The federal government will increase funding for special education and allocate money to address the needs of caregivers as part of a spending bill that’s expected to be signed by President Donald Trump.

The legislation to fund federal labor, education, health and defense programs for the government’s next fiscal year — which begins in October — passed the U.S. Senate last week and was approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

A proposed rule by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) aims to reduce Medicare and Medicaid compliance requirements for health care facilities, which the Trump administration says will save all providers $1.12 billion annually.

Within this proposal, advocates for long term and post-acute care providers say are important provisions affecting emergency preparedness and hospice care for nursing facilities.Titled “Medicare and Medicaid Programs; Regulatory Provisions to Promote Program Efficiency, Transparency, and Burden Reduction,” the CMS plan includes two central issues of importance to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ICF/IID).

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The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would make it harder for immigrants with disabilities and their families to get a visa or obtain permanent residency in this country.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said over the weekend that it will officially propose a regulation to “ensure that those seeking to enter and remain in the United States either temporarily or permanently can support themselves financially and will not be reliant on public benefits.”

New Jersey has picked a nationally recognized leader to monitor the state’s largest provider of group homes and services for disabled individuals, Bellwether Behavioral Health, a facility that became the subject of news reports regarding abuse and neglect of its residents.

The Department of Human Services told NJ Spotlight that Cathy Ficker Terrill had been hired — at Bellwether’s expense — to review the private, for-profit company’s system of care, services, and supports — including staffing and accountability practices. She will stay on the job as long as needed, the DHS said.

Ficker Terrill has served on a presidential advisory committee and oversaw a federal court settlement with Oregon to ensure proper implementation of community services for individuals with disabilities.

In July, the DHS took the unusual step of suspending admissions at Bellwether facilities

A statewide network of schools for disabled students has trapped black children in neglect and isolation.

Seth Murrell, a four-year-old boy with dreadlocks to his chin, moved with his family to Atlanta in the fall of 2015. On his first day at his new preschool, he cried the whole morning. He wouldn’t sit still in his chair. He’d pop up and snatch the glasses off a classmate’s face, or spit at the teacher. When he was tired, he waved his arms in the air, begging his teacher to hold him. On the rare occasions that his teacher complimented him, he shouted “Yay!” too loudly.

His mother, Latoya Martin, a hair stylist, had moved with her husband and three children from Donalsonville, a rural town in Seminole County, in the southwest corner of Georgia, to be closer to psychiatrists and neurologists who would understand why her son was developmentally delayed. He couldn’t string words together into a sentence. His teachers called Latoya nearly every day and told her to pick him up early, because he was disrupting the class. When Latoya resisted—she was busy looking for a new job—her friends warned her that the school might call child-protective services if she couldn’t pick up Seth promptly. Latoya sensed that the teachers were accusing her of being a bad parent, so she informed the school’s principal that she had never done drugs and that in high school her G.P.A. had been 4.0. Latoya’s sister Anita said, “They kept saying we needed to work with him more at home. I’m, like, we work with him—that’s not the problem. This is part of his disability!”

After a month, Latoya was told that Seth would be sent to a school twenty minutes away, in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support, a constellation of schools, known as GNETS, attended by four thousand students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. Anita, a public-school teacher in Atlanta for nearly two decades, said, “I was just trying to figure it out in

The tall teenager with the buzz cut opened the museum door, extended a large hand and said cheerily, “Welcome to the Spam Museum.”Samuel Ehret is an official “Spambassador”at the museum, a hot spot for tourists who have a taste for the much-mocked canned meat that has been made here by Hormel Foods for 81 years.

Samuel is also autistic, and he got this job because he loves all things Spam — its taste, its history, and especially the museum’s showpiece: a motorcycle that runs on bacon grease.

He also landed the job because Austin is an autism-friendly town. Ten years ago, it became one of the first in the country to launch a community-wide effort both to reduce the disorder’s stigma and make local businesses