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General Manager Brian Horak walks down an aisle at Post 60 Market in Emerson, Neb. Alabama's state grocery tax will fall from 3% to 2% on Monday as the result of a law passed in the spring. (Kevin Hardy/Stateline) Alabama’s state grocery tax is scheduled to drop on Monday as a law passed last spring takes effect. The state portion of the grocery tax will fall from 3% to 2%, the result of campaigning by both liberal and conservative groups. “This is great news for the people of Alabama. The latest grocery tax reduction – the second in three years – will make it easier for every Alabamian to make ends meet, especially in this time of persistently high food prices,” said Robyn Hyden, executive director of Alabama Arise, a civil rights advocacy organization that has been at the forefront of efforts to reduce the tax. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE HB 386 , sponsored by Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville and passed during the 2025 legislative session , does not directly...

The Alabama Senate on Feb. 25, 2025. A federal judge Friday ordered Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen to inform her by Thursday of the Alabama Legislature's intent with regard to her order for a new state Senate district in the Montgomery area. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector) U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco Friday ordered Secretary of State Wes Allen to report the Legislature’s intent on her previous order to redraw an Alabama Senate district in Montgomery by Sept. 4. Manasco last week ordered Senate Districts 25 and 26 to be redrawn, ruling that they violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by giving Black voters less opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice than other voters.  “The parties agree that if the Legislature proceeds in a manner that results in the Court undertaking the “unwelcome obligation of . . . impos[ing] a reapportionment plan,”… the Court will need to appoint a Special Master to prepare remedial plans for the Court to consider,” Manasco...

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 28, 2025.  (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court unanimously ruled Friday the Trump administration likely acted unlawfully when it revoked extensions for temporary protections for more than 600,000 Venezuelans.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit panel  agreed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California’s  March decision to block Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to vacate two extensions of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, to the group until October 2026 that  the Biden administration put in place early this year. One of the groups of Venezuelans had their TPS expire in April and the second is set to expire in September. The three-judge panel found that the Trump administratio...

Students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 classmates and teachers were killed during a mass shooting, leave school together for the National School Walkout on April 20, 2018, in Parkland, Fla. Between 2007 to 2023, U.S. children and teens had a mortality rate nearly double that of their peers in wealthy countries, according to a new study.(Joe Raedle/Getty Images) This story originally appeared on Stateline . Babies and children in the United States are nearly twice as likely to die before reaching adulthood compared with their peers in other wealthy countries, according to a new study . The health of U.S. children has deteriorated since the early 2000s across a range of measures, researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of California, Los Angeles found. They published their findings last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study compared infant and child deaths in the U.S. with the figures from 18 other ...

White House budget director Russell Vought speaks with reporters inside the U.S. Capitol on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — The White House budget office moved Friday to yank nearly $5 billion in foreign aid already approved by Congress in a controversial maneuver meant to bypass lawmakers. The so-called pocket rescission, which a top congressional watchdog and the Republican chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee have called illegal, would pull funding that Congress has already approved for the State Department to fulfill overseas commitments. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office  has deemed  such actions to circumvent Congress unlawful. And Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins said Friday that “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.” “Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are sc...

A child gets an MMR vaccine at a clinic put on by Lubbock Public Health Department in Lubbock, Texas, in March. States have been reporting steady increases in vaccination exemption requests for kids. (Photo by Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images) This story originally appeared on Stateline . Dr. Rana Alissa hears it daily in the clinic. “It’s better for my kid to get the virus than get the vaccine.” “The more you [doctors] vaccinate, the more money you get.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE “I did not vaccinate any of my kids, and I’m not going to vaccinate this one. So, please, don’t waste your time.” The Jacksonville, Florida, pediatrician said on average, she’d hear vaccine skepticism from a couple of parents a month, at most, before the COVID-19 pandemic. “Now, it’s every day,” said Alissa, who is also president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Medical experts say hesitancy is likely to increase further as a result of misinformation pouring...

U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bill Cassidy speaks with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after Kennedy's confirmation hearing on Jan. 30, 2025. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Bipartisan leaders of a U.S. Senate committee dealing with health policy expressed alarm with the direction of the country’s top public health agencies after President Donald Trump fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other high-level officials resigned.  Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy — chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — posted on social media late Wednesday that the “high profile departures will require oversight by the HELP Committee.” Cassidy separately called on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to indefinitely postpone its September meeting. “Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific pr...

Cars are flooded in Petersburg, Va., in July. Many of the canceled federal contracts that have contributed to job losses in the state involved flooding control. (Courtesy of Petersburg Fire Rescue & Emergency Services) Virginia and New Jersey may be among the states most affected by the hiring slowdown that enraged President Donald Trump when it appeared in an Aug. 1 jobs report showing the United States had 258,000 fewer jobs than initially reported in May and June. Such revisions to earlier reports are based on more up-to-date payroll data and are routine. But the scale in this case was shocking — showing the smallest monthly job gains since pandemic-era December 2020 and the largest jobs revision, outside recessions, since 1968. In response, Trump declared the numbers were wrong, fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics chief, and offered as a replacement E.J. Antoni, a loyalist who has proposed suspending the jobs report . Trump falsely said in a Truth Social post that the re...

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (center) and tribal leaders speak to the media after a public safety roundtable on Aug. 14, 2024, in Wagner, South Dakota. With Rounds, from left, are Cheyenne River Chairman Ryman LeBeau, Lower Brule Chairman Clyde Estes, Sisseton Wahpeton Secretary Curtis Bissonette, Wayne Boyd of Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Yankton Chairman Robert Flying Hawk, Oglala President Frank Star Comes out and Crow Creek Chairman Peter Lengkeek. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) WASHINGTON — Tribal radio stations that are supposed to receive millions to fill the hole created when Congress eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting haven’t heard anything from the Trump administration about when it will send the money or how much in grants they’ll receive. Unlike most government spending deals, the handshake agreement South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds negotiated with the White House budget director in exchange for Rounds’ vote on the rescissions bil...

The updated Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2026-2027 school year will launch for all students by Oct. 1, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said. (Getty Images) WASHINGTON — The updated form to apply for federal student aid will launch for all students by Oct. 1, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon  told congressional leaders in a letter this week.  The department began testing in early August for the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as FAFSA — to address any bugs or technical issues before opening it up to everyone in the fall.  The agency  signaled earlier this year that the form would open up to the general public by Oct. 1, the typical opening date for the annual form that’s now congressionally mandated.  The  department noted that for the 2026-27 FAFSA, 2,435 forms were started, 1,372 were submitted and 1,347 had been processed, as of Monday.  McMahon’s letter to lawmakers on Tuesday...

Susan Monarez, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on June 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C.. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is leaving the job after less than a month, though the Trump administration is providing few details about her departure.  “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the Department of Health and Human Services wrote on social media. “We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people.  @SecKennedy has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.” The Washington Post  first reported the news.  The U.S. Senate voted along party lines t...

A couple hundred people rallied Aug. 25 in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia outside the the George H. Fallon Federal Building, where the ICE detention facility is located in Baltimore. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters) WASHINGTON — Maryland federal Judge Paula Xinis barred the Trump administration Wednesday from re-deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully removed earlier this year, until she makes a decision in an evidentiary hearing set for October. Separately, Abrego Garcia filed a claim for asylum, a longshot bid to gain legal status as the Trump administration aims to expel him to Uganda  after unlawfully deporting him to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March. Xinis has no jurisdiction over the asylum case, which will be handled by an immigration judge.     Xinis said at a Wednesday hearing that she would issue a temporary restraining order blocking immigration authorities from removing Abrego Garcia until she issues a decision f...