Transportation stations impact local crime by changing incentives for criminal activity. Most studies on the link between crime and transit stations focus on public transportation; however, there is limited evidence for other transportation alternatives, such as micromobility. Using a spatial difference-in-differences research design, the research team provides evidence that bike share docking stations cause a significant increase in crime within 25 meters by leveraging data on Citi Bike and reported crime in New York City. The research team’s results are robust across various estimators and counterfactuals, and the research team finds heterogeneous effects depending on the type of crime and the time of day a crime was reported to have occurred. These findings provide insights into the external costs of micromobility, offering policymakers further information when considering its adoption as a transportation alternative.

Over the past quarter-century, there has been a profound change in the involvement of women within the criminal legal system. This is the result of more expansive law enforcement efforts, stiffer drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women. The female incarcerated population is over seven times as high than in 1980. Over sixty percent (62%) of imprisoned women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18. Between 1980 and 2023, the number of incarcerated women increased by over 600%, rising from a total of 26,326 in 1980 to 186,244 in 2023. As of 2023, over 1 million women are under the supervision of the criminal legal system. The rate at which women are incarcerated varies greatly from state to state. At the national level, including both state and federal imprisonment, 51 out of every 100,000 women were in prison in 2023. The state with the highest rate of female imprisonment is Idaho (152) and the state with the lowest incarceration rate of women is Rhode Island (6). Florida’s rate was the same as the national - 51 . Twenty-six percent of women in prison have been convicted of a drug offense, compared to 12% of men in prison. The proportion of imprisoned women convicted of a drug offense has increased from 12% in 1986 to 26% in 2022.

Children’s interactions with parents, involvement in extracurricular activities, and engagement in school are linked to emotional support and security, social and cognitive development, academic success, social skills, and other aspects of child well-being. However, little is known about these patterns following the COVID-19 pandemic. About 80% of all children under age 6 went on two or more outings per week with their reference parent in 2023. In the same year, 85% of children ate dinner with their reference parent at least 5 days a week. In 2023, 67.4% of children were read to by a reference parent five or more times per week, compared to 65.1% of children in 2014. Notably, for both reading and dinners, estimates neither increased nor decreased between 2019 to 2023 despite changes to family life over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results confirm previous research that shows that parents are highly engaged with their children. Most young children (under 6 years old) are read to at least five times a week and go on multiple weekly outings with their reference parent. Most children eat dinner with their reference parent at least five nights per week.

National assessments indicate that middle and high school students' mathematics achievement continues to be underwhelming. Moreover, disparities between the lowest and highest performers persist and may be worsening. In this report, the authors use teacher survey and interview data to understand what learning opportunities are available to students in mathematics classes with mostly lower- and mostly higher-achieving students. Key findings include that most secondary mathematics teachers interviewed described school policies for assigning students to mathematics courses primarily based on assessment or course-grade data. Survey data suggest that supplementing or modifying curriculum is common practice, but in interviews, secondary mathematics teachers of lower-achieving students described simplifying the content, whereas teachers of higher-achieving students described complexifying it. In interviews, secondary mathematics teachers of both lower- and higher-achieving students described prioritizing student engagement and test preparation when planning instruction. Survey and interview data combined suggest that secondary mathematics teachers of lower-achieving students prioritized filling gaps in prerequisite knowledge and spending considerable class time addressing below–grade–level standards, while teachers of higher-achieving students prioritized higher-order thinking tasks and student talk and addressed standards at or above grade level.

Child care and early education teachers work in one of the lowest-paid occupations nationwide, often relying on public assistance or second jobs to make ends meet. Low pay makes it challenging for child care centers to recruit and retain qualified professionals, which may affect the quality and continuity of care and education that young children receive. To help address these issues the Colorado Department of Early Childhood created the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program Teacher Salary Increase Pilot. The pilot program was designed to raise the salaries of lead and assistant teachers in center-based child care settings to be closer to a livable wage—that is, a wage that meets the minimum standards of living in their counties. The pilot program provided centers with monthly payments, based on the number of participating lead and assistant teachers and the county’s cost of living, to fund salary increases for two years. This evaluation found that the pilot program did not lead to a statistically significant increase in the primary outcome measure of teacher retention; with 76% of teachers working at program group centers at the start of the pilot program were still working at those centers one year later, compared to 69% of teachers in control group centers. By the second year, fewer teachers in both groups were still at their original centers: 56% of program group teachers compared with 53% of control group teachers. The difference of 3 percentage points is also not statistically significant. Lastly, the costs to centers that were associated with administering the pilot program were minimal—approximately $200 per teacher—and could be attributed largely to the time directors spent applying to the pilot program.

Scams, a method of committing fraud, involve the use of deception or manipulation intended to achieve financial gain. Scams often cause individual victims to lose large sums—in some cases, their entire life savings. Scams occur in a variety of forms, such as individuals impersonating government or businesses to manipulate victims, or individuals adopting a fake online identity to gain a victim’s affection and trust. This report discusses federal agencies’ activities to prevent and respond to scams and compile scam-related consumer-complaint data and estimates the total number of scams and related financial losses. At least 13 federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, engage in a range of activities to prevent, detect, and respond to scams. These activities include consumer recording or reporting fraudulent scams, consumer education or outreach, investigating scam allegations, and sharing consumer complaint information with other entities. Several federal agencies, including the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, collect and report on consumer complaints both directly and from other agencies. The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that data limitations prevent agencies from determining the total number of scam complaints and financial losses. Therefore, there is no single, government-wide estimate of the total number of scams and financial losses.

Inclusionary zoning is a policy used by cities across the United States to embed affordable housing units into newly constructed market-rate buildings. Cities leverage inclusionary zoning to build socioeconomic diversity within neighborhoods at no direct public cost, since developers are responsible for cross-subsidizing the affordable units. In Washington, DC, most new residential building projects of 10 or more units within a specific geographic zone, 8% to 12.5% of residential floor area must be set aside for permanently affordable inclusionary units. In addition, inclusionary zoning units must be rented or made for sale at a price affordable to households with incomes at 50%, 60%, or 80% of the regional median family income, including utility costs. Through reduced taxes, Washington, DC provides a monthly subsidy of up to about $300 per affordable unit, depending on the neighborhood. Private investors provide a monthly subsidy of up to about $1,700 for each affordable unit (net of lower property taxes paid). This report recommends an alternative approach to inclusionary zoning programs. This approach would enable project-by-project decisions about the most effective financing options and generate a new source of funds for the city to invest in affordable housing in high-opportunity areas that currently lack such units. The alternative program could result in more affordable units in high opportunity neighborhoods in the short to medium term, and benefits would stabilize over the long term.

Space traffic management (STM) is a set of technical and regulatory provisions that aim to plan, coordinate, synchronize activities to enhance the safety, stability, and sustainability of operations in the space environment. Most STM activity has been from the bottom up or from the middle (i.e., originating in nationally or regionally led efforts) in the public and private sectors, and previous research indicates that more-defined STM frameworks and capabilities will eventually be harmonized globally in some manner. This report operationalizes the initial findings and recommendations from earlier research and provides a roadmap for moving from a decentralized context to a common international space traffic management system. Researchers found that a strong consensus exists on STM objectives (e.g., safety, sustainability), but significant divergences in implementation approaches necessitate the development of common technical standards and protocols. Researchers recommend that spacefaring states and relevant providers of space situational awareness and STM information should prioritize STM progress in technical aspects. In the short term, spacefaring states, commercial space providers, and space research organizations should prioritize identifying core areas that require immediate harmonization, developing common technical standards, establishing clear interfaces between regulatory systems, and creating mechanisms for frequent regulatory dialogue. Additionally, spacefaring states, alongside space operators and space asset owners, should explore options to enhance immediate operational coordination in areas of urgent interest.

Allergies are common in the U.S. adult population. An allergy happens when a person’s immune system overreacts with a specific, reproducible response on exposure to typically harmless substances. The severity of allergic reaction symptoms varies and can range from mild symptoms like itchy, watery eyes or hives to serious, life-threatening symptoms like anaphylaxis. This report uses data from the 2024 National Health Interview Survey to describe the prevalence of diagnosed seasonal allergies, eczema, and food allergies in adults in the United States by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin, and urbanization level. Key findings from the report include that in 2024, 31.7% of adults had a diagnosed seasonal allergy, diagnosed eczema, or a diagnosed food allergy. The percentage of adults with a diagnosed seasonal allergy was higher among those living in non-metropolitan areas than those in metropolitan areas. Women were more likely to have diagnosed eczema (9.5%) compared with men (5.7%). Diagnosed food allergies were more prevalent in Black non-Hispanic adults (9.9%) compared with Hispanic (5.4%), Asian non-Hispanic (5.5%), and White non-Hispanic(6.4%) adults.

The researchers find that preschools facilitate early diagnosis and treatment of conditions that can hinder learning. Low-income children born shortly before their state's school-entry cutoff date are 16.9%, 9.3%, and 14.8% more likely to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a speech or language disorder, and a hearing or vision condition at ages three and four, compared to children born after the cutoff. Earlier diagnoses and treatment extend to downstream services. Children with birth dates before the cutoff are 1.9 percentage points (26.6%) more likely to receive school-based services, which include diagnostic, therapeutic, case management, and screening services provided by schools as part of students’ Individual Education Program plans. Children born before the cutoff are also 0.2 percentage points (7.0%) more likely to receive SSI. Because severe ADHD, speech, learning, vision, and hearing impairments can be qualifying conditions for public programs, this result suggests that earlier diagnosis facilitated by preschool attendance may allow families to access financial benefits sooner than they otherwise would. Overall ,findings emphasize the role of earlier and longer exposure to public preschool in driving diagnostic gaps previously attributed to elementary school-entry and within-grade peer comparisons.

California's longstanding, comprehensive tobacco control program includes the school-based Tobacco-Use Prevention Education (TUPE) program, which was expanded following passage of Proposition 56 in 2016. TUPE supports prevention programming through four main mechanisms: (1) County Technical Assistance grants that fund basic county-level programming; (2) Tier 1 grants for school district-level programming, including tobacco-free school policy implementation and youth tobacco surveillance; (3) Tier 2 grants for more comprehensive TUPE programming; and (4) American Indian Education Center grants to help reduce commercial tobacco use among Native American youth. Using data from the 2019–2020 California Student Tobacco Survey, a state-representative survey of students in grades 8, 10, and 12, this study investigated whether exposure to TUPE programming after Proposition 56 was associated with decreased youth tobacco use. Students from TUPE and non-TUPE schools had similar rates of exposure to tobacco-related advertising, whether promoting vaping (16.4% vs. 16.8%, respectively), discouraging vaping (36.3% vs. 38.7%), promoting smoking (11.4% vs. 11.4%), or discouraging smoking (27.6% vs. 29.4%; all p's > 0.05). However, TUPE students were more likely to receive school-based education against tobacco use (71.0% vs. 63.8%; p < 0.001) and to participate in antitobacco activities (15.2% vs. 10.6%; p < 0.001). After controlling for the effects of personal and school variables, TUPE students were less likely to use tobacco (6.5%) than non-TUPE students (8.1%; p = 0.012). TUPE students were exposed to more school-based educational messaging and participated in more tobacco-related prevention activities. The greater focus on tobacco in TUPE-funded schools was associated with lower rates of tobacco use among their students.