The 24-hour news cycle is filled with political coverage, but not everything gets the attention it deserves. Here are five politics stories you may have missed in the past week.
1. Where's Mommy?': A family fled death threats, only to face separation at the border — The Washington Post, 3/18. A family escaping an El Salvadorian gang sought asylum in the United States, but border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents separated the mother and children at the border. The separation of children from parents by immigration officials has become more common under the Trump administration, according to advocacy groups, though the Department of Homeland Security said last week that it isn't an official policy.
2. Medicaid Is Rural America's Financial Midwife — Kaiser Health News, 3/12. Medicaid payments help struggling hospitals service low-income patients who need expensive treatment such as maternity care. The Trump administration's push to implement work requirements for Medicaid would particularly impact rural communities, where Medicaid pays for 51 percent of births.
3. Fewer exonerations in Texas' Harris County drove national rate lower too, study finds — Texas Tribune, 3/14. Texas led the country in the number of exonerations of people wrongfully convicted for drug crimes last year, despite the state's biggest county seeing a dip in exonerations in 2017. Due to the rise of advocacy organizations working on the issue, states are exonerating more people, many of whom have been wrongfully convicted of drug crimes.
4. Why Oklahoma Plans to Execute People With Nitrogen — The Marshall Project, 3/15. A nationwide shortage of drugs needed for lethal injection is prompting Oklahoma to use nitrogen inhalation for executions. The Marshall Project breaks down the science of using nitrogen gas and how this law came to pass.
5. As America Changes, Some Anxious Whites Feel Left Behind — National Geographic, The Race Issue. As part of its issue on race, National Geographic profiled a coal mining town in Pennsylvania whose population decline has been stopped by a growing Latino community.