911 Fees
A federal court in Kentucky granted a wireless communication trade group’s request to block enforcement of a law that required phone companies to pay a fee to fund 911 services on behalf of low-income Kentuckians.
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poverty
Stand Up for Section 8
Dozens of New York City landlords and brokers who refused to rent to Section 8 tenants are named in a federal complaint by the Housing Rights Initiative, which says such discriminatory practices have kept thousands of New Yorkers in homeless shelters, substandard housing and high-poverty neighborhoods, with particular harm to people of color and people with disabilities during the pandemic.
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Covid-19 Bill Gives States Pathway to Reduce Maternal Deaths
Labor and delivery are thought of as the riskiest times for new mothers, but many women die in the weeks and months after giving birth. Now a provision in the Covid-19 relief bill could help change that.
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Fighter Jets
A Wisconsin environmental group sued the Air Force and National Guard in Washington federal court, claiming they decided to base fighter jets in a predominantly minority and low-income area of Madison without properly assessing the environmental impact.
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California to Reserve 40% of Vaccine Doses for Low-Income Areas
California will begin reserving 40% of available Covid-19 vaccines for those living in the state’s low-income communities and ease restrictions for businesses to reopen, state officials announced Wednesday evening.
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UK Report Urges Need for Nature to Be at Heart of Economics
A report commissioned by the British government is urging a radical transformation in the way that countries around the world assess the state of their economies by elevating the natural world as a key element in their economic planning.
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California Leaders Shredded for Giving Less Covid Aid to Small Communities
Sixteen more populous California counties received nearly twice as much federal Covid relief money than counties with fewer than 500,000 people — even though the smaller counties often saw far higher rates of transmission.
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Climate Change Worsens Child Malnutrition: Study
Climate change may contribute more to greater child malnutrition and poor diet than traditional causes such as poverty and poor sanitation, according to research published on Thursday.
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Amid Pandemic, Pacific Islands Work to Offset Food Shortages
Coronavirus infections have barely touched many of the remote islands of the Pacific, but the pandemic’s fallout has been enormous, disrupting the supply chain that brings crucial food imports and sending prices soaring as tourism wanes.
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New Report Says Part of South Sudan Is in ‘Likely Famine’
One county in South Sudan is likely in famine and tens of thousands of people in five other counties are on the brink of starvation, according to a new report by international food security experts.
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UN Report Finds Two-Thirds of Kids Don’t Have Home Internet
The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed the world toward a reliance on virtual education, but a new report shows that two-thirds of school-age children around the globe do not have internet access at home.
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Warning of Famine, UN Releases $100M to Seven Countries
The United Nations humanitarian office is releasing $100 million in emergency funding to seven countries at risk of famine in Africa and the Middle East amid conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic, while the humanitarian chief says returning to a world where famines are common would be “obscene.”
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Amid Pandemic, Belgrade Street Kids Find Comfort at Refuge
For years, a small house tucked away in a Belgrade residential area has been an oasis of warmth and comfort for the Serbian capital’s most vulnerable inhabitants – street children.
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North Korea Waging Propaganda-Heavy, 80-Day Labor Campaign
North Korea occasionally stages such all-out national campaigns, which the state media call “battles.
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Pandemic Draws More Latin American Poor Into Banking System
In Colombia, at least 1.6 million people who never had a bank account have joined the nation’s financial network since April.
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Argentine Police Evict Protesters Occupying Contested Land
Argentine police clashed with a group of protesters on Thursday while evicting them from makeshift homes on a contested property south of the capital, Buenos Aires. Six police officers were injured and at least 30 people were arrested, according to authorities.
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Vaccine Storage Issues Could Leave 3B People Without Access
The chain breaks here, in a tiny medical clinic in Burkina Faso that went nearly a year without a working refrigerator.
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World Hits New Virus Infection Record, Extreme Poverty Soars
With new cases surging in Europe, the world is recording its highest daily infection counts since the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic seven months ago.
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World Food Program Wins Nobel Peace Prize as Hunger Surges
The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its efforts to combat hunger in regions facing conflict and hardship and at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has driven millions more people to the brink of starvation.
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Pandemic Could Push 115M Into Extreme Poverty in 2020: World Bank
As many as 115 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty this year due to the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the World Bank warned Wednesday.
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