Social Issues
Covering topics such as homelessness, immigration, racial justice, transgender rights and women’s rights.
The court is considering whether criminal penalties for sleeping in public places amount to cruel and unusual punishment. But no ruling on the issues before the high court will change the nature or scope of the problem.
Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill that provides legal immunity to doctors and patients undergoing IVF treatment. However, the new law does not address the state Supreme Court’s recent ruling that frozen embryos are considered people.
Lawmakers in several states, mostly conservative and largely rural, have rejoined the debate over whether transgender people may use bathrooms and other facilities that do not match their sex assigned at birth.
Legislators are supporting a bill that would prohibit county and municipal governments from accepting IDs or documents provided to undocumented individuals by community programs.
The mortality rate for unhoused Americans more than tripled in 10 years. New data makes clear lives are at stake as California leaders try to combat the homelessness crisis. Why are so many people dying?
The City Council abandoned an ordinance that allows the demolition of homes smaller than 3,000 square feet within a Landmark District to “address substandard structures.” The rule disproportionately impacted Black, brown and low-income neighborhoods.
Legislators continue to stall on proposed and already-enacted laws that aim to promote small-business development in minority and low-income communities. At the end of last year, the state’s Black unemployment rate was nearly 3 percent higher than the overall average.
A group of American cities are working to reverse practices that have held down Black homeownership — and the generational wealth it brings — for nearly a century.
Women across the state are dying from pregnancy-related causes at the highest rate that has been documented by the state in the past decade. Between 35 and 40 mothers die every year.
A total of eight African Americans are serving as the top chamber leaders in state legislatures. Meanwhile, the fallout from an Oregon Supreme Court ruling that barred some state senators from seeking re-election won't be as great as you might think.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis hasn’t just used Georgia’s RICO law to prosecute Donald Trump. Schoolteachers and rappers have also been charged, and the state has used the law to go after protesters. Shouldn’t these tools be reserved for the kinds of prosecutions they were intended for?
Legislatures across the nation are confronting several social issues including crime, drug use, immigration and poverty. These issues will continue to hold resonance, of course, in the November elections.
Headlines obscure the reality that many cities welcome immigrants for the economic and social benefits they bring. The tools of architecture offer ways to assess the resources needed to accommodate and integrate these populations.
The city of 28,500 has become a ground zero in the nation’s political fight over border and immigration issues after the state took over the 47-acre Shelby Park on Jan. 10 without notifying city leaders. The future of the Texas small town is unclear.
“Housing-first” programs are expensive and ineffective. “Treatment-first” approaches are more successful at improving the well-being of homeless people by reducing drug use and increasing employment stability.
The arguments over border sovereignty have never died away in more than two centuries of American life. Now they are coming to the forefront again.
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