For the first time, federal lawmakers have approved legislation that would end a practice allowing employers to pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 231 to 199 Thursday to pass the Raise the Wage Act, a bill chiefly designed to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025.

Tucked inside the legislation, however, is a provision that would phase out subminimum wage for workers with disabilities.

Employers are currently able to obtain so-called 14(c) certificates from the Department of Labor allowing them to pay workers with disabilities less than minimum wage under a federal law dating back to the 1930s. The measure approved this week would require the Labor Department to stop issuing new 14(c) certificates and it would increase the minimum wage for workers employed under existing certificates gradually over the course of six years. At that point, any remaining 14(c) certificates would be invalid and employees with disabilities would need to be paid at least the prevailing federal minimum wage.

“We’re thrilled by the inclusion of phasing out 14(c) in the bill. Everyone deserves a fair wage for their work,” said Julia Bascom, executive director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “Disability rights are workers rights, and it’s encouraging to see that recognized in this bill.”

But, many families have opposed such legislation arguing that subminimum wage employment gives people with more severe disabilities who may not be able to succeed in typical jobs a sense of purpose and an opportunity to contribute.

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The Trump administration took a major step to weaken the regulation of toxic chemicals on Thursday when the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would not ban a widely used pesticide that its own experts have linked to serious health problems in children.

The decision by Andrew R. Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, represents a victory for the chemical industry and for farmers who have lobbied to continue using the substance, chlorpyrifos, arguing it is necessary to protect crops.

It was the administration’s second major move this year to roll back or eliminate chemical safety rules. In April, the agency disregarded the advice of its own experts when officials issued a rule that restricted but did not ban asbestos, a known carcinogen. Agency scientists and lawyers had urged the E.P.A. to ban asbestos outright, as do most other industrialized nations.

The substance, sold under the commercial name Lorsban, has already been banned for household use but remains in widespread use by farmers for more than 50 fruit, nut, cereal and vegetable crops. In 2016, more than 640,000 acres were treated with chlorpyrifos in California alone.

The Obama administration announced in 2015 that it would ban chlorpyrifos after scientific studies produced by the E.P.A. showed the pesticide had

A first-of-its-kind autism registry that collected research data from thousands of families across the country has closed after 13 years and the publication of hundreds of studies on everything from bullying to mood disorders.

The Interactive Autism Network, known as IAN, ended operations at the end of June after helping its primary funder, the Simons Foundation, launch a broader research initiative, said Dr. Paul Lipkin, director of IAN. The new registry, SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research for Knowledge), started in 2016 with a goal of collecting genetic data from 50,000 families.

Parents of children with autism and adults on the spectrum had participated in IAN by responding to online surveys on topics such as medical history, social communication and therapies and updated the information they provided over time.

Additionally, IAN put willing families in touch with outside researchers seeking study participants.

Researchers described IAN as an invaluable resource and said SPARK will continue to facilitate

A state Department of Mental Health patient suffocated to death earlier this year at the bottom of a dogpile of agency employees who failed to follow the department’s training on physically restraining patients.

At least three of the employees involved in the death of 35-year-old William Avant had not been trained properly, according to an ongoing probe by state health regulators reviewed by The State as part of the newspaper’s weeks-long investigation into Avant’s death.

Avant, a Georgetown, S.C., native who had been in Mental Health’s inpatient care for more a dozen years, was killed on Jan. 22 when Mental Health staffers improperly pinned him face down on a Columbia hospital floor and lay atop his back for four minutes, preventing his diaphragm from expanding to deliver oxygen to vital organs.

Hank Homer’s family for years has fought for the 46-year-old to live in Maine, scrambling for suitable housing at a time when group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities like Hank are in critically short supply. 

He nearly was shipped to facilities in Illinois or Virginia in 2015. This year, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services wanted to send him to Florida, after he lost his placement at a group home in Portland where he was having trouble getting along with the staff, family members said. 

“We said no, absolutely not,” said Denise Beavers, Homer’s sister, who advocates for him with Maine DHHS. 

Homer underwent brain surgery for a head injury he suffered as a child and now has a low IQ. He lives – for now – in a small yellow house in rural Monmouth, surrounded by fields and towering pine trees. His social worker cooks him meals and helps him with daily living tasks. The home, operated by Maine DHHS, is supposed to be a temporary crisis placement for people who must live in supported housing but can’t get into community-based group homes because of the housing shortage. 

Lawmakers ordered Florida disability administrators this year to restructure its community-based Medicaid program that delivers healthcare to tens of thousands of people with disabilities.But as two state agencies begin to devise the new structure of the program, clients, caregivers and service providers worry that the coming changes to lower the agency’s budget might cut critical services to people who need them.

In a meeting Wednesday to solicit public comments on the upcoming changes, dozens of people urged the agencies — the Agency for Persons with Disabilities and the Agency for Health Care Administration — to improve training, cut down on paperwork and waste, and keep services available for people with developmental disabilities as they determine how to restructure the program.

They also outlined a host of concerns, chief among them that shifting healthcare delivery to a system of managed care, where private contractors manage patients’ care and control what clients of the program are able to get, including services like in-home nursing care, speech and physical therapy and behavioral support to manage difficult behaviors.

Gov. Michael J. Dunleavy’s cuts to the state Medicaid budget have providers holding their breaths as they wait to see the impacts.

Dunleavy vetoed about $58 million of general fund support for Medicaid programs from the Legislature’s enacted budget on June 28. The Legislature, divided between special sessions in Wasilla and Juneau, failed to override the vetoes, and so the cut stands for now.

Because Medicaid is a federally matched program, the dollars the state cuts lead to forfeited federal dollars as well. The $58 million general fund cut is compounded by those federal dollars, meaning at least $77 million less in total.

Though there’s no immediate impact for hospitals, but one of their concerns is for the end of the next fiscal year, when money starts running out to reimburse providers. The state suspended payments for about two weeks in June due to a Medicaid funding shortfall, forcing hospitals to wait until the turnover of the fiscal year to be paid.

While hospitals are again being paid, there’s the possibility that if funding is cut, the suspension could go on for longer next year, said Jeannie Monk, senior vice president of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.