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The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Friday to let President Joe Biden's administration enforce a key part of a new rule protecting LGBT students from discrimination in schools and colleges based on gender identity in 10 Republican-led states that had challenged it. The justices denied the administration's request to partially lift lower court injunctions that had blocked the entirety of the rule expanding protections under Title IX, a law that bars sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, while litigation continues. The lower court decisions had prevented the U.S. Education Department from enforcing the new rule, announced in April and set to take effect on Aug. 1, in Tennessee, Louisiana and eight other states. (Chung, 8/16)

Some school nurses and other education officials in Tennessee say a new law requiring parental consent before rendering medical or psychological treatment to students has left them scratching their heads in need of clarity. The new Families' Rights and Responsibilities Act bars government entities or health care providers from treating, operating on, diagnosing, offering prescriptions or rendering psychological counseling to children without first obtaining parental consent, except in emergency situations. (Penley, 8/16)

Haywood Park Community Hospital was the closest hospital for many in Brownsville, Tennessee, a rural city in the eastern part of the state. Some residents believe it kept their loved ones alive. But others in this majority-Black city said they drove to a hospital miles away or skipped care completely. The facility eventually closed in 2014 after a decline in patients. (Hunter, 8/16)