newsom spent two weeks out of the public eye, then explained that he had wanted to spend time with his children. Some state lawmakers lauded the decision, while others claimed it was a violation of the public trust.
The federal agency determined the state was ineligible for nearly $12 billion in federal grants for public transit. Officials fear that this loss of funding could be detrimental to transit agencies.
The Build Back Better Regional Challenge aims to boost local economies through $1 billion of federal grants, $100 million of which will be used to support coal communities. Logan County is just one of the 10 applicants from West Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids sponsored a bill that would create a group to study the developing industry of advanced air mobility, which includes drone delivery and air-taxis. The state is already well-established in aeronautics.
Kym Davis Rogers, litigation attorney at Disability Rights Texas, regarding a federal judge’s ruling that has halted Texas’ efforts to ban mask mandates in schools. The ruling could have impacts on other states that have similarly banned mask mandates in schools. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said he would make legal challenges against the judge’s ruling. (NPR — November 10, 2021)
The total amount that residents of Flint, Mich., will receive for being exposed to lead-contaminated water, with final approval for the payout from a judge on Wednesday, Nov. 10. The settlement was first announced in August 2020. The majority of the money, $600 million, is coming directly from the state.
Too much of the space in our downtowns is taken up by parked cars, and requiring developers to provide so many parking slots inflates the cost of housing. It’s becoming clear that those mandates are irrational.
If Hispanics in the U.S. were an independent country, they’d have the world’s seventh-largest economy. They will also account for the majority of new adults entering the workforce in coming years.
The state originally said it would end mask mandates when it got to a 70 percent vaccination rate, but as cases continued to spike the end never came. Three experts explain how that might damage the public’s trust.
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