Latest Poverty News

Michelle Yeoh to join business and political leaders at Global Citizen NOW summit to fight poverty

Mar. 28, 2024 08:12 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg are among the diverse group of political, business and philanthropic leaders Global Citizen will convene in New York on May 1 and 2, the nonprofit announced on Thursday. ...

A decade of documenting more than 63,000 migrant deaths shows that fleeing is more lethal than ever

Mar. 26, 2024 05:37 AM EDT

BERLIN (AP) — More than a decade ago, the death of 600 migrants and refugees in two Mediterranean shipwrecks near Italian shores shocked the world and prompted the U.N. migration agency to start recording the number of people who died or went missing as they fled conflict, persecution or poverty...

Russian massacre suspects' homeland is plagued by poverty and religious strife

Mar. 25, 2024 17:10 PM EDT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by authorities as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate to Russia each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. ...

What to know about the SAVE plan, the income-driven plan to repay student loans

Mar. 18, 2024 17:25 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — More than 7.5 million student loan borrowers have enrolled in the U.S. government's newest repayment plan since it launched in August. President Joe Biden recently announced that he was canceling federal student loans for nearly 153,000 borrowers enrolled in the...

European charity ship rescues 135 migrants but is assigned to distant port in Italy with 359 aboard

Mar. 15, 2024 11:21 AM EDT

ROME (AP) — The European charity ship Ocean Viking said Friday it rescued another 135 migrants, including a pregnant woman and eight children, from a double-decker boat in Maltese search-and-rescue waters. In total, the vessel operated by the humanitarian group SOS Mediterranee...

Women blast through gender barriers in Colombia's emerald mines, but struggle to emerge from poverty

Mar. 14, 2024 00:12 AM EDT

COSCUEZ, Colombia (AP) — Deep inside mountain tunnels where the heat is so intense it causes headaches, women with power tools are chipping away at boulders in search of gems. They have opened a difficult path for themselves in Colombia's emerald industry, a sector long dominated by men. ...

Why is Haiti so chaotic? Leaders used street gangs to gain power. Then the gangs got stronger

Mar. 12, 2024 11:46 AM EDT

Haiti’s prime minister has said he will resign, bowing to international pressure to save his homeland gripped by violence and controlled by heavily armed gangsters. Ariel Henry made the announcement hours after officials, including Caribbean leaders and U.S. Secretary of State...

Head Start preschools aim to fight poverty, but their teachers struggle to make ends meet

Mar. 03, 2024 00:22 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — In some ways, Doris Milton is a Head Start success story. She was a student in one of Chicago’s inaugural Head Start classes, when the antipoverty program, which aimed to help children succeed by providing them a first-rate preschool education, was in its infancy. ...

Mississippi passes quicker pregnancy Medicaid coverage to try to reduce deaths of moms and babies

Feb. 29, 2024 16:03 PM EST

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Legislature is sending a bill to the governor that will allow women with low incomes to get Medicaid coverage earlier in pregnancy, in an effort to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies in a state with abysmal rates of maternal and infant mortality. ...

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore lays out plan to fight child poverty

Feb. 28, 2024 17:09 PM EST

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore presented legislation he's championing to address child poverty to state lawmakers on Wednesday, laying out a locally focused plan to attack the root causes of concentrated poverty statewide. Moore, who served as the CEO of one of the...