Global News

[ad_1] Even as the U.S. economy shows signs of slowing down, many states around the U.S. are flush with cash, with their so-called rainy day funds estimated to reach a record high of $136.8 billion this fiscal year.  And lawmakers in more than half of states are responding to their new cash cushions with similar proposals: cutting taxes.  Twenty-seven states are weighing tax cuts this year, according to a recent analysis from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), which termed the push "tax cut fever." Some officials are considering totally eliminating their state income tax, including in Mississippi and Arkansas, while others are floating property tax cuts, among other ideas. The drive to cut state taxes has accelerated during the pandemic. During the past two years, dozens of states reduced their income tax rates or created new tax credits and rebates, partly as their coffers overflowed due to strong economic growth and billions in

[ad_1] Maternal deaths across the U.S. more than doubled over the course of two decades, and the tragedy unfolded unequally. Black mothers died at the nation's highest rates, while the largest increases in deaths were found in American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers. And some states — and racial or ethnic groups within them — fared worse than others. The findings were laid out in a new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 — but not the pandemic spike — for every state and five racial and ethnic groups. "It's a call to action to all of us to understand the root causes — to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism and the policies and procedures and things that we have in place that may keep people from being healthy," said Dr. Allison Bryant,

[ad_1] A death penalty case will continue against a Missouri man who is citing new DNA evidence in his innocence claim for the stabbing death of a former newspaper reporter, the governor announced Thursday. Republican Gov. Mike Parson dissolved a panel of five former judges who had been tasked with reviewing Marcellus Williams' case and ended a stay on his execution. No execution date has been set yet. Williams was convicted of killing former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle during a 1998 burglary at her home in University City. Gayle, 42, was a reporter at the Post-Dispatch from 1981 to 1992 before leaving to do social work. "This Board was established nearly six years ago, and it is time to move forward," Parson said in a statement. "We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim's family in limbo, and solving nothing. This administration won't do that."