Tennessee students showed math test scored improvements since hitting a pandemic low point in 2021, just as occurred in English language arts, according to new data released by the Tennessee Department of Education.
The Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program places results into four categories – exceed, met, approaching and below – compared to student comprehension expectations.
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Due to inflation eating away at earnings and less supply of affordable housing, the majority of Americans today cannot afford median rent prices, according to a new report by the real estate company Redfin.
The analysis comes as other reports indicate that both homeowners and renters are struggling with high housing costs due to inflationary pressures, an inflated housing market, low supply and demand for affordable housing.
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Americans on Medicaid moved closer to receiving coverage for weight loss treatments nearly a year after an Ohio congressman introduced legislation to expand access.
Rep. Dr. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, has wanted U.S. taxpayers to pay for weight loss drugs through Medicare since he introduced the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act in July.
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Attorney General Kris Mayes issued an opinion as abortion policy in the state is likely to be on the ballot in November.
The 15-week law is still on the books in Arizona, and it was signed into law by former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in 2022. The opinion, which was sent to four Democratic state lawmakers on Thursday, is meant to explain what can be considered a “medical emergency” under the law.
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Human trafficking brings in $236 billion dollars a year, according to the International Labor Organization.
Microsoft’s 2023 revenue totaled $212 billion.
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Cleveland is one of the next cities asking for public funding for a renovation or new NFL stadium after the city councils of Charlotte and Jacksonville each approved more than $600 million in public funding.
Browns’ ownership, the Haslam Sports Group, has reportedly pitched Cleveland and Ohio state leadership on funding half of a potential $1.2 billion renovation of Cleveland Browns stadium or having state and local governments each pay $600 million of taxpayer funds – a total of $1.2 billion – toward building a new stadium in Brook Park.
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South Carolina’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased in May to 3.4%, and the state’s top labor official said higher interest rates may be partly to blame.
While the state’s unemployment rate increased from 3.2% last month, officials noted it is below the national rate of 4%.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case challenging Connecticut’s 2021 ban on religious exemption for school vaccination requirements.
A lawsuit filed by parents and conservative groups argued that the state violated their First Amendment rights by approving a bill that eliminated the option for Connecticut families to request a religious exemption to mandated immunizations when a student enrolls in public school. Several previous court rulings rejected the legal challenge.
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Foreign policy is an infrequent subject in U.S. Senate campaigns. In Michigan’s Senate election, however, tough talk on the Chinese Communist Party is growing on the campaign trail.
Michigan, a key swing state in 2024’s general elections, will vote this year to elect a successor to retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Though the primary election is Aug. 6, the race has crystallized around Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin and former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers – the leading candidates for their parties’ nominations – who have both attacked the CCP with a frequency unusual among this year’s Senate campaigns.
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Rep. Laura Terech, D-Phoenix, is stepping down on June 30 now that the legislative session is over, but before her term technically ends.
Terech had announced previously that she would not seek re-election in the hotly competitive legislative district 4, which includes much of the northeast Phoenix area. She is the seventh Democrat in the House to leave her position this year, although all the others stepped down during the session. While most left to pursue new jobs, former Rep. Jevin Hodge had to step down due to a sexual misconduct scandal after only spending a month and a half in the legislature.
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Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos will not face a recall election after the Wisconsin Elections Commission threw out more than a hundred signatures on a petition.
The WEC voted 4-2 on Thursday afternoon to reject the Vos recall petition after it found the number of signatures submitted by the deadline insufficient. Commission staff had recommended Wednesday the commission accept the petition signatures.
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The Jacksonville Jaguars became the second NFL team this week to get a large sum of public money for a stadium renovation when the City Council voted 14-1 to approve $775 million toward a $1.4 billion renovation of EverBank Stadium.
The Jaguars and NFL are expected to pay $625 million toward the project, using NFL G-4 loans along with funds from items such as naming rights through the new 30-year lease and non-relocation agreement.
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The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta remains “quite optimistic that things are heading in the right direction.”
In a video message posted Thursday alongside a longer-form piece, Raphael Bostic, president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said that after the inflation rate declined rapidly in the second half of 2023, it seemed to stall early this year.
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Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown and J.D. Vance are using the National Transportation and Safety Board’s findings on East Palestine’s train derailment to continue their push for national rail standards.
At a public hearing earlier this week in East Palestine, Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy called Norfolk Southern’s attempts to sway the investigation unprecedented and reprehensible.
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The opioid settlement funds headed to the Arizona corrections system are legal, according to a judge’s ruling on Monday.
The part of the budget that would divert $115 million in total to support the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry with what’s outlined as substance abuse treatment. Although the original legal action from Attorney General Kris Mayes resulted in a temporary restraining order for the funds to be transferred, this recent decision from the Maricopa County Superior Court scrapped that.
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A Nevada political action committee (PAC) has submitted signatures in support of a Voter ID ballot initiative.
Repair The Vote PAC gave state and county election officials more than 179,000 signatures. The required number is 102,362, with an equal number of signatures coming from every congressional district.
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A Maricopa County Superior Court judge shot down prevailing wage ordinances in Phoenix and Tucson.
“As both ordinances here violate the intact prevailing wage prohibition, they are preempted and cannot stand,” court documents stated.
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An economic public policy group believes a minimum wage increase would save thousands of lives across the state.
Columbus-based Scioto Analysis recently released a new cost-benefit analysis of the impact of raising the minimum wage. The analysis says raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour would save about 4,100 lives over the next decade.
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The U.S. Surgeon General on Tuesday declared firearm violence a public health crisis in America.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s advisory is the first publication from the Office of the Surgeon General focused on the issue.
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Two groups have filed a federal lawsuit to stop elements of a state law they say bars charitable bail activity.
The ACLU of Georgia and the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center filed the lawsuit on Friday, asking a judge to declare Section 4 of Georgia Senate Bill 63 unconstitutional and issue a temporary restraining order barring the law from taking effect on July 1.
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A new Michigan policy could cost Oakland and Macomb county households thousands in higher property taxes.
The Michigan House recently approved House Bill 4177, seeking to subsidize two nonprofit museums run through the Wright and Detroit Historical Societies. Because they likely could not stay open through admission fees and donations alone, Oakland and Macomb County residents would pay up to $200,000 in property taxes over the next 10 years.
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Recent critical remarks from top-ranking state officials, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, have not deterred Palestinian support among progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups in Pennsylvania.
Earlier this month, Sens. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-Jacobus, and Steven Santarsiero, D-Doylestown, announced a bill to prevent state-funded institutions from divesting from Israel. The legislation explicitly names schools like Penn and Pitt whose encampments made headlines across the globe.
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South Carolina’s attorney general called a federal judge’s decision to block part of President Joe Biden’s latest push to delay or cancel roughly half a trillion dollars in student debt “a huge win for South Carolina.”
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in Kansas and U.S. District Judge John Ross in Missouri issued separate rulings halting Biden’s plan, dubbed the Saving on a Valuable Education — or SAVE — Plan. Republican attorneys general, including South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, filed a lawsuit challenging the plan.
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A new report says Whitewater’s immigration problems did not end when the city’s police chief sent a letter to the White House late last year.
The Institute for Reforming Government on Monday released a report that uses 4,000 open records requests to paint a picture of the continued problems that a flood of illegal immigrants has caused in Whitewater.
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Montana has one of the longest shares of the U.S. border with Canada of any state. However, it’s the other border – nearly 1,000 miles away – that is becoming a flashpoint in the state’s ongoing U.S. Senate race.
Montana’s U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is up for re-election this year, with Tester running against Republican nominee Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL and aerial firefighter. Sheehy has consistently attacked Tester on immigration and border security – seeking to paint him as an enabler of President Joe Biden’s record on illegal immigration from Mexico – forcing Tester to defend his record.
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A coalition of health insurers and employer groups is using a targeted ad campaign to call attention to private-public hospital expansions it says leads to higher premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.
The campaign comes as the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center continues to move forward with a $1.9 billion, 1.9-million-square-foot inpatient hospital expected to open in 2026.
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Legislators pushing a bipartisan bill to legalize recreational marijuana warn that, without action, neighboring states will supply the drug — and carry away the tax revenue.
Reps. Aaron Kaufer, R-Luzerne, and Emily Kinkead, D-Bellevue, will soon introduce their legalization bill, written to closely overlap with a Senate proposal. They want to move fast.
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Virginia’s permit-tracking website has expanded from including permits from three state government departments to six.
Virginia residents and businesses can now follow online in real time the permits they’ve submitted to the Virginia Department of Health, Department of Transportation, and Department of Conservation and Recreation, as well as permits from the state Department of Environmental Quality, Virginia Marine Resources Commission and Department of Energy.
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The Ohio Department of Transportation says it needs nearly $2 billion to slow the growth of commute times and make a stretch of highway in one of the state’s fastest-growing counties safer.
Delaware County’s population has more than doubled in more than 20 years and increased by more than 15,000 people in the last three years. That growth has pushed a 23-mile area of U.S. Highway 23 north of Columbus to 30% over its capacity.
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The fiscal 2025 budget, which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed, includes $9.2 million for the Child and Parent Services Program and pay increases for direct care workers.
According to a national organization of family caregivers, the rate increases lawmakers passed are $6 per hour for direct care workers helping people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and $3 per hour for direct care workers supporting older adults.
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When Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer plan was announced in Memphis, there was not a press release from Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development, meaning there is not a state FastTrack grant associated with the project.
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Several U.S. oil and corn industry lobby groups are suing the Biden Administration over its plans to slash planet-warming tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks. The coalition argues the regulations will cause economic harm.
The EPA finalized new rules for models of semi-trucks, buses and other heavy-duty vehicles released from 2027 to 2032 in a bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
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The Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued another report identifying ongoing problems with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processes.
A regional CBP and ICE detention and removal processes were ineffective at one major international airport, the OIG audit found. The report redacts the name and location of the airport and CBP and ICE regional offices.
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More than 63,000 eligibility checks are still pending but more than 967,000 individuals are renewed and nearly 508,000 are ineligible following the full year review of TennCare cases.
The analysis of more than 1.5 million members comes after the federal COVID-19 pandemic eligibility check pause between March 2020 to March 31, 2023.
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A federal ban on carrying guns in post offices is now in question as a legal filing is now challenging whether the ban violates the Constitution.
Two men, Gavin Pate and George Mandry, have filed suit against the Department of Justice over the ban on carrying and storing weapons at federal post office locations.
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Within five years of a new program created to prevent deportation of minors brought into the country illegally by their parents, nearly 80,000 were released into the U.S. with arrest records. The majority were between the ages of 19 and 22 when they were arrested, according to the latest available data published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced he was expanding deportation protections and job opportunities for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program created by executive order by former president Barack Obama in 2012.
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Nearly half of Americans report that the recent spike in inflation is making it harder to make ends meet, according to a new poll.
Monmouth University released a poll Wednesday showing 46% of Americans are “currently struggling to remain where they are financially.”
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Tennessee remains $523.7 million short of the original budget for tax and fee collections through the first 10 months of the fiscal year.
The May numbers were $29.5 million short of the budgeted amount but $52.4 million head of May 2023.
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More than 241,000 people were apprehended after illegally entering the U.S. in May, according to newly released data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
May’s numbers push the total number of apprehensions and encounters of illegal border crossers to more than 2.2 million in the first eight months of fiscal 2024.
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One of Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers is not giving up on his idea for a time limit for kids when it comes to social media.
Rep. David Steffen, R-Green Bay, this week announced his Wisconsin Kids Online Safety Act.
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Tuesday’s Republican primary race for Virginia’s 5th Congressional District between state Sen. John McGuire and incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Good is still too close to call.
McGuire holds a razor-thin lead of 313 votes, according to the latest numbers from the Virginia Department of Elections. Good, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, is holding on to hope that lingering votes will save his seat.
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A concurrence from the House of Representatives is all that stands in the way of reinforcing Ohio hospital requirements to provide transparency in pricing.
Both the Senate and House passed slightly different versions of House Bill 49, which requires hospitals to comply with the federal price transparency law. This includes maintaining and making a public list of standard charges for services a patient can schedule in advance.
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A partially federally funded South Carolina Agency is changing its name as it doubles down on its enforcement of crimes targeting the state’s vulnerable adult population.
South Carolina’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is changing its name to the Vulnerable Adults and Medicaid Provider Fraud Unit. State officials said the agency experienced a 30% increase in reports from law enforcement thanks to an outreach effort targeting local agencies over the past two years.
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Georgia’s unemployment rate increased slightly in May, hitting 3.2%, up from a revised 3.1% in April, and a leading Georgia business group said inflation is still challenging many businesses.
However, the Peach State’s unemployment rate was lower than the national unemployment rate of 4%, Georgia officials touted.
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The immigration wave at the southern border is a crisis of national security, and Michigan is not exempt from its effects, a recently retired Border Patrol chief says.
Former Chief Chris Clem, who is visiting Michigan as part of Americans for Prosperity’s “Secure Borders, Secure America” tour, served more than 27 years and under five presidents as a U.S. border patrol agent. He was promoted to Yuma Sector chief in December 2020, right before President Joe Biden took office.
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Southern Arizona continues to see major busts of illicit drugs.
Two separate incidents in Yuma and Tucson on June 6 resulted in 138 pounds of drugs including fentanyl and methamphetamine by Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers, according to a news release.
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The next major transportation plan is out and PennDOT wants the public to comment on it.
The Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan was released to the public this week, laying out how the agency plans to spend almost $29 billion in the next few years to build “a safe and reliable transportation network that connects Pennsylvanians to opportunities and services,” according to an agency press release.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two bills on Thursday intended to support Florida veterans and their spouses.
House Bill 725 expands the eligibility for admissions to a long-term care facility for veterans to include spouses and surviving spouses of qualifying veterans.
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A Democratic plan before the Ohio Senate would raise business and income taxes to establish universal health care throughout the state.
The legislation would give every Ohioan access to comprehensive health care without a co-payment or deductible and coverage could not be denied for preexisting conditions.
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Arizona has avoided potential abortion law confusion with the conclusion of the legislative session.
Since the session concluded on Saturday night, all normal legislation without an emergency clause signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs will go into effect on Sept. 14. This also includes the May repeal of the abortion law that was created in 1864 and re-codified in 1977 that banned abortion in nearly all circumstances.
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