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Amanda Becker, reporter for The 19th, and Colleen Long, editor for NBC News, presented their post-Dobbs books at the 2025 Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg, Maryland, May 17. Becker’s “You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America” and Long and Rebecca Little’s “I’m Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America,” were both published in 2024. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom) During the pandemic, when many people were reevaluating their life goals, Colleen Long texted her childhood best friend and fellow journalist Rebecca Little to see if, together, they could write a relatable, even funny, book about pregnancy loss. “My friend Rebecca … she likes to say she kind of had the pu pu platter of loss,” Long said during an author panel at the 2025 Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg, Maryland, on May 17. “She had all sorts of terrible things happen: a stillbirth; she had to end the pregnancy of twins; she had sever...

The U.S. Supreme Court, on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Friday said it will allow the Trump administration to remove deportation protections for more than 500,000 nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who were given permission to temporarily remain and work in the United States by the Biden administration. The move by the high court — which permits the deportations while a lawsuit continues to work its way through the courts — came after a district court in Massachusetts in April blocked the Trump administration from ending the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, or CHNV, program for 532,000 people. It’s the second decision by the Supreme Court this month stripping immigrants of some form of temporary legal protections, affecting more than 800,000 people in the country without permanent legal status who are now subject to swift deportation. On May 19, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to ...

Downtown Birmingham viewed from Red Mountain. Two companies in the area will lose $75 million each after their grant funding was eliminated by the U.S. Department of Energy. (John Coletti/The Image Bank) The U.S. Department of Energy announced Friday the cancellation of 24 awards issued by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations that impacts two businesses in Alabama. American Cast Iron Pipe Company and United States Pipe and Foundry Company, LLC were both set to receive $75 million in grant money from the Department of Energy but will no longer receive the funding in light of the grants getting canceled.  “While the previous administration failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing away billions of taxpayer dollars, the Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on i...

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Jan. 17, 2025. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images) A federal judge in California said Thursday he is considering issuing an order to preserve work permits for a small group of Venezuelans with temporary protected status, which allows migrants to live in the United States for a set period without fear of deportation. They were granted these extended protections by immigration officials before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that allowed the Trump administration to revoke those protections. A hearing before U.S. District Judge Edward Chen was the first in the case since the Supreme Court on May 19 allowed the Trump administration to  end temporary protections for a group of 350,000 Venezuelans and vacated Chen’s order blocking the administration’s move. Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama to a seat i...

Migrants from Mexico and Guatemala are apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers after crossing a section of border wall into the U.S. on Jan. 04, 2025 in Ruby, Arizona.  (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — The Center for Migration Studies Thursday  released a report finding the population of people in the United States without permanent legal status increased to 12.2 million in 2023, using the most recent Census Bureau American Community Survey data. It’s a number that grew by 2 million from 2020 to 2023, according to the study by the nonpartisan New York think tank that studies domestic and international migration.  Six states that have the largest population of people without permanent legal status also saw some of the biggest increases. They are California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas. Of those states, the fastest-growing were Florida, New York and New Jersey. That population estimate includes not only people...

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall delivers his inaugural speech during inauguration ceremonies at the Alabama State Capitol on Monday, Jan. 16, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. Marshall said Thursday he will run for U.S. Senate in 2026. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector) Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Thursday he will seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Tommy Tuberville. “Right now, the nation needs strong conservative leadership, somebody that’s going to be able to advance President Trump’s agenda,” Marshall said in an interview with Washington Examiner Thursday . “And the work that I’ve done as attorney general, I think, makes it abundantly clear that I’m willing to fight the right battles and to be effective in doing it, and look forward to being able to take that to the Senate.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE As the attorney general, Marshall has embraced conservative causes and beliefs including joining a lawsu...

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, May 20, 2025. (Screenshot from committee webcast) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services urged health care providers Wednesday to stop several treatments for children with gender dysphoria, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries. The announcement came just a couple hours before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent letters to hospitals throughout the country, promising “a comprehensive review of federal payment policies” and demanding information about how they determine children and adolescents can give their consent. “These are irreversible, high-risk procedures being conducted on vulnerable children, often at taxpayer expense,” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz wrote in a statement accompanying his agency’s letter. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in  a two-page open letter shared on so...

A crowd gathered outside U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Tuesday, April 10, 2025, to protest the government's erroneous deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national, to a mega-prison in the Central American country. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is arguing that a Maryland federal court lacks the authority to require the return of wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia because he’s in prison in El Salvador — even though the U.S. Supreme Court has directed administration officials to “facilitate” his return. In addition, the judge in the highly publicized case has denied the Department of Justice’s request for another 30 days to extend its time to submit briefs. Abrego Garcia has remained in prison since March. DOJ lawyers said in a brief filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, in Greenbelt, that because the administration has not brought back Abrego Garcia, the cour...

Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, speaks with another member of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee during a meeting on Wednesday, May, 28, 2025. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector) Legislators at a meeting of the state’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee Wednesday expressed mixed feelings about proposed parole guideline changes from the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles earlier this month . But lawmakers said they believed the committee’s discussion of the issue brought the Legislature’s attention to it and eventually compelled the parole board to produce the guidelines. “What I want to say is that you are being heard,” said. Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, the chair of the Joint Prison Oversight Committee. “Does that mean we change everything overnight? No, but you are being heard.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE Since 2023, the Joint Prison Oversight Committee has hosted public hearings that had regularly been attended by friends and family with loved ones ...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C.. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. changed the federal government’s recommendation for the coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, saying healthy children and healthy pregnant people no longer need to get it. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who had to broker several deals with Republican senators to secure confirmation, didn’t explain why he was making the change in a brief video. “I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” Kennedy said. “Last year the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot despite the lack of any clinical data to suppo...

The National Public Radio headquarters in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.  (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — A collection of National Public Radio stations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, seeking to block an executive order that would cut off their federal funding. The  43-page filing says the order that President Donald Trump signed earlier this month “violates the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, and also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information.” The  executive order called on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives its funding from Congress, to cease sending money to the Public Broadcasting Service and NPR. The order stated that government funding for public media “is not only outdated and u...

Signs are posted in the young adult section of the Autauga-Prattville Public Library on Feb. 23, 2024. The Alabama Library Association said in a letter earlier this month it was "concerned but also confused" by new definitions of the term "sexually explicit" by the Alabama Public LIbrary Service board. (Ralph Chapoco/ Alabama Reflector) The Alabama Library Association said in a May 16 letter that it was “concerned but also confused” by new Alabama Public Library Service policies on sexually explicit content and what it called ill-treatment of directors and staff of local libraries at a meeting earlier this month. The organization said it was notably concerned by “the lack of discussion about how the board will codify this new definition into the APLS administrative state code,” referring to a letter that APLS Board Chair John Wahl sent to local libraries to further clarify definitions related to sexually explicit materials after the board approved the update duri...

Kymberlie and Robert Watson stand outside a damaged work shed on their property in Cave City, Ark. The March tornado that ripped through the city incurred $60,000 in damages to their home. (Lucas Dufalla/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette) This story first appeared on the Tennessee Lookout . CAVE CITY, Ark. — When a severe tornado tore through Cave City, Arkansas, in March, retiree Debra Lindsey was in her trailer home with her husband. “I didn’t even know there was a tornado on the ground until the sirens went off, and then in 45 seconds it was here,” Lindsey said. “It was very scary. If it would’ve been 100 to 150 feet closer to here, it would’ve taken the front of our trailer off.” Even without a direct hit, she estimated that the damage to their home and property was between $30,000 and $40,000. Their storage buildings were destroyed, along with their two vehicles. And the insurance company won’t cover everything. Across the street, Robert and Kymberlie Watson rode out the tornadoes ...