The U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) conducts immigration court proceedings both in-person and using remote technology, such as WebEx—an internet-based video teleconferencing platform, or telephone. Per office policy, immigration judges may use discretion to decide which, if any, remote medium is used by participants in a hearing. The office collects data on the medium used for each hearing, which reflects the location of only the judge and respondent. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s analysis of this data, of the nearly 6 million hearings held from Fiscal Year 2022 through 2025, about 63% or 3.8 million hearings were in-person. Of the approximately 2.2 million remote hearings, most used WebEx (about 78% or 1.7 million). Office officials stated that as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, immigration courts began scheduling more hearings overall, with more hearings taking place in-person. Officials and selected immigration judges and attorneys described generally favorable experiences with remote immigration hearings. They identified benefits of using remote technology, such as reducing the time and cost associated with in-person hearings, increasing the efficiency of hearings, and allowing respondents increased access to private bar attorneys. Some court stakeholders also provided perspectives on challenging aspects of remote hearings, such as variation in judge preferences for remote hearings, and technology limitations for language interpretation options. However, they told GAO these challenges did not outweigh the benefits of holding remote immigration hearings.

This report centers on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including physical abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, parental incarceration, substance misuse and chronic neglect. Respondents experienced extraordinarily high levels of trauma before entering the justice system, the researchers found. The average ACE score among surveyed individuals was 6.31 out of 10 — a level that indicates severe trauma and is far higher than rates found in the general population. To put that in perspective, public-health researchers generally consider an ACE score of 4 to represent high exposure to childhood trauma. Yet, the average child who ended up in the adult criminal justice system had experienced six or more forms of abuse, neglect or household instability. Many children prosecuted as adults were victims long before they became defendants, the publication argues. Researchers found that more than 98% of children prosecuted as adults fell into one three major categories: youth experiencing severe abuse, neglect and trauma that contributed to behavioral challenges; victims of forced criminality and trafficking who were coerced into criminal acts; and children who committed offenses against abusive adults or exploiters. Many respondents described chaotic childhood environments marked by violence, addiction, mental illness and abandonment. Today, every state allows children to be prosecuted as adults under certain circumstances — a reality that ignores decades of research on child development and trauma. The authors call for reforms that prioritize healing, prevention and rehabilitation instead of punishment. Recommendations include: expanding trauma-informed care for children and families; reducing the prosecution of youth in adult courts; improving mental health and community-based services; strengthening child welfare interventions; and creating age-appropriate accountability systems for young people.

Over the past several years, education policy conversations have increasingly focused on student access to personal devices, particularly cell phones. Policymakers have introduced and enacted a range of proposals that reflect the many ways technology now shapes the school environment. With the breadth of the issue at hand, state leaders are approaching technology use in schools as a broader policy issue rather than solely a question of student cell phone access. These conversations have unearthed related concerns about classroom distractions, student well-being, social media use and misuse, use of internet-enabled devices in the classroom, digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy, and online safety. As states continue to act in this area, a key consideration is how policies can balance efforts to reduce distractions and address concerns about student well-being while preserving the educational benefits technology can provide. State approaches vary considerably. Some states have established statewide requirements, while others emphasize local decision-making. Many recent policies address questions related to enforcement, parent communication, student accommodations, funding and accountability. Several states have also paired restrictions with guidance, reporting requirements or implementation supports intended to help districts carry out new expectations. For example, Ohio’s House Bill 250 (2024) requires the Department of Education and Workforce to publish a model policy governing student cell phone use. The state’s model policy prohibits student cell phone use during the school day, identifies acceptable storage options and includes language on progressive discipline. Districts are not required to adopt the model policy verbatim, but the resource provides a common template for local implementation. North Dakota’s House Bill 1160 (2025) requires school districts to adopt policies restricting student use of personal electronic devices during the school day, including requirements that devices be off, stowed and inaccessible. The law requires districts to collect annual data on student behavior, mental health, disciplinary incidents, attendance and academic performance, and directed the superintendent of public instruction to establish a uniform reporting system.

Higher education is facing an unusual convergence of economic, regulatory, technological and demographic change. Together, these forces are challenging long-held assumptions about who colleges serve, how learning is delivered and what value and mission mean. Students of all ages prioritize curricular relevance in the classroom and flag outside issues that are impacting their academic success, such as financial constraints. A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that just 22% of U.S. adults think a four year college degree is worth taking out a loan for. Further, another study found that 48% of college presidents predicted AI and other technology would have the biggest impact on the sector by 2030, edging out cost pressures. Student surveys also suggest a shift: Gallup has found that more than half of college students are using AI in their coursework at least weekly. Institutions are already rethinking credentials, expanding pathways for adult learners, strengthening employer partnerships and using technology to create more flexible, learner-centered experiences. As colleges increasingly serve students across multiple stages of life, simultaneously, those best positioned for the future will adapt while remaining focused on their core mission of expanding educational opportunity.

This report highlights early outcomes from the first 10 colleges in the Unlocking Opportunity network. These first colleges, which included St. Petersburg and Valencia in Florida, together served more than 170,000 students across diverse institutional contexts. The colleges committed to enacting large-scale innovations that: (1) increase the number of students entering and completing high-value programs and (2) reduce the number of students enrolled in programs with weak post-completion outcomes. The motivating idea was that if more students enroll in programs that have high value for employment or transfer post-completion, more will graduate into good jobs, and more will attain bachelor’s degrees. Between 2022 and 2025, the participating colleges collectively moved more than 20,000 additional students into high-value pathways by redesigning academic programs, strengthening advising and onboarding, improving transfer pathways, aligning programs with employer demand, and using data to drive institution-wide change. The report is designed for community college leaders, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners seeking evidence-based approaches to improve students’ post-graduation outcomes. Alongside network-wide findings, it features college examples and practical lessons that demonstrate how institutions can strengthen program value and help more students access good jobs and bachelor’s degrees.

For many high school students, the path after graduation can feel unclear, especially when academic decisions, career interests, and postsecondary options are disconnected. In Texas, state leaders set out to change that by strengthening how schools help students plan for life after graduation, so they are prepared for success in college, careers, or the military. That effort became the Effective Advising Framework, a statewide approach that helps schools connect coursework, career exploration, and postsecondary planning. Researchers worked with state leaders to map out a common set of grade-level expectations (GLEs) for all students from kindergarten through grade 12. The GLEs span the following four development areas for individual planning: Career Development, Academic Development, Financial Literacy and Aid, and Personal and Social Development. In May 2026, more than 300 district and campus staff members shared feedback on their experiences participating in the pilot, and 94% of staff surveyed reported satisfaction with their coaching experience. Counselors pointed to the value of having dedicated coaching support, practical tools, and protected time to focus on advising as part of their broader counseling programs. Together, this feedback suggests that consistent coaching and protected time help counselors move from siloed activities to coherent advising systems. Students consistently reported positive changes in their advising experiences: Over three school years (2023–24 through 2025–26), student perceptions improved by 3 to 7 percentage points across all topics, including access to counselors, awareness of pathway options, and postsecondary planning support.

Prior to the 1960s, rural communities had limited influence in transportation planning, even as state and federal governments invested heavily in infrastructure such as farm-to market roads. Early planning by state departments of transportation was largely centralized, with little opportunity for rural officials or residents to influence decisions. Over time, federal policy, including the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) and subsequent legislation, began to place greater emphasis on rural participation, encouraging state departments of transportation to adopt more inclusive, cooperative approaches to planning in non-metropolitan regions. Despite this policy direction, the number of federally designated Regional Transportation Planning Organizations remains limited. The objective of this synthesis is to document the current practices of state departments of transportation in coordinating transportation planning in non-metropolitan areas. Regional planning entities serve as intermediaries between local communities and state department of transportation, functioning similarly to metropolitan planning organizations but tailored for non-urban areas. Among the 37 states with non-metropolitan areas, state departments of transportation planning coordination structures were nearly evenly split between centralized and decentralized models. Twenty-six states reported collaboration with planning organizations such as Regional Transportation Planning Organizations, councils of governments, or other regional planning entities. These entities were often designated through a mix of federal, state, or local authority, with some spanning multiple states. Nineteen require them to produce planning products such as long-range transportation plans, public involvement plans, or transportation improvement programs. Some states showcase innovative practices, such as Iowa’s regional planning affiliations development of comprehensive regional plans and Ohio’s allocation of capital funds to support project delivery. Twenty-five states reported involvement in rural transit planning, including Florida with Transit Asset Management Plan for Rural Agencies. Of those states that reported involvement in rural transit planning, 22 reported integrating rural transit with broader planning through coordinated meetings, shared funding, or joint development of projects and plans. In addition, Florida reported integrating rural transit through technical assistance and coordination with regional planning entities and regional transportation planning organizations.

The U.S. Department of War began developing the concept of Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control in 2019 as an effort to improve command and control by connecting systems across the land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace domains. Private industry has been employing digital integration to engage customers and maintain services that sustain revenue for some time. Organizations generally operate two core functions to maintain both digital reliability and security: These are a Network Operations Center (NOC) and a Security Operations Center (SOC), respectively. This paper details common approaches used by NOC and SOC organizations in private industry, highlighting (1) which practices could improve efficiency in the new Department of the Air Force center and (2) situations in which a different approach might be needed. Researchers found that the deployment model chosen reflects trade-offs among cost, efficiency, responsiveness, and control. A centralized model is one in which a single NOC or SOC handles operations for the entire firm. The NOC or SOC in this model usually operates from a single physical location and might share space with other corporate information technology functions. In addition, researchers found that while in-house models provide direct control over sensitive data, allow tighter integration with internal business units, and facilitate rapid decision-making, the financial cost of maintaining a fully staffed NOC or SOC is prohibitive for many firms. However, outsourcing can offer a less expensive option to rapidly gain critical network expertise, especially for smaller organizations.

Social Security, which provides a base of economic stability for more than 70 million Americans, is especially important in rural America—home to one-fifth of the nation’s residents. Rural residents rely more heavily on Social Security income than urban residents do, making Social Security a significant economic engine locally. Only 40% of full‑time private‑sector workers in rural areas have access to employer retirement plans, compared to 50% in urban areas. From 2000 to 2022, the share of rural residents age 65-plus rose from 15% to 20%, compared to 12.5% to 16% in urban areas. Supporting an estimated $1.6 trillion in gross domestic product and 12.2 million jobs nationally, Social Security payments make up a significant share of the local economy in many rural counties. Every dollar in Social Security benefits supports about $2 in total economic activity, generating jobs and tax revenue for a local economy.

In 2025, many families relied on credit and savings to meet their food needs. Families with low incomes and those who reported that their grocery costs had increased a lot in the past year were the most likely to take on debt to pay for groceries, which could leave them less able to meet their basic needs in the future. Although 34.9% of working-age adults (ages 18 to 64) paid for groceries with a credit card and paid the bill in full, 19.6% paid less than the full balance but always made the minimum payment and 8.7% did not always make the minimum payment. This means that over 1 in 4 working-age adults used credit cards to purchase food for their families and experienced repayment challenges. Nearly 1 in 5 working-age adults (19.6%) reported paying for groceries with savings not intended for daily expenses. Nearly 1 in 20 working-age adults (5.2%) used cash from a recent payday loan to purchase groceries. Working-age adults with low and moderate incomes were more likely to experience repayment challenges than those with high incomes: more than half of low- and moderate-income working-age adults who paid for groceries with credit cards did not always pay the full balance, compared with just over a third of higher-income adults. Just over half (51.3%) of working-age adults reported that their grocery costs increased a lot in the past 12 months. They were more than twice as likely (12.4%) not to make the minimum payment when using credit cards to purchase groceries, compared with those who reported that their grocery costs increased a little (5.2%) or not at all (4.8%). More working-age adults reported using a credit card to pay for groceries and not always making the minimum payment in 2025 than in 2023 (an increase of 1.6 percentage points, from 7.1% in 2023 to 8.7% in 2025).

Florida continues to show progress in reducing homelessness, with the 2026 point-in time (PIT) count reflecting a second consecutive year of statewide decline. The PIT count is an annual, coordinated effort by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to estimate the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. In 2026, 25,519 individuals were identified as experiencing homelessness, down from 28,498 in 2025. This represents a 10.45% year-over-year decrease and an 18.63% decrease from the 2024 count of 31,362. This continued decline suggests that Florida’s targeted investments, local Continuum of Care (CoC) implementation, and expanded emphasis on reducing unsheltered homelessness are producing measurable results. The decrease was driven primarily by a reported reduction in unsheltered homelessness, which declined from 13,647 individuals in 2025 to 10,180 individuals in 2026, a 25.4% decrease. At the same time, sheltered homelessness increased from 14,851 individuals in 2025 to 15,339 individuals in 2026, a 3.29% increase. This shift suggests that more individuals are being connected to emergency shelter, transitional housing, and other temporary housing options rather than remaining in places not meant for human habitation. As with all PIT data, these trends should be interpreted with attention to local count methodology, especially because unsheltered counts are particularly sensitive to weather, volunteer coverage, access to encampments or private property, and whether local counts are conducted in a comparable manner year-over-year. Several key subpopulations, including families with children and veterans, also saw reductions in 2026. Chronic homelessness also declined in absolute terms, from 5,495 individuals in 2025 to 4,978 individuals in 2026. However, because overall homelessness declined at a slightly faster rate, chronically homeless individuals now represent approximately 19.5% of the statewide homeless population. This underscores the continued need for permanent supportive housing and sustained supportive services for individuals with the highest barriers to housing stability.

This report presents provisional 2025 data on U.S. mortality based on 99.9% of all 2025 death records received and processed by the National Center for Health Statistics as of May 2026. In 2025, 3,094,593 deaths occurred in the United States. The age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 population was 811.1 for males and 582.9 for females. The overall rate, 689.2 per 100,000 population, was 4.6% lower than in 2024. The rate decreased for all age groups. Overall, age-adjusted death rates in 2025 were lowest for the multiracial non-Hispanic population (187.3 per 100,000 population) and highest for the Black non-Hispanic population (869.0). The top ten leading causes of death were (in order, highest to lowest): heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease, Alzheimer disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.

Experts have highlighted the need for standardized measures of patient and family experiences of serious illness care. To address this need, the research team developed surveys that can be used to derive patient-reported quality measures for use in assessment of home-based serious illness programs and community-based serious illness care. Expert panelists and in-depth interviewees agreed that the following core aspects of serious illness care were priorities for a patient survey: communication, access and responsiveness, shared decision making and advance care planning, symptom management, care continuity and coordination, emotional and spiritual support, attention to social determinants of health (through referrals and connections to resources), attention to caregiver needs, and medication management. Based on cognitive testing, survey wording was simplified (e.g., “health care options if you got sicker” for advance care planning, avoidance of terms like “coordinate”), items were reworded to encompass both telehealth and in-person visits, and the term “health care professionals” was finalized for assessment of community-based care. Through engagement of seriously ill individuals, family caregivers, and providers, the research team identified high-priority concepts for assessment in the Serious Illness Surveys for Home-Based Programs and Community-Based Care, allowing for collection of actionable information to inform quality monitoring and improvement.