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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Women's Forums Under Way Across Maryland

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Friday, August 26, 2016   

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - While Maryland has been hailed as a state that's made significant progress in securing equality for women, advocates say there's still a lot of work to be done.

Today is Women's Equality Day and Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, said issues such as equal pay and the right to reproductive health are the reason women can't back down.

"Some 300 laws have been put on the books, actually passed and signed by governors, at the state level, restricting in one fashion or another women's access to reproductive health care, whether it's through defunding family planning clinics or outright banning abortion care," she said.

The Maryland Commission for Women is holding forums across the state to find out what issues women think are crucial, with the ultimate goal of putting together a report to present to the Legislature. There's also a survey for those who can't attend on the state's Department of Human Resources website.

Judith Vaughan-Prather, executive director of the Maryland Commission for Women, said they want to know if there are issues that affect all women in the state or locally specific issues that need to be addressed.

"So far, we've heard everything from the need for affordable and accessible child care, issues with child support, women and girls in science, technology, engineering and math, domestic violence, human trafficking, really a wide wide range of issues," she said.

Vaughan-Prather said Maryland is very progressive on most issues, including women's rights, but there's still work that needs to be done.

"It doesn't mean that the women who are having problems aren't really suffering and that there's still a long ways to go,"

August 26, which is Women's Equality Day, was set aside by Congress in 1971 to mark the 1920 passage of the law that guaranteed the right to vote to women.


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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

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