🗞️Women running, noncitizen voting, organ donations and more

Hello there. Here’s what you may have missed from Stateline staff last week.

Bears are having a very bad year. In many areas, a warm winter and drought have decimated the natural foods they rely on. From California to Connecticut, desperate bears have raided garbage cans, broken into homes and cars, torn through chicken coops and pulled down bird feeders. Wildlife officers in many states have received a record number of calls, working overtime to deter bears, put out traps and euthanize animals who pose persistent problems.

For decades, manufactured home builders have been working to shed the old image of boxy trailer homes reserved for the outskirts of cities and suburbia. Now, a small change in federal regulations will allow such homes to be delivered without a permanent chassis. The new law could open the door for architecture welcomed in all kinds of neighborhoods. But first, experts say, a lot of states will need to reexamine some outdated regulations.  

Voters in six states are considering ballot measures in the midterm elections that would make it clear that only U.S. citizens may vote — and block local governments from expanding that right to others. Sponsors of the measures — primarily Republicans — say they want to preemptively bar cities or other local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, as municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont have done.

A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle.

Federal regulators are cracking down on the nonprofits responsible for coordinating organ donations, aiming to begin shutting down substandard groups by early next year. Many professional medical groups welcome more stringent evaluations. But the nonprofits strongly oppose aspects of the criteria and have filed lawsuits, warning of potential disruptions in some states or regions.

The percentage of working-age adults without health insurance has increased in the past two years, largely because many people can no longer afford Obamacare coverage after Congress allowed federal subsidies to expire at the end of last year.

The uninsured rate for adults ages 19-64 rose to 11.2% this year, up from 8.9% in 2024, according to a new analysis by the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy and philanthropic nonprofit.

Nearly half of the 7,362 working-age adults who participated in the group’s biennial health insurance survey said they were uninsured, underinsured, or experienced a gap in coverage this year. Half said they delayed or avoided getting medical care because of the cost, compared with 46% in 2022.

The subsidies significantly lowered the cost of Obamacare coverage — making it free or nearly free for some people with low incomes. But the aid was designed as a temporary pandemic-era measure, and Congress allowed it to expire at the end of last year.

As a result, the percentage of working-age adults with health insurance from the marketplaces created under Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, declined to 6% this year, from 8% in 2024.