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04/30/2024

👉 Justice Department plans to reclassify ma*****na 👈

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify ma*****na as a less dangerous drug, The Associated Press has learned, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country.

The DEA’s proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize ma*****na outright for recreational use.

The agency’s move, confirmed to the AP on Tuesday by five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive regulatory review, clears the last significant regulatory hurdle before the agency’s biggest policy change in more than 50 years can take effect.

Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move ma*****na from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside he**in and L*D. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. After the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge, the agency would eventually publish the final rule.

It comes after President Joe Biden called for a review of federal ma*****na law in October 2022 and moved to pardon thousands of Americans convicted federally of simple possession of the drug. He has also called on governors and local leaders to take similar steps to erase ma*****na convictions.

“Criminal records for ma*****na use and possession have imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” Joe Biden said in December. “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to ma*****na. It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

Biden and a growing number of lawmakers from both major political parties have been pushing for the DEA decision as ma*****na has become increasingly decriminalized and accepted, particularly by younger people. A Gallup poll last fall found 70% of adults support legalization, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm and more than double the roughly 30% who backed it in 2000.

The DEA didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

Schedule III drugs are still controlled substances and subject to rules and regulations, and people who traffic in them without permission could still face federal criminal prosecution.

Some critics argue the DEA shouldn’t change course on ma*****na, saying rescheduling isn’t necessary and could lead to harmful side effects.

Jack Riley, a former deputy administrator of the DEA, said he had concerns about the proposed change because he thinks ma*****na remains a possible “gateway drug,” one that may lead to the use of other drugs.

“But in terms of us getting clear to use our resources to combat other major drugs, that’s a positive,” Riley said, noting that fentanyl alone accounts for more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. a year.

On the other end of the spectrum, others argue ma*****na should be treated the way alcohol is.

Last week, 21 Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer of New York State sent a letter to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram and Attorney General Merrick Garland arguing ma*****na should be dropped from the controlled-substances list and instead regulated like alcohol.

“It is time for the DEA to act,” the lawmakers wrote. “Right now, the Administration has the opportunity to resolve more than 50 years of failed, racially discriminatory ma*****na policy.”

Federal drug policy has lagged behind many states in recent years, with 38 having already legalized medical ma*****na and 24 legalizing its recreational use.

That’s helped fuel fast growth in the ma*****na industry, with an estimated worth of nearly $30 billion. Easing federal regulations could reduce the tax burden that can be 70% or more for businesses, according to industry groups. It could also make it easier to research ma*****na, since it’s very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies on Schedule I substances.

The immediate effect of rescheduling on the nation’s criminal justice system would likely be more muted, since federal prosecutions for simple possession have been fairly rare in recent years.

But loosening restrictions could carry a host of unintended consequences in the drug war and beyond.

Critics point out that as a Schedule III drug, ma*****na would remain regulated by the DEA. That means the roughly 15,000 cannabis dispensaries in the U.S. would have to register with the DEA like regular pharmacies and fulfill strict reporting requirements, something that they are loath to do and that the DEA is ill equipped to handle.

Then there’s the United States’ international treaty obligations, chief among them the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which requires the criminalization of cannabis. In 2016, during the Barack Obama administration, the DEA cited the U.S.’ international obligations and the findings of a federal court of appeals in Washington in denying a similar request to reschedule ma*****na.

This article was originally written by Zeke Miller, Joshua Goodman, Jim mustian, and Lindsay Whitehurst. Goodman reported from Miami, Mustian from New Orleans. AP writer Colleen Long contributed. It was originally published by the Associated Press.

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04/26/2024

👉 Airlines are ordered to give full refunds instead of vouchers and to stop hiding fees 👈

In an effort to crack down on airlines that charge passengers steep fees to check bags and change flights, the U.S. Department of Transportation has announced new regulations aimed at expanding consumer protections.

One of the final rules announced Wednesday requires airlines to show the full price of travel before passengers pay for their tickets. The other will force airlines to provide prompt cash refunds when flights are canceled or significantly changed.

"Passengers deserve to know upfront what costs they are facing and should get their money back when an airline owes them - without having to ask," said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a statement announcing the new rules.

Surprise junk fees have become a large and growing source of revenue for airlines in recent years, according to the DOT.

"Today's announcements will require airlines to both provide passengers better information about costs before ticket purchase, and promptly provide cash refunds to passengers when they are owed — not only saving passengers time and money, but also preventing headaches," Pete Buttigieg said.

The airline industry is unlikely to welcome the new rules. At a hearing on the proposed fee rule in March 2023, an industry lobbying group representing American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United said it would be too difficult for airlines to disclose their charges more clearly.

"The amount of unwanted and unneeded information forced upon passengers" by the new policy would only cause "confusion and frustration," warned Doug Mullen, the deputy general counsel at Airlines for America. "Very few, if any, need or want this information, and especially when they are initially trying to understand schedule and fare options."

But the DOT insists its new rule will give consumers the information they need to better understand the true costs of air travel.

"I believe this is to the benefit of the sector as a whole," Buttigieg said in an interview with NPR Morning Edition, because passengers will have "more confidence in the aviation sector."

The new rules require airlines to disclose all baggage, change, and cancellation fees, and to share that information with third-party booking sites and travel agents.

The regulation also prohibits bait-and-switch tactics, the DOT says, that disguise the true cost of flights by advertising a low base fare that does not include all mandatory fees.

"This is really about making sure that we create a better experience for passengers, and a stronger aviation sector in the United States," Buttigieg said in the NPR interview.

This article was written by Joel Rose and originally published by NPR.

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04/23/2024

👉 The end of booster shots may be near! 👈

New vaccine strategy could mean one-and-done for most viruses, rather than endless annual boosters targeting different viral strains.

Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised.

Every year, researchers try to predict the four influenza strains that are most likely to be prevalent during the upcoming flu season. And every year, people line up to get their updated vaccine, hoping the researchers formulated the shot correctly.

The same is true of COVID vaccines, which have been reformulated to target sub-variants of the most prevalent strains circulating in the U.S.

This new strategy would eliminate the need to create all these different shots because it targets a part of the viral genome that is common to all strains of a virus. The vaccine, how it works, and a demonstration of its efficacy in mice is described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"What I want to emphasize about this vaccine strategy is that it is broad," said UCR virologist and paper author Rong Hai. "It is broadly applicable to any number of viruses, broadly effective against any variant of a virus, and safe for a broad spectrum of people. This could be the universal vaccine that we have been looking for."

Traditionally, vaccines contain either a dead or modified, live version of a virus. The body's immune system recognizes a protein in the virus and mounts an immune response. This response produces T-cells that attack the virus and stop it from spreading. It also produces "memory" B-cells that train your immune system to protect you from future attacks.

The new vaccine also uses a live, modified version of a virus. However, it does not rely on the vaccinated body having this traditional immune response or immune active proteins—which is the reason it can be used by babies whose immune systems are underdeveloped, or people suffering from a disease that overtaxes their immune system. Instead, this relies on small, silencing RNA molecules.

"A host—a person, a mouse, anyone infected—will produce small interfering RNAs as an immune response to viral infection. These RNAi then knock down the virus," said Shouwei Ding, distinguished professor of microbiology at UCR, and lead paper author.

The reason viruses successfully cause disease is because they produce proteins that block a host's RNAi response. "If we make a mutant virus that cannot produce the protein to suppress our RNAi, we can weaken the virus. It can replicate to some level, but then loses the battle to the host RNAi response," Ding said. "A virus weakened in this way can be used as a vaccine for boosting our RNAi immune system."

When the researchers tested this strategy with a mouse virus called Nodamura, they did it with mutant mice lacking T and B cells. With one vaccine injection, they found the mice were protected from a lethal dose of the unmodified virus for at least 90 days. Note that some studies show nine mouse days are roughly equivalent to one human year.

There are few vaccines suitable for use in babies younger than six months old. However, even newborn mice produce small RNAi molecules, which is why the vaccine protected them as well. UC Riverside has now been issued a US patent on this RNAi vaccine technology.

In 2013, the same research team published a paper showing that flu infections also induce us to produce RNAi molecules. "That's why our next step is to use this same concept to generate a flu vaccine, so infants can be protected. If we are successful, they'll no longer have to depend on their mothers' antibodies," Ding said.

Their flu vaccine will also likely be delivered in the form of a spray, as many people have an aversion to needles. "Respiratory infections move through the nose, so a spray might be an easier delivery system," Hai said.

Additionally, the researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. "Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this," Hai said.

Ultimately, the researchers believe they can 'cut and paste' this strategy to make a one-and-done vaccine for any number of viruses.

"There are several well-known human pathogens; dengue, SARS, COVID. They all have similar viral functions," Ding said. "This should be applicable to these viruses in an easy transfer of knowledge."

MORE INFORMATION: Hai, Rong et al, Live-attenuated virus vaccine defective in RNAi suppression induces rapid protection in neonatal and adult mice lacking mature B and T cells, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2321170121. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2321170121

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by University of California - Riverside

Written by University of California - Riverside. Posted by Medical Xpress. Image originally posted by Dr. Soos

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04/22/2024

👉Two lifeforms merge in once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event! 👈

Scientists have caught a once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event in progress, as two lifeforms have merged into one organism that boasts abilities its peers would envy. Last time this happened, Earth got plants.

The phenomenon is called primary endosymbiosis, and it occurs when one microbial organism engulfs another, and starts using it like an internal organ. In exchange, the host cell provides nutrients, energy, protection and other benefits to the symbiote, until eventually it can no longer survive on its own and essentially ends up becoming an organ for the host – or what’s known as an organelle in microbial cells.

To try to explain... Imagine if kidneys were actually little animals running around, and humans had to manually filter their blood through a dialysis machine. Then one day some guy somehow gets one of these kidney critters stuck – and realizes he no longer needs his dialysis machine. Neither do his kids, until eventually we're all born with these helpful little fellas inside us. That’s kind of what’s happening here.

In the 4-billion-odd-year history of life on Earth, primary endosymbiosis is thought to have only happened twice that we know of, and each time was a massive breakthrough for evolution. The first occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, when an archaea swallowed a bacterium that became the mitochondria. This specialized energy-producing organelle allowed for basically all complex forms of life to evolve. It remains the heralded "powerhouse of the cell" to this day.

The second time happened about 1.6 billion years ago, when some of these more advanced cells absorbed cyanobacteria that could harvest energy from sunlight. These became organelles called chloroplasts, which gave sunlight-harvesting abilities, as well as a fetching green color, to a group of lifeforms you might have heard of – plants.

And now, scientists have discovered that it’s happening again. A species of algae called Braarudosphaera bigelowii was found to have engulfed a cyanobacterium that lets them do something that algae, and plants in general, can’t normally do – "fixing" nitrogen straight from the air, and combining it with other elements to create more useful compounds.

Nitrogen is a key nutrient, and normally plants and algae get theirs through symbiotic relationships with bacteria that remain separate. At first it was thought that B. bigelowii had hooked up this kind of situation with a bacterium called UCYN-A, but on closer inspection, scientists discovered that the two have gotten far more intimate.

In one recent study, a team found that the size ratio between the algae and UCYN-A stays similar across different related species of the algae. Their growth appears to be controlled by the exchange of nutrients, leading to linked metabolisms.

“That’s exactly what happens with organelles,” said Jonathan Zehr, an author of the studies. “If you look at the mitochondria and the chloroplast, it’s the same thing: they scale with the cell.”

In a follow-up study, the team and other collaborators used a powerful X-ray imaging technique to view the interior of the living algae cells. This revealed that the replication and cell division was synchronized between the host and symbiote – more evidence of primary endosymbiosis at work.

And finally, the team compared the proteins of isolated UCYN-A to those inside the algal cells. They found that the isolated bacterium can only produce about half of the proteins it needs, relying on the algal host to provide the rest.

“That’s one of the hallmarks of something moving from an endosymbiont to an organelle,” said Zehr. “They start throwing away pieces of DNA, and their genomes get smaller and smaller, and they start depending on the mother cell for those gene products – or the protein itself – to be transported into the cell.”

Altogether, the team says this indicates UCYN-A is a full organelle, which is given the name of nitroplast. It appears that this began to evolve around 100 million years ago, which sounds like an incredibly long time but is a blink of an eye compared to mitochondria and chloroplasts.

The researchers plan to continue studying nitroplasts, to find out if they’re present in other cells and what effects they may have. One possible benefit is that it could give scientists a new avenue to incorporate nitrogen-fixing into plants to grow better crops.

This research was published in the journals Cell and Science. This article was written by Michael Irving, and originally published by New Atlas.

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04/10/2024

👉 SEVERAL STATES MOVE TO WEAKEN CHILD LABOR LAWS 👈

Bills doing away with work permits and extending working hours for teens 16 and older have cleared legislative committees in Missouri.

Lawmakers in 11 states have either passed or introduced laws to roll back child labor laws — a push that’s come from industry trade organizations and mostly conservative legislators as businesses scramble for low-wage workers.

In the past two years, those states have moved to extend working hours for children, eliminate work permit requirements and lower the age for teens to handle alcohol or work in hazardous industries. At the same time, there has been a 69% increase in children employed illegally by companies since 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

It is “irresponsible for states to consider loosening child labor protections,” Seema Nanda, the U.S. solicitor of labor, said in a statement to States Newsroom.

“Federal and state entities should be working together to increase accountability and ramp up enforcement — not make it easier to illegally hire children to do what are often dangerous jobs,” she said, adding that the Labor Department will continue to enforce longstanding federal child labor protections.

This year alone, lawmakers in seven states have introduced or passed bills that would ease child labor laws.

“While we’re finding out that child labor is more pervasive and more dangerous than we thought, (these) states have decided, ‘Oh, now’s a good time to weaken the child labor laws,’” said Reid Maki, the director of child labor issues and coordinator at the Child Labor Coalition. “So that’s appalling. That’s really just mind-boggling.”

A bill eliminating work permits for teens cleared a Missouri Senate committee earlier this year, and legislation that would extend working hours for teens 16 and older, from 7 p.m. on a school night to 10 p.m., has advanced in the Missouri House of Representatives.

In Arkansas, the legislature passed a law that eliminates age verification requirements for children under 16 to prove their age to get a job.

Ohio legislators reintroduced a bill to extend the working hours for teens year-round from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Minnesota lawmakers introduced a bill to roll back requirements that bar 16- and-17-year-olds from working in construction.

The Iowa Legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow exceptions to state law prohibiting children aged 14 to 17 from working in more dangerous industries, such as roofing and mining, among other provisions that have drawn scrutiny from labor and children advocacy groups.

“We got a bill that’s written by industry groups and multinational corporations that are looking for cheap labor out of our kids, and it’s really disappointing,” said Charlie Wishman, the president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

But Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said there’s valuable experience to be gained as teens work in business and learn communications skills, as well as the importance of showing up for a job on time. “It, you know, teaches the kids a lot, and if they have the time to do it, and they want to earn some additional money, I don’t think we should, you know, discourage that,” she said.

Georgia Republicans introduced and then withdrew a bill that would eliminate work permits for minors 18 and younger, among other things. South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to extend working hours for children 14 and under. But lawmakers quickly withdrew it.

Maki argued that child labor laws need to be strengthened, particularly relating to work in agriculture. Children as young as 12 can work on a farm because agriculture workers and domestic workers were put in a separate category in the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 that established federal child labor laws.

That distinction was due to racist policymaking because during the 20th century, farmworkers were predominantly Black, Maki said.

“We think it’s a legacy of racism, and you know, a lot of the kids working now in factories, and in the field are brown,” he said. “And I think that’s part of the reason why the law hasn’t been fixed.”

The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs estimates that there are between 400,000 to 500,000 children working on farms in the U.S.

Meanwhile, there’s also a bipartisan push in Congress to allow teens to work in family logging businesses. Members from states with logging interests are backing it as is the logging industry.

Idaho Senator Jim Risch, a Republican, and Maine Senator Angus S. King, Jr., an independent, have introduced the “Future Logging Careers Act” that would permit 16-and-17-year olds to “work in certain mechanized logging operations under parental supervision.” In the House, it’s sponsored by Maine Congressman Jared Golden, a Democrat, and Pennsylvania Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Republican.

“Idaho’s logging industry has long been a family trade, but current law is hampering its future by preventing young men and women from working in their family’s businesses,” Risch said in a statement.

Jennifer Sherer, who published a report for the non-profit Economic Policy Institute with Nina Mast tracking states rolling back child labor laws, said in an interview that some industry groups have different interests when it comes to child labor laws, but they share a common desire to ease restrictions.

For example, the restaurant, hospitality and retail industries have been vocal in wanting to extend hours for teens to work during the school year and during vacation, as well as revising “restrictions on the age at which teens can begin … serving alcohol in restaurants and bars.”

“They’ve been very clear about hoping to access larger numbers of young workers and also to be able to work them for longer hours,” Sherer, a senior state policy coordinator at the Economic Policy Institute, said.

In September, the National Restaurant Association expressed its support for legislation by U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, the South Dakota Republican, to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act and allow 14-and-15-year-olds to work between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. year round, as well as allow up to 24 hours of work a week.

“If a high school student can play in a football game until 9 p.m., or play video games late into the evening, they should also be allowed to hold a job if they wish to,” Johnson said in a statement.

Last year, two states — New Hampshire and New Jersey — passed laws that would extend working hours for minors and lower the age for minors to serve alcohol.

In New Hampshire, lawmakers passed a bill that lowers the age limit for students to bus tables where alcohol is served from 15 to 14 and increases the hours most 16- and 17-year-olds can work when they’re in school. That bill was supported by the New Hampshire Lodging & Restaurant Association and state Liquor Commission.

In New Jersey, teens no longer need parental consent to obtain work permits, and those 16- and 17-year-olds are allowed to work up to 50 hours a week — up to 10 hours each day — when they aren’t in school. The bill signed into law by Democratic Governor Phil Murphy also updates the hours 14- and 15-year-olds can work — a total of 40 hours a week during the summer months.

It was supported by tourism industry groups like Six Flags and the New Jersey commerce associations.

In Wisconsin, the Legislature tried to expand working hours for children as young as 14, but Democratic Governor Tony Evers vetoed the bill in 2022.

Lawmakers in Nebraska introduced legislation that would allow children to be paid less, a minimum wage of $9 for 14-to-17-year olds compared to the state’s minimum wage of $10.50 for 2023. That bill would also set a minimum training wage for employees between 18 and 20 at $9.25 per hour through 2023, and 75% of the regular minimum wage from 2027 onward.

“There is a view out there, amongst many people, that you can pay kids less because … their labor must be worth less because they’re kids,” said the Iowa Federation of Labor’s Wishman.

“We definitely disagree with that,” he said.

The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Nebraska Grocery Industry Association have expressed their support for that bill.

Mast, with the Economic Policy Institute, said that Nebraska proposal would go against a ballot measure that the state voted on last year agreeing to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $15 an hour.

Other industries, such as meatpacking, construction and other manufacturing sectors, are “clearly looking to open up more job categories to youth, sort of dipping their toes into whether they can peel back some of those hazardous orders that have kept certain work sites or specific occupations off limits (to youths),” Sherer said.

Particularly vulnerable to child labor law violations are migrant youth who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border alone.

A year-long investigation by the New York Times found hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children working dangerous jobs in violation of child labor laws.

From October 2021 to September 2022, there were about 130,000 unaccompanied youth who were released to sponsors in the U.S., according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. States that have seen some of the biggest increases in unaccompanied children are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas, according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

“What we’re really seeing is employers hoping to take advantage of a broken immigration system and then roll back child labor standards, so that there are no consequences for violating the sort of bare minimal protections that are in place to prevent exploitation of youth,” Sherer said.

Annie Smith, a law professor who directs the Civil Litigation and Advocacy Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law, said children who are undocumented or have family members who are undocumented may be afraid to report worker violations for fear of deportation.

“What I can say from representing undocumented clients and other forms of labor exploitation, is that there’s just a higher risk of all forms of exploitation among those who have tenuous or no immigration status, so that’s certainly also true for children,” Smith said.

In late February, the Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced new efforts to crack down on child labor, following the New York Times report.

The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division said that since 2015, the agency has seen “increases in child labor investigations and violations.”

During fiscal 2022, there were 835 companies that employed more than 3,800 children in violation of labor laws. That’s an increase from fiscal 2015, when 542 companies employed more than 1,000 children in violation of labor laws.

The number of children reported working in hazardous occupations such as roofing also has risen. In fiscal 2015, there were 355 children working in violation of hazardous occupations and in fiscal 2022, there were 688, the highest number since fiscal 2011.

The Department of Labor recently issued civil fines for Packers Sanitation Services Inc, a company that cleans meatpacking plants, for $1.5 million for employing children as young as 13 to work in dangerous conditions.

The agency investigated 13 plants in eight states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Tennessee. Packers employed more than 20 children at three meatpacking plants in Nebraska, Kansas and Minnesota.

The agency found that children ages 13 to 17 spent overnight shifts cleaning equipment such as head splitters, back saws and brisket saws, and were exposed to dangerous chemicals such as ammonia. Three of those 102 kids were injured on the job.

U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, and U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, on March 30 wrote to the CEO of Packers, asking if the company had implemented changes to prevent hiring underage workers.

Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, has introduced a bill to establish criminal penalties and increase maximum fines for child labor violations. But it appears it won’t get far.

The bill has no Republican co-sponsors and is unlikely to pass Congress with a Republican-controlled House and a 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate.

Laura Kellams, the Northwest Arkansas director for the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, said child labor laws are not only meant to protect a child from partaking in hazardous work environments, but also to guarantee that children go to school.

“The laws are designed to prevent injury, and they’re also designed to protect a child’s ability and opportunity for education,” she said.

Massachusetts was the first state to pass child labor laws in 1836 that required children under 15 who worked in factories to attend school for a minimum of three months out of the year.

It would take a little over a century to have a national labor law protecting children. But in Arkansas, advocates fear education for vulnerable students is at risk.

In a new Arkansas law that overhauls public education, there is a provision that allows eighth-grade students to take a “career ready pathway,” in which one of those paths is “immediately enter a career field.”

Josh Price with the nonprofit immigrants’ rights group Arkansas United said the language allows schools to recommend that a student in eighth grade — about 13 to 14 years old — can drop out of school and go straight to work instead.

“We fear this will happen all too often, particularly to Black and brown children and especially if they are from the immigrant community and English is not their first language,” Price said.

This article was written by Ariana Figueroa, Robin Opsahl, and Casey Quinlan. It was originally published by the Missouri Independent.

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