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States move to limit classroom screen time

High school students unlock magnetic locking pouches containing their phones after class with a newly established a phone-free policy in 2024. After the success of cellphone bans nationwide, state lawmakers are turning to legislation restricting how much time students can look at screen. (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch) After school cellphone bans passed many statehouses with bipartisan support in recent legislative sessions, state lawmakers are turning to legislation governing how long students should spend looking at screens. This year, four states passed laws restricting or regulating screen time for students from childcare through fifth grade. Iowa capped digital instruction at 60 minutes per day for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, with exceptions for special education, assessments and computer science. Utah lawmakers this year directed the state education board to develop grade-specific technology rules, including restrictions on screen time in kindergarte...

Measles cases have reached a 35-year high

A nurse vaccinates a child at the Latino Community Development Agency on July 9, 2026, in Oklahoma City. As vaccination rates decline nationwide, measles cases have surpassed 2025 to the highest since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. (Photo by Courtney Bell/Oklahoma Voice) Measles cases this year have surpassed all of 2025 to become the worst since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, with cases now in 44 states and the District of Columbia, according to a federal report released Friday. There were 2,318 confirmed cases as of July 23, compared with 2,289 in all of 2025, with 93% of cases for both years being among unvaccinated people, mostly younger than 20. There have been fewer hospitalizations this year, 151 compared with 243 last year, and no deaths yet, compared with three in 2025. The highest number of new cases was in mid-January 2026, when there were almost 300 new cases. The largest number of current cases are in South Carolina (670), Ut...

Federal judge terminates consent decree for Tutwiler Prison for Women

A person behind bars. A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Corrections over allegations of sexual assault and sexual abuse at the state's only women's prison. (Getty Images) A federal judge Thursday dismissed a consent decree between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice over sexual abuse at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wetumpka. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson dismissed the case, filed in 2015, after the state and the DOJ reached an agreement to terminate the remaining issues in the consent decree. “Over the past decade, the Alabama Department of Corrections has made real, measurable progress in strengthening oversight and safety at Tutwiler, and this judgment reflects that work,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement. Justice Department officials filed the lawsuit in May 2015 after the agency’s civil rights division released a scathing report on sexual abuse and harassment of women incarcerated at Tutwil...

Alabamian tests positive for measles; no exposure in state, says ADPH

A woman scratches a measles rash. An Alabamian living and working outside the state tested positive for measles, the Alabama Department of Public Health reported Thursday. (Getty Images) An Alabamian living and working outside the state has tested positive for measles, but is not related to any known exposures in the state, the Alabama Department of Public Health said Thursday. The individual was unvaccinated, according to ADPH. The department was unable to release any other identifying information on Thursday afternoon. “However, it serves as a reminder that unvaccinated individuals can be exposed to measles while traveling within the United States or internationally and may unknowingly bring the virus home, where it can be spread to others,” a statement from the department said Thursday. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE As of Frid...

US Senate Judiciary holds over vote on Blanche nomination for AG as Grassley slams Dems

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday, July 23, 2026 criticized committee Democrats opposed to the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general. (Screenshot from committee webcast) WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate tasked with advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcer on Thursday pushed the vote one week. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s delayed vote to send the controversial nominee to the full Senate is “per standard committee practice,” according to a spokesperson for Chairman Chuck Grassley. The Iowa Republican and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used the time that had been allocated for the vote to comment at length on Blanche’s nomination. Grassley then recessed the session because too many Republicans were absent, which he described as “kind of rude.” Grassley praised the selection of Blanche and said the Jus...

As national death rate dips, some states did better than others

A person walks into University Hospital in Newark, N.J. New Jersey has had one of the largest drops in deaths rates since 2015, according to a Stateline analysis. (Photo by Terrence McDonald/New Jersey Monitor) The nation’s death rate may have fallen to a historic low last year as many of the killers of young people such as drug overdoses, gun homicides and traffic accidents continued receding in 2025, according to new federal statistics. States have not shared equally in the success, though, according to a Stateline analysis of provisional data by state. And the low ebb may reflect the effects of past health care expansion efforts that are threatened by today’s Trump administration moves to curtail Medicaid expansion and cut funding for rural hospitals. Some states in the Northeast have seen death rates drop by the most between 2015 and 2025 — led by New Jersey (down 8.3%), Rhode Island (down 8%), New York (down 7.9%), Massachusetts (down 7.4%) and the District of Columbia (down...