Punishment for kids' crimes and more news from the states

Good morning. We hope you had a great weekend. We’re starting off today’s lineup with a look at how residents in one state struggle to find legal representation.

Large swaths of Alabama lack a sufficient number of attorneys to help residents with legal issues, according to Harvesters of Hope, a legal nonprofit that is recruiting attorneys to underserved areas. Almost two-thirds of the counties in the state can be classified as legal deserts, places with less than one attorney per 1,000 people.

In Ohio, domestic violence shelters have been facing an increase in the need for their services long before allegations of abuse against Congressman Max Miller, but the controversy has brought the spotlight back on the issue and advocates are sharing how residents can get help they need. 

And tomorrow, we’re turning our attention to primary elections in Alaska, Florida and Wyoming.

Did you know that States Newsroom is the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every capital? On this National Nonprofit Day, find out how you can support States Newsroom’s mission at our website.

Florida: Florida in the past two years has spent more money than any other state in the nation providing a therapy called applied behavior analysis to children with special needs, including autism — $6.57 billion between 2023 and 2025.

Louisiana: Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he won’t personally talk to New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno, a Democrat, until after an investigation determines who was behind the July indictment of Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill. 

Montana: Two Republican lawmakers filed a lawsuit over a term-limit decision made by Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen that would remove them from the ballot in November. The legal action comes as the state Republican Party is preparing to replace the candidates on the ballot, barring a judge’s intervention. 

Georgia: Starting next summer, the state’s highest court will no longer routinely hear appeals in murder cases. The decision was announced as part of a concurring opinion from Chief Justice Nels Peterson that was tied to a murder case out of Fulton County.

Alaska: Former state Attorney General Treg Taylor, a Republican candidate for governor, violated state campaign finance laws by donating more than 60 times the maximum amount of money to his own campaign, according to disclosure documents filed last week.

Arizona: The state Supreme Court shot down a request from Republican lawmakers to preserve their summary of the school voucher-regulating Protect Education Act in a voter education pamphlet, ruling that the description violates state law because it tries to sway voters against the initiative. 

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

When young children and teenagers get into trouble, the question often comes quickly: Where were their parents? That question is again shaping public policy in communities across the country, as state and local lawmakers and prosecutors increasingly look for ways to respond to concerns about youth crime and public disorder, Stateline reports.

Some proposals would strengthen enforcement of existing laws that allow parents to be fined or otherwise held responsible for their children’s conduct. Others would impose youth curfews or establish new requirements for parents to perform community service or pay fines — measures considered in places such as Albany County, New York; Chicago; and Columbus, Ohio. 

A new law in Louisiana, which went into effect earlier this month, allows courts to fine parents or guardians up to $5,000 if a youth age 14 or older is convicted of making a school threat. 

State lawmakers also recently requested a study on the link between parenting, discipline and juvenile delinquency. Louisiana already has one of the nation’s toughest laws, allowing parents to be prosecuted when their child under 17 is involved in a violent felony, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

Parents and guardians can have enormous influence over the children in their care, some proponents argue, so holding them accountable could give them another incentive to keep their children in school, enforce rules and steer them away from crime. 

Every state has some form of parental responsibility law. But there is little empirical evidence showing that the laws actually reduce youth crime.

Louisiana is home to one of the few whooping crane reintroduction programs in the country. A poster child for the federal Endangered Species Act and largely representative of human efforts to bring back plants and animals from the very edge of erasure, whooping cranes are some of the rarest birds in North America, Louisiana Illuminator reports.

Louisiana wildlife officials hope that by raising birds in captivity with the goal of releasing them in the wild, they can establish a self-sustaining population where they once lived naturally in the wetlands.

So far, the program has seen success. The cranes’ advocates say a Trump administration shake-up of habitat protections for endangered species would be widely detrimental to the birds, but they also wonder whether Louisiana’s reintroduction program, unique environment and culture could ensure the cranes are shielded from the worst effects.

The protection of threatened and near-extinct animals under the Endangered Species Act is in question as the result of rollbacks of habitat protections. 

The U.S. Department of Interior announced in July it would no longer consider habitat destruction as direct harm to a species. Research on threats faced by plants and animals in decline shows habitat loss is the leading reason for diminishing numbers for more than 80% of species under the Endangered Species Act.