Latest Special interest groups News

Cups, straws, spoons: India starts on single-use plastic ban
NEW DELHI (AP) — India banned some single-use or disposable plastic products Friday as part of a federal plan to phase out the ubiquitous material in the nation of nearly 1.4 billion people. For the first stage, it has identified 19 plastic items that aren't very useful but have a...

Wisconsin's Democratic AG sues to block state's abortion ban
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin's Democratic attorney general filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the state's 173-year-old abortion ban, arguing that statutes passed in the 1980s supersede the ban and it's so old that modern generations never consented to it. Wisconsin passed a law...

Senators ask minor leaguers for information on MLB antitrust
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to an advocacy group for minor leaguers asking questions about baseball's antitrust exemption. Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who chairs the committee, and Charles...
Groups oppose $725M Alabama bond sale for building prisons
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A coalition of advocacy groups is opposing Alabama's plan to sell $725 million in bonds to finance construction of two new supersize prisons. The Communities Not Prisons coalition, a group formed to oppose the construction, and other organizations issued...
Lisa Price, wife of NC Congressman David Price, dies at 82
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lisa Price, the wife of U.S. Rep. David Price and founder of an advocacy group that seeks to reduce gun violence, died Thursday. She was 82. The North Carolina congressman said in a statement that his wife died in Chapel Hill after struggling with illness “over...

Black veteran groups seek policy agenda on racial inequities
As a young man in Memphis, Tennessee, Robert Dabney Jr. wanted to blaze a path that could set his family up for a better life. So two weeks after high school graduation in 1998, at age 18, he joined the U.S. Army. During nine years of service that included two tours in Iraq, Dabney...
DOJ: Maine violates ADA in care of kids with disabilities
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine unnecessarily institutionalizes youths with mental health and developmental disabilities because of a lack of sufficient community-based services that would allow them to stay in their homes, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday in declaring a violation of...
New Hampshire provisional ballot law challenged in court
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A new law creating a provisional ballot system in New Hampshire faces lawsuits days after it was enacted. The ACLU of New Hampshire filed a lawsuit Tuesday arguing that the law violates the right to privacy the state added to its constitution in 2018 because it...

Ellis wins Democratic education race without a runoff
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina's election board Friday finalized the results for this week's primaries and confirmed Democratic Education Superintendent candidate Lisa Ellis narrowly avoided a runoff. The board certified all races in South Carolina, but the Democratic...

WTO ministers reach deals on fisheries, food, COVID vaccines
GENEVA (AP) — After all-night talks, members of the World Trade Organization early Friday reached a string of deals and commitments aimed at protecting stocks of ocean fish, broadening production of COVID-19 vaccines in the developing world, improving food security and reforming a 27-year-old...
