Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Illinois advocates work to ensure ballot access for jail voters during pandemic

    Many people who are currently incarcerated still retain the right to vote, and as the 2020 election approaches advocates in Illinois are making sure that those who are in Chicago’s Cook County Jail have access to ballots. Under a newly implemented law, Cook County Jail was designated as a polling place, which increased access for pretrial detainees and those serving certain misdemeanor convictions, and ultimately resulted in a higher voter turnout for the March primaries.

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  • With unemployment hotline overloaded and stimulus on hold, PA boosts chatbot 90x

    Accessing information about unemployment compensation online just got easier for residents of Pennsylvania. The current chat box capacity is 500 but will be increased to 50,000 by the end of the year. The phone hotline currently receives about 20,000 daily calls and has been difficult to get through since the unemployment benefits began in the wake of the coronavirus shutdown. The website also features a virtual assistant, which answers hundreds of commonly asked questions.

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  • How will Lithuania's contact-tracing app work?

    Lithuanian officials are launching a contact-tracing app to better trace the path of coronavirus cases and alert people when they have potentially been exposed. Although there have been delays in the roll-out of the app, other countries have already released the technology and have seen success in people downloading the app as well as quarantining when alerted that they've been in contact with the virus.

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  • Scrap-and-Replace Program Helps Low-Income Californians Afford Cleaner Cars (and Now, E-Bikes)

    In an attempt to curb carbon emissions from the transportation sector, Californians are trading in old, environmentally-unfriendly cars in for greener electric cars or vouchers for alternative transportation. Clean Cars 4 All requires participants to meet income-based eligibility and only takes cars built in 1999 or earlier. The program will soon include rebates on electric bikes as well.

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  • ‘Smart Buses' roll WiFi to students without access

    In order to bridge the digital divide one school district in Virginia is putting Wi-Fi routers on its school buses. They call them Smart Buses. They buses drive out to neighborhoods where students don't have access to fast, reliable internet. “Four of the Smart Buses go out every day. Each can serve about 40 students, covering about three-quarters of the need in the district.”

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  • Reclaiming Indigenous Legacy One Beer at a Time

    A coalition of Native American–owned breweries is using lagers and ales to educate the public about their heritage and to correct the racist narrative about Indigenous peoples’ relationship to alcohol. For example, Skydance Brewing Co. in Oklahoma labels its beers with names that pay homage to the experiences of Native Americans. “It’s important that we have Native American entrepreneurs tell our story for ourselves,” says Jake Keyes, the brewery founder. “For us to reclaim it.”

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  • College recruiting of California students turns virtual during pandemic

    High schools and colleges across California are turning to virtual campus tours and remote recruiting in order to appeal to college-bound students. College representatives are hosting Zoom sessions to connect with students and hosting college fairs online. Although the virtual aspect has decreased the excitement of being on campus in person, it has also widened accessibility to students who wouldn't have otherwise been able to attend for a variety of reasons.

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  • 'I feel human again' — At three hotels, formerly incarcerated New Yorkers get the support they need Audio icon

    When jails and prisons released people early as a pandemic precaution, New York City responded to the threat of increased homelessness by temporarily housing more than 400 people in hotels while providing them with re-entry services aimed at preventing new crimes. Exodus Transitional Community, the city's contractor, provided a combination of emergency shelter and counseling that would be unavailable in standard homeless shelters. No COVID-19 cases have been reported in the hotels, while residents praise the service for giving them the stability and safety they need to restart their lives.

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  • Where are they now? The graduates of India's Door Step School

    Back in 1988, Bina Sheth Lashkar, started noticing that students who lived in Slums were dropping out at high rates because they had to work to support their families. So, Bina and her colleague created Door Step School.“If children can’t go to the school, let the school come to them.” What began as a class of 25 students has now evolved to 200 centers in Mumbai and Pune, and a schools-on-wheels project.

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  • Only 1 of 3 Black boys is ready for kindergarten. How one organization is trying to improve that

    The African American Youth Harvest Foundation in Austin, Texas, is aiming to close the gap for young Black boys who are not ready for kindergarten. The nonprofit works closely with families, and helps provide for immediate needs, like food, childcare, and utility bills. In the future, it hopes to employ social workers to address a wider swath of critical concerns and address learning issues among both Black and Hispanic boys, from birth to age 5.

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