News from around the nation.

South Koreans feel betrayed after hundreds of workers were detained in a plant raid in Georgia; MA housing groups to collect signatures for rent control ballot measure; Future of AZ trail projects unknown as Congress claws back funding; Data: Mississippi youth confinement rate among nation's lowest.

Transcript

The Public News Service Monday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

South Korea's foreign minister departed for the U.S. Monday to finalize steps for the return of several hundred South Korean workers detained last week in a massive immigration raid in Georgia as the incident caused confusion, shock, and a sense of betrayal among many in the U.S. allied nation.

That, for the Associated Press.

They report the September 4 raid on a battery factory under construction at a sprawling Hyundai Auto Plant in Georgia led to the detainment of 475 workers, with more than 300 of them South Koreans.

Next to Massachusetts, where housing advocates say they'll begin collecting signatures this week to put a rent stabilization ballot measure before voters in 2026.

The initiative would limit annual rent increases to the cost of living with a cap at 5 percent.

Carolyn Chu with Homes for All Massachusetts says skyrocketing rents are displacing tenants and destroying historic neighborhoods statewide.

We need to do everything we can to stabilize our cities and towns and maintain and build the strong, thriving communities that keep us here in Massachusetts.

She says volunteers will start to gather the more than 74,000 signatures required at events tied to this week's Democratic Party State Convention in Springfield.

Opponents of rent control argue it could lead to higher rents in the future and make it harder for smaller landlords to maintain their properties.

I'm Catherine Carley.

Community advocates in Arizona say the loss of federal funding for alternative transportation projects is a major setback for revitalizing and connecting neighborhoods throughout the state.

Congressional lawmakers have repealed roughly $750 million in previously allocated funds for trails and pedestrian pathways nationwide, leaving many projects in limbo.

RJ Carden is executive director of the Maricopa County Trail and Park Foundation.

He says federal dollars often spurs state and local investments to further improve residents' quality of life.

It's very critical that communities look at the federal government as a partner in this and have some stability to continue to plan and to continue to move forward with projects.

Lawmakers say the cuts were needed to trim federal spending and extend the 2017 tax cuts.

And new data show Mississippi's approach to juvenile justice is a positive outlier compared to other states.

The latest report from the Prison Policy Initiative finds the state has one of the lowest youth incarceration rates in the country.

The group's Wanda Bertram says the state's limited number of juvenile facilities may be a key reason for the lower incarceration rate.

They're incarcerating fewer youth, which I'd say is a very good thing.

And it's actually possible that the small number of youth confinement facilities in Mississippi exerts a very helpful pressure in that way. confines 74 out of every 100,000 young residents.

That's less than half of the rate of similar size states like Nebraska and Nevada.

This is public news service.

Next up a bill to prohibit certain kinds of social online gambling in California is expected to get a vote this week.

Assembly Bill 831 would make it illegal to offer games like online poker that have a sweepstakes element, meaning the game is always free but you can buy tokens to extend play.

Many large with casinos like the San Manuel Nation support the bill and call the games unregulated online gambling.

But Eric Wright with the Clutzeldeehee Wintun Nation, a small rural tribe north of Sacramento, says the games are a mainstream legal form of entertainment.

"ABA 31 is not about consumer protection.

It's about protecting the market share of a few wealthy gaming tribes at the expense of smaller non-gaming tribes.

Digital commerce like legal sweepstakes is one of a few viable economic paths we have, this bill would close that door entirely on us.

The Clusel-Deehey-Wintoon Nation has a partnership with Virtual Gaming World, which runs a well-known social gaming site called Chumba Casino.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

And a new report for the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services addresses staffing challenges in Pennsylvania and the child welfare, juvenile justice and behavioral health systems.

High turnover has left many of these positions vacant, delaying critical services for thousands of Children and families.

Amy Finn with Presley Ridge, which provides a variety of home school and community based services, served as co-chair of the work group that put together the report.

She says her organization has seen many staffing cuts since Covid 19 and there's a similar trend among the state's educators.

The services where we're going into the homes, we went from mostly staffed to about sometimes 50 percent staffed and that happened during COVID and it continued after COVID.

Danielle Smith reporting.

And from a church basement, volunteers with Chicago Books to Women in prison sort through donations to send reading materials and hope to incarcerated women in Illinois.

Shelves overflow with donated books in more than 100 categories ranging from mysteries self-help guides, Bibles, and health publications.

Incarcerated women send letters to the organization requesting certain ones.

CBWP's board chair, Becca Greenstein, says asks often reflect urgent needs like medical information, resources on domestic violence, and parenting or GED guides.

Someone writes to us and they say, "I was just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

"Can you send me information about that?"

Yes, we can.

We can't send a doctor into that prison.

We can't improve the quality of the healthcare.

I'm Judith Ruiz Branch reporting.