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The Voting Rights Lab tracked more than 2,600 election bills around the country as of early September, and 45 states passed 221 bills into law, the organization said. It characterized 41 of the new laws as “anti-voter,” and 102 as “pro-voter.” Dive deeper with Public Integrity’s interactive map. It provides a snapshot of some changes to […]

Legislators around the country have overhauled laws governing access to voting in the wake of the 2020 election, with states increasingly diverging on how difficult it should be to cast a ballot. About a quarter of Americans live in states trying to expand voter access and roughly an equal number live in states making it […]

Virtual communities have long provided a space for LGBTQ youth to explore their identities, allowing queer children to safely come out of the closet without fear of abuse from unsupportive parents. But as technology companies ratchet up surveillance in the name of content moderation, the digital privacy of LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable people may […]

On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order putting racial equity at the center of policy, programs and funding, a response to the racial justice push that helped propel him to victory.  One notable effort is a $4 billion debt relief program, included in the American Rescue Plan Act passed […]

The last United States military planes flew out of Afghanistan at almost the stroke of midnight Monday, capping the bloody and turbulent end of America’s longest war in history. In the war’s final weeks, President Joe Biden faced a torrent of criticism for failing to anticipate the sudden collapse of Afghan security forces in the […]

The Department of Homeland Security published a post-Trump report recently recognizing that immigrants are up to three times more likely to work in “essential” jobs with high risk of COVID-19 exposure than U.S.-born Americans. Essential workers who are not U.S. citizens are “especially vulnerable” to the virus, the report warns, because they also face multiple […]

The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, a private Massachusetts residential and day school, has for decades used shock therapy on students with developmental and emotional disabilities to curb aggressive behavior and self-harm. This month, the school won a reprieve from a proposed ban after a federal appeals court concluded that the March 2020 decision by the […]

An old bridge winds across the river between Minnesota and Wisconsin, where Lake Superior Community Health Center maintains sites less than six miles apart. That bridge, says CEO Jessie Peterson, represents a barrier to how easily low-income patients on either side can access health care.  Peterson’s center maintains its hub in Duluth, where more low-income […]

For more than four months, much of the media coverage on policing reform has focused on whether congressional negotiators can strike a bipartisan deal that will pass muster in the divided Senate. Three weeks ago, the negotiators appeared optimistic as they announced “an agreement on a framework” for a compromise. But they have since hit […]

Congress faces growing pressure to pass new federal voting legislation in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last week that will make it more difficult to challenge a spate of new Republican-backed state-level voting restrictions.  Democrats already wrestling with a loaded agenda on voting rights now face the additional complication of how to address […]

President Joe Biden sent Vice President Kamala Harris to Central America this week with a mission: Begin a new era of U.S.-supported programs to try to decrease migration by reducing poverty, violence and corruption in the infamously unstable region.  It’s no small task. Local oligarchs and U.S. companies have long reaped profits from countries with […]