The U.S. House approved, 224-200, a five-year farm bill last week as members of Congress attempt to update major agriculture and nutrition policy after three years of extensions.

The bill would authorize subsidy and nutrition assistance programs through fiscal 2031. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated an earlier version of the bill would not meaningfully affect discretionary federal spending over an 11-year window, and would add $162 million in mandatory spending over the next six years.

Most Democrats opposed the bill, but 14 voted in favor. Three Republicans voted against. Six members did not vote.

The Democrats in favor were: Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Jim Costa and Adam Gray of California, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Donald Davis of North Carolina, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Kim Schrier of Washington, Josh Riley of New York, Darren Soto of Florida and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico.

The Republicans who voted against were: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Andrew Garbarino of New York and Harriet Hageman of Wyoming.

Few policy changes

Because Republicans’ massive spending and tax cuts law last year made major changes to some U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, mainly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helped about 1 in 8 Americans afford groceries in 2024, the farm bill passed Thursday was a “skinny” version and relatively short on major policy updates.

The bill would still have to pass the Senate, which has not yet introduced its version.

Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, cheered House passage Thursday and said a Senate text would be released “in the coming weeks.”

“This is an important step toward updating long-overdue policies that support our farm families and strengthen rural communities,” he said of the House vote in a statement. “We’ve put more farm in the farm bill through the Working Families Tax Cuts (the GOP spending and tax cuts bill), and this legislation builds on that success.”

New authorizations needed

Farm bills are typically written to last five years. But Congress last approved a version in 2018. Extensions of the 2018 version were enacted in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said the measure would still meaningfully update farm and food programs.

“It is more evident than ever that rural America needs a new farm bill now, not next year or next Congress,” he said. “Producers are operating under the third consecutive farm bill extension and the simple truth is the policies of 2018 are no match for the challenges of 2026.”

Looming federal cuts to food stamps could impact state and local budgets in NC

Agriculture Committee ranking Democrat Angie Craig of Minnesota opposed the bill, saying it did not address any of the pressing issues that farmers and SNAP recipients face. The bill does not help alleviate the rising costs farmers face from President Donald Trump’s tariffs and “locks in the $187 billion cut” to SNAP in last year’s spending law, Craig said.

“It doesn’t fix any of the underlying policy choices by Republicans and this administration that caused the problems in the first place,” she said, adding that  continuing the SNAP cuts put “more pressure on struggling Americans at a time when the cost of groceries and healthcare continues to grow.

Craig said Thursday morning that the measure could have helped corn farmers by including a provision to allow gasoline made with 15% ethanol available all year. The product, known as E15, increases demand for corn, but has been limited in summer months because of the pollution it can cause in high temperatures.

Thompson responded that the committee would consider a separate measure on year-round E15 in mid-May.

Local food, foreign food aid oversight

The bill does include some new provisions.

It would authorize $200 million for a new local food procurement program, to be used largely by food banks.

It would move authority for foreign food assistance programs under USDA from the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development.

It would raise the limit that individual farmers could borrow from USDA and expand rural development programs that fund substance abuse and mental health services.

Members voted Thursday morning for an amendment that removed a controversial provision to shield pesticide producers from legal liability to warn users of a risk of cancer. If it became law, the provision would have mooted a case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week related to a Missouri jury’s award to a user of Monsanto’s popular Roundup weedkiller who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Going to make hunger worse”

Several Democrats slammed the bill, but seemed to take more issue with the “big beautiful” law Trump signed last July 4. The farm bill, Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern said, would not counteract the changes in that law.

“We are considering on the floor a five-year farm bill that, quite frankly, does nothing for our farmers and screws over poor people and maintains the nearly $200 billion in cuts to SNAP,” the top House Rules Committee Democrat said on the House floor Thursday. “It is going to make hunger worse in this country.”

Thompson said Democrats were too focused on what was not in the bill, rather than the provisions that enjoy bipartisan support.

“Today, you will hear some opposing comments made that this is a partisan bill and even more on what’s not in the bill,” he said at the outset of floor debate. “This bill is filled with good policy that is also overwhelmingly bipartisan.

One of the main methods of obtaining abortion medication for those living in states with bans is now blocked nationwide, after a federal appeals court decision issued Friday afternoon.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule from 2023 that allowed mifepristone, one of two drugs used to terminate a pregnancy before 10 weeks and to treat miscarriages, to be dispensed without an in-person visit with a health provider. 

In the years since, states with abortion access have increased their telemedicine offerings to prescribe the medication remotely and send it through the mail. Many of those states also enacted shield laws to prevent officials from states with abortion bans from prosecuting or investigating their providers — meaning many patients have been able to receive the medication across state lines.

Louisiana judge preserves telehealth abortion access provision for now, puts case on hold

The block will remain in effect as the lower court case proceeds, but the FDA could file an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming weeks.

More than 27% of all abortions were provided through telehealth appointments in the first six months of 2025, according to the Society of Family Planning, a research and advocacy group that publishes a report called #WeCount. Nearly 15,000 abortions per month were provided under shield laws during that same time frame, according to the report.

Louisiana Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill sued the FDA in October, seeking to strike down the 2023 provision, and the lower court declined to do so in early April. U.S. District Judge David C. Joseph said then that the stay was premature while the FDA completed a safety review of mifepristone, but allowed state officials the opportunity to re-file the motion after that review was complete. The state appealed that decision to the 5th Circuit.

“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,’” Friday’s decision said.

There were no dissenting opinions among Judge Leslie Southwick, an appointee of former Republican President George H.W. Bush, and Judges Stuart Kyle Duncan and Kurt D. Engelhardt, both appointees of Republican President Donald Trump.

Without access to telemedicine and the opportunity to receive the medication through the mail, people in 13 states with near-total abortion bans may have to travel to another state to get an abortion.

There is a misoprostol-only abortion pill protocol that some providers can use, but it is slightly less effective and requires a higher dosage, which can increase side effects.

“Reinstating in-person dispensing requirements would force people to travel farther, take more time off work, and absorb costs that are simply too high. For people living in states already hostile to abortion access, many of which are home to Black women and families, this is not health care,” said Regina Davis-Moss, CEO of advocacy group In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, in a statement. 

Murrill said in a statement on Friday that former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration facilitated “illegal mail-order abortion pills.”

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“Today, that nightmare is over, thanks to the hard work of my office and our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom. I look forward to continuing to defend women and babies as this case continues,” Murrill said, crediting the advocacy legal organization that helped in the case.

The court also found Friday that the 2023 rule injures Louisiana by causing it to spend Medicaid funds for emergency care for women harmed by using the drug. The state identified $92,000 paid by Medicaid for two women who needed emergency care in 2025 from complications “caused by out-of-state mifepristone.”

Numerous studies have shown mifepristone is safe to use, with very low complication rates. A combined review of 10 years’ worth of studies between 2005 and 2015 found that severe outcomes requiring blood transfusion and hospitalization occurred in less than 1% of cases.

“We are alarmed by this court’s decision to ignore the FDA’s rigorous science and decades of safe use of mifepristone in a case pursued by extremist abortion opponents. We are reviewing the court’s order in detail,” said Evan Masingill, CEO of GenBioPro, one of the main manufacturers of mifepristone, in a statement. “We remain committed to taking any actions necessary to make mifepristone available and accessible to as many people as possible in the country, regardless of anti-abortion special interests trying to undermine patients’ access.”

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act could upend American politics and trigger a new rush to redraw congressional districts.

The opinion released on Wednesday, in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, holds sweeping consequences for how states and local governments draw district lines at all levels of government, from Congress to school boards. 

Louisiana, whose congressional map is at the center of the case, may even suspend an upcoming primary election so state lawmakers can pass a new map. Other states are also weighing new gerrymanders, either this year or before the 2028 election. 

Gerrymandering refers to drawing political maps for the purpose of gaining some form of unfair advantage — whether partisan or racial or to help or hurt an incumbent or candidate.

Following the decision, Democrats are calling for Congress to pass new federal voting rights legislation, but President Donald Trump would likely veto it. Others are urging more radical changes, including expanding the size of the Supreme Court.

As the nation responds to the decision, here’s a States Newsroom look at the decision, what it means and what could happen next.

What is Louisiana v. Callais?

After the 2020 census, the Louisiana Legislature passed a congressional map that included one district where a majority of residents are Black. About a third of the state’s population is Black.

States typically draw new congressional lines once a decade following the census, though several states have pushed through new maps this year after Trump called on Republicans to maximize their political advantage heading into the midterm elections this November.

Black voters challenged the Louisiana map and an appeals court ordered lawmakers to pass a new map. The legislature in 2024 approved a map that includes a second district where a majority of residents are Black, also called a majority-minority district.

In response, a group of white voters sued over the new map, claiming it violated the U.S. Constitution and was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law and the 15th Amendment prohibits denying the right to vote on the basis of race.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Phillip Callais, hence the case’s name. The New York Times reported last year that Callais is a veteran who lives near Baton Rouge. 

The Supreme Court held its first oral argument on the case in March 2025. But instead of issuing a decision later that spring, the court held a second round of oral argument in October. 

At that time, comments by the conservative justices strongly suggested the court was interested in weakening the federal Voting Rights Act.

What is the Voting Rights Act and what role did it play in redistricting?

The Voting Rights Act, or VRA, is a 1965 federal law passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

The law was designed to stop racial discrimination in voting and combat Jim Crow laws like literacy tests that Southern states used to prevent Black people from voting.

It contains several sections but the Supreme Court decision in Callais dealt with Section 2. That section prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race and other characteristics. In 1982, Congress expanded Section 2 to ban voting practices that have a discriminatory effect, whether or not the law was intended to discriminate.

Section 2 has acted as a ban on racial gerrymandering, or the practice of drawing districts to minimize the political influence of minority voters. Over time, that’s led to the creation of numerous majority-minority congressional districts.

Many of these majority-minority districts are located in Republican-controlled Southern states  but are held by Democrats. In the past, if states drew new maps to spread minority voters across several districts, they could face challenges in federal court under Section 2.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 

The court found that because the Voting Rights Act didn’t require Louisiana to create a second majority-minority district, the state didn’t have a compelling reason to consider race when drawing its map.

Under the court’s reasoning, Section 2 only applies when evidence supports a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred. In other words, lawmakers only violate Section 2 when they draw districts with the purpose of affording minority voters less opportunity because of their race.

The court’s majority opinion says “none of the historical evidence presented by plaintiffs came close to showing an objective likelihood that the State’s challenged map was the result of intentional racial discrimination.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by all of the court’s conservatives: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The court’s three liberal justices — Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented.

Why is the decision a big deal?

The decision empowers states to gerrymander in ways that break apart districts where a majority of residents are Black, Hispanic or belong to another minority group.

In 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts would no longer take cases about partisan gerrymandering. That’s where states draw maps to help a political party.

Because many majority-minority districts in the South are held by Democrats, the Callais decision gives Republican states the power to break apart these districts if they can show they are doing so for a partisan purpose.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in a dissent.

In the short term, the decision means several Black Democrats in the U.S. House may lose their seats if states pass new maps either this year before the November midterm elections or before the 2028 election. At least one projection has pegged the potential losses as high as 19 seats.

The loss of even a few Black representatives would constitute the largest drop in Black representation in Congress since Reconstruction following the Civil War, according to an NPR analysis. 

In the long term, minority voters will have a more difficult time electing their preferred candidates if they are moved into majority-white districts. The decision also applies to state legislative districts, meaning the number of Black state lawmakers may drop as well.

What impact does the Voting Rights Act have after the ruling?

Not nearly as much.

The Supreme Court’s decision didn’t strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But Kagan and other critics of the opinion say the protections once extended by Section 2 are effectively dead.

To block a map under Section 2, challengers will now have to show states intentionally discriminated against minority voters, a very difficult standard when states can say they drew maps for partisan advantage.

In a series of decisions during the past 13 years, the Supreme Court has also weakened other elements of the Voting Rights Act.

In 2013, the court effectively blocked preclearance, another major portion of the law contained in Section 5. Preclearance required states and local governments with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes.

Preclearance applied to most Southern states and a handful of others. The justices didn’t strike down preclearance, but ruled that the criteria used to determine whether governments should be subject to preclearance was unconstitutional.

The law required districts that had voting tests in place in 1964 and had less than 50% turnout in the 1964 presidential election as eligible for preclearance. The court found that the criteria no longer made sense and were outdated. 

In theory, Congress could pass new criteria that would restore preclearance.

How are Republicans responding?

Republicans in Southern states are pushing for new maps that could hand their party more seats in the November elections — but also oust Black Democratic members of Congress.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, announced on Thursday that the state’s primary election, set for mid-May, would be paused. The suspension will give time for state lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map to eliminate the state’s second majority-minority district.

“We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward,” Landry said in a statement.

Florida lawmakers passed a new map hours after the court’s decision that could provide Republicans with up to four additional seats. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had introduced the map earlier in the week and had cited Callais in urging lawmakers to act.

In Tennessee, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for governor, called on state lawmakers to pass a new map. Prominent Republicans in Georgia said the state should pass a new map.

Not all Republicans are pushing for immediate action. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said that while she supports the Supreme Court’s decision, the state wasn’t in a position to hold a special session to redistrict.

How are Democrats responding?

Democrats have condemned the Supreme Court’s opinion and say lawmakers and the public should fight back.

Many Democrats say Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after civil rights activist and Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who died in 2020. The legislation would set new criteria for preclearance, seeking to restore the practice after the Supreme Court stopped it in 2013.

The U.S. House passed the measure in 2021, but it didn’t advance through the Senate. 

Enacting the measure remains extremely difficult. If Democrats retake control of Congress in the November elections, Trump would almost certainly veto the measure. Republicans in the U.S. Senate would also likely block the bill, unless Democrats eliminate the filibuster.

Democrats are also weighing a new round of gerrymanders in blue states. While most attention has focused on Southern Republican states, Democrats can now also engage in racial vote dilution in states like California to secure additional U.S. House seats.

Some Democrats and opponents of the Supreme Court’s decision are pushing for other responses. 

They include expanding the size of the court from nine justices to dilute its conservative majority, implementing term limits for justices, banning mid-decade redistricting or requiring states to use independent commissions to draw congressional maps.

“We must continue to fight for a democracy in which every vote counts, and in which every vote holds equal power, starting by banning mid-decade gerrymanders nationwide and establishing fair redistricting criteria,” Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement.

But those changes would require federal legislation, giving Republicans the opportunity to stop the proposals through filibusters in the Senate or by Trump’s veto.

A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands.

Some liberal states can’t sign the documents because the policies clash with state law, forestry experts say.

Already, at least one state is reporting that the new rules have stalled work to reduce wildfire risk and assist with projects on national forest lands. Other states say the requirements are so vague that they don’t know how to follow them. And some timber industry leaders believe the standoff could cut into their revenues.

“We’re kind of at an impasse,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “It’s already starting to slow down or shut down work.”

The update to the requirements governing federal partnerships comes even as many Western states brace for a brutal wildfire season, following a winter that brought record high temperatures and a paltry snowpack.

On Dec. 31, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins with little fanfare issued new general terms and conditions governing partnerships for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Spelled out in dozens of pages of fine print are new restrictions that require partner organizations to pledge compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

The new conditions apply to all USDA agencies, but the department hasn’t yet said whether it will enforce them for food assistance programs.

The agency, in a news release announcing the changes, framed the new terms as an effort to streamline regulations, protect national security and “eliminate radical left ideology.”

The Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service did not grant Stateline interview requests.

At the Forest Service, which is housed within USDA, the new policy applies to a wide range of grants and contracts aimed at reducing wildfire risk, restoring forest health and boosting timber production.

Forestry veterans say the new conditions have created an impasse with some Democratic-led states.

“It is significantly disruptive,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment during the Obama administration. “It’s clearly targeted at Democratic states and Democratic partners.”

A coalition of 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in March, claiming that the restrictions are unlawful. The lawsuit has largely focused on federal food assistance programs provided by the agency, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program.

In an April court filing, Rollins said the new conditions had not yet been applied to food assistance programs, and that the agency had not made a “final decision” to cut off nutrition funding for states that don’t comply.

Forest Service programs

But the policy is already having an impact on some programs managed by the Forest Service.

Washington state has been unable to issue the latest round of Community Wildfire Defense Grants, a federal program that helps neighborhoods and towns reduce fuels and fortify homes in wildfire-prone areas.

Geissler, the state forester, said roughly 10 communities in Washington were set to receive large grants under the program, but the federal funding has been held up by the state’s refusal to sign the new terms and conditions.

“This is another example of the federal administration cutting off its nose to spite its face,” said David Perk, coordinator of the Washington State Lands Working Group, a coalition that weighs in on state forestry policies. “To add the additional layer of denying wildfire funding, that’s insult to injury.”

The stalemate also threatens work that the U.S. Forest Service increasingly relies on states and other partners to do in national forests. The agency has leaned heavily on tools, such as the Good Neighbor Authority, that enable state agencies to carry out wildfire mitigation, restoration and timber projects on federal lands. Many observers believe the recently announced Forest Service reorganization signals that states will play an even bigger role in the years ahead.

But now those partnerships are in jeopardy. According to Geissler, Washington state can’t sign new Good Neighbor Authority agreements due to the new conditions.

“We’re trying to sign off on agreements for another chunk of work, and we can’t get it signed,” he said. “If you are looking for work to be done by the state on federal lands, we’re not doing it. If we’re not able to sign, both sides lose.”

Washington state has spent millions of dollars on projects to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health on national forest lands. With the new ideology requirements, the feds are essentially turning away free help, said Bonnie, the former natural resources official. That’s especially damaging, he noted, because Trump’s cuts to the Forest Service’s workforce and budget have further diminished what the agency can accomplish on its own.

The Trump administration is “damaging their own constituents,” he said. “There are a lot of conservative voters in rural Washington who want to see partnerships that reduce the probability of extreme wildfire. This will stop that. It makes absolutely no sense.”

Washington state is still working on Forest Service projects signed under previous agreements. But without new agreements, work on the ground could stall in six to eight months, Geissler said.

State responses

Nearly 20 state forestry officials contacted by Stateline did not respond or declined interview requests, citing the ongoing litigation and the need to maintain a working relationship with the Forest Service.

But one timber industry leader said Oregon was facing similar disruptions that prevented the state from signing new agreements with the Forest Service.

“This will lead to reduced revenues for (state forestry agencies),” Nick Smith, public affairs director with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, said in an email to Stateline. “As partners, our industry will be impacted if it disrupts or cancels current or future timber sales under these contracts.”

While most state forestry officials have been unwilling to publicly comment about the situation, several have filed legal declarations in support of the multistate lawsuit challenging the new terms and conditions.

Scott Bowen, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, wrote in a declaration that his agency has more than $87 million from active grants with the Forest Service. Those grants cover wildfire response, forest health, invasive species, urban tree canopy and revegetation, among other issues.

“If these funds were withheld, DNR would have to shut down critical capabilities to assist rural communities with fire preparedness and response,” Bowen wrote.

Bowen added that the Forest Service has already said one program, a grant to protect environmentally important forests from being converted to a nonforest use, will be subject to the new terms and conditions.

In the lawsuit, many state officials said that the new compliance requirements are so vague that they’re nearly impossible to follow. Several of the legal declarations note that the new conditions do not explain what it means to “promote gender ideology,” a practice the Department of Agriculture now seeks to ban.

Many states also objected to the agency’s requirement that no one in the country illegally obtain “taxpayer-funded benefits.” Josh Kurtz, secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, noted in a declaration that it would be impossible to confirm that grants to reduce wildfire risk, expand urban tree canopy and improve forest health do not benefit Marylanders who lack legal immigration status.

Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for public employees, said the new terms are aimed at directing a greater share of federal funding to Trump’s political allies.

“You’re going to see a bifurcation where you’ll have red states getting grants and blue states won’t,” he said.

‘More questions than answers’

In March, the National Association of State Foresters sent a letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz expressing concerns about the new terms and conditions. Jason Hartman, the group’s president and the state forester of Kansas, described a chaotic situation.

“To date, the (Forest Service) has not provided adequate guidance or interpretation of the new (terms and conditions),” he wrote. “National-level meetings between State Foresters and the Forest Service have resulted in more questions than answers. State Foresters around the country have been given differing instructions and interpretations in different geographic locations.”

Hartman noted at least one instance in which a timber sale totaling 80 million board feet was held up by the new conditions. (That’s enough to build roughly 5,000 homes.) He asked the Forest Service to delay the effective date of the new conditions until the agency could provide more clarity.

He also outlined another set of issues causing problems for states. One major complication, he said, is the requirement that states receive federal approval before issuing any subawards or contracts. That has created a massive bureaucratic hassle, he wrote, in “direct conflict” with the Forest Service’s reliance on state partnerships to cut red tape.

The new terms also require environmental reviews for projects to be completed before partnership agreements can be signed. But Hartman noted that states often assist in those very environmental reviews, which they won’t be able to do if they can’t sign the agreements first.

Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris also noted that issue in an email to Stateline, saying she expected the Forest Service to update the environmental review section soon.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

Scroll to the end of this story for a photo gallery of the May Day rally.

Thousands of educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.

The May Day rally crowd, dressed in red, nearly filled Halifax Mall, the open area behind the state legislative building, before setting out on a march around the capitol two blocks away. 

The protest, organized by the North Carolina Association of Educators, comes as North Carolina lawmakers continue to wrangle over the state spending plan. They were unable to agree on a budget in 2025, leaving teachers and state employees without raises and schools without extra classroom funding.

Currently, the state ranks 46th in the nation for average teacher pay, lower than any of its neighboring states. It is the only state in the nation where teacher pay is projected to fall in 2026. 

Earlier in the week, when asked about the rally, Republican legislative leaders said they agreed with the need to increase teacher pay, but said there’s no agreement yet on how much. They were dismissive of the rally itself, pointing out that the legislature isn’t scheduled to hold any meetings Friday, and criticizing decisions by many school districts to close for the day.

Without a state budget, school districts have been forced to reduce funding for local programs, including special education. 

Tennille Sims has spent the last three years working as a special education teacher in Wake County Public Schools. Her position was among those eliminated because of recent budget cuts. She attended the Friday rally to advocate for her students. 

“My program is no longer there, nor the essentials classes, which is a big problem because a lot of parents are now saying, ‘Well, what about my kids? What’s gonna happen with my kids?’ I don’t have answers,” Simms told NC Newsline.

Rally attendee Marie Delgado is a 25-year special education and preschool teacher in Guilford County. Her state Senate representative is Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham). Delgado works with students with autism, developmental delays and other health issues.  She said the lack of a state budget has left her program without needed funding.

“We serve about 900 special education preschool students, probably more than that, and we do not have enough funding for teachers or teacher assistants. We are working at both ends of the candles,” Delgado said.

“I’m not doing this because of how much money I am being paid. I am doing it because our students deserve to have a good education,” she added. “It would be great to be respected and honored for the work that we are doing, but it’s not about that. It’s about what our students need.”

Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, the Republican who defeated Berger in the primary election earlier this year, was also in attendance at the rally. he said the state owes its educators competitive pay and a timely budget. He said his colleagues who are reluctant to pass pay raises need to remember that schools are “an investment in the future of the state.”

“We’re first in flight, we need to be first in education,” Page said. “The biggest thing is, a lot of our teachers feel disrespected. They’re underpaid, underfunded, and they need more support in the schools.”

Justin Parmenter has been a seventh-grade language arts instructor in Charlotte since 2006. Parmenter made the trek to Raleigh on Friday because, he said, policy choices made by Republican legislative leadership have left teachers feeling undervalued.

He points to the loss of master’s pay and longevity pay as one reason dedicated teachers feel their expertise is being discounted.

“Certainly it’s important to have beginning teacher pay be attractive,” Parmenter told NC Newsline. “But at the same time, when you are 20 years into your career and you hit a long stretch with no raises at all, it’s hard to feel valued as a veteran educator.”

“Our veteran educators bring a ton of institutional knowledge. They’re great at mentoring new teachers,” he added. “Unless we make our veteran teachers feel valued and prioritize that, they’re going to leave and find greener pastures.”

Parmenter also wants public tax dollars to stay in public schools, a sentiment voiced by many speakers at Friday’s rally. North Carolina spent $625 million on private school vouchers, also known as Opportunity Scholarships, in the current school year alone.

The program now serves more than 106,000 students. Data has shown the program primarily benefits wealthy private school families.

Stein pitches NC budget with teacher raises, tax cuts, Medicaid funding

Gov. Josh Stein’s recommended budget would phase out the Opportunity Scholarship program. Parmenter doesn’t think legislators will take that step this summer, but says they can at least increase accountability by requiring private schools that accept the vouchers to abide by the same rules required of public schools.

“Have a level playing field where all schools have to report test scores, provide transportation, and allow any student who has special needs adequate support to get the same education that everyone else is getting,” Parmenter said. “Those are all things that public schools do for our children that private schools do not have to do.”

State Republican party spokesman Matt Mercer called the event a “union-led stunt.”

“Republicans are committed to quality education for all students and empowering families with the best education options. The left-wing special interests, like NCAE and the national unions, are not aligned with the vast majority of North Carolina teachers — those who want the best for their students and don’t want to be used as political props,” Mercer said in a statement.

Meantime, rally speakers on Friday skewered Republican lawmakers for policies that favor private school vouchers over public schools’ urgent funding needs and raises for teachers whose pay ranks near the bottom of the nation. 

NCAE President-elect Christina Cole, a Wake County special education teacher, said it is unacceptable for lawmakers to criticize educators protesting when they have failed to pass a budget and deliver much-needed pay raises for teachers.

“Greedy politicians are sniveling at our day off — when clearly today is a day on,” Cole said. “I stand with you today with a clear message for them: Enough is enough. Today, all of these bad actors are on notice, and we demand they put kids first.”

Daniel Webb, a custodian for New Hanover County Schools, told the crowd that due to a lack of funding, the district can’t properly maintain school facilities.

“I’m tired of going to my building — opening up in the mornings, the sound of the alarm — and seeing more band-aids than bricks,” Webb said. “I’m tired of having to do the work of three custodians and getting paid for one.”

Jenny Easter, president of the Forsyth County Association of Educators — the state’s newest county in which the majority of staff are members of NCAE — told the crowd that their success means “it does not matter if your county is blue, if it is purple like we are, or if it is red” when it comes to fighting for public education.

“We all came together to fight for what our schools deserve, our students deserve, and what our people who work in them deserve,” Easter said. 

Ceil O’Loughlin, a retired Wake County educator who taught for three decades, told NC Newsline she came to Halifax Mall to demand higher wages for teachers. She, too, criticized programs funneling money away from public schools through private school vouchers.

“It’s our Republican legislature that’s been trying to save money by not educating children,” O’Loughlin said. “When the Democrats were in charge and we had a Democratic legislature, we had support. And then once the Republicans moved in, they started shifting where the money was gonna go.”

Karla Diener, an Apex resident who attended North Carolina public schools and was also a public school parent, urged the legislature to “stop pulling public tax dollars off for private education.”

She said she was angered by the North Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling reversing Leandro. “It’s against the constitution. I think it’s a political decision,” Diener said.

Her friend, Beth Bordeaux, said she knows families who have left North Carolina because they were unable to get adequate support for their children. She called on lawmakers to heed educators’ concerns.

“School systems across the state were closing because so many teachers were trying to be here, so that’s a message,” Bordeaux said. “They need to listen. We are the voters.”

Jeff Junio, who has taught middle school math for more than two decades and now teaches physical education, said he hopes lawmakers pass meaningful raises for veteran teachers.

The turnout gave Junio “chills,” he said. “Hopefully they get the picture of how many voters are actually standing right in front of them.”

Click below for full size images from the “Kids over Corporations” rally photo gallery

Several thousand teachers and allies rallied for higher pay, more school funding on Halifax Mall in Raleigh, May 1, 2026. (Photo: Laura Leslie/NC Newsline)

Thousands of North Carolina educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.  (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Thousands of North Carolina educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.  (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Marie Delgado (left) is a special education and preschool teacher from Guilford County. She’s a constituent of Senate Leader Phil Berger. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Tennille Sims (pictured second from the left) has spent the last three years working as a special education teacher in Wake County Public Schools. Her position was among those eliminated because of recent budget cuts. She attended the Friday rally to advocate for her students. 

Veteran Mecklenburg County educator Justin Parmenter points to the loss of master’s pay and longevity pay as one reason dedicated teachers feel their expertise is being discounted. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

This Guilford County teacher had a message for Senate Leader Phil Berger. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Marie Delgado works with students with autism, developmental delays and other health issues.  She said the lack of a state budget has left her program without needed funding. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline) 

Thousands of North Carolina educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.  (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Thousands of North Carolina educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.  (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Teachers and parents say the reduction in education funding is hurting future generations of North Carolinians. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Thousands of North Carolina educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.  (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page, the primary challenger who defeated Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), came to Raleigh for educators’ May Day rally to better understand the funding issues they are struggling with. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

North Carollina educators and their supporters took aim at voucher programs and other policies for taking funding that they said belongs to public schools at a May 1, 2026 protest in Raleigh. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

Karla Diener, left, and Beth Bordeaux hold signs demanding support for North Carolina public schools at a May 1, 2026 rally in Halifax Mall. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

A crowd of public educators, families, and supporters marches along Wilmington Street on May 1, 2026. Behind them, cranes rise at the site of Raleigh’s forthcoming North Carolina Education Campus. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

Marchers stream past the North Carolina Legislative Building on May 1, 2026, demanding a budget that better funds North Carolina public schools and raises teacher pay. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

Protesters fill Morgan Street on May 1, 2026 as they march for teacher pay and public school funding. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

New Hanover County Schools custodian Daniel Webb told the crowd in Halifax Mall on May 1, 2026 that he’s tired of “seeing more band-aids than bricks” when he comes into school. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

Thousands of North Carolina educators, advocates and allies converged on Raleigh Friday, demanding higher pay for teachers, more state support per student, more childcare funding, and more funding for special education.  (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)

A state Senate committee advanced a bill Thursday that would limit the fees hospitals can charge Medicaid for outpatient care.

House Bill 727 would prevent hospitals tacking extra fees, called facility fees, to Medicaid bills when patients are treated outside some hospital settings. 

To charge a facility fee under the bill, hospital systems will have to have treated patients in a main hospital or nearby building, a building with an emergency department, or an ambulatory surgical center. 

Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Harnett) said this week that for years now, hospitals have been adding the fees to bills for outpatient office visits.

This is one of several bills legislators have promised to consider this year as they look to control rising Medicaid costs. 

“This is a step toward trying to address fees, and especially facility fees, that are charged at facilities that have either been purchased or that are away from campus,” Burgin told members of the Senate Health Care Committee this week. 

The proposal is a narrower version of a provision included in a sweeping bill the Senate passed last year aimed at reducing healthcare costs. The Senate initially wanted to curb facility fees for other kinds of insurance, in addition to Medicaid. The state House did not consider that Senate bill.

Hospitals have objected to proposed facility fee limits. Josh Dobson, CEO of the North Carolina Healthcare Association — a group that represents hospitals — told legislators in March that facility fees help pay for medical staff, equipment, and supplies in hospitals and hospital-owned clinics, NC Newsline reported.

NC legislators question hospital fees charged for outpatient care

The Senate Health Care Committee also approved House Bill 390, which would allow the state’s Medicaid managed care companies to ask hospitals for itemized bills when a patient’s inpatient Medicaid charges top $250,000, or in some cases where a patient’s treatment costs more than expected. 

Managed care plans can already ask for itemized hospital bills for charges over $250,000, according to the state’s guide for managed care billing. The bill the Senate committee endorsed Thursday would allow the managed care companies to ask for detailed hospital bills for unusually high charges even when that $250,000 threshold isn’t reached. 

Sen. Benton Sawrey (R-Johnston) said the proposals are aimed at controlling costs and providing more transparency “so we have more information about what is, in fact, driving the costs.”

With the state looking at paying an additional $1 billion for Medicaid in the next budget year, it’s fair to ask why costs are going up, Sawrey said.

President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to capitalize on a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakening the federal Voting Rights Act as he urged one governor to gerrymander his state and praised another for suspending an approaching primary.

The court’s decision on Wednesday struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as unconstitutional and empowered other Republican states to break apart districts where most residents are Black for a partisan advantage.

The opinion could reinvigorate Trump’s push for states to redraw their maps to give Republicans an edge in the November midterm elections. The president’s party typically performs poorly in the midterms and Trump’s approval has fallen in polls, making Democrats hopeful they can retake the U.S. House.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and state Attorney General Liz Murrill announced on Thursday that the state’s congressional primary election, set for mid-May, would be suspended. The pause gives state lawmakers time to draw a new map aimed at ousting at least one, if not two, Black Democrats.

Trump thanked Landry on his social media platform, Truth Social, for “moving so quickly to fix the Unconstitutionality” of the state’s map. In a separate post, Trump wrote that he had spoken with Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who faces calls to immediately gerrymander the state.

“I had a very good conversation with Governor Bill Lee, of Tennessee, this morning, wherein he stated that he would work hard to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee,” Trump wrote.

A spokesperson for Lee didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The redistricting rush 

Historically, states draw new maps once a decade after each census but eight states have now broken that norm after Trump urged Republicans to gerrymander. 

Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah have drawn fresh GOP-leaning maps, as well as Florida, whose legislature approved a gerrymander hours after the Supreme Court’s decision. California and Virginia have enacted new maps favorable to Democrats. 

Before Wednesday, the redistricting war was essentially a wash. But the court’s decision gives Republicans more options to gain the upper hand this year, if states can move quickly. 

Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee are among the red states with upcoming primaries where lawmakers could theoretically still act. In some states — like Georgia and Tennessee — top Republicans haven’t ruled out action. In others, like Alabama and Georgia, GOP leaders have ruled out or played down the possibility of action this year.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, urged states to gerrymander their maps before the midterm elections.

“I think all states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully and I think they should do it before the midterms,” Johnson told CNN on Thursday. 

Dems also talk gerrymandering

Democrats have also floated the possibility of additional gerrymanders — whether this year or ahead of the 2028 election. 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on social media after the court’s decision that she would work with the legislature to change the state’s redistricting process. New York currently uses a commission system to draw maps, limiting opportunities for partisan gerrymandering.

At a news conference hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus on Wednesday, Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, suggested she would support additional Democratic gerrymanders.

“It values partisan politics over discrimination,” Sewell said of the court’s decision. “It’s really, really, really — I mean, it takes us back. So to the extent it’s urging, it’s inviting red states to totally take away all of the Democratic seats and be totally red, it also encourages blue states to do exactly the same.”

The manufacturer of the EpiPen is paying North Carolina $11 million after N.C. Attorney General Jeff Jackson accused the company of overcharging the state and its residents.

Jackson said in a press conference Thursday afternoon that Mylan Inc., which produces the injector that treats life-threatening allergic reactions, has been systematically overcharging the state, raising the price of EpiPens from $100 to $600 between 2009 and 2016.

“We have evidence that they were engaged in a number of anticompetitive practices that allowed them to raise the price of this,” he said. “They put financial pressure on the middlemen who decide what drugs insurance companies cover and what drugs they don’t cover.”

He said Mylan also used the patent system to block cheaper generic drugs from entering the market, and made “misleading claims” in marketing campaigns about generics that already had made it to market.

The EpiPen’s inflated prices inflicted significant additional costs on the State Health Plan and the state’s Medicaid program, Jackson said. Each will receive $4.2 million under the settlement, while the remaining $2.6 million will cover restitution to the state and attorney’s fees.

Mylan also agreed to raise its co-pay coupon for the authorized generic version of the EpiPen from $25 to $40 for North Carolina consumers.

Jackson was joined Thursday by state Treasurer Brad Briner, whose office oversees the State Health Plan, in a rare show of bipartisan unity in North Carolina’s executive branch. He praised Jackson for helping to get justice for the state’s taxpayers.

As Jeff Jackson battles Trump, NC GOP threatens to leave him with a ‘feckless, empty shell’ of a job

“As someone who carries an EpiPen and someone who has a child who carries an EpiPen, this particularly hits close to home for me,” Briner said. “We obviously sit on different sides of the aisle, we obviously don’t agree on everything, but we certainly agree on this.”

Briner said it is “a pleasure to share actually positive news about the State Health Plan,” which has struggled to respond to the rising costs of healthcare. “It’s not something we get to do every day.”

“$4.2 million of this settlement comes to the State Health Plan, and that’s just simply money that we don’t have to ask our hardworking state employees for, it’s money we don’t have to ask our taxpayers for, and so we are very grateful for that,” he said.

Mylan denied any wrongdoing, according to the settlement, but indicated that it wished to avoid “the delay, inconvenience, and expense of protracted litigation.” The company previously settled a 2022 class action lawsuit over its practices relating to the EpiPen, awarding consumers and insurers $264 million nationwide.

The agreement comes just over a year after Jackson’s office helped reach a separate settlement with Mylan, netting the state up to $9 million as part of a $335 million nationwide lawsuit over the company’s role in the opioid epidemic.

Jackson said that his office continues to litigate against a large number of prescription drug manufacturers over alleged price fixing.

“This is a very important message to send to prescription drug manufacturers everywhere,” Jackson said. “If we have good evidence that you’ve broken the law, we’re going to hold you accountable.”

Gov. Josh Stein signed a bill Thursday approving $319 million in Medicaid funding, ending months of uncertainty over the program’s future. 

More than 3 million North Carolinians rely on Medicaid for healthcare. Without a state budget, N.C. Health and Human Services Secretary Dev Sangvai warned the program would run out of money by the end of May. 

Stein urged state lawmakers to supply adequate recurring funding next year to keep the program stable. 

“For months, the status of Medicaid in North Carolina has been in unnecessary jeopardy,” Stein said before signing the document. “I’m relieved to say that the bill that I will be signing will provide certainty and care that the people and the providers of this state need and deserve.”

House and Senate lawmakers voted nearly unanimously to pass House Bill 696, “Medicaid & HHS Adjust./Other Critical Needs,” earlier this week.

Three Democrats in each chamber voted against it, saying it would deny Medicaid coverage to 27,000 pregnant women and their children due to their immigration status. The group includes victims of human trafficking, green card holders, refugees and other immigrants with legal status, as well as undocumented immigrants who are pregnant or who have recently given birth.

Stein said he was concerned with that part of the bill, but noted the urgency of funding the program before it runs out of money.

“Depriving these vulnerable women and children healthcare converge is wrong,” Stein said. “Fortunately, based on conversations we’ve had, I believe that it is the General Assembly’s intention to fix this.”

But that’s not the only provision in the bailout bill causing concern. H696 also creates new copays for Medicaid at the maximum amount allowable by federal law.

A coalition of 14 nonpartisan organizations representing patients with serious and chronic health conditions, including the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, urged policymakers to reconsider the copay amounts.

“Research has shown that even low levels of cost-sharing and copayments deter patients from seeking care,” the coalition said in its statement. 

H696 also includes some of the nation’s most restrictive requirements for eligibility. Federal law requires a minimum one-month lookback period, which is the timeframe for checking work-requirement eligibility for benefits like Medicaid. But H696 requires Medicaid to verify three months of work eligibility before applicants receive approval. 

“There may be people who are eligible for Medicaid that are denied benefits because of this longer lookback,” Stein said.

Looking ahead, the program has a $1 billion rebase, or increase in costs, for the upcoming fiscal year, according to Sen. Benton Sawrey (R-Johnston), co-chair of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Medicaid. That’s larger than the expected surplus in the state budget. 

With rising prices, Sawrey said Medicaid costs have increased by more than 90% over the past five years in North Carolina. 

“House Bill 696 takes important first steps in giving our Medicaid partners important tools in order to manage that cost,” Sawrey said. “I’m proud of the work that we did to get this across the finish line, but I don’t have any illusions that this is the current solution that’s going to fix everything going forward.”

North Carolina General Assembly gives final approval to $319M in Medicaid funding

Josh Dobson, president and CEO of the North Carolina Health Association, said the law provides relief for providers in addition to patients. The funding supports the providers and teams who make healthcare possible.

Healthcare workers are stepping up while managing workforce challenges and significant financial pressure, he said. 

“Through all of that, they continue to deliver high quality care in every single corner of North Carolina,” Dobson said. “They stayed engaged, worked in good faith and helped move forward an approach that supports patients while strengthening the system for the long term.

The law also contains measures to target waste and abuse in Medicaid. The House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform grilled Sangvai and Attorney General Jeff Jackson earlier this month over allegations of fraud. 

Some critics said the measure moved jurisdiction over fraud away from the attorney general to the state auditor’s office, but bill sponsors said that’s not the case. 

Sangvai lauded the push for agencies to work together to identify and address cases of waste and abuse.

“One of the other opportunities that’s come out of this process is collaboration in the state,” he said. 

Stein isn’t worried about the potential power shift, he said, since the attorney general — a position he previously held — partners with the governor’s office against Medicaid fraud. 

“The government is really focused on it, because we want every healthcare dollar to go to make someone healthy,” he said.

Buncombe Rep. Eric Ager says his new bill, titled “The Affordable Food Act,” was inspired by a problem that is being felt in every county of the state: rising food and grocery prices.

“Wages have just not kept up with the cost of basic necessities,” said Ager. “The same basket of groceries – cost goes up, same paycheck stretches less.”

Beyond the affordability crisis, Ager says far too many families are unable to purchase fresh food.

House Bill 1057 would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to request a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) authorizing the state to operate a nutrition incentive program that would help families buy more fresh fruits and vegetables.

Ager says the bill would also address the state’s food deserts, where residents live miles away from a full-service grocery store.

“Where transportation is limited, convenience stores become the default food system,” said Ager. “Families should have access to real food, not just whatever you can find on a convenience store shelf.”

USDA data finds 11 food deserts in Buncombe County. Ager said that’s about 23,000 residents in his own district who are unable to routinely access fresh, healthy foods.

H1057 supports mobile markets, food banks, nonprofits, local governments, and food co-ops willing to serve underserved areas.

“The grant program in this bill would help us bring food to the communities that need it most,” explained Ager.

Rep. Ray Jeffers, a Person County farmer, said the legislation will also create a farmer stabilization program within the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to purchase food products grown or processed in North Carolina for distribution to public and nonprofit food assistance programs.

Jeffers says historically underserved producers and those operating small and mid-sized farms are more likely to stay in agriculture if they have reliable buyers.

NC is losing 100,000 acres of farmland annually. Troxler seeks lawmakers’ help to stem the tide

The bill also earmarks $47 million in recurring funds for farmland preservation. North Carolina is losing 100,000 acres of farmland and forest land a year.

“Preserving working farms is not just about rural nostalgia. It is about our food supply, our rural economies, our family farmers, and our state’s long-term resilience,” said Jeffers.

Rep. Garland Pierce (D-Scotland) signed onto the bill this week because a significant portion of his district covers Fort Bragg.

The proposed Targeted Military and Veteran Food Assistance Program in H1057 would provide $140 million in recurring funds to address food insecurity among members of the military, veterans, and military families.

“No one who served this country should struggle to feed their family,” said Pierce.

In 2023, one in five military and veteran family families indicated some level of food insecurity, according to a study conducted for the Military Family Advisory Network.

Pierce said this was not charity, but an obligation the state owes to its military men and women.

“We ask their families to endure deployments, uncertainties, and sacrifice,” said Pierce. “The least we can do is to make sure these same families are not left behind wondering how they will be able to feed their families.”

One notable final section of the bill that would benefit consumers would prohibit retail grocery stores from using dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing allows electronic price tags in stores to change based on demand, the time of day, and other market conditions.

Ager said while electronic shelf labels may be more efficient for retailers, the real-time pricing makes it harder for consumers to plan, compare, and budget.

“Families should not have to wonder whether the price of milk, eggs, bread or baby formula will change while they are walking through the store,” said Ager. “Grocery shopping is not a stock exchange.”

Earlier this month, Maryland became the first state in the nation to ban the practice of dynamic pricing, which includes consumers’ personal data to set prices for goods or services.

Ager acknowledged the comprehensive legislation comes with a fairly large fiscal note, but he’s hopeful to work across the aisle as the state budget is crafted.

“We do spend lots of money down here in Raleigh,” Ager pointed out. “And to us, we ought to focus on the people, the farmers and the veterans who are the ones really needing help in this day and age.”

A quarter of immigration arrests since August were labeled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as “collateral,” a type of arrest and detention that’s been challenged in court as an end run around civil rights.

Public outrage and lawsuits over the arrests may be tamping down the large-scale sweeps that foster them, but tens of thousands were arrested this way between August and early March.

Immigration arrests are usually based on warrants obtained ahead of time, showing either a removal order from immigration court or evidence of a crime or charge that makes the person subject to deportation.

But collateral arrests can result from street sweeps and raids in which a person is singled out for questioning based on appearance or proximity to someone wanted on a warrant. That person could be taken into custody if agents think they may be subject to deportation and also likely to flee if released.

Labeled for the first time ever, the collateral arrests are reported from August to early March in ICE arrest data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by Stateline. In that time there were about 64,000 collateral arrests, a quarter of the 253,000 total arrests by ICE.

About 70% of the collateral arrests were for people with immigration-related crimes or violations alone, compared with 41% for arrests with warrants. Less than 2% of those with collateral arrests were convicted of a violent crime, one-third the rate of other arrests, and only 18% were convicted of any crime, compared with 33% for other arrests.

The collateral arrests contributed to an overall pattern of lower and lower shares of arrests for serious crimes, and more for immigration offenses alone.

Arrests climbed from about 12,000 in January 2025 to more than 40,000 in December, but fell back to 30,000 this February. The share of people with only immigration-related crimes and violations rose to more than half in December and January, the peak months for collateral arrests, and the share of violent criminals fell from 10% to 4% of arrests in that time.

New policy

ICE announced a new policy in January to issue warrants in real time if agents think an immigrant is deportable and “likely to escape,” though that policy faces a court challenge.

Total arrests and collateral arrests have been falling since December, whether because of the new policy or because of cutbacks in the large-scale street sweeps that tend to produce them.

One factor is public outrage over raids sweeping up noncriminals in places like Minneapolis and Chicago, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

“The sort of large operations within big cities, as they were occurring, seems to have subsided somewhat,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “After the kind of public outcry following Minneapolis, it seems as though, at least for now, that tactic has kind of been paused.”

The Trump administration’s focus on mass deportation opened the way for more collateral street arrests with less investigation, she added.

“If it’s a more targeted arrest, they would take the time to sort of essentially have an investigation. It’s a pretty resource-intensive way that just would not yield the kind of numbers ICE was being told to produce,” she said.

The new policy was filed in court papers in February as a response to a lawsuit over ICE sweeps in the District of Columbia last year, alleging ICE agents “have flooded the streets of the nation’s capital, indiscriminately arresting without warrants and without probable cause District residents whom the agents perceive to be Latino.”

The case resulted in a preliminary injunction in December requiring a halt to warrantless arrests without establishing probable cause that the person is living here illegally and is a flight risk.

One plaintiff in the class-action case, José Escobar Molina, said in the lawsuit that agents in two cars pulled up to him as he approached his work truck on Aug. 21, grabbing him by the arms and legs and handcuffing him without asking any questions. Escobar, 47, said in the court papers that he’s lived in the district for 25 years and has had temporary protected status as a Salvadoran native the whole time. He was held overnight in Virginia before being released.

Other lawsuits are also challenging collateral arrests, such as an incident in Idaho in which agents with warrants for five people ended up arresting 105 immigrants at a Latino community event in October.

In North Carolina, four U.S. citizens and a visa holder sued in February, saying they were arrested in the Charlotte’s Web immigration crackdown in November without warrants, as is typical of collateral arrests.

“I have a lot of fear that this will happen to me again. I was essentially kidnapped based only on the color of my skin. That really weighs on me,” said Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, one of the citizens and a North Carolina native, in a statement announcing the lawsuit. He said he was doing landscaping work Nov. 15 when agents pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him, then held him in a car before releasing him.

One Illinois case that started in the first Trump administration challenged warrantless arrests and traffic stops used as a pretext for immigration arrests. A 2022 settlement required ICE to document “reasonable suspicion” of illegal status before arresting somebody. The case continues since a judge found in February that the new ICE policy of issuing warrants in real time after a detention violates the consent decree.

Shares of collateral arrests

In the months since August where collateral arrests are now labeled, the District of Columbia and Illinois stand out with high shares of collateral arrests. More than half the arrests in the district were collateral, as were 41% of those in Illinois. There were eight states in which at least 30% of arrests were collateral: Alabama, Maryland, West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota.

West Virginia, where there was a “statewide surge” of immigration enforcement in January with state and local cooperation, stands out for its high rate of total arrests as well as a large share of collateral arrests.

ICE labeled 1,300 arrests during Operation Metro Surge as ‘collateral’

For the eight months between August and early March, West Virginia had 1,831 arrests, or 1 in 10 of the state’s noncitizen population as of 2024, the latest data available. That’s by far the largest share in the country, followed by 7% in Wyoming (where truck drivers were targeted for immigration arrests in February) and 4% in Mississippi.

West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey, in a statement, cited the cooperation of state and local agencies with ICE through the 287(g) program that assists with immigration enforcement. He praised ICE, saying “they have removed dangerous illegal immigrants from our communities and made our state safer for families and law-abiding citizens.”

Few of those arrested in the surge were violent criminals, however. More than half of those arrested during the surge were collateral arrests, and only 1% — nine immigrants — had a violent crime conviction, according to the Stateline analysis. More than three-quarters, about 500 people, had only an immigration-related violation or crime.

Judges didn’t always agree that collateral arrests and detentions in the West Virginia surge were legal under the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, a Clinton appointee, ordered two detainees released in January. He noted that “similar seizures and detentions are occurring frequently across the country” without any evidence they’re necessary as required by the Constitution.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — State officials say they need more information from the Trump administration before they can fully implement new requirements for Medicaid, according to a survey released Thursday by KFF and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law made several changes to the state-federal health program for lower income people and some people with disabilities, including that enrollees between the ages of 19 and 65 work, participate in community service, or attend an education program for at least 80 hours a month.

The survey of Medicaid program officials from 43 states showed the people tasked with implementing the law have questions about how exactly they should determine if someone meets the new requirements or is exempt. 

“In addition to how to define medical frailty, states wanted additional direction in many areas including what qualifies as community service, how to calculate half-time school attendance, and what is considered a ‘significant relationship’ to qualify for the caregiver exemption,” the report states. “They also indicated they need guidance about what sources can be used for verification, whether self-attestation will be allowed if other sources are not available, and how long verification of exemptions remain valid.”

The law includes several additional carve-outs, including for Medicaid enrollees who are pregnant, have dependent children, are tribal community members or are in the foster care system, and for individuals released from incarceration in the last 90 days, among others.

The vast majority of state officials surveyed said they would implement the new requirement for work, education, or community service at the start of next year.

There are, however, a few states moving forward earlier. 

Nebraska plans to begin May 1, Montana on July 1 and Iowa officials said they will begin this year, though they haven’t provided a date, KFF said. Arkansas has planned a “soft launch” for July but won’t actually remove anyone from Medicaid for not meeting the new requirements until next year, according to the report.

Hardship exemptions

The KFF-Georgetown survey says that nearly all states will allow hardship exemptions for people in counties with higher unemployment; those who recently experienced a natural disaster; those who have been admitted to a hospital or nursing facility; or those who need to travel outside their community for medical care.

Indiana and Iowa are the only two states so far that don’t intend to allow any hardship exceptions from the requirement that Medicaid enrollees work, attend community service, or enroll in an education program, the report said. 

“Oklahoma is not adopting the exceptions for residents of counties with high unemployment or with a declared natural disaster while Missouri is not adopting the exception for residents of counties with high unemployment,” the report says. “New York is not planning to adopt the exception for individuals traveling outside their community for medical care. Twelve states had not made a decision.”

Look-back periods vary

Thirty-six states will look back one month when someone applies for Medicaid to determine whether they’re working, participating in community service, or enrolled in an education program. Indiana and Idaho will look back at the last three months before the person applied to determine whether they meet the new requirement. 

Thirty-four states will look back one month during the renewal process, which must happen at least every six months under the law. 

“Indiana and New Hampshire will check quarterly and at renewal to verify that enrollees meet the requirements every month between renewals,” according to the report. “Arkansas will also look back three months at renewal but is not planning quarterly checks. States that had not made a decision at the time of the survey included five states for application, six states for renewal, and seven states for more frequent checks.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act sent Black Democrats in the U.S. House reeling on Wednesday, as they confronted a new reality where Republicans could gerrymander some of them out of office and limit the ability of Black voters to elect candidates in the future.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus vowed to fight the court’s decision. They demanded fresh votes on federal voting rights legislation that has languished for several years and urged voters to turn out in the November election.

But facing a Republican-controlled Congress for at least the rest of the year and a Republican White House for at least the next two-and-a-half years, the prospect of major new voting rights legislation becoming law appears slim in the near term.

“It will pave the way for the greatest reduction in representation for Black and minority voters since the years following Reconstruction,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, said of the court’s decision, referring to the post-Civil War period in the South.

Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 U.S. House seats nationally directly because of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to a projection by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters. 

As of Aug. 4, 2025, Congress included 61 Black members of the House, including two delegates, and five senators, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Racial gerrymander

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because it unnecessarily created a second district where a majority of residents are Black.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act had previously limited states from using maps that dilute the voting power of minority citizens. Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent that the decision would now allow states to dilute the voting power of minority voters without legal consequences.

Republicans welcomed the decision, with many saying race should play no role in redistricting. President Donald Trump, informed about the ruling by reporters and told that it would help Republicans, exclaimed, “I love it.”

Florida lawmakers approved a new map within hours of the opinion. The proposal, offered by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this week, seeks to secure four additional House seats for Republicans. DeSantis had invoked the court’s decision, even before it was released, to push lawmakers to pass the new map.

GOP candidates and officials in other states urged state lawmakers to move quickly to redraw maps, even with primary elections approaching. Even if only a small number of states enact fresh gerrymanders this year, the Supreme Court decision will likely trigger another, bigger wave of redistricting over the next two years ahead of the 2028 election.

“The Court rightly acknowledged that the South has made extraordinary progress, and that laws designed for a different era do not reflect the present reality,” Alabama Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.

Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement said the decision “restores fairness, strengthens confidence in our elections, and ensures every voter is treated equally under the law.”

The Supreme Court in 2019 allowed states to redraw maps for political advantage, ruling that federal courts would no longer adjudicate partisan gerrymandering cases. That previous decision, combined with Wednesday’s opinion, offers states a wide berth to draw maps that limit the voting power of minorities if they’re sold as politically necessary.

Bloody Sunday

Sewell represents a district that includes Selma, where the civil rights activist and future U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., along with other marchers, was beaten by state troopers in 1965 while walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an episode called Bloody Sunday. 

The beatings helped spur Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act later that year — the same law the Supreme Court weakened on Wednesday.

“The court just gave states permission to use partisan gerrymandering as a wholesale excuse to deny Black and minority voters a voice in our democracy,” Sewell said.

In Missouri, the Republican-controlled legislature earlier this year passed a map intended to oust Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who was Kansas City’s first Black mayor. The state Supreme Court is weighing a legal challenge that could keep the map from taking effect before the November election.

On Wednesday, Cleaver in a statement called the opinion “deeply disrespectful of the generations of African Americans and civil rights advocates who gave their freedom, their blood, and even their lives to make it possible.” 

Obama criticizes ruling

Former President Barack Obama condemned the decision as another example of how a majority of the current Supreme Court seems intent on “abandoning its vital role” in ensuring equal participation in American democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.

“The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome,” Obama said in a statement. “But that will only happen if citizens across the country who cherish our democratic ideals continue to mobilize and vote in record numbers – not just in the upcoming midterms or in high profile races, but in every election and every level.

Several Democrats said Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a Democratic-sponsored measure that seeks to restore preclearance — a requirement that states with a history of discrimination obtain federal approval before making voting changes. The Supreme Court effectively halted preclearance in 2013.

The House, under Democratic control, passed the legislation in 2021 but it stalled in the Senate. Democrats could likely pass the bill again if they retake the House in November but would face a likely filibuster again in the Senate. Even if they managed to pass the bill, Trump would be virtually certain to veto it.

Rep. Cleo Fields, a Louisiana Democrat whose district was ruled an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, sought to place the court’s decision in a broader, historical context. 

Looking ahead to midterms

Recalling Louisiana’s Jim Crow past, he said the state used to require individuals to recite the Constitution’s preamble before registering to vote.

“If you tell me I’ve got to jump a certain height, I could probably do that. Tell me I’ve got to run a certain distance, I could probably do that, too. But if you tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I can’t do nothing about that — I need some help from my government,” Fields said, adding that’s why Congress needs to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the Supreme Court’s conservative majority “illegitimate” and said the opinion was unacceptable but not unexpected. 

While acknowledging the decision represents a setback, America has an opportunity to mount a comeback in the upcoming election, he said.

Jeffries, who is set to become speaker if Democrats retake the House in November, said one of the chamber’s first actions would be to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

“So we can end the era of voter suppression in America once and for all,” Jeffries said.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report

More than a dozen teens stood with North Carolina lawmakers Wednesday to call for tighter restrictions on tobacco products. Nearly all said they knew friends or peers who had already started vaping in high school.

Advocating alongside Rep. Donnie Loftis (R-Gaston) and Rep. Grant Campbell (R-Cabarrus), the students urged the General Assembly to take up House Bill 430, a proposal to raise the age limit on tobacco products to 21 in line with federal law and require retailers to obtain a tobacco permit to sell them.

“I’m just wondering: are the adults paying attention?” asked Pranika Senthil, a Cabarrus County teen on the Tobacco 21 Coalition and Youth Council. “Young people aren’t just making careless choices. We’re being constantly exposed in ways that make these products feel harmless and easy to access, which means we really need adult help.”

The bill — also known as Solly’s Law in memory of 15-year-old Solomon Wynn, who died of complications related to vaping in 2021 — stalled in the House Rules committee soon after it was introduced last year, as did its counterpart in the Senate.

Teens press NC lawmakers to raise the age for tobacco, vape products to 21

Loftis, one of the bill’s lead sponsors in the House, tied teen vaping and other tobacco use to more dangerous drugs and violent altercations. He cited a fatal stabbing in Winston-Salem last December during a fight between two teenagers over a vape pen. Later that month in Iredell County, two teenagers were shot during an attempted armed robbery of vape pens containing the hallucinogen THC.

“We’ve now progressed from just a simple vaping issue among teenagers. This is a deadly game among young people,” Loftis said. “It is way past time for this bill to be moved into the committee process so that North Carolina can feel good about protecting these young teenagers.”

Loftis pointed to a North Carolina Department of Revenue report from January that found retailers selling 24,773 vape and other tobacco products that cannot be legally sold in the state because they do not appear on the state’s approved product directory.

In addition, he said, North Carolina law enforcement agencies have observed vape shops and tobacco retailers “increasingly serving as distribution hubs for illegal, dangerous drugs,” such as the powerful stimulant known as khat and the opioid tianeptine.

“Vape shops are serving as distribution points for substances far more dangerous than generic vaping products,” Loftis said.

North Carolina is one of six states that has thus far declined to raise its minimum age for tobacco sales following the new federal age limit of 21 set in December 2019. It is one of eight states that does not require tobacco retailers to be licensed.

These policy decisions pose significant hurdles for law enforcement even when stores are carrying illegal products, said North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement Director Bryan House.

“We don’t have information of where these businesses are, other than making observations or receiving complaints,” House said. “There is no body that has any administrative control or sanctioning authority against these businesses.”

Amid growing complaints about rising local property taxes, Senate Leader Phil Berger has filed a bill to stop local governments from instituting property tax revaluation changes in 2026. 

All proposed property value adjustments would be put on hold until 2027 under Senate Bill 889. Berger (R-Rockingham) said the pause would give the General Assembly time to consider options for property tax reform. 

“Residents across North Carolina are seeing their property values skyrocket after revaluations, and it’s imperative that the General Assembly take a thoughtful approach to address property tax concerns,” Berger said in a statement. “This approach gives residents some certainty on their tax bills while allowing policymakers ample time to put forward proposals to rein in property tax increases.”

Berger has created a committee of Republican senators to study property tax issues. The group plans to discuss reform policies during the short session.

If approved, the moratorium would apply to the 12 North Carolina counties conducting revaluations this year. Those counties are Anson, Bladen, Buncombe, Chowan, Clay, Davidson, Guilford, Harnett, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender and Scotland.

“Our citizens are significantly … burdened with taxes and property tax bills,” said Sen. Steve Jarvis (R-Davidson), a primary sponsor of S889 and a member of the Senate’s property tax working group.

“I think this is a way to … give us time to look at the tax structure of property tax,” Jarvis said.

Jarvis’ comments came during the proposal’s first hearing in the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday. He said the moratorium would not prohibit local governments from increasing tax rates. Counties use revaluations conducted this year in 2027, Jarvis said. The revaluation appeal process would also be extended to 2027, he said.

Sen. Michael Lazzara (R-Onslow) advised taxpayers to file appeals promptly anyway.

“We would encourage anyone that received a notification, if they are appealing, to go ahead and move forward with those appeals and not wait until that 12-month period,” Lazzara said. 

Sen. Dan Blue (D-Wake) asked Jarvis if he thought the moratorium would “mute” ongoing discussions about property taxes in the House.

Jarvis responded, “I believe it gives us time and a pause to be able to go into detail and get something done that we need to get done in property tax, and not make a hasty decision that we will regret later.” 

NC House committee backs constitutional amendment to limit rise in property taxes

House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) also created a House committee to study tax reform. Hall is backing a proposal to change the North Carolina constitution to give the state legislature the authority to limit local property tax increases. 

Some Democrats and local government advocacy groups have criticized the proposal, contending it will force local governments to cut services.

Sen. Brent Jackson (R-Sampson) represents two of the 12 counties conducting revaluations this year. He said county leaders would welcome a moratorium to give them more time to ensure revaluations are accurate.

Jackson also serves on the Senate’s property tax committee. He said state lawmakers need more time to make sure that whatever proposal is adopted is right for taxpayers.

“This is a complicated issue when it comes to the counties,” Jackson said. “We don’t want to unintentionally do harm when we’re trying to help.”

The bill passed Senate Finance and goes next to the Senate Rules Committee.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised Wednesday to uphold the Trump administration’s efforts to end temporary legal protections for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. 

The decision could also affect several other lawsuits related to what is known as Temporary Protected Status that are pending in lower courts. The suits challenge the Trump administration’s procedures to terminate country protections, which have sharply raised deportation risks for more than 1 million immigrants. 

So far, the Trump administration has ended TPS destinations for 13 countries, out of 17 that were active at the start of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said that federal courts, under the law, cannot review the executive branch’s decision to end or extend a TPS designation.

“They challenge the very kind of foreign policy-laden judgments that are traditionally entrusted to the political branches,” Sauer said of TPS recipients who are suing to remain in the United States. 

But two lawyers, Ahilan Arulanantham, representing Syrians, and Geoffrey Pipoly, representing Haitians, argued that their clients could challenge a lack of proper procedure that then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem took in ending those TPS designations. 

That would include not undertaking a review of country conditions before making a determination, the lawyers said.

Most of the questioning came from the three liberal justices, who grilled Sauer and pressed him on Trump’s racist remarks disparaging Haitians.

The conservative justices, who hold a 6-3 majority, asked Sauer only a handful of questions, and seemed skeptical of Arulanantham and Pipoly’s argument, signaling that they may already agree with the Trump administration’s position that the courts cannot review TPS terminations. 

A decision is not expected until June or early July. Both cases would go back to the lower courts to continue on the merits argument. 

But if the Supreme Court agrees with the Trump administration, then TPS holders from Haiti and Syria could be subject to deportation. 

The effort to end TPS designation is part of President Donald Trump’s broader effort to curtail immigration and strip legal status for people, creating thousands of newly unauthorized immigrants in order to subject them to his mass deportation drive.

How TPS works

TPS is a humanitarian program that Congress created in 1990 to allow for temporary protections for nationals who hail from countries deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, disasters or other extreme circumstances. 

TPS holders must go through vetting to be approved for work permits and legal protections. Each renewal lasts from six to 12 to 18 months. 

Those determinations are up to the Department of Homeland Security secretary, who typically consults with the State Department to evaluate country conditions and determine if the status needs to be extended. Decisions would depend upon whether conditions are still unsafe for a migrant’s return.

Sauer argued that the courts cannot review that final decision, including procedural ones that lead up to it. 

Arulanantham contended that position is a “double edged sword.” Another administration could easily come in and a new DHS secretary could theoretically use TPS to give legal status to immigrants in the country unlawfully, and that decision would not be subject to review by the courts, Arulanantham said.

The TPS holders before the Supreme Court argue that Noem did not consult with the appropriate agencies, such as the State Department, before deciding to end TPS designation. They say she did not follow proper procedure — but they are not challenging that a decision to terminate a country can be reviewed. 

Arulanantham said with Syria, if Noem had reviewed the State Department’s report, which advises people not to travel to the country because of armed conflict, and still decided against renewing protections, that decision is not reviewable. 

“What is reviewable is whether she actually asks anything and gets any information about country conditions,” he said. 

Sauer said that legal argument was “meritless,” because the TPS “statute does not micromanage the degree of consultation with other agencies.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed Arulanantham why a challenge to the review of how a TPS termination is ended would even matter.

“If it’s just kind of a box-checking exercise, I mean, why would Congress permit review of the procedural aspect, when really what everybody cares about much more is the substance?” she asked.

Arulanantham said it’s “because Congress … and the millions of people who live with TPS, have some faith in government, and they believe that if there is consultation, the decisions will be better.”

He said, “Our view is that even if it comes back like a box-checking exercise, people will at least know that somebody talked to somebody else.”

Trump ‘racial animus’ cited

Pipoly argued that the ending of TPS for Haiti was based on racial animosity toward Haitians, pointing to the president’s own words where he referred to the Caribbean island as a “shithole.” 

“The true reason for the termination is the president’s racial animus towards non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular,” he said. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Sauer about those comments from Trump. 

“We have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a ‘filthy, dirty and disgusting s-hole country,’ I’m quoting him, and where he complained that the United States takes people from such countries, instead of people from Norway, Sweden or Denmark,” she said. “I don’t see how that one statement is not a prime example of … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision.”

Sauer argued that none of those statements “mentions race or relates to race,” and instead the president was referring to “problems like crime, poverty, welfare dependence.”

In the lower court that blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS for Haiti, federal Judge Ana Reyes found that there was racial animosity in the government’s decision to end the humanitarian protections. 

This is not the first time Trump has tried to end TPS for Haiti — he did so in his first administration in 2018, but was blocked by the courts.

Haitian workers in the US

The day before Wednesday’s oral arguments, a handful of Democratic lawmakers gathered with domestic care advocates outside the U.S. Capitol to stress the importance of TPS workers. More than 20,000 Haitians work in healthcare, according to the immigration advocacy group FWD.us.

“At this moment, over 1 million people are at risk of being removed from their homes, separated from their families, having their lives uprooted because of Trump’s cruel and unlawful attempt to terminate their temporary protected status,” Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley said during the Tuesday press conference. 

Pressley said that thousands of TPS holders serve as essential workers, including one recipient from Haiti who took care of the congresswoman’s mother, who died from cancer.

“It was Haitian nurses who prayed over my mother, who sang songs to my mother, who oiled her scalp lovingly and braided her hair,” Pressley said. “Everyone who calls this country home benefits from TPS, and stands to be harmed by this termination.”

Pressley has led the bipartisan push in the House to approve a measure that would extend TPS for Haiti up to three years. 

Ten Republicans, including one independent who caucuses with the GOP, joined Democrats in approving the bill earlier this month. 

While it passed in the House, the legislation would need 60 votes in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. Additionally, if Congress managed to pass the bill, it would likely be rejected by Trump. 

“We are demanding the Supreme Court uphold the law, save lives and protect our communities,” Pressley said. “To send vulnerable families to countries like Haiti, Venezuela and Syria that are enduring horrific humanitarian crises is unconscionable, shameful, unlawful and preventable.”

The North Carolina General Assembly voted Wednesday to advance a bill making changes to several local laws after removing a controversial section that would’ve allowed one county to seize property from others.

Senate Bill 214, or “Various Local Provisions VII,” previously contained a segment permitting Franklin County to claim property in Halifax, Vance or Warren counties “without the consent or approval” of the other county’s local government. 

Democratic House lawmakers and local leaders sharply criticized the bill on Tuesday, saying no jurisdiction should have that power.

Republican leaders in both chambers withdrew the measure from their calendars Tuesday afternoon and sent it back to conference committee to be revised. The House and Senate voted Wednesday on a new version that did not include the eminent domain provision. 

NC House Democrats blast cross-county eminent domain provision in controversial bill

Rep. Rodney Pierce (D-Halifax) was one of the most vocal critics of the provision. He was gratified that it was removed from the final version of the bill. 

“For one county to have the audacity to say that we’re going to come to the state legislature to get the power to condemn or acquire your property without the consent of your elected county officials is absurd,” Pierce told NC Newsline on Wednesday. 

The House voted 74-39 to tentatively approve S214, and will take a final vote next Wednesday. The Senate tentatively approved it 44-0, with final approval expected Thursday.

House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) said the provision’s removal shifts the responsibility for a solution to local leaders. 

“The local folks were still negotiating those issues, and so ultimately, we felt like it’d be better to give them a chance to resolve it amongst themselves,” Hall said. 

Removing the eminent domain provision allows the other local changes in the bill to move forward, said Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash).

“We think that it’s appropriate to get a timely response to the local communities that are involved,” Chesser said.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families stressed to North Carolina legislators the importance of helping the thousands of people waiting for assistance through Medicaid. 

More than 20,000 people were waiting for what’s called a Medicaid Innovations Waiver at the end of last year, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. That’s up from about 18,500 in mid-2024. 

Speakers emphasized their reliance on the waiver, which pays for the direct care workers who help them live independently. 

Kay McMillan, 31, graduated from N.C. State University, runs a small nonprofit, and lives in a townhouse with roommates. She uses a wheelchair and made a statement at a Wednesday news conference using a computer program. 

“Medicaid does not just support my life. It makes my life possible,” she said. “Without it, I do not just lose modest services. I lose my independence, and you would be sentencing me to a nursing home where I could not continue to contribute to my community and continue to reach my potential.”

Kay’s mother, Sandy McMillan, said she’d do anything to help her daughter. 

“But I cannot be her entire system of support,” Sandy McMillan said. “Medicaid cuts would force family members to become full-time care givers. And while our love is infinite, our bodies are not.”

People sit on the list for years, and some die waiting to move to the top. 

Disabled people are moving out of institutions, but the waiting list for services keeps growing

Some who make it off the waiting list find it hard to secure the help they need because there’s a shortage of direct support workers.

Rep. Zack Hawkins (D-Durham), who helps lead the legislature’s Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Caucus, said he will reintroduce a bill aimed at cutting the waiting list and increasing pay for direct support workers to between $18 and $22 an hour “to ensure that everyone has access once they get a waiver slot.”

Michelle McWilliams has been Kay McMillan’s direct care worker for eight years. McWilliams said she makes $19 an hour. 

At a forum Wednesday morning, Dr. Kate Westmoreland, medical director of the UNC Down Syndrome Clinic, told legislators of families who are paying thousands of dollars a year out of pocket for special formula or medical supplies, items the Medicaid waiver would cover. 

“There’s a quiet crisis happening to families who are doing everything, working hard, paying for private insurance, trying to stay afloat,” she said, and they’re still slipping through the cracks as they wait for an Innovations Waiver.

“Waiting looks like a single mother, a school teacher, spending $10,000 every year on medical nutrition just so her 3-year-old can grow,” Westmoreland said. “Waiting looks like a truck driver father whose 2-year-old daughter is learning to walk but who cannot afford the ankle braces to give her the support she needs to take her first steps because they cost $1,500 out of pocket.”

Westmoreland asked legislators to end the waiting list for children, or to make them eligible for basic Medicaid once they’ve been approved to receive services through the Innovations Waiver. 

People who have waivers do not have to meet income requirements for basic Medicaid. 

The legislature used federal money to add waiver slots during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Talley Wells, executive director of the NC Council on Developmental Disabilities. But that extra money is no longer available.

Gov. Josh Stein included funding for 200 additional waiver slots in his proposed 2026-2027 budget, at a cost to the state of about $9.4 million. 

Meantime, Republican legislators are looking for ways to reduce Medicaid costs. 

Neither the House nor the Senate included additional waiver slots in their proposed budgets. The legislature did not pass a budget last year.

North Carolina lawmakers moved Wednesday to drop a testing requirement for students entering teacher training programs as schools struggle to keep teachers in the classroom.

Senate Bill 840 removes a requirement that students pass a basic skills exam — known as the Praxis Core — before entering an Educator Preparation Program, or EPP.

The move comes as lawmakers look for ways to expand the teacher pipeline. The state’s attrition rate was 10.11% in 2024–25, a slight increase from the year before, according to the N.C. Dept. of Public Instruction.

Sen. Tom McInnis (R-Moore), the primary sponsor of the bill, called the test a “front-end barrier.”

“This bill removes the testing requirement for admission into an educator preparation program,” he said. “The goal is simple: do not block a potential teacher before they start training.”

“It only proves you’re a good test taker,” he added.

Supporters say the test discourages people from entering the profession at a time when schools face ongoing shortages.

The bill also changes licensing rules. It removes a requirement that new teachers try to pass licensure exams in their first year and makes it easier for out-of-state teachers to get licensed.

Lawmakers approved an amendment that ties licensure to classroom results.

Under the change, teachers with a limited license could earn a continuing license without passing exams if their students show positive growth for two out of three years.

McInnis also argued that a teacher who struggles with a test is still better than a long-term substitute.

“There is no excuse to have a permanent sub in any classroom in North Carolina whose only qualification is to have a heartbeat in their chest,” he said.

Education leaders said ahead of Tuesday’s meeting that the test is costly and does not predict classroom performance.

Ann Bullock, chair of the Professional Educator Preparation and Standards Commission, said there is no link between the test and student outcomes.

“I’m very positive about the elimination of the test … because there’s no data that shows that they make any difference once teachers get in the classroom,” said Bullock, who also serves as the dean of education at Elon University.

Heather Bower, the Education Department chair and North Carolina Teaching Fellows director at Meredith College, said the cost of testing could be a hurdle for some.

“They’re already paying tuition,” Bower said. “And before they graduate, they have to take at least two more tests.”

She said the requirement may discourage students from entering the field.

“What worries me is students who look at this from the outside and say, ‘You know what, I’m not even going to start down this path,’” Bower said.

A spokesperson for ETS, the nonprofit that makes the Praxis exams, pushed back in a statement to NC Newsline.

The company said the Praxis Core was not designed to predict classroom performance or student achievement.

“Rather, it is designed to assess foundational reading, writing and math skills.”

State report shows North Carolina teacher attrition ticked up slightly in 2025

ETS also defended the cost, saying it offers fee waivers for some candidates, including those who meet federal financial aid criteria. Eligible test-takers can receive waivers for up to three exams, the spokesperson said. The company also offers free retakes for candidates who fail the same test three times.

Sen. Michael Lee (R-New Hanover), a co-chair of the committee, expressed support for the bill while noting that testing companies are already rethinking how they assess future teachers.

“A lot of the nonprofit testing companies are reforming how they assess candidates,” Lee said. “We’ve talked with them and will continue to look at what they come up with.”

The Senate Education/Higher Education Committee approved Senate Bill 840. It now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

North Carolina Democrats mourned Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling severely limiting the protections of the Voting Rights Act, while Republicans celebrated it as a much-needed constraint on judicial overreach.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais Wednesday morning significantly curtailed the Voting Rights Act, essentially limiting the landmark civil rights law to only prohibit maps drawn with the explicit intent of racially discriminating against voters.

The majority held that Section 2 of the act, which prohibits states from using maps that dilute minority groups’ voting power, requires plaintiffs be able to “disentangle” race from lawmakers’ race-neutral considerations so that a “strong inference” may be drawn that race was a factor.

In other words, it is not enough for a successful challenge to show that congressional maps have a racially discriminatory impact on voters — as long as lawmakers claim they drew the districts to maximize partisan gain, it is presumed to be legal unless there’s clear evidence they intended to discriminate on racial grounds.

US Supreme Court limits use of race in congressional district remaps, diluting Voting Rights Act

In practice, Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, that renders Section 2 “all but a dead letter,” imperiling districts that give minority citizens a “meaningful political voice,” particularly across the South.

“If other States follow Louisiana’s lead, the minority citizens residing there will no longer have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. And minority representation in government institutions will sharply decline,” Kagan wrote.

Voting rights groups Fair Fight Action and the Black Voters Matter Fund projected that the ruling could allow Republican legislatures to redraw 19 districts that were protected by the Voting Rights Act with the goal of flipping them to the GOP.

In North Carolina, the ruling means voters will have little recourse to challenge the state’s new mid-decade redistricting map, which Republican lawmakers drew in 2025 seeking to flip the seat held by Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) in the 1st Congressional District, encompassing much of the state’s historic Black Belt.

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request for an injunction against the map last November, finding no evidence of “discriminatory intent” by lawmakers. Advocates declined to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, stalling the challenge — in part because the Roberts Court has for years signaled that it favors a limited reading of the Voting Rights Act, rendering any appeal unlikely to succeed.

North Carolina Democrats characterized the decision as a shameful violation of the Constitution’s promise of equal representation.

Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.) called on Congress to “restore and strengthen” the Voting Rights Act in a statement Wednesday afternoon. She called the ruling “a deeply troubling step backward for American democracy and for the hard-won protections of the Voting Rights Act,” invoking Black organizers who “fought, bled, and organized” to ensure their votes counted.

“By narrowing the scope of Section 2, the Supreme Court has severely weakened one of the last meaningful safeguards against racially discriminatory gerrymandering, stripping away critical protections that prevent states from drawing unfair maps that dilute the voting power of communities of color,” she said.

Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) condemned the ruling as a “devastating blow to voting rights in this country” shortly after the decision’s release. “Today, the Supreme Court has effectively given Republican legislatures the green light to dilute the power of voters of color and eviscerate fair representation,” she said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters after the House session Wednesday afternoon, House Speaker Destin Hall said he does not anticipate any impact on North Carolina’s redistricting efforts from the ruling.

“It really was no longer a legal issue in North Carolina, so I don’t think it impacts anything that we’ve done,” he said. “I don’t anticipate us drawing any more maps this session.”

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, called the decision “a victory for the Constitution and the principle that every American citizen is equal under the law.”

“The Supreme Court made clear that our elections should be decided by voters, not engineered through unconstitutional mandates,” Hudson said in a statement. “For too long, activists have manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans instead of bringing them together.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve was one step closer to the job Wednesday after North Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis cast the deciding vote to advance Kevin Warsh’s nomination to the full Senate.

Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs voted 13-11 along party lines to move Warsh to the next step.

The potential turnover at the top of the Fed, which sets monetary policy, comes as Americans see higher costs hit their pocketbooks, particularly soaring prices at the gas pump, as the U.S.-Iran conflict disrupts worldwide energy supplies.

Tillis had withheld his support until the Trump administration announced Friday it would drop what the senator described as a “bogus” investigation of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

“It’s no secret that the reason that Mr. Warsh’s nomination could have been held up is because of my concern with the investigation. I want to thank the Department of Justice for the assurances that they gave me,” Tillis, R-N.C., said following the panel’s brief morning session that lasted just under 15 minutes.

“The fact of the matter is, this was based on two minutes of testimony. It was not criminal,” Tillis said of the DOJ’s probe into Powell’s June 2025 testimony to Congress on a major $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

The committee vote comes after Trump’s sustained verbal attacks on Powell over several months, including numerous public threats to fire the Fed leader if he did not agree to lower interest rates. `

A federal judge last month blocked the administration’s subpoenas to probe the Fed and Powell, citing “a mountain of evidence” that Trump was using the investigation to force Powell’s hand.

The Fed was scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to deliver its latest decision on interest rates, possibly the last under Powell, whose term expires May 15.

Inflation, affordability

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said the vote brings Trump “one step closer to completing his illegal attempt to seize control of the Fed and to artificially juice the economy.” 

Inflation and affordability are emerging as major issues ahead of the 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. 

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said his constituents in Georgia and beyond “deserve to know that the Fed is on their side, maximizing their chances to keep a good paying job and keeping their lives affordable, not on the side of the president’s poll numbers or his political concerns as we approach the midterm.”

“Fed independence is not theoretical. It matters to the everyday lives of working families,” Warnock said.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken between April 24-27, 61% of Americans think the U.S. economy is on the wrong track. 

When asked about the costs and benefits of the war in Iran, only a quarter of respondents said they agreed the U.S. military operation was worth it, according to the Ipsos poll.

Americans have watched fuel prices climb in March and April after Iran retaliated against the U.S.-Israeli attacks by choking off the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow maritime passageway where, prior to the war, one-fifth of the world’s petroleum passed.

Gas prices climb

The average price across the U.S. for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.23 Wednesday, not only the highest price point since the U.S. launched operations in Iran on Feb. 28, but also the highest since July 2022, according to GasBuddy.  

Prior to the war, a gallon of regular hadn’t topped $3 all year.

A return to normal, free flow in the strait — which was about 140 vessels per day pre-war — appears out of reach at the moment, as Trump announced last weekend his negotiators pulled back again on attending talks in Islamabad.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sidestepped a question Wednesday regarding how much longer the war might last, asked by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., before the House Armed Services Committee.

During the same hearing however, the Pentagon’s Jules Hurst III, acting undersecretary of war who oversees finances, did reveal the war had so far cost the U.S. $25 billion.

While the Fed’s inflation target is 2%, data released at the beginning of April showed prices for all items rose 3.3% over a year ago. The jump was largely driven by a 21% spike in fuel prices from February to March.

The Fed’s so-called “dual mandate” is to maximize employment and stabilize prices. The Fed primarily loosens or tightens the economy by adjusting interest rates — lowering them if the economy lags and inflation is too low, and raising them when inflation becomes too high.

Lisa Cook firing

Warren and Warnock also noted Trump’s ousting in August of Fed Governor Lisa Cook, appointed to the board by former President Joe Biden. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing whether Trump exceeded his authority in firing Cook.

Warnock said he was dissatisfied with Warsh’s written responses to additional questions sent after his April 21 nomination hearing before the committee.

“I asked, quote: ‘If President Trump, or any future president, attempts to unlawfully fire you without cause, would you leave the Federal Reserve?’ His response, quote: ‘I will not answer hypothetical questions of this nature,’” Warnock recounted.

“Well, this isn’t a hypothetical question. In fact, the president attempted to fire Governor Cook this in the past year, and the president has repeatedly mused about firing Chair Powell because he won’t bend to his interest rate demands — doing so as recently as two weeks ago,” Warnock said, referring to Trump’s comments during an April 15 Fox Business interview. 

Asked Wednesday afternoon if he thinks Warsh will persuade the Fed’s board of governors to lower interest rates, Trump told reporters, “They should because it’s a good time to lower them. We’re the most prime country anywhere in the world.”

Powell also faced questions Wednesday afternoon.

When asked whether he expects Warsh will remain independent of Trump, Powell said, “He testified very strongly to that effect in his hearing, and I’ll take him at his word.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

A North Carolina state House bill with bipartisan support would provide a one-time appropriation of $50 million to establish a revolving, below-market-interest loan program to help developers improve sites for affordable housing.

Low-income renters in North Carolina far outnumber affordable housing units   

Under House Bill 1072, loan recipients could use the money for land acquisition, predevelopment costs and infrastructure costs for affordable housing. Those costs, supporters said, can sometimes stop affordable housing projects from being built.

The bill comes as North Carolina’s leaders struggle with a housing shortage as the state adds new residents. A report by the N.C. Chamber Foundation projects a five-year inventory gap of 764,478 units — comprising 442,118 for-sale units and 322,360 rental units.

House Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham) said builders refer to the beginning phase of the development process as the “pre-construction valley of death.” 

“For nonprofit affordable housing builders, especially those working with limited margins and mission-driven models, those upfront costs can stop a good project before it ever gets off the ground, causing it to be stuck in limbo,” Reives said during a press conference.

Reives said the loans would help nonprofit developers clear many of the practical hurdles that stand between an idea and a home. 

“And because it’s structured as a revolving loan program, the dollars can be reused to support more projects over time,” Reives said.

House Rules Chairman Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne) is a primary sponsor of the bill, along with Reives, Rep. Chris Humphrey (R-Greene), and Rep. Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County, a former Democrat who made news this week when she walked away from the party and registered as an independent.  

Bell said increasing the supply of affordable housing is one of the state’s most pressing issues, and one that elected officials of all political stripes can agree on.

“Importantly, this is a one-time investment of a self-sustaining fund,” Bell said.”It’s not just about addressing today’s shortage, it’s about creating long-term solutions that can continue to work for years to come.” 

H1072 calls for the N.C. Housing Finance Agency to establish and administer what would be called the Affordable Housing Infrastructure Development Loan Program to make loans available to eligible borrowers. The bill also creates the Affordable Housing Infrastructure Development Loan Fund from which loans would be made.

Bell and Reives were joined at Wednesday’s press conference by Paul Reeves, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of North Carolina, Matt Whittle, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Goldsboro-Wayne, and T’Sharra Williams, a homeowner who purchased a Habitat home in Lenoir County nearly a year ago.

Reeves, whose organization represents 56 affiliate Habitat agencies across the state, said access to reliable, sustainable capital for land acquisition and land development is a challenge, particularly as more affiliates transition to building subdivisions as opposed to single homes.

“Across our state right now, the cost is roughly $50,000 per lot to put in infrastructure, which means if we’ve got an affiliate that’s doing a 10-house subdivision, they’re gonna get a bid at $500,000 or north for infrastructure on that,” Reeves said.

Reeves said the revolving loan program has the potential to help create 1,000 units in the first five years.

“And because it’s a revolving loan fund, it will do it again in the next five years, and the five years after that and the five years after that,” Reeves said.

Whittle said the loan program would allow communities to build more than housing.

“It opens the door to having affiliates and other qualified organizations across the state to build foundations, to build communities where homeowners are gonna be able to thrive,” Whittle said.

Williams said that before moving into her Habitat home almost a year ago, she and her five children didn’t have a place to call home.

“My life and my children’s life have changed dramatically,” Williams said. “We went from being homeless to being a homeowner, which is a plus for all of us.”

H1072 was referred Wednesday to the House Committee on Housing and Development.

Lawmakers and local advocates called on the North Carolina General Assembly Wednesday to pass bills incorporating AAPI contributions into school curriculums and preventing hate crimes. 

North Carolina Asian Americans Together organized the press conference as part of its annual Asian American Advocacy Day.

There are more than 300,000 Asian Americans in North Carolina, according to Carolina Demography. Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing communities in the state and across the south.

Phuong Tran, communications director at NCAAT, said the group celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. It was founded to provide a voice in the state policy arena for the needs of Asian communities. 

“Too many people felt invisible, spoken about or to, but not with,” Tran said. “So we set out to change that, and over the past decade, we built a multilingual state infrastructure for civic participation.”

The group worked with lawmakers to introduce House Bill 835, “Learning AAPI Contributions in Schools.” This legislation would ensure the inclusion of the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the American history curriculum, like their work on the transcontinental railroad and Civil Rights Movement. 

AAPI advocates, lawmakers promote election reforms, voting rights, DEI at Raleigh lobby day

There’s been traction at the local level, Rep. Ya Liu (D-Wake) said. 

“In one of the high schools in my district, Green Hope High School, the history teacher started to teach a course on AAPI history, which is so popular that it will be one of the elective courses in Wake County,” Liu said. “We’ll continue to push it at the state level.”

The bill was introduced in the House last April, but was assigned to the Rules committee, where bills filed by Democrats are often left to languish. 

Lawmakers have also pushed legislation against hate crimes. 

Senate Bill 827, “Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” would establish a statewide database to track statistics on hate crimes, train law enforcement officers to identify and respond to them, and increase the punishment for them. 

Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D-Wake), a primary sponsor of the bill, said he filed the measure because the current system isn’t working. 

“We lack a comprehensive statewide database tracking hate crimes, which means that we cannot fully see what is happening in our communities,” he said. “Our law enforcement officers often lack the training to identify, respond to and report these crimes. Our prosecutors need better tools to bring these cases to justice, which means too many perpetrators walk away without accountability.”

The bill has been assigned to the Senate Committee on Appropriations/Base Budget.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office on Monday invoked an upcoming landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the role of race in drawing congressional districts to justify the Republican’s proposed gerrymander.

“The use of race in redistricting should never happen,” the governor’s general counsel, David Axelman, wrote in a memo unveiling a map that aims to hand Republicans four additional U.S. House seats in Florida.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court delivered an opinion sharply weakening a major portion of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Even before the decision, Republicans and Democrats across the country were scrambling to get ahead of the court’s anticipated ruling. 

The rush comes even as state legislative sessions wind down and the window to redraw maps rapidly closes ahead of the midterm elections in November — likely pushing most redistricting battles into the 2028 election cycle.

The opinion in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, could reverberate for decades. The court’s conservative majority significantly curtailed the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps. 

Until now, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has limited states from using maps that dilute the voting power of minority citizens.

“If the Supreme Court does decide to gut or significantly weaken Section 2 of the VRA, we’re very concerned that it would give, basically, the green light to states to racially gerrymander,” Michael McNulty, policy director at Issue One, a group focused on protecting American democracy, said in an interview ahead of the decision.

Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 U.S. House seats nationally directly because of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to a projection by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters. At the state level, the groups have projected that Republicans could gain up to 200 state legislative seats across the South. 

“It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA School of Law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, wrote in a blog post following the opinion’s release on Wednesday.

Louisiana case

A group of white voters challenged Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander after the state in 2024 created a second district where a majority of voters are Black. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices agreed, ruling 6-3 that the map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the state didn’t need to create a second majority-minority district.

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “none of the historical evidence presented by plaintiffs came close to showing an objective likelihood that the State’s challenged map was the result of intentional racial discrimination.”

Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent that the Supreme Court has “had its sights set” on the Voting Rights Act for more than a decade.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote.

Following the opinion, Republican-led legislatures across the South are expected to move to break apart Democratic districts where a majority of residents are Black or from other minority groups. 

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, called on the state legislature to reconvene and redraw the state’s congressional districts to create another Republican-held seat in Memphis. Blackburn, who is running for governor, said an additional seat is essential to cement President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves last week announced a special session to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts, to begin 21 days after the court releases its decision.

“It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps,” Reeves said in a statement announcing the session.

Although the Supreme Court case centered on Louisiana, state officials are likely out of time to adopt a new map for this year’s election. The primary election is set for May 16.

Still, Louisiana will be free to pursue redistricting next year.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, Sr., a Democrat who represents one of the state’s two majority-minority districts, said the court’s decision was a “devastating blow” to the promise of equal representation.

“This ruling is about far more than lines on a map — it’s about whether Black Louisianians will have a meaningful opportunity to make their voices heard,” Carter said in a statement.

The redistricting wars of 2026

As of 2024, roughly a third of U.S. House seats represented majority-minority districts — 122 held by Democrats and 26 held by Republicans, according to estimates by Ballotpedia. Texas and California account for nearly half of all the districts.

Seven states have already taken the extraordinary step of redrawing their maps this year after President Donald Trump urged Republicans to draw lines that maximize partisan advantage ahead of the midterms. Maps are typically redrawn every 10 years after the census.

Texas and California struck first, followed by Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah. Virginia voters last week approved a redraw, and Florida lawmakers approved a new map Wednesday. 

All told, Republicans may emerge from the redistricting war with a small net advantage of a handful of seats if the Florida plan is enacted and the other maps are upheld.

The calendar will prove a major obstacle to additional gerrymanders this year. Primary elections have already been held in some southern states and ballots have been distributed in others. 

Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas have already held primaries, while ballots have been distributed in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. 

But after November the clock resets, giving states more than a year to pursue further changes to their maps before the 2028 election.

“We are much more concerned about the impact on 2028 and beyond that that would have, letting these politicians basically just pick their voters instead of the voters picking them,” McNulty said.

John R. Lewis bill

As Democrats look ahead to Callais’ likely fallout in the coming years, they have begun urgently calling for action in Congress and at the state level. They also say the decision emphasizes the stakes of this year’s elections.

“Today is a devastating day for democracy and a wake-up call for all those who seek to protect it,” Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

Democrats in Congress have repeatedly offered the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Named after the civil rights activist and Georgia congressman who died in 2020, the legislation aims to strengthen Section 2 and other elements of the current Voting Rights Act, though it’s unclear whether the bill would be constitutional under the Callais decision.

The U.S. House, under Democratic control, passed the legislation in 2021 but it was filibustered in the Senate. Some lawmakers are speaking about the measure again, and Democrats may take control of Congress in November’s elections—though they would still face President Donald Trump in the White House. 

“We can and must revive the Voting Rights Act,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat and the ranking member of the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, said at a shadow hearing on voting rights on Monday.

For their part, Republicans hailed the Supreme Court decision as long overdue.

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement said “activists” for too long had manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans in the process.

“The Supreme Court made clear that our elections should be decided by voters, not engineered through unconstitutional mandates,” Hudson said.

Voting Rights Act over the years

Over more than a decade, the Supreme Court has narrowed the potency of the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law banning racial discrimination in voting that came as Congress battled Jim Crow laws in southern states. 

The measure was intended to help enforce the U.S. Constitution’s 14th and 15th amendments, which guarantee equal protection under the law and prohibit denying the right to vote on the basis of race.

In 2013, the court effectively halted preclearance — the requirement that some states and local governments with a history of discrimination obtain federal permission before changing their voting practices. At the time of the decision, most southern states and a handful of others were subject to preclearance.

The Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that federal courts cannot review allegations of partisan gerrymandering. The decision cleared the way for state lawmakers to gerrymander their maps for political advantage without fear they would be second-guessed by federal judges. 

The opinion helped empower a wave of gerrymanders after the 2020 census and set the stage for this year’s mid-decade redistricting.

Turning to the legislatures

Facing a bleak federal landscape, some voting rights advocates are increasingly turning to state legislatures. The Supreme Court decision undercutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act will likely intensify efforts to advance state-level legislation.

“Because political participation is inherently local, it is imperative to press for protections at the ground level,” Todd Cox, associate director counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, a racial justice legal organization, said at the shadow hearing.

Some Democratic state lawmakers already introduced measures in anticipation of an unfavorable Supreme Court decision.

The Illinois House last week approved a state constitutional amendment that would require districts to be drawn “to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race.”

The Illinois amendment would also require, where practical, the creation of racial coalition or influence districts — terms that refer to districts where racial minorities together constitute a majority of residents. The measure, which must also pass the state Senate before going to voters, was a pre-response to the Callais opinion.

“This will ensure that Illinois will always recognize the fundamental principle that a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people must include all the people,” Illinois Democratic House Speaker Emanuel Welch told reporters after the amendment advanced.

Illinois Republicans have cast the amendment as a Democratic power grab. The state has some of the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, a Republican, said in a statement. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has given Illinois’ maps an overall “F” grade.

“Let’s be clear: this has nothing to do with strengthening democracy,” McCombie said. “It’s about locking in one-party control at any cost.”

Terence Everitt (D-Wake) resigned from the state Senate, he announced Tuesday on Facebook.

Everitt has been leading an organization called the North Carolina Voter Protection Alliance since January. He said on Facebook he wanted to devote his attention to that work.

“Since returning to the legislative session, it has become clear that defending democracy requires my focus and dedication,” he wrote.

Everitt was running for a second Senate term in the competitive district that includes northern Wake and Granville County. He said he will withdraw from the race. Democratic leaders in Wake and Granville must nominate someone to fill Everitt’s seat and find someone to replace him on the November ballot.

In a statement, Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch of Wake County called Everitt “a fierce voice for the people of District 18 and for North Carolina.”

Everitt served three terms in the state House before winning a close Senate race by 128 votes. While a member of the House in 2023 Everitt unsuccessfully petitioned the Wake District Attorney to investigate then-Speaker Tim Moore stemming from Moore’s relationship with a state employee.

Moore banished Everitt to a basement office that had been a supply closet.

Senator Graig Meyer to resign North Carolina Senate seat. Here’s why and what comes next.

Everitt is the second Senate Democrat to resign in two months. Graig Meyer, who represented Orange, Person, and Caswell counties, resigned in March to become executive director of the NC Justice Center.

Tristin Taylor grew emotional as she recalled slipping into homelessness after debilitating migraines caused her to lose her job. 

Taylor, 63, had been a regional salesperson for a high-end skin care line, earned a good salary and considered herself solidly middle class. After burning through her savings, she landed in the shelter. She rode Raleigh city buses to pass the time because the shelter where she slept closed its doors at 7 a.m., and didn’t reopen them until 4 p.m.

“It was just traumatic,” Taylor said. “It really was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

About 18 months ago, a week before Thanksgiving, Taylor was able to leave the shelter with help from the Cooper Charitable Foundation, a Raleigh-based nonprofit that provides housing stability grants to help people experiencing homelessness move into permanent housing. 

The foundation was created in 2024 by John Cooper, president and CEO of Cooper Tacia, a Raleigh-based general contracting firm. Cooper founded the nonprofit to honor his grandmother, who he says set an example of “giving to others.”

The $2,500 Taylor received from the foundation was the answer to her prayers.

“It was just a miracle that day,” Taylor said. “I fell to my knees and was like, ‘There is a God.’”   

With a deadline to move out of the shelter approaching, Taylor had worried that she would be pushed onto the streets. She didn’t have an income, so she couldn’t pay rent or the upfront costs to move into an apartment. Taylor had been approved for Social Security disability benefits, but the monthly checks had not yet begun to come. 

The Cooper Foundation stepped in with a housing stability grant to help Taylor with first month’s rent, security deposit and last month’s rent. The typical grant averages about $2,500, according to the foundation.

The upfront cost to move into permanent housing is what often keeps people trapped in homelessness, said Mary-Ann Baldwin, the foundation’s executive director and a former Raleigh mayor.

Baldwin said the foundation has helped 311 people — including 163 children — secure or maintain housing since launching its first fundraiser in June 2024.

When Baldwin began working at the foundation, she wrongly believed that most grants would go to help families and individuals avoid evictions.

“That has been the opposite of what has happened,” Baldwin said. “Ninety percent of our grants have been awarded to people who are working. They can afford the monthly rent. What they can’t afford is the security deposit, first and last month’s rent, and a utility deposit.”  

The remaining 10% of grants were awarded to keep people in housing by paying for car repairs or covering rent payments for people who experienced illness, a job loss or other trauma.

“People are quick to judge,” Baldwin said. “But many of these individuals are working, trying to take care of their families. They just need that initial help to get on stable ground.”

Still housed a year later

A recent examination of 60 grants administered by one of its nonprofit partners, Oak City Cares, found that 97% of the people who received help through the Cooper Foundation were still in stable housing one year later, Baldwin said.

“Everybody but two people,” Baldwin said. “One was a woman who unfortunately passed away, and another was a gentleman who was incarcerated,” Baldwin said.

Oak City Cares is a nonprofit, public-private partnership that serves individuals and families at risk of homelessness or experiencing homelessness. It’s partnering with the Cooper Foundation to vet applicants and provide support services, such as budgeting and referrals for food assistance. The housing stability grants are paid directly to landlords or utility service providers.

The success of such programs reinforces the importance of pairing financial assistance with supportive services, Baldwin said.

One man’s journey through homelessness produced the ‘greatest story never told’ 

“It’s not just about the funding,” she said. “It’s also about the services.”

Baldwin said people living in hotels have an especially hard time saving up the $2,500 or more they would need to move into an apartment.

When she was mayor, Baldwin said the City of Raleigh budgeted $25,000, which was matched by the Carolina Hurricanes, to help people move out of hotels. The $50,000 Compassion Fund was kind of a precursor to the housing stability grants, she said.

“And then, COVID hit, and oh my goodness, we had to use that money to keep people in hotels so they weren’t homeless,” Baldwin said. “We never got to test out our theory [that such grants work to keep people housed].”

Small grants, big payoffs

Now, through the housing stability grants, the Cooper Foundation is demonstrating how relatively small financial interventions can keep people previously experiencing homelessness stably housed, she said. 

Similar programs in Raleigh and elsewhere are showing comparable results, Baldwin said. She pointed to the city’s “Bringing Neighbors Home” initiative, which helps move people out of encampments and provides financial support during their first year in housing. 

That program has maintained housing stability for more than 90% of participants after six months, Baldwin said.

According to Raleigh city officials, unsheltered homelessness in Wake County has doubled since 2020. They told the city council at a recent meeting that taxpayers spend up to $96,000 per unhoused person a year on shelter, encampment clean-ups, emergency room visits, law enforcement, jail time, and other crisis services. In contrast, housing with support services costs far less — approximately $27,000 per person a year.

Despite the success of such programs, Baldwin warned that broader economic pressures such as rising food, gas and housing costs could worsen housing instability. 

She also cited a decline in charitable giving, noting that donations to nonprofits have decreased as more funds shift toward political causes.

Baldwin called for policy changes, including the creation of a standalone state housing department and expanded funding for housing stabilization programs.

“If the government would put more into getting people into housing, it would cost less than dealing with the consequences of homelessness,” Baldwin said.

Finding peace

Giving up a job she liked because of the migraines was tough, Taylor said. It required lots of driving which she could no longer do.

“It’s just the way the ball bounced,” Taylor said. “They cried when I left. I cried. It was really hard.”

Shelter life was tough too, she said. But 18 months after passing her days on a city bus, Taylor has found peace.

“I just sat in my apartment with my little dog Lil Laci that very first night and cried,” she said. “We don’t have to worry anymore. We have a home now.”

Democratic Rep. Shelly Willingham said Tuesday he will not follow two of his colleagues’ example and change his party affiliation after losing a primary.

“Changing party affiliation won’t change me,” said Willingham, who lives in Edgecombe County. 

“I’m going to be the same person. I’m going to continue doing what I’ve been doing. And also, my philosophy and my allegiances are where they were before.”

Two former Democrats representing Mecklenburg County districts, Reps. Nasif Majeed and Carla Cunningham, have both dropped their party affiliation in the past week. They also lost primaries this year. 

NC Rep Carla Cunningham switches party affiliation after primary loss

“The Democratic Party, they left me, and I just had come to the conclusion that I had to be unaffiliated,” Majeed said Tuesday. He cited the Democratic Party blocking him from using voter outreach software as evidence that the party had turned against him. 

Cunningham, Majeed and Willingham all voted last session with Republicans to override some of Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes. Those votes were part of the reason they lost their primaries. 

The House has yet to act on vetoed bills about immigration, guns, and diversity, equity and inclusion bans in the current session. 

Willingham, who represents District 23, voted against those bills and said he remains opposed to them.

Majeed indicated that he’s sticking with his past positions when it comes to overrides. He also voted against those bills. 

“I have to research things and come to conclusions,” Majeed said. “When I come to that conclusion based on my research, you’ll know I stand convicted in my decision.”

Cunningham said she hasn’t made decisions on veto override votes.

Though he’s dropped the D after his name, Majeed said he will continue to make decisions as he always has. 

“I’m always going to make independent decisions based on my research and based on input from my district and the wise people in the Charlotte area who have always advised me,” he said. 

North Carolina lawmakers approved final passage of $319 million in Medicaid funding to keep the state program afloat after months of uncertainty. It now heads to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s desk for his signature.

The funding bill passed nearly unanimously in the House and Senate, with three Democratic lawmakers voting against it in each chamber, citing misgivings over provisions in the bill they said would deny Medicaid coverage to 27,000 pregnant women and their children based on immigration status.

A Stein spokesperson said the governor was reviewing the bill Tuesday evening.

Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-Durham) praised the bill for allowing millions to keep their healthcare and giving medical providers the funding needed to keep their doors open.

But she condemned lawmakers for including the provision stripping immigrant patients of coverage, which goes beyond the restrictions on healthcare for immigrants set by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Lawmakers are “making a choice,” Murdock stressed.

“We’re talking about a lot of pregnant women and their children that will no longer have coverage,” she said. “And we can’t just leave it up to hopefully getting clarification on how it’s interpreted. I’m hoping for this body to do everything they can to formally make this right.”

NC lawmakers will fill Medicaid funding gap, but larger state budget issues remain unresolved

The provision stipulates that “Medicaid coverage for individuals who are not citizens of the United States shall be limited to coverage that is federally required for the State’s participation in the Medicaid program.” It eliminates coverage guarantees for pregnant and post-partum undocumented immigrants, as well as some groups of immigrants with legal status, including refugees.

Senate Republicans said they are unsure whether the language of the bill would remove coverage for those 27,000 individuals, adding that they are waiting on further guidance from federal partners before considering potential remedies to the issue.

Other provisions of the bill require the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to collect information on patients’ immigration status and report suspected undocumented immigrants to Homeland Security. And advocacy groups have also raised concerns over increased inpatient copays and work requirement vetting periods, both of which will be set at the maximum allowed by the federal government.

House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) celebrated passage of the bill following the votes, telling reporters that North Carolina must get control of Medicaid spending before it prevents the legislature from funding priorities such as public safety and teacher pay raises.

“It’s grown out of control,” Hall said. “Our goal on my side of the aisle is to have a program in place that meets the needs of those folks who truly need it. And the real measure of success is how many folks who get on it, who are able to work, are able to get off of it.”

Sen. Benton Sawrey (R-Johnston), who presented the bill to his chamber, said his caucus is consulting with attorneys, federal bill drafters, and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to determine whether changes are necessary to avoid disrupting care for immigrant patients. “We truthfully did not think it was an issue,” he said.

“No change, intention, was contemplated at all under any circumstances to take these people off of Medicaid,” Sawrey said. “And there is a legitimate question thanks to CMS guidance as to whether the current draft that we have would have an impact at all.”

This assurance was not enough for some Democrats, however.

Sen. Michael Garrett (D-Guilford), the sole Senate vote against the bill last week, said he could not support a measure of which, he said, “the cruelty is the point.”

Speaking for more than 10 minutes, Garrett called on his colleagues to oppose the bill. “You do not have to accept that your legislature uses pregnant women as bargaining chips.”

“We are about to betray mothers and children,” Garrett said. “She will not know until she calls her clinic and a stranger tells her on the other end of the line that her appointment scheduled a few weeks ago is no longer covered.”

Garrett was joined in opposing the bill Tuesday by his newest colleague, Sen. Jonah Garson (D-Orange), as well as Sen. DeAndrea Salvador (D-Mecklenburg). In the House, the bill was opposed by Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford), Rep. Marcia Morey (D-Durham), and Rep. Ed Goodwin (R-Chowan), who later changed his vote.

Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Harnett), who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services budget committee, reiterated that “never was it in our intention to impact these folks.”

“There was never any intended plot to do what you spoke of. I mean, that just wasn’t even in it. I think you all know me and my heart for children,” Burgin said. “I give you my word, we’ll continue to work on this bill. We have time. But we need to go ahead and pass this.”

NC Newsline reporters Lynn Bonner and Christine Zhu contributed to this story.

This story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Ed Goodwin (R-Chowan) changed his vote on H319 from “no” to “aye” on Wednesday.

A bill allowing people to carry concealed handguns without permits is dangerous, Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead said Tuesday, as it would increase gun violence and make the jobs of law enforcement officers harder. 

Birkhead spoke at a news conference with gun control advocates. They gathered in Raleigh as part of their efforts to convince House members to uphold Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of a bill that would make it easier to carry concealed handguns in public. 

Under current law, only people 21 and older can carry a concealed weapon, and only after completing an approved firearms safety course and criminal background check.

Under Senate Bill 50, anyone 18 and older who can legally carry a gun could carry it concealed without a permit or safety training. 

Birkhead said that would make working in law enforcement more dangerous.

Permitless carry “makes our jobs more difficult – to put a gun in the hand of someone who’s not trained, who’s 18 years of age – so we have to approach every encounter as if there’s a weapon, because we just don’t know,” Birkhead said. “It increases the risk of someone being harmed in that encounter, whether it’s the officer, the deputy, or the citizen. That to me is unacceptable.”

The North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Education Fund has a list of studies that show firearm homicide rates and suicide rates increased in states that loosened concealed weapon permitting laws or adopted permitless concealed carry, and that rates of officer-involved shootings of civilians increased more than expected in states with permitless concealed carry laws.

The legislature passed the bill last year, and the state Senate has already overridden Stein’s veto along party lines. Action now rests in the state House. Both the House and Senate must vote with three-fifths majorities to cancel a veto and make a bill law.

North Carolina House approves controversial gun bill, sends to Stein

When the House passed the bill last June, two Republicans joined all Democrats in rejecting it. Chances for an override in the House may be in flux as two of three House Democrats who lost their primaries last year have left the party and said they are essentially free agents. 

However, one of those former Democrats, Rep. Nasif Majeed of Mecklenburg County, said Tuesday that, at this point, he would continue to oppose permitless concealed carry. “This is going to be coming up, and in all probabilities, I might not see any changes at this time,” he said. 

Rep. Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg, who left the Democratic Party last week, would not say Tuesday how she would vote on overrides. 

With a veto override, North Carolina would become the 30th state to allow what proponents call “constitutional carry,” NC Newsline has reported. 

Sen. Danny Britt (R-Robeson), one of the bill’s primary sponsors, and Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort), a vocal House supporter, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. 

But speaking for the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, Britt said, “We believe that our constitution is clear that law-abiding citizens should be allowed to constitutionally carry. We believe they should be able to constitutionally carry without having to jump through the hoops that you do for a concealed carry permit.”

At Tuesday’s news conference, Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, said allowing teenagers to carry hidden weapons is “shameful.”

Requiring concealed weapons permits is “common sense,” she said. 

“Our lives are at risk,” she said. “Other states that have eliminated concealed carry permits have seen 27% increases in gun homicides. We can’t let that happen here, too.”

Governor Josh Stein told energy industry representatives on Tuesday that in a world demanding more power and affordable energy, developing more renewable options will continue to be the fastest and cheapest way to meet the rapidly increasing need.

“In North Carolina, there are 338 companies that are on the Forbes Global 2000 list that have set net-zero emissions targets,” said Stein. “These companies collectively employ more than 450,000 people across all 100 counties and across sectors.”

But the governor says as companies and consumers embrace the benefits of clean energy, the state must be clear-eyed about the challenging headwinds at the national level.

“The hostility of the federal government toward clean energy policy has created grave uncertainty,” the governor said.

Stein pointed to the recent decision by the Trump administration to spend nearly $1 billion of taxpayer money to pay off a French company to stop it from creating wind power off the North Carolina coast.

President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of offshore wind for years. U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called the offshore wind project “expensive, unreliable, and environmentally disruptive.”

The Carolina Long Bay project, located approximately 22 miles south of Bald Head Island, would’ve generated more than one gigawatt of power from the nautical wind farm — enough energy to power about 300,000 homes.

Stein called the project’s cancellation “mind-bogglingly senseless.” He said “regression” is happening at the state level as well.

NC environmentalists lament decision to scrap offshore wind farm

For example, Stein said, the Republican-led legislature overrode his veto of Senate Bill 266 (“The Power Bill Reduction Act”) last session, despite expert analysis that the bill was projected to lead to a $23 billion increase in fuel costs through 2050.

That bill also shifted more of the cost burden for fuel from industrial users to residential consumers.

More recently, the Utilities Commission used SB 266 to pause procurement of 770 megawatts of solar power – enough to power approximately 100,000 homes — until regulators complete their review of Duke Energy’s updated Carbon Plan.

The governor reiterated his opposition to Duke Energy’s recent proposed rate increase, which Stein said would place an additional burden on customers as the company retreats on clean energy.

“My administration has been clear that North Carolina needs an energy system that protects consumers, reduces climate and air pollution, and supports economic growth,” said Stein.

Large loads, data centers, and the little guy

For others at the annual State of Energy Conference, the focus was on how North Carolina will be able to meet growing energy demands.

Recent forecasts by Duke Energy predict that total demand for electricity across its two Carolina systems is projected to increase from 16% to as much as 60% through 2040. Over the last 20 years, electricity demand in all of North Carolina rose just 7%.

N.C. Chamber Vice President Meredith Archie said for her members, that means embracing an “all of the above” strategy to ensure energy needs are met.

“That means all of the things — resources like natural gas, it means that we continue to expand solar and other clean energy resources. Battery storage is going to be critical for that intermittency. And critically, continue to invest in our existing nuclear fleet but also the next generation of nuclear for that large-load base energy that we need.”

Data centers are among those large-load energy consumers that municipalities are now having to grapple with. More and more local governments are passing moratoriums to block large data centers until they can set up a legal framework for zoning and permitting.

John Szoka, CEO of the Conservative Energy Network and a former N.C. House member, said it’s a bad idea to allow local elected officials to ban these centers.

“It’s the exact wrong way to go on this,” said Szoka. “I mean, what if we had moratoriums on nuclear power plants?”

Szoka says data centers are a complex issue that towns or counties should not be quick to bar, especially for an industry they may not fully understand.

“Every time you pick up your phone and do a Google search, [you’re] using a data center,” Szoka told the audience.

Szoka said one thing he learned after serving ten years in the legislature is that some lawmakers may base decisions on what they see on social media.

“Which is why I’m in the position I’m in now, trying to educate decision-makers at all levels,” said Szoka.

Sen. Julie Mayfield (D-Buncombe) said the North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force is moving forward with recommendations, but most consumers don’t want to hear about grid flexibility, interconnection, rate schedules or agency acronyms like FERC.

“People don’t care about rates, they care about their bill. If we’re not keeping that person in the forefront of our minds as we make all of these decisions, I think we’re missing the point,” said Mayfield.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday obtained a second grand jury indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, long a target of President Donald Trump’s anger for overseeing an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted Comey related to a photo he posted on social media of seashells arranged to read “86 47.” Comey took the photo while vacationing in North Carolina last year. The indictment alleges that Comey threatened to harm the president and that he used interstate commerce to transmit the threat when he posted the photo.

An arrest warrant was also issued for Comey. The indictment alleges that a “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances” would interpret the seashell photo as a serious expression of intent to harm Trump.

Trump supporters have interpreted the photo as a threat against the president, since “86” is a slang term for removing something and “47” could be seen as a reference to Trump as the 47th president. Comey has said the photo wasn’t intended as a call to violence and deleted the post.

“While this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a Justice Department news conference.

In a video posted online after the indictment, Comey said he was “still innocent” and wasn’t afraid. 

“Well, they’re back,” he says at the start of the video.

“It’s really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be,” Comey said. “The good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values. Keep the faith.”

Trump’s feud with Comey

A federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Comey in September, accusing him of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. The allegations relate to his testimony in 2020 about the FBI’s investigation into links between Russia and the Trump campaign. The indictment came days before the statute of limitations ran out.

Comey pleaded not guilty before a federal judge dismissed the case in November, finding the prosecutor in the case had been illegally appointed. The judge also dismissed a separate case against Democratic New York Attorney General Letita James.

The new indictment marked another escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to prosecute Comey and other political enemies. Last week, the Justice Department obtained an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has long angered conservatives. 

Hours before the Justice Department announced the indictment, a federal judge in New York ruled that a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by Comey’s daughter, former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, could proceed. Maurene Comey claims she was improperly fired from the Justice Department because of her father or for political reasons.

Blanche takes questions

The new prosecution also comes as Blanche, a personal defense attorney for Trump, leads the Justice Department following the departure of Pam Bondi. Trump has not yet nominated a permanent attorney general.

The Tuesday indictment was signed by Matthew Petracca, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“This is a ridiculous indictment against James Comey. The Department of Justice will lose in court, again,” U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, wrote on social media.

At the news conference, Blanche fielded skeptical questions from reporters about how the case came together and why the criminal case wasn’t brought until nearly a year after the post. He refused to discuss evidence in the case, saying that would be unfair to Comey and prosecutors.

“You are not allowed to threaten the president of the United States of America,” Blanche said. “That’s not my decision, that’s Congress’ decision.”

State House Democratic lawmakers announced a bill on Tuesday aimed at protecting students in schools from the impact of immigration operations in North Carolina.

Named for a landmark Supreme Court case that prohibited schools from discriminating against undocumented students, House Bill 1061: The Plyler Educational Protections Act, would bar public schools from collecting students’ immigration status information unless legally required to do so, and prevent them from denying students admission or otherwise excluding them based on their status.

“Something fundamental is being questioned: Will our schools remain places of safety, learning and belonging, or will they instead become places shadowed by fear?” asked Rep. Julia Greenfield (D-Mecklenburg), the bill’s lead sponsor, at a Tuesday morning press conference.

Greenfield said she was motivated by concern over the 27,000 students who missed school in Charlotte as large-scale immigration operations targeted the city in 2025. “These absences were not due to illness or snow day. They happened because families were too afraid to send their children to school.”

“Every child in this country, regardless of immigration status, has the right to free public education. And that right has been the law of the land for 40 years. Our legislation aims to uphold that commitment, which is being rapidly undermined by federal authorities,” she said.

H1061 would require schools to develop immigration authority action response plans among other procedures aimed at ensuring that authorities adhere to the law and that parents, staff, and students remain informed. Schools would also designate an official to ensure immigration agents have a warrant before entering school premises.

The bill would also make schools responsible for providing alternative instruction for students unable to come to school due to disruptions by immigration enforcement.

Republican legislative leaders did not immediately respond to NC Newsline’s request for comment on the proposal.

ICE arrested more than 3,300 people across NC during Trump’s first 9 months in office

Rep. Monika Johnson-Hostler (D-Wake), who served on the Wake County School Board for 11 years, said “students need to be able to trust the adults in their building to keep them safe.”

“Every adult in a school contributes to creating the environment where students feel seen, cared for, safe, and have the ability to learn,” she said. “Supporting them with clear guidance and training helps ensure that consistency across the board happens.”

The bill is not intended to interfere with lawful immigration operations, Greenfield said.

“We don’t want to break the law, right, and we don’t want law enforcement to not do their job,” Greenfield said. “This bill will put in stipulations that [schools] can work with ICE and with CBP if ICE and CBP follow their laws.”

School employees would be protected from retaliation for complying with the school’s action response plan. But they would be prohibited from disclosing students’ immigration status unless legally required to do so, and schools and their employees could face lawsuits for violating the bill’s protections.

Rep. Marcia Morey (D-Durham) said if Republican lawmakers are serious about protecting parental rights, as they have asserted they are when passing bills restricting LGBTQ+ content in schools, they would support a bill that keeps parents informed when an immigration operation is taking place at their child’s school.

“It simply requires that every public school has a plan of response if immigration officers come on school grounds,” Morey said of H1061. “It protects student data and it removes fear.”

Joining the lawmakers were parents, students, and teachers who testified that a climate of fear has taken over many of North Carolina’s schools after deportation efforts targeting the state began last year.

Xavier Adams, a Hillsborough history teacher named North Carolina’s Beginning Teacher of the Year in 2022, said half his class was absent after the immigration crackdown began in November.

“One student asked me where all of his friends were at, and he talked about how class was boring without them there. He concluded that there was no point in him coming to school if he could not see his friends,” Adams said. “I felt sorrow for the students that just wanted to be kids at school.”

North Carolina Democratic House lawmakers and local leaders spoke out against a bill Tuesday that would allow a county to take away another county’s property.

Senate Bill 214, or “Various Local Provisions VII,” contains a provision that allows Franklin County to seize property in Halifax, Vance or Warren counties “without the consent or approval” of the other county’s local government. 

“This should not be a partisan issue,” Rep. Rodney Pierce (D-Halifax) said. “The idea that one county can take property in another county without consent should concern you.”

S214 would allow Franklin County to claim a Henderson water treatment plant in Vance County, which is the owner of the Kerr Lake Regional Water System. At the moment, Franklin County isn’t an owner of the system, but does purchase water from it as well as from other sources like Raleigh and Louisburg. 

Franklin County, which is growing quickly, has sought more water “through existing regional arrangements” repeatedly but failed to secure a long-term solution, according to a statement from County Manager Ryan Preble’s office obtained by WIZS. 

It isn’t “cost-effective or sustainable” to obtain water from multiple sources at the scale needed to serve Franklin County, according to the statement. 

The provision would give Franklin County the right to take the water it wants without an agreement with surrounding counties. It was inserted into the bill behind closed doors. It did not undergo any public discussion or input. 

Pierce criticized his Republican colleagues for failing to extend a hand across the aisle to consult with local municipalities and their concerns. 

“Nobody came to me and said, ‘Hey, we have a bill that’s impacting your counties. We’d like your input or the input of your local elected officials,’” Pierce said. 

Henderson Mayor Melissa Elliott said the issue is turning into a fight over environmental justice, control and morals. Halifax, Vance and Warren counties are already among the most economically distressed in North Carolina.

“When decisions about land, water and power fall hardest on rural, economically distressed communities… We must tell the truth about what is at stake,” she said. “Water is life, land is legacy, and justice belongs to poor people, too.”

Fuquay-Varina seeks new water source due to growth, drawing opposition

From a legal standpoint, the measure violates established statutory procedures. 

Melissa Dixon, an attorney for the Roanoke Rapids Sanitary District, said the state constitution forbids the use of local bills to regulate water and sanitation issues. She called the attempt by Franklin County “illegal, immoral, and unconscionable.” 

“It is a blatant attempt to steal the land and water resources from the citizens of Halifax, Vance and Warren counties without the consent of their elected representatives,” Dixon said. 

Earl Evans, vice chairman of the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe of North Carolina, said he was disappointed that a proposal like this was made without consulting a neighboring tribal nation.

“We consider ourselves to be friends and neighbors to all of the other governments that surround us, still do, and would be willing to be a partner in whatever comes across, because we’re all in this together,” he said. “We need each other to survive, and that requires cooperation.”

Rep. Matthew Winslow (R-Franklin, Vance) voiced support for the bill in a statement dated Monday. 

He claimed Henderson has sought to restrict allocation volumes and attempted to charge Franklin County residents rates nearly four times higher than those paid by other users.

“Passing exorbitant costs directly to our residents would be the easy choice, but it would not serve the long-term interests of our community,” Winslow said in the statement.

Daniel Woody, legislative assistant for Rep. Bryan Cohn (D-Granville, Vance), said Cohn did not write any part of the proposed bill.

Senate Bill 214 began as a local bill in February 2025. Local bills are not subject to the governor’s veto. Because the bill is a conference committee report, it can no longer be amended; it can only be sent back to the conference committee for revision. 

The bill was pulled from the House and Senate floor sessions for Tuesday. A new version has been filed in both chambers without the Franklin County provision. 

This story has been updated. 

Republican lawmakers and candidates across the country have escalated their anti-Islam rhetoric in recent months, a strategy aimed at energizing voters by claiming without evidence that Muslim culture and religious tenets threaten American political values.

Political observers say Republicans are seizing on anti-Islamic sentiment to gin up enthusiasm among their voters as they head into the 2026 midterm elections. It’s been a successful campaign strategy in the past.

Aggressive enforcement tactics have soured many Americans on hard-line immigration policies, once a winning issue for conservatives, and GOP victories on abortion and transgender rights have blunted the electoral power of those issues.

Instead, GOP candidates in some of the highest-profile political races in the country are putting Islam and the nebulous threat of Shariah at the center of their campaigns.

Shariah is a religious code derived from the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad that addresses moral, spiritual and daily life for Muslims. But the term has become shorthand, in some conservative circles, for anything having to do with Islam or with Islamic extremism.

Critics say conservative politicians have made Muslims a political bogeyman in their fight to hang onto power. Muslims say the rhetoric misrepresents their values and endangers their communities.

“I worry this will harm freedom, which is the very value some of these politicians are claiming to protect,” said Mustafa Akyol, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Akyol is Muslim, and his research focuses on public policy and Islam.

“To think that American Muslims, which make 1% of the whole population, can enforce Shariah or force it on other people, that’s a very exaggerated claim.”

Up and down the ballot, Republicans have spent about $12 million since last year on ads that negatively mention Islam, Muslims or Shariah, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell, now running for Alabama attorney general, recently released a campaign ad inviting supporters of “radical Islam” to “Allah Akbar your butt all the way back to the Middle East.”

In Georgia, Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal, a candidate for lieutenant governor, released an AI-generated campaign ad last month depicting Muslim people invading a suburban neighborhood. In a post on X sharing the video, he described Muslims as “invaders who would rather pillage our generosity than assimilate.”

Officials in Alabama and Oklahoma have quashed efforts by Muslim groups to expand into larger facilities after those proposed developments attracted the attention and ire of conservative politicians. And Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature this year enacted laws allowing a handful of state officials to designate certain groups as domestic terrorist organizations.

At the federal level, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn released a $1.6 million political ad earlier this year that claims “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology” and says “Shariah law has no place in American courts or communities.”

There’s even a Sharia-Free America Caucus in Congress, launched last December by Republican Texas Reps. Keith Self and Chip Roy. It currently has more than 60 members spanning 25 states, according to Self. He called it “a noble cause to save Western Civilization and fight back against the threat of Sharia” in a January press release.

Akyol, of the Cato Institute, likens the furor to the American panic over communism in the 1950s that culminated in Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s efforts to root out communist infiltration in the U.S. government and other spheres of power.

Those efforts “led to the crackdown on public freedoms in America like civil liberties, freedom of speech,” Akyol said. “Luckily that ended, but this seems like a McCarthyism 2.0 era where the issue now is not communism, but Islam.”

Years of legislation

Republicans say they’re responding to voter concerns and trying to preempt the possibility that religious or foreign political codes might creep into the U.S. legal system, jeopardizing free speech or due process.

Oklahoma state Sen. David Bullard is working with fellow Republican state legislators on a constitutional amendment that would bar courts and municipalities in Oklahoma from using any foreign law or religious code that would undermine the U.S. or Oklahoma constitutions. Similar efforts have been made this year in Arkansas, Missouri and other states.

Bullard said he’s heard from constituents who are concerned about a growing threat of other cultures “trying to forcefully usurp” American culture.

“Those are definitely Eastern ideas that don’t mix with Western culture, and the Constitution is created wholeheartedly on that Western culture concept,” he told Stateline.

He notes that his amendment doesn’t mention Shariah and does not single out Muslims.

Conservatives have been pushing similar state legislation for more than a decade. Since 2010, at least nine states have enacted laws aimed at preventing courts from enforcing foreign legal codes, including a 2014 constitutional amendment in Alabama.

When asked about examples of the kinds of instances he’s trying to prevent, Bullard cited a 2009 case in New Jersey in which a judge refused to give a woman a protective order after her husband repeatedly assaulted her, saying the husband was acting on his religious interpretation of Shariah. The ruling was overturned the following year.

“I think more and more people in Oklahoma are calling on us to protect them from that,” he said.

But even the most vocal proponents of anti-Shariah measures have struggled to explain how it could replace the American legal system or why more laws are needed to curb it. The establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution already prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another, or forcing adherence to a religious code.

Standing at a podium with a sign emblazoned with a line through the words “Sharia Law,” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis conceded during a news conference earlier this month that there isn’t an immediate threat of Shariah becoming the basis for Florida law.

“Of course that won’t happen any time soon,” DeSantis said. “But the more that we’re able to do to protect against that, I think, is going to benefit Floridians for many, many years.”

Real-world worry

The Islamic Academy of Alabama has operated as a K-12 private school near Birmingham for nearly three decades. But in December, local leaders of a nearby suburb denied the school’s request to relocate to a larger facility there. Alabama U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Republican who’s running for governor and who has railed against Islam on the Senate floor and social media, called for the school to move out of Alabama.

School officials declined Stateline’s interview request but said they remain focused on supporting the education, well-being and safety of their students and community. They’ve dropped their current relocation plans.

In Oklahoma, Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond — who is running for governor — elevated a proposed expansion by the Islamic Society of Tulsa into a political issue when he announced an investigation into its funding. City leaders later denied the society’s application; Muslim leaders responded by hosting a community open house at their Tulsa mosque to connect with the community and promote a better understanding of their faith.

And in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Cornyn for the GOP nomination in the state’s Senate race, sued over the proposed development of a large Muslim-centric community north of Dallas. He called it a “radical plot to destroy hundreds of acres of beautiful Texas land and line their own pockets” and claimed it was unlawfully reserved only for Muslims.

Although the group initially advertised that sales would be limited to certain people, representatives for the development have since said it is open to anyone.

Shariah shorthand

While some lawmakers have made a distinction in their rhetoric between extremism and the Islamic faith, others have made sweeping, derogatory claims that denigrate and stereotype all Muslims.

Tuberville of Alabama has said: “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult.” U.S. Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee has said, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican who’s cosponsoring an anti-Shariah bill in Congress, posted on X in February: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

While politicians have invoked fears of extremism in their public comments, Akyol said American Muslims are the ones who are most worried.

“If the people who govern your state define you like that, what may come next?” he said. “Maybe a legal step against you, or some fanatic who really believes in that can take his machine gun and attack you.”

Much of the Islamophobic messaging has gone unchecked by other conservatives, a marked departure from previous leadership. In 2001, a few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, then-President George W. Bush visited a mosque in Washington, D.C., and met with Muslim community leaders, declaring “Islam is peace” and condemning retaliation against Muslim Americans.

Earlier this month, DeSantis signed a Republican-sponsored bill into law that allows a few state officials to label certain groups “domestic terrorist organizations.” The new law also bans Florida courts from enforcing religious laws and bars state funds from going to schools affiliated with groups designated as terrorist organizations. It does not specifically mention a religion, but cites Shariah as an example of the kind of religious laws it covers.

“You can have these groups that may not be waging physical war-type jihad,” DeSantis said earlier this month. He warned groups could wage “stealth” or “financial” attacks.

“To me, that’s still jihad and we’ve got to stop it, and this bill provides the structure to be able to do it.”

Critics say such laws also have the potential to harm any organization that finds itself at odds with a current administration.

“That is the danger of these laws, because they are specifically designed to silence political dissent,” said Wilfredo Ruiz, communications director at the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights group. CAIR was one of two groups labeled as terrorist organizations by an executive order DeSantis issued in December.

The Biden administration criticized CAIR for statements made by its leadership after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, but the group denies that it supports terrorism.

CAIR Florida sued over DeSantis’ order, arguing it violated the group’s First Amendment right to free speech. In March, a federal judge blocked the order.

Ruiz said his organization has the resources to continue challenging such laws in court. But he said he worries about smaller groups, including those that aren’t Muslim but might be at risk of being declared a “terrorist group” by whoever is currently in power in Florida.

“Having that executive power with the capacity to name you a terrorist organization before you have been even accused criminally, much less convicted, this is an openly unconstitutional proposal.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

The path leading to the track at a Durham middle school on Saturday was marked with signs bearing the names of Black women who died from pregnancy-related causes. 

Walkers and runners participating in a fundraiser for MAAME, or a Durham nonprofit that offers doula care, walked past the signs, reminders of the tragedies that the organization is working to prevent. 

MAAME stands for Mobilizing African American Mothers through Empowerment. It’s also the Twi word for woman or mother. 

Laura Gonzalez Dutor arrived at the fundraiser with her partner Uriah Shaw and their one-month-old daughter Ember to pick up baby supplies. 

Gonzalez Dutor had doula care during her pregnancy, and said it helped reduce her anxiety. 

“She gave me a sense of peace, in a way, because she was very knowledgeable about everything,” Gonzalez Dutor said. “I knew that there was always going to be someone, in addition to my partner, that would be able to advocate for me and just help me make informed decisions.”

Women in the United States die from pregnancy-related deaths at higher rates than any other wealthy country. Black women in the United States died from pregnancy-related causes at three times the rate of white women, according to CDC data from 2024. 

In North Carolina, maternal deaths among Black women were nearly twice as high as for white women from 2018-2020, according to the North Carolina Maternal Mortality Review Committee. Nearly 80% of those deaths were considered preventable. 

Doulas offer non-medical support before and during births. Some work with the families of newborns. 

Research studies have found that doula care reduces the likelihood of Cesarean sections.  Low-income mothers who had doulas were four times less likely to have low-weight babies and two times less likely to experience birth complications, according to one study. 

Studies also show racism and implicit bias play a role in the higher rate of Black maternal deaths.

Efforts to improve those statistics are facing new challenges. Last year, the Trump administration canceled grants studying maternal health as it sought to end diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, Stateline reported. 

Maya Jackson, executive director of MAAME, said her organization has felt the ripple effects. Soon after national grants were axed last year, $10,000 in sponsorships that would have helped MAAME meet a $15,000 fundraising goal were canceled, she said. 

Some of the money MAAME raises goes to subsidize doula care for people who can’t afford the full price. With less money, MAAME had to reduce local services, Jackson said.  

MAAME also works in counties beyond the Triangle as part of a UNC study looking at ways to narrow the gap between Black and white maternal death rates.

MAAME received American Rescue Plan funds from Durham County a few years ago. 

Advocates, experts tout proposals to reduce Black maternal deaths in North Carolina

That money has helped the organization survive the lean times, Jackson said. “We’re good for another year,” she said. “But if there are more decreases in funding, it will get tough.”

Private insurance does not typically cover doula care. Two of the state’s four Medicaid managed care organizations offer doula care as an extra service, though one company limits the benefit to certain counties. 

The state has been talking for years about offering doula care as a regular part of Medicaid maternity care coverage.  

The Child Fatality Task Force has repeatedly recommended that Medicaid cover doula services. Gov. Roy Cooper proposed Medicaid reimbursement for doulas at the end of his second term, but the legislature did not fund it. 

A division of the state Department of Health and Human Services hosted a doula summit in 2022 with North Carolina doulas and practitioners from states where they are eligible for Medicaid reimbursement. A report from the summit said “doulas overwhelmingly agreed that Medicaid reimbursement of doula services is essential because all pregnant patients deserve access to doula services, and doulas should be paid a living wage in order to make services accessible.” But they identified low Medicaid reimbursement rates, administrative burdens, and a need for referrals as potential downsides. 

Key legislators said last month they were interested and have asked for information on how other states have approached Medicaid reimbursements. Twenty-nine states provide doula services under Medicaid or are preparing to do so. 

Two doulas at the fundraiser were in deep discussion about the pros and cons of Medicaid reimbursement. 

Tatiana Smith is a community doula who travels between New Jersey, where Medicaid pays for doula care, and North Carolina. 

New Jersey’s reimbursement rates are low, Smith said, and include a flat fee for attending a birth, even though there’s no telling how many hours someone’s labor will last. 

Doulas were frozen out of important decisions about Medicaid reimbursements there, she said. 

“You want to work with Medicaid because you want more people to have access,” Smith said. “But then, on the other hand, we need to be sitting at the table and helping make those decisions.”

Medicaid officials don’t understand the work, said Melanie Patrick, owner of Emerald Doulas, which operates in the Triangle. 

“Medicaid deciding how we work, who’s going to certify us, whether or not we’re certified, and then deciding how much we’re going to earn doesn’t make sense, because they don’t understand what we do,” she said.

As Republican state House and Senate leaders continue their yearlong impasse over the state budget, a group of House Democrats on Monday proposed legislation to address the state’s housing shortage, enhance local governments’ ability to increase the minimum wage and regulate large data centers.

Because Democrats are in the minority in both state legislative chambers, Republican legislative leaders are unlikely to give their bills a committee hearing, let alone a floor vote. But sponsors said it’s important that House Democrats offer a different approach to address utility bills, housing and stagnant wages, which are “three of the sharpest pain points for families.” 

The proposals address troubling affordability issues that make it difficult for some working North Carolinians to afford utilities or “buy groceries without falling behind on their bills,” Rep. Vernetta Alston, D-Durham, said during a press conference.

Alston said the affordability crisis is driven by “powerful interests and bad policy choices” that push costs down onto ordinary people. 

“When corporations can shift energy costs onto rate-payers, when wages lag far behind the cost of living, and when housing supply is choked by delays and speculation, working people pay the price,” Alston said. 

A data center boom driven by the rise of artificial intelligence has the communities that could potentially host them concerned about the strain they could cause to the electrical grid and water supplies, as well as higher energy costs and environmental and noise impacts.

The Ratepayer and Resource Protection Act (House Bill 1063) would require large data centers to make detailed disclosures about the resources they will consume. 

“We would also require that data centers pay electric rates that are proportional with the cost of actually servicing the data centers,” said Rep. Lindsey Prather, D-Buncombe.

Under the law, data centers would be required to demonstrate that they will comply with on-site clean energy generation requirements, water use standards and cost-based utility service requirements. It also restricts subsidies and tax incentives for data centers and requires annual reporting on electricity, water use and on-site generation.

“No more cost-shifting onto working families,” Prather said. “The public should be held harmless from increased costs associated with large data centers coming to town.” 

Prather noted that a dozen or more communities have passed moratoriums on data centers or are poised to do so. “North Carolinians want us to get ahead of this,” she said.

Rep. Monika Johnson-Hostler, D-Wake, added that cooling or heating a home is not an option for families.

“When prices go up, it leaves families without a lot of options,” Johnson-Hostler said. “They’re forced to cut costs wherever they can. For low-income households especially, this hits hard.”

Under a bill titled the Fair Minimum Wage Act (House Bill 1059), local governments could adopt a higher minimum wage of up to $15 an hour. The minimum wage would be adjusted automatically for inflation each year to reflect increases in the consumer index. The adjustments would become effective Jan.1 each year.

“At the center of the cost-of-living crisis is a simple truth; too many people in North Carolina are working hard and still not earning enough to keep up,” said Rep. Tim Longest, D-Wake. “Costs rise year after year, but wages for too many workers remain stuck.”

North Carolina currently prohibits local governments from establishing their own minimum wage rates. The statewide minimum wage is $7.25, the same as the federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since July 2009, marking the longest period in U.S. history that it has remained unchanged.

“The wages paid to working North Carolinians must reflect the rising costs of basic necessities, and indexing the minimum wage to inflation will help preserve purchasing power over time,” Longest said. “When people cannot afford basic living costs, the result is more hardship, more instability and less economic security.”

Longest noted that the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that 1.2 million North Carolinians make below $15 an hour. 

The bill would set an $11 minimum wage for small businesses, those earning less than $400,000 a year. That’s an acknowledgement that small businesses cannot easily absorb increased costs in the way that large corporations can. 

The bill would also create a state Wage Board to help promote fair wages, reduce avoidable layoffs and support workforce stability during economic downturns.  

The third proposal, an expansive bill titled Relieving Housing Bottlenecks  (House Bill 1056), would allow residential development in all commercial zones and prohibit minimum parking requirements.

North Carolina’s “housing wage” is up nearly $2 since 2024

The bill’s sponsors and other housing advocates contend “regulatory barriers, infrastructure constraints and lengthy or unpredictable approval processes” increase the cost and time to build housing, limit supply and contribute to higher prices.

The bill would require the N.C. Housing Finance Agency to establish a municipal housing approval acceleration program. It would also be asked to preserve single-family homeownership. Under the law, corporate buyers couldn’t own more than 25 homes in the state for use as rentals or other “non-owner-occupancy purposes.”

The bill also provides additional funding for the housing finance agency.  

The U.S. Supreme Court could be ready to overturn a Missouri state court verdict that favored a man who sued the manufacturer of the popular herbicide Roundup for lacking any warning that the product carried a risk of cancer after oral arguments in the case Monday.

The arguments focused on whether states could enforce their own labeling requirements of pesticides, or whether federal law preempted any deviation among states. Members of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority emphasized the need for uniformity across the country.

The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in the case in favor of Monsanto, the Missouri-based company that manufactures Roundup and has been owned since 2018 by German pharmaceutical company Bayer. The company faces thousands of lawsuits claiming exposure to Roundup increased a risk of cancer and that the company failed to warn consumers when it reasonably should have known of the risk.

Monsanto denies that the product causes cancer, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has consistently agreed.

John Durnell, a St. Louis resident, sued the company in 2019 claiming that exposure to Roundup over two decades led to his developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. A Missouri trial court awarded him $1.25 million, and appeals courts affirmed the ruling.

But the Supreme Court, which is the first federal court to hear the case, seemed inclined to protect federal supremacy. The EPA, which regulates labeling requirements for herbicides, does not require the kind of warning the Missouri jury said was appropriate.

Federal law typically trumps state law, which Monsanto and the Justice Department emphasized Monday. Industry groups across the economy tend to support federal supremacy because it saves companies from complying with 50 separate regulatory schemes across states.

‘Is that uniformity?’

An exchange between Ashley Keller, the attorney for Durnell, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom President Donald Trump appointed in his first term, may hold the key to the court’s ultimate ruling.

Keller argued that Congress in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which governs herbicide use, did not include a clause to expressly say that the federal law would preempt any state claims.

There was no issue of a difference between state and federal law, Keller said. Instead, a particular jury decided a single case based on unique facts, he continued. Different juries in other cases may have decided differently.

But Kavanaugh seemed not to accept that argument. He rephrased a similar question several times, and, even as Keller objected, appeared to dismiss the idea that the Missouri verdict was compatible with a national standard.

“You think it’s uniformity when each state can require different things?” he asked.

Keller rejected that framing. 

“The label’s illegal in one state and legal in another state,” Kavanaugh responded. “That’s uniformity?” 

Keller said he didn’t agree with that premise either, saying the label is not illegal based on the state but based on the facts presented at trial and the jury’s interpretation.

“The label subjects you to liability in one state and does not subject you to liability in another state,” Kavanaugh continued. “Is that uniformity?”

“I don’t think it’s state by state,” Keller said. “I think it’s jury by jury.”

Paul Clement, a well-known conservative appeals lawyer, represented Monsanto in the case, and described Keller’s argument as chaotic. It would not just open up separate regulatory regimes in each state in the country, but subject manufacturers to liability based on the makeup of any particular batch of citizens on a state court jury.

“It’s worse than 50 states,” he said. “It’s every jury is a new day.” 

A host of agencies in countries across the globe have all done studies on glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, Clement said.

“It’s probably the most, like, studied herbicide in the history of man, and they’ve all reached the conclusion based on more data and the kind of expert analysis they can do that there isn’t a risk here,” he said. “You shouldn’t let a single Missouri jury second-guess that judgment.”

Liberal justices seek consumer protections

The court’s liberal justices spent more time questioning why states shouldn’t be allowed to enforce stricter regulations.

Justice Elena Kagan asked Principal Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris, who argued on behalf of the federal government in favor of throwing out the verdict against Monsanto, if she agreed with Clement’s argument.

Harris said she largely agreed, noting that 50 states setting up separate regulations on labeling pesticides would cause confusion.

But Kagan asked why uniformity should be a higher goal than safety, saying a certain state government might have a better understanding than the EPA.

“It does undermine uniformity, I appreciate that,” Kagan said. “On the other hand, if it turns out that they (state regulators) were right, it might have been good if they had an opportunity to do something to call this danger to the attention of the people while the federal government was going through its process.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also pointed out that the EPA only registers herbicides once every 15 years, meaning that states might have better information than the EPA, especially later in that cycle.

“Lots of things can happen in science in terms of developments about the product,” she told Clement. “So if the product can become misbranded because of new information, I guess I’m just wondering why you think that you couldn’t have a situation where it would be perfectly rational for either the EPA or the states to bring to the attention of that manufacturer this new information and process a claim related to it.”

North Carolina is the only state in the country where teacher pay is expected to drop this year, according to a new report from the National Education Association.

The 2026 report ranks North Carolina 46th in the nation for average teacher pay. The state fell three spots from last year.

Average salaries in the state are projected at $59,971 for the 2025-26 school year. That is a decrease from $60,323 the year before. Meanwhile, the national average public school teacher salary rose 3.5% to $74,495 in 2023-24.

The projected decline comes as lawmakers have yet to pass a state budget, leaving teacher pay largely unchanged while costs continue to rise.

Nationally, teachers are earning about 5% less than they did 10 years ago when adjusted for inflation. North Carolina now trails every neighboring state in educator pay. Teachers would need a 21% raise just to match the average salary in Georgia, $72,758.

Stephanie Wallace, a Forsyth County teacher, said she works multiple jobs to make ends meet, including weekend shifts at a Chili’s restaurant. She said her pay has risen about 9% since 2018, while her living costs have increased far more over the same period.

“If you look at my pay increase as a veteran teacher,” Wallace said, “I am, in fact, making less than I was making about a decade ago.”

The report also shows the state ranks 46th in per-student funding. North Carolina spends about $13,680 per student, which is nearly $5,500 below the national average.

Leaders with the North Carolina Association of Educators blamed the rankings on policy choices. They pointed to tax cuts and the use of public money for private school vouchers.

“The downward trend in our rankings reflects the choices of a General Assembly that has spent years funneling public money away from public schools through corporate tax cuts and the expansion of private school vouchers,” said Tamika Walker Kelly, the group’s president, this morning in a virtual press conference.

NC Newsline reached out to House Speaker Destin Hall for comment, but he did not respond immediately.

State Superintendent Mo Green called the 46th-place ranking “unacceptable.”

“North Carolina is not paying its teachers what they deserve, and we are losing ground while other states move forward,” Green said in a statement to NC Newsline.

Green expressed hope that a budget proposal by Gov. Josh Stein would gain traction in the General Assembly.

Stein pitches NC budget with teacher raises, tax cuts, Medicaid funding

Stein has proposed a new budget that includes about $2.3 billion for public education. The plan calls for an average 11% raise for teachers and would raise starting teacher pay to the highest level in the Southeast.

Green noted that teachers achieved record-high graduation rates and AP performance last year despite being underpaid.
“Imagine what they could do with the compensation they have earned,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared likely to allow law enforcement to continue seeking warrants for the location history of cellphones near crime scenes, even as the justices wrestled with how far the government must go to protect Americans’ privacy.

Some of the justices appeared to be searching for a middle ground during oral arguments in a case out of Virginia challenging what is known as a geofence warrant that was used to catch a bank robber. Several justices asked skeptical questions of both sides, though no one voiced explicit support for prohibiting such warrants altogether.

As smartphones have become ubiquitous, along with apps that track users’ movements, the high court is once again wading into how the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, applies in the digital era. The justices’ decision, of tremendous interest to state attorneys general, will shape how easy or difficult it is for investigators to sweep up location data.

Over the past two decades, geofence warrants have become a major tool of law enforcement. At a basic level, they allow police to identify phones within a geographic area for a certain period of time. 

The data can be tremendously valuable to investigators, offering a way to develop suspects in crimes where their identities aren’t otherwise known. Underscoring their importance, a broad bipartisan coalition of states has urged the justices to uphold the warrants.

But civil liberties advocates say geofence warrants ensnare people in digital dragnets, handing the government data on anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They argue that accessing data on anyone within a certain area — the geofence — amounts to a general warrant prohibited by the Constitution.

Summing up the high court’s uncertainty in Monday’s arguments, Justice Amy Coney Barrett told U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Eric Feigin, who was arguing in favor of law enforcement access to location data, that while he had described his opponent’s position as maximalist, “there’s a risk of the government’s position being maximalist the other way.”

“I was just going to say this seems very complicated from the user’s point of view, frankly,” Barrett said at a different portion of the argument.

Credit union robbery

The case before the Supreme Court, Chatrie v. United States, arises from a 2019 robbery of a federal credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Okello Chatrie was convicted of armed robbery after surveillance footage showed the robber using a cellphone. A detective then obtained a geofence warrant directed at Google for devices within 150 meters of the credit union within an hour of the robbery.

Google initially provided anonymized data in response to the warrant. The detective then requested and received additional location data on nine users. Finally, the detective received de-anonymized information on three users, without obtaining an additional warrant.

While Google has since changed the way it stores location history data to limit geofence warrants, other apps and tech firms collect the data. Lawyers for Chatrie argue that geofence warrants open the door to the authorities requesting information on everyone at a sensitive location — perhaps an abortion clinic or a political convention — at a particular time.

“The warrant authorized the government to direct Google to search every single person’s account to find those people who were within the geofence. That is a general warrant,” Adam Unikowsky, a lawyer for Chatrie, told the court.

4th Amendment debate

The Supreme Court’s last major decision on 4th Amendment rights and phones came in 2018, when the justices ruled that law enforcement generally needs a warrant for location data derived from when phones connect to a cell site. That data is generated by just having a cellphone, and the justices found that a phone is now a basic element of participating in society.

By contrast, the Trump administration argues location history data isn’t protected by the 4th Amendment because users voluntarily share it with Google and other tech firms by turning on location tracking on their phones. Because the information was turned over with their consent, users have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

“Petitioner here is asking for an unprecedented transformation of the 4th Amendment into an impregnable fortress around records of his public movements that he affirmatively consented to allow Google to create, maintain and use,” Feigin said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the court’s three liberal justices, argued that if the government can access location data without a warrant because Chatrie consented to sharing it with Google, then the government could obtain all sorts of other data shared with the company, such as photos and calendar entries.

“If this is consent, that means the government can seek those documents for any reason, not just the commission of a crime — or no reason, correct?” Sotomayor said.

“Correct. It would not be a search, so no search warrant would be required,” Unikowsky replied.

Red and blue states back geofence warrants

Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have filed a court brief arguing that geofence warrants can be more precise than many traditional investigative methods when supported by probable cause and appropriately tailored. In the brief, they urged the justices not to prohibit geofence warrants altogether.

State attorneys general across the political spectrum signed on to the brief. They include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Washington.

Geofence warrants can generate critical leads when the perpetrators of crimes are otherwise unknown, they wrote. When suspects are unknown but the suspected wrongdoing is linked to a specific place and time, location data provides one of the narrowest available tools for finding leads, the brief argues.

“This Court should make clear that the Constitution does not categorically ban those investigative methods,” the states’ brief reads.

Google brief

In a court brief, Google said geofence warrants result in invasive searches that are overbroad. Geofence searches, by their nature, have a high risk of sometimes sweeping in thousands of innocent users, the company said.

Even small geographic areas covering short periods of time can include hundreds of thousands of people, Google argued. Geofence parameters set by law enforcement often cover more ground than the location of the crime, with private homes, apartments, government buildings, hotels, places of worship and busy roads all included.

Lawyers for Google wrote that the company takes no position on whether the warrant in the Chatrie case complies with the 4th Amendment.

“But Google firmly believes that, based on the private nature of Location History data, law enforcement was required to obtain a warrant to access that data,” the brief says.

Orin Kerr, a Stanford Law School professor and one of the nation’s foremost experts on the 4th Amendment, predicted after the oral argument that the justices would likely rule that geofence warrants can be constitutionally drafted. 

However, he was uncertain whether the court would rule on whether the geofence search that identified Chatrie’s phone was a search under the 4th Amendment.

“They’ll probably say that geofence warrants have to be limited in time and space,” Kerr wrote on social media.

State Rep. Nasif Majeed of Mecklenburg County announced Monday he is leaving the Democratic Party following his loss in last month’s primary, becoming the second to defect from the caucus in less than a week.

Majeed said in a press release that he is switching his party affiliation to unaffiliated out of concerns over political practices that are “inconsistent with the spirit of free elections,” though he did not specify what actions he intended to refer to.

“Our community deserves leadership that is honest, accountable, and respectful of the democratic process,” he said. “I cannot, in good conscience, remain aligned where those concerns are not adequately addressed.”

His decision to switch parties comes three days after his fellow Mecklenburg lawmaker, state Rep. Carla Cunningham, also changed her affiliation from the Democratic Party to unaffiliated. She, too, lost her primary in March.

Both Majeed’s and Cunningham’s defeats came after they joined multiple votes to override vetoes by Gov. Josh Stein in 2025. Both lost by wide margins to progressive-backed rivals.

Majeed told the New York Times in February that he was “running against the machine” after progressive advocacy groups paid for an avalanche of mailers and ads opposing him in the primary.

“What’s the difference between this and what Trump does?” he said. “If you don’t vote the way Trump tells you to vote, they intimidate you.”

NC Republican legislators have veto overrides on immigration, guns, DEI in their sights

The House has six outstanding veto override votes on its agenda Tuesday. To reach the supermajority needed for passage, those override votes will require at least one Democrat or unaffiliated member to join all Republicans.

Now that they no longer identify as Democrats, Majeed and Cunningham may be the most likely final votes for the remaining overrides.

“My focus remains unchanged — delivering results for working families, supporting economic opportunity, addressing public safety, and expanding access to affordable housing,” Majeed said. “As an Independent, I am free to evaluate each issue on its merits and advocate without constraint.”

Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper wrote in a post on social media that Majeed and Cunningham are the only North Carolina lawmakers he could identify to switch parties after losing a primary.

They are the first lawmakers to switch parties since 2023, when Rep. Tricia Cotham, also of Mecklenburg County, left the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party and gave the GOP a supermajority in the state House of Representatives.

House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) praised Majeed and Cunningham in a statement Monday afternoon “for putting their constituents first.”

“Today’s Democratic Party has no room for those who don’t toe the line of the far left’s agenda,” Hall said. “Both of these members have led with integrity, refusing to let political pressure dictate their convictions or undermine the interests of the people they were elected to serve, and North Carolina is better for it.”

House Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham), who said last Wednesday that “nothing’s changed” in his relationship with the members who lost their primaries, expressed hope that Majeed and Cunningham will remain true to their values in a statement Monday.

“During their years in public office Representatives Majeed and Cunningham have voted on bills according to their values and I expect they will continue to do so,” Reives said. “I value their friendship and look forward to continuing to serve with them.”

North Carolina’s infant mortality rate dropped in 2024 to what state health officials say is a historic low. 

The infant death rate dropped from 6.9 deaths per 1,000 births in 2023 to 6.3 deaths per 1,000 births in 2024, an 8.7% decline. However, the overall improvement did not do much to narrow the gulf between Black and white infant death rates. 

Additionally, deaths from drug overdoses declined more than 34% from 2023 to 2024, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. North Carolina’s drop in fatal overdoses outpaced the national decline. The CDC reported a national age-adjusted decrease of 26.2%.

DHHS attributed 2024’s improved infant death rate to Medicaid expansion. North Carolina expanded Medicaid on Dec. 1, 2023. As of March 2, 2026, expanded Medicaid covered more than 720,000 North Carolinians, according to DHHS.

Research studies have found that states that expanded Medicaid showed greater declines in infant mortality than states that did not expand Medicaid. Those improvements were attributed to declines in Black and Latino infant death rates.

In North Carolina, white, Black and Latino infants were more likely to live through their first year in 2024 than in 2023. Death rates among Latino babies showed the greatest decline, from 6 per 1,000 births in 2023 to 4.4 per 1,000 in 2024, representing a 26% drop. 

Still, the longstanding gulf between Black and white infant mortality rates persisted into 2024. Black babies born in North Carolina remained about 3 times more likely to die before their first birthdays. 

In its news release, DHHS called the disparity “unacceptable” and said it is working to narrow the gap.

Disparities in health care predicted to worsen as ACA health insurance subsidies end

Stein attributed the decline in overdose deaths to Medicaid expansion and to the settlement with drug companies he helped negotiate as state attorney general. The settlement is bringing about $1.5 billion to the state through 2038, with about 85% of the money going to local governments. 

“This sharp decline in overdose-related deaths is a clear demonstration of the investments North Carolina has made to keep people safe and healthy,” Stein said in a statement. 

DHHS also attributes the decline in fatal overdoses in 2024 to the $834 million in American Rescue Plan money the state legislature voted in 2023 to spend on expanding access to behavioral health services and to naloxone. 

“The decrease in deaths in North Carolina marks progress in building healthier communities and is a testament to what we can accomplish when we work together,” DHHS Secretary Dev Sangvai said in a statement.

With the North Carolina General Assembly back in Raleigh for the 2026 session, the state of our public schools is once again at the top of the public policy agenda. Unfortunately, despite the talk we often hear from legislative leaders, the hard truth is that our schools are and have been struggling mightily for several years thanks to a chronic lack of funding.

What’s more, as Newsline was reminded in a conversation this past week with the President of the nonprofit Wake Ed Partnership, Keith Poston, the situation figures to get worse and soon unless lawmakers decide to pause the regressive tax cuts that are scheduled to take effect in the near future. What’s more as Poston also noted, even the efforts of well-off counties like Wake to supplement state school funding could be in jeopardy if lawmakers follow through with a new plan to enact one-size-fits-all rules on local property taxes.

Click here for the full interview with Keith Poston, President of the nonprofit Wake Ed Partnership.

State support for preschool education hit record highs for enrollment, quality, and funding in the 2024-2025 school year, according to a new report entitled “The State of Preschool 2025” from the National Institute for Early Education Research. That said, some states advanced more than others. This year’s report brings to the forefront for the first time one state that excels at both access and quality standards: Georgia.

Unfortunately, in North Carolina, preschool enrollment actually declined as did state government investments. To learn more about what the numbers mean and why state policymakers should prioritize pre-k, NC Newsline recently sat down with the institute’s Senior Director and Founder Steve Barnett and the lead author of The State of Preschool Yearbook, Associate Research Professor Allison Friedman-Krauss.

Click here to listen to the full interview with NIEER’s founder Steve Barnett and associate research professor Allison Fiedman-Krauss. 

Learn more about this year’s rankings.

It’s been 20 years now since North Carolina started its state lottery and with only a very few exceptions, state lotteries are now an almost universal phenomenon. Interestingly, however, the rise of lotteries has coincided with the massive growth of legalized private gambling, and this has posed challenges for state officials to keep their lotteries relevant and revenue producing.

Recently, to gauge how these efforts are faring, Robbie Sequeira, a reporter for the national news outlet Stateline, took a look at the state of U.S. lotteries and last week he was kind enough to join NC Newsline to share his findings.  Newsline also got a chance to ask Sequeira about another topic on which he’s recently reported and found a somewhat unusual degree of bipartisanship in state government – the national shortage of affordable housing.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira.

A New York City mom and domestic violence survivor felt a flashback of fear when she received a notice in March that the emergency housing voucher she and her son have relied on since 2023 will run out soon.

“It felt like the rug was pulled out from under me,” said Nyla B., who did not want her last name used to protect her safety. “I remember how hard it was to get housing when I left. I didn’t want to go back to a shelter with my son, who has health needs. The thought of being homeless again — or going back to my abuser — came rushing back.”

Nyla and other renters housed through the federal Emergency Housing Voucher program face a looming deadline to find alternative housing assistance, after the Trump administration announced that funding will run out earlier than expected. The program, created by Congress in 2021 and initially expected to last through 2030, has helped people at risk of or experiencing homelessness as well as those fleeing domestic or dating violence, stalking or human trafficking.

But with funding ending this year, some renters have been provided little guidance on what to do next. Some cities are transitioning them to other programs, but others are struggling with how to ensure the recipients don’t end up homeless. Some housing advocates say cities had plenty of warning about the end of funding and yet some didn’t act fast enough.

Across the country, the program has provided roughly 70,000 vouchers across more than 600 local public housing authorities.

Unlike other ongoing federal housing programs such as Section 8, the Emergency Housing Voucher program was crafted as extra pandemic-era assistance. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced in March 2025 that funding would run out for the program in late 2026, effectively accelerating the end of the initiative years ahead of its original timeline. HUD said the money went faster than expected “due to historic increases in rental prices.”

HUD did not answer Stateline questions about the program.

In New York, Nyla was accepted into the program in the summer of 2022, found an apartment a year later, and moved in by fall 2023. Before that, she spent years living with relatives after leaving her abuser in 2016, because the lingering financial abuse and trauma made it difficult to secure stable housing on her own, she said.

Nyla received an initial notice warning of the program’s diminishing funds in August 2025. A second letter in March informed her that the program would run out of money in 2026. Now, she could be evicted and lose her home.

Transitioning to Section 8

As of April 15, more than 47,000  emergency vouchers remained actively leased, according to HUD. That’s a drop from roughly 59,000 in April 2025.

Vouchers are heavily concentrated in large coastal and urban states, with the two highest cluster of voucher recipients in New York City (5,125 vouchers) and the Los Angeles region (2,823 in the city and 1,624 in the county). Additional concentrations are spread across New York state agencies (1,772 and 1,385) and other major metros — including Chicago (615), Philadelphia (716), the Seattle area (689), and Santa Clara County, California (591).

Before the end of 2025, some housing authorities began preparing for the elimination of the emergency vouchers, such as adjustments made to the Chicago Housing Authority’s fiscal 2026 budget.

For city programs that had relatively low numbers of voucher holders, such as the 45 recipients in Iowa City, Iowa, the city will transition them into the regular Section 8 federal Housing Choice Voucher program without having to reopen the waitlist.

New York City Housing Authority officials originally planned to transition people from emergency vouchers to regular Section 8 vouchers, but were unable to do so because the agency lacks funding and is in “shortfall status.” The city said it sought a federal waiver from that requirement but was denied.

The agency says it has about 5,200 active Emergency Housing Voucher participants, but lacks the funding to move them into the regular Section 8 program. Instead, the agency is urging participants to apply for public housing by May 1, after which it will begin trying to match eligible households to vacant units.

But officials say they cannot guarantee placement in another program or apartment.

“Participants must complete a public housing application,” Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Sklar said in an email to Stateline. “NYCHA encourages residents to submit their application by May 1 and will be accepting applications on a rolling basis through the summer.”

But housing advocates believe the agency should have planned better, noting that the Trump administration signaled more than a year ago that funding would run out earlier than expected.

“That wasn’t a secret,” said Gabbi Sandoval Requena of New Destiny Housing, a New York City-based nonprofit that provides housing and services to domestic violence survivors and their families. “There is no public plan from NYCHA for how to transition these households, and the way this was communicated created a lot of anxiety and confusion. For domestic violence survivors, it could mean going back to their abuser — putting their lives and their children’s lives at risk.”

Other city options

A potential lifeline for those losing the emergency vouchers, a separate New York City rental assistance program called CityFHEPS — Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement — is subject of a legal battle over its cost. New Mayor Zohran Mamdani during his campaign had promised to expand the program but instead is continuing a lawsuit to block that expansion, saying it would cost too much money.

City agencies see no perfect solution to keep former emergency voucher recipients housed long term.

Roughly 2,000 additional New Yorkers get emergency housing vouchers from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development. Kim Moscaritolo, a spokesperson for the agency, said the city is attempting to transition those households to a separate, locally funded subsidy — HOME tenant-based rental assistance — that could extend assistance by about two years.

“We are limited by the resources that are available to us, because when a program that’s supposed to last for 10 years suddenly loses funding, it’s always a challenge to figure out how to keep people in their homes,” said Moscaritolo. “It’s not a perfect solution, but it at least extends the opportunity for these folks to have that same sort of housing stability.”

New York Democratic state Sen. Brian Kavanagh introduced legislation that would open up an existing state housing program to those at risk of losing their federal rental subsidies. He and other lawmakers also are fighting to increase state funding for that program.

The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles told Stateline it allocated 3,365 emergency housing vouchers. With the funding for the program set to expire in 2026, the program is no longer accepting new applicants and sent out notices regarding the sunset of the program, a spokesperson told Stateline.

Uncertainty for voucher holders

The loss of these vouchers have some recipients wondering how to stay housed. Do they go back to shelters — which advocates say could be further overwhelmed with evicted voucher holders — or, in some cases, go back to the chaotic situation that led to homelessness in the first place?

Many survivors of domestic violence struggle to leave because they don’t have enough money or a safe place to live. According to a survey by the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, 73% of survivors nationally said their financial situation affected their ability to leave an abusive relationship, while 28% of survivors reported being denied housing due to experiences with domestic violence.

A bill in Nyla’s home state, New York, would prohibit landlords from asking for information or proof from a victim of domestic violence in order to apply for housing.

Nyla recounted being denied on application by landlords when she first looked for apartments after leaving her abuser. She said that landlords were fearful that the situation she left would follow her and possibly cause issues in the apartments she was applying for.

She said finding an apartment became her second job.

“You’re judged before you even say you’re a survivor, and I’m already seen as not reliable, not worthy just for having housing assistance,” she said. “They double-check you, like they don’t believe what’s on your application. And I think regardless of the situation we left, we are deserving of a safe, stable home just like market-rate renters.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday will hear oral arguments on the Trump administration’s efforts to strip temporary legal status from 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, a move that could open them up to deportation.

The case has the potential to have an impact on multiple lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to end protections for more than 1.3 million immigrants from all over the globe with Temporary Protected Status, granted because they hail from countries deemed too dangerous for return. 

The effort to end TPS designation is part of President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to curtail immigration and strip legal status for people, opening them up to his mass deportation drive. 

“The decision will have the capacity to impact everyone with TPS,” José Palma, a coordinator for the National TPS Alliance, told reporters. 

Palma is a TPS recipient from El Salvador.

At the start of the second Trump administration there were 17 countries with a TPS designation. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended the status for 13 countries — Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.  

Noem argued that she determined the countries no longer met the threshold for TPS and that the designation was not in the interest of the United States.

The moves sparked multiple lawsuits from immigration advocates and TPS recipients. Lower courts have mostly blocked the terminations from taking effect, but it’s still resulted in loss of work authorizations, healthcare and deportations of some people with temporary status, Palma said.

In the TPS Haiti and Syria case before the justices, which was consolidated from two separate cases, lawyers argue that DHS did not follow proper government procedures in revoking the status. 

They also contend that the termination of a country destination was predetermined and motivated by racism, especially the targeting of Black immigrants such as Haitians. 

“The most damning evidence is President Trump’s own words, his own actions,” Sejal Zota, one of the attorneys on the Haiti TPS case, told reporters during a briefing. “During his last campaign, he falsely claimed Haitian immigrants were eating the pets of the people in Springfield (Ohio). And days later, after the pets comment, he promised to revoke Haiti’s TPS and send them back to their country.”

Even after the justices rule, the outcome of the cases is not final because both cases were in preliminary stages at the district court level before the Trump administration took the two cases to the Supreme Court, skirting the typical appeals courts. 

A ruling is expected in late June or early July, and then both cases would go back to the lower courts to continue on the merits argument. However, the practical effect, if the Supreme Court finds in favor of the government, would be that Haitians and Syrians would be potentially subject to deportation. 

History of TPS

Congress created TPS in 1990 and instructed the attorney general to consult with appropriate agencies, such as the State Department, to designate a country that is too unsafe to return to due to war, major disasters or other extraordinary circumstances. 

When Congress created DHS in 2002 – in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack – that authority was transferred over to the secretary of Homeland Security. 

A designation lasts six,12 or 18 months, and each recipient has to undergo a background check in order to remain in the U.S. and have valid work permits. Congress did not place any limits on how many times a country can be renewed for TPS, citing the potential for long-term conflicts like civil war.

Zota, one of the attorneys on the TPS case for Haiti, said the Trump administration has “attempted to reverse-engineer the facts to justify its politically … motivated decision to terminate Haiti’s TPS.”

She said the State Department has warned people not to travel to Haiti due to gang violence, kidnappings, terrorist activity and civil unrest. 

The State Department advises people if they still plan to travel to Haiti to make sure to leave dental records and DNA in case their family needs to identify their remains. 

“Our own government has conceded the peril there,” Zota said. 

Haiti was first given a TPS designation after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The designation was renewed multiple times due to the disaster and then again after Haiti’s president was assassinated by gangs in 2021, leading to further destabilization, violence and food shortages. 

What is the role of the courts?

Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney arguing on behalf of TPS holders from Syria, said one of the questions the justices will be presented with is whether the courts have any role in making sure that the federal government complies with making TPS decisions, such as making sure that the country determinations are made in coordination with relevant agencies. 

He added that the Trump administration is not coordinating with the State Department to evaluate country conditions, which he argues is not following proper administrative procedure.

“You’ll hear a lot of talk in the Supreme Court argument about whether we’re challenging a determination with respect to TPS decisions, and that’s because there’s a provision of the TPS statute which says there’s no judicial review of any determination with respect to a termination of TPS,” Arulanantham said to reporters.

Arulanantham is also the co-director at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

He said that the Trump administration is arguing about that TPS statue and whether the courts have any say.

“We think it means that the courts are not allowed to second-guess decisions about whether countries are safe,” he said. “The government thinks it means that … the courts aren’t allowed to look at any of this and that any decision they make, any rule that they set for TPS, is immune from review entirely.”

In briefs to the high court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued that the lower courts should not interfere with the DHS secretary’s decision.

Arulanantham said there’s a “huge amount” at stake in the Trump administration’s argument about review of TPS designations. 

“If the government is correct, then they can terminate TPS without conducting any country conditions review at all,” he said. “They can do it for reasons that are completely arbitrary.”

Other TPS decisions

This is not the first time a TPS case has appeared before the justices during the second Trump administration. 

The high court twice allowed the Trump administration to remove TPS for more than 300,000 of the 600,000 Venezuelans in the program. Because those decisions were made on an emergency basis, the justices did not give any legal reasoning before sending the cases back to the lower courts. 

Federal judges have often cited the lack of opinion from the high court when issuing a ruling to block the Trump administration from ending TPS designation from other countries. 

Wednesday’s oral arguments will be the first time the justices will hear a TPS case and give a decision on their ruling about the Trump administration’s move to revoke protections. 

The alleged shooter at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., wrote a “manifesto” ahead of his planned attack, President Donald Trump said in a Sunday morning interview on Fox News and later in the day on the CBS show “60 Minutes.”

Meanwhile, Trump and MAGA allies online said security flaws exposed by the incident prove the need for a new secure ballroom at the White House. Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Cabinet officials were safely evacuated from the Washington Hilton after shots were fired by a suspect said by officials to be armed with a shotgun, handgun and multiple knives.

Multiple news reports Sunday identified the suspected shooter as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, and The Associated Press said he is a tutor and amateur video game developer. The White House has not released that information publicly and spokespeople did not return a message Sunday.

Fox News Host Jacqui Heinrich used the name in her interview with Trump, who did not use it himself but did not correct Heinrich when she named Allen and called the manifesto “anti-Trump” and “anti-Christian.”

Trump said the document revealed a “hatred” for Christianity.

“The guy is a sick guy,” he said. “When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians. That’s one thing for sure: He hates Christians.”

The New York Post published what the outlet said was the full text of the manifesto, which sought to reconcile the attack with Christian teachings, rather than mock the religion itself. The document was also referenced in the CBS interview, with host Norah O’Donnell saying it characterized members of the administration as targets.

The document lays out a series of objections to a planned attack and the writer’s rebuttals.

“Objection 1: As a Christian, you should turn the other cheek,” Allen wrote, according to the New York Post. 

“Rebuttal: Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed,” he continued. “I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this administration. Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”

Noting this was what he characterized as the third assassination attempt of Trump in less than two years, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on social media that a Trump trademark is a calm demeanor under pressure.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with him over the past several years, and he is at his strongest in times of crisis and turmoil,” the Louisiana Republican wrote. “It is a primary reason why his time in office is so historic. Adding to that history, he has now survived a third assassination attempt.”

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday on news shows that the gunman appeared to be targeting administration officials but did not say it was specifically Trump. The White House put out a statement with the headline, “President Trump Stands Fearless After Third Assassination Attempt.”

Arraignment Monday

Blanche also said he expects the suspect to be arraigned in D.C. federal court on Monday. Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, said Saturday night the man would be charged with using a firearm during a crime of violence and assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon. 

The suspect traveled from Los Angeles to Washington by train, switching trains in Chicago, Blanche said in a Sunday morning interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.” That mode of travel would have allowed him to transport the weapons that officials said were found on him across the country without facing a security check, unlike an air flight.

Blanche said he did not think any additional laws to increase security on trains were needed.

The shooter was staying at the Washington Hilton, the longtime site for the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, for days before the attack, Blanche said. 

At the time of the interview, Allen was not cooperating with the investigation, Blanche said.

Asked if there was any foreign connection to the planned attack, Blanche said many details of the shooter’s plans were yet unknown.

“We’re still looking into motivation, and that’s something that hopefully we’ll learn over the next couple of days,” Blanche said. “We do believe, based upon just a very preliminary start to understanding what happened, that he was targeting members of the administration. We don’t have specifics beyond that.”

Blanche added that the law enforcement agent injured by a shot to his bulletproof vest Saturday night was doing well and had received a call from Trump.

“The president spoke with him last night,” Blanche said. “He was in great spirits. He apparently didn’t really even want to go to the hospital, although he was certainly injured.”

Ballroom pitched as security fix

Trump, a host of right-wing influencers and at least one Democratic member of Congress called for the construction of a new ballroom for the White House in response to the incident.

“What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, Sunday morning. 

“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House,” he continued. “It cannot be built fast enough! While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature there is plus, there are no rooms sitting on top for unsecured people to pour in, and is inside the gates of the most secure building in the World.”

The initial White House announcement of the ballroom, in July, emphasized space needs for large events and gave only a passing mention to security updates, saying the Secret Service would provide them.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat who is among the senators who most commonly cross party lines, posted on social media Sunday that a new ballroom was a necessity, calling on opponents to drop their “TDS,” or Trump Derangement Syndrome, a name to describe people who oppose anything Trump does.

“That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government,” Fetterman wrote. “After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the White House ballroom for events exactly like these.”

Montana Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy said he would propose a bill to expedite the construction of the White House ballroom.

“This week I will introduce and seek unanimous consent for legislation providing express approval for construction of a Presidential ballroom,” he wrote on X. “It is an embarrassment to the strongest nation on earth that we cannot host gatherings in our nation’s capital, including ones attended by our President, without the threat of violence and attempted assassinations.”

And Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who is a leader among the caucus’ far-right members, said ballroom construction should be included in an upcoming funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

“Any consideration of DHS reconciliation instructions this week & beyond should provide for construction of a secure ballroom on White House grounds – in addition to other concerns,” he wrote.

Medicinal marijuana products that are legal at the state level will see looser federal regulation under an order the U.S. Department of Justice published Thursday, while a process that could remove the drug in all forms from the federal list of the most dangerous drugs is set to begin in late June.

The order, signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, shifts many marijuana products from Schedule I — the Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of drugs with the greatest potential for abuse and least legitimate use — to Schedule III. 

That will open the door to greater research and provide an effective tax break for businesses that sell medicinal marijuana that is legal under state law.

The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order last year directing the DOJ to move toward rescheduling.

“The Department of Justice is delivering on President Trump’s promise to expand Americans’ access to medical treatment options,” Blanche said in a statement. “This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information.”

The order applies to state-licensed medical marijuana products in the states that allow medicinal use of the drug.

The move means those businesses can deduct business expenses from their federal taxes and researchers have access to state-legal products. As a Schedule I drug, only cannabis grown in a federal facility could be studied, severely limiting the supply available to researchers.

The DEA also scheduled a hearing on broader reclassification to begin June 29 and end no later than July 15. That hearing will explore the possibility of rescheduling marijuana products that could include recreational use.

The order likely has no immediate impact on the difficulty marijuana businesses have had accessing the banking system. Institutions that lend to even state-legal businesses could be prosecuted on federal money laundering charges for offering banking services to businesses that violate federal drug laws.

‘Historic’ shift

Moving a limited number of products from Schedule I, which includes drugs such as heroin and cocaine, to Schedule III, which includes highly regulated prescription drugs such as acetaminophen with codeine, does not satisfy advocates who have called for complete legalization. 

But it does represent a major shift in the federal government’s official position on cannabis, several pro-legalization groups said.

“It’s historic because the federal government, historically, has denied the existence of medical cannabis, even as a concept,” Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the advocacy group the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said in an interview. 

The federal government was in recent memory “outright hostile” to medicinal marijuana, Armentano added. The order “finally acknowledges and recognizes not only the legitimacy of marijuana as a medicine, but also the legitimacy of these state programs, and it is trying now to integrate these state programs into our own existing federal regulatory schemes.”

Forty states and the District of Columbia allow medicinal marijuana.

Jasmine Johnson, CEO of Florida-based cannabis company G?D Essence, wrote in an email that the federal government’s acknowledgement of cannabis’ legitimate medical value was the most important part of the order. 

“That shift alone helps move the industry out of decades of stigma and opens the door for expanded research, more institutional participation, and a more rational regulatory framework,” she wrote.

Medicinal vs. recreational

Recreational use will see no immediate changes from the order. In the 24 states in which recreational use, also called adult use, is legal, businesses that sell both medicinal and recreational products may experience confusion.

Chuck Smith, the CEO of Colorado Leads, an industry group, said in a statement that for Colorado cannabis businesses, “the immediate effects of this order are significant but relatively narrow.”

“Hybrid businesses should expect a transitional period in which federally covered medical activity and federally non-covered adult-use activity may be treated differently for registration, tax, and compliance purposes,” Smith said.

Such businesses would likely not see a tax benefit “when it comes to producing and selling, arguably, the products that consist of the majority of their business,” Armentano said.

Ryan Hunter, the chief revenue officer for Colorado-based marijuana company Spherex, called the DOJ order “a very silly announcement,” noting that it created a third regulatory category of a single plant species.

“Though this is all the same plant,” hemp and medical marijuana “are now considered Schedule III substances under the Controlled Substances Act (similar to Tylenol + Codeine),” while non-medical use is still considered Schedule I, he wrote in a statement. “My mind boggles at these arbitrary and artificial distinctions, but here we are.”

Eventual changes

Johnson, the Florida CEO, said she expected regulators to eventually merge how they treat different uses of the drug.

“The distinction between medicinal and recreational use has always been more regulatory than practical. From an operator’s standpoint, the same plant, supply chain, and compliance standards exist regardless of how it’s categorized,” she wrote. 

“Over time, we’ll likely see a continued shift toward a more unified framework that reflects how consumers actually engage with cannabis, rather than maintaining rigid distinctions that complicate operations.”

In December 2015 — the same month future Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley got the call to run Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign in North Carolina — he received a different kind of summons: an arrest order in Rutherford County for failure to appear in court.

Whatley, now the Republican Party’s nominee for North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat, has staked his campaign on issues of law and order — casting himself as a champion for state troopers and police officers.

But legal records tell a different story.

According to court records in 14 different traffic cases reviewed by NC Newsline from North Carolina and Virginia, Whatley has repeatedly avoided facing the law, failing to appear in court in four North Carolina traffic cases and being found guilty in absentia in four traffic cases in Virginia.

Records matched Whatley’s full name, birth year, and places of residence. In each of the 14 cases, Whatley pleaded guilty or responsible or was found guilty in his absence, excluding a 1998 expired registration citation disposed of by a North Carolina court and a 2007 citation for operating an uninspected vehicle that was dismissed.

Spokesmen for the Whatley campaign did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Cooper, Whatley face off in dueling Triangle events over who can deliver affordability

The 2015 order for Whatley’s arrest was the second bench warrant issued in the Rutherford County case, in which he was charged in June of that year with speeding 64 mph in a 45 mph zone. That offense was charged as a misdemeanor, resulting in bench warrants on bonds of $500 and $1,000 when he failed to appear for court.

He would not ultimately report to court until January 2016, following unsuccessful attempts to serve arrest orders in the previous September and December, Rutherford County court records show. He paid a $258 fine the following April, pleading down to responsibility for a faulty speedometer.

The Rutherford County charges came just over two weeks after Whatley pleaded to another lesser charge in a Caldwell County court in a separate speeding case, where he had been charged with driving 65 mph in a 50 mph zone.

Nearly a decade later, serving as general counsel for the national Republican Party, Whatley again failed to appear in court in June and July of 2023 — this time in Martin County, charged with speeding 68 mph on a stretch of U.S. 64 near Jamesville, where the speed limit is 55 mph.

According to the North Carolina state trooper who cited Whatley, the records show, Whatley said he did not know his speed and believed the limit to be 65 mph. The trooper noted down his vehicle as a GMC Sierra — the same truck Whatley recently posted on X, noting its odometer had hit 400,000 miles owing to his multiple drives through all of North Carolina’s 100 counties as a party official.

Whatley was cited for traffic offenses in seven of North Carolina’s 100 counties between 1989 and 2023, as well as four counties in Virginia.

Since 2015, Whatley has paid $912 in traffic fines.

It has been an amazing experience to drive to all 100 counties multiple times over the years.

Today, me and my truck hit a big milestone – 400,000 miles – as we made our way from the mountains to the coast to meet with the great people who call the Old North State home. pic.twitter.com/FUjyX5sSRo

— Michael Whatley (@WhatleyNC) April 18, 2026

A longtime attorney, Whatley graduated from the University of Notre Dame School of Law in 1997 before serving as a federal law clerk in Charlotte. He was a member of George W. Bush’s legal team in Florida during the 2000 election recount and served as the RNC’s general counsel from March 2023 to April 2024 after working for more than a decade as a lobbyist.

Colby Berry, a Raleigh-based defense attorney, told NC Newsline that it is illegal for a defendant to fail to appear in court for a traffic case, though doing so will usually result in license revocation after a certain period of time rather than a bench warrant for arrest. “When you get a citation from a police officer, you’re promising to appear.”

“It could be that magistrate’s policy to issue warrants for arrest on the lower-level misdemeanors, like traffic stuff, there could be some discretion. It could be up to whether they have a history of missing court,” Berry said.

Berry said defendants have the option of hiring a traffic lawyer to appear for them in the event that they are unable to appear themselves. The record for the 2015 case shows that Whatley did not retain an attorney until January 2016, after both bench warrants were issued, at which time the court recalled the order for arrest.

Whatley is vying to succeed U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who dropped his reelection bid following high-profile feuds with Trump. The former RNC chairman won the nomination after receiving Trump’s coveted endorsement, and his race is crucial for Republicans to hold the U.S. Senate, which Democrats increasingly believe they can flip due to the president’s flagging approval ratings and the country’s economic woes.

Throughout the 2026 U.S. Senate campaign, Whatley has sought to strike a contrast on crime with his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Roy Cooper, who leads him in most polls by a healthy margin.

Whatley has accused Cooper of making North Carolinians less safe by settling with civil rights groups to release 3,500 prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic — a claim that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly has now launched a committee to investigate.

“We need to keep our kids and our communities safe,” Whatley told a crowd of hundreds at a Trump rally in Rocky Mount last December. “We don’t need to reimagine law enforcement. We need to back the blue and we need to enforce the law.”

His campaign’s rapid response account on X, Whatley War Room, makes weekly “Mugshot Monday” posts, circulating images of criminal defendants and attributing their conduct to the “soft-on-crime legacy Roy Cooper left behind in North Carolina.”

In recent months, however, Whatley has drawn scrutiny from activists within his own party over law and order issues, including his decision to appoint convicted sex offender Harvey West to the body that drafts the state party’s rules, and his participation in an annual judicial fundraiser hosted by West. Whatley declined to address the controversy over West when asked directly earlier this month.

In Whatley’s first campaign event of the general election last month at the lodge of the Charlotte Fraternal Order of Police, he vowed to “put dangerous criminals behind bars.” Richard Maness, a retired state trooper, presented him with the endorsement of the North Carolina Troopers Association.

“North Carolina troopers want a United States senator who will have our backs, and who will help us protect our communities each and every day, not just during an election season,” Maness said. “Our members live the impact of public safety decisions each and every day.”

An appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump administration’s closing of United States borders to asylum-seekers. 

An executive order by President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day last year, and later guidance to turn asylum-seekers around without a court hearing, are “unlawful” and “cast aside federal laws affording individuals the right to apply and be considered for asylum,” according to the ruling by a panel of the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Advocates sued and said the administration’s action violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the right to seek asylum based on fears of persecution.

Trump’s proclamation on Jan. 20, 2025, said “the sheer number of aliens entering the United States has overwhelmed the system and rendered many of the INA’s provisions ineffective,” and that  “an invasion is ongoing at the southern border, which requires the Federal Government to take measures to fulfill its obligation to the States.”

The executive order, along with later guidance, required anyone crossing the border without permission to be turned around or quickly deported without a court date. As of March, about 2.7 million people had been released at the border with immigration court cases in recent years, according to a Stateline analysis. 

Those numbers peaked at more than 100,000 a month at times in 2023 during the Biden administration, and dropped quickly to a few hundred a month after Trump’s 2025 order. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News, blamed the ruling on politics and called it “unsurprising.” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the Department of Justice would seek further review of the decision. “We are sure we will be vindicated,” she wrote in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

State Rep. Carla Cunningham has switched her party affiliation to unaffiliated. The move comes after the Mecklenburg County Democrat lost her primary in March.

Cunningham, a seven-term incumbent, lost to Rev. Dr. Rodney Sadler, who earned the endorsement of Gov. Josh Stein.

WBT was the first to report the news on Friday.

Cunningham angered a lot of Democrats when she voted to override Stein’s veto of a bill outlining how sheriffs must cooperate with ICE. Before she voted, Cunningham gave a controversial speech saying immigrants must assimilate. “All cultures are not equal,” she said.

Earlier this month in an interview on WBT, Cunningham said she votes her conscience.

“Let them be worried:” NC Dem Carla Cunningham on the upcoming legislative short session.

“It’s not beneficial for me to line up behind a party agenda,” Cunningham told WBT’s Brett Jensen.  “What’s beneficial to my constituents is that I serve them and prioritize what their needs are.”

Asked in the interview whether Democrats should be worried about how she might vote in the short session, Cunningham suggested she would do her own research and not be directed by party politics.

“I’m transactional,” she said. “It’s business. It’s government doing business.”

Cunningham is not the first Mecklenburg County legislator to leave the Democratic party. In April 2023, Rep. Tricia Cotham announced she would join with Republicans. Cotham’s party switch gave Republicans 72 members in the state House that year, enough votes in the legislature to override then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes.

Medora Burke-Scoll drove an hour from Mebane to Raleigh early Thursday morning to join other educators urging state lawmakers to repeal the scheduled elimination of the North Carolina corporate income tax.

Burke-Scoll, a science teacher at Eastern High School and president of the Alamance-Burlington Association of Educators, said her school district simply cannot afford to lose more funding.

Of the 38 schools in the Alamance-Burlington school district, only nine met academic growth expectations last year.

“We are watching student outcomes decline. And as both a teacher and a parent, it’s heartbreaking,” said Burke-Scoll. “This didn’t happen by accident. This is the result of choices.”

Last year, the General Assembly failed to enact a new budget. Public schools tightened their belts. This year, scheduled tax cuts mean that state revenue will decline again next year, and that could mean less funding for teacher raises and classroom needs.

“We recently lost one of our strongest veteran math teachers,” said Burke-Scoll. “She was working two additional jobs as a single parent. And when a higher paying opportunity came along, she told me she felt like she had no choice.”

At the same time, Burke-Scoll said Alamance County has lost graduation coaches, behavior specialists, literary specialists, and testing coordinators.

“We’re given mandates from the state, but we’re not given the staffing to make those mandates a reality,” said Burke-Scoll.

Senator Natalie Murdock (D-Durham) joined Burke-Scoll and other educators to announce that she will file the “Kids Over Corporations Act” next week.

The bill will repeal the scheduled elimination of the North Carolina corporate income tax, Murdock said. It will also establish a permanent corporate tax rate of 5%, effective in tax year 2026.

“Every single one of our neighboring states has a corporate tax rate of 5% or higher,” said Murdock. “South Carolina charges corporations 5% and ranks 25 spots higher in education funding rankings than North Carolina.”

Murdock said on Wednesday she met with the leaders of a global biopharmaceutical company that will be investing $1.4 billion in the city of Durham.

“Companies from all over the world come here for our workforce and our phenomenal schools. That requires a strong public education system. Without stable education funding, you cannot produce a strong workforce,” said Murdock.

By 2030, corporations will pay zero in state income tax in North Carolina.

Murdock said for her, “the math does not math,” and corporations are simply not asking for this.

“That is not accountable,” said Murdock. “I’m calling on my colleagues in the General Assembly on both sides of the aisle to take a serious look at this bill, look at the numbers and make a different choice.”

The corporate income tax is actually a very small part of state revenue – only about 5%, according to N.C. Budget and Tax Center. Personal income tax makes up 50% of revenue, and that’s scheduled to be cut, too, which will have a much larger impact on the budget.

As NC Newsline reported earlier this week, House and Senate Republicans disagree on the timing of automatic tax cuts baked into the budget that are triggered when the state hits given revenue targets.

Senate President Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) has dismissed projections that the scheduled tax cuts will leave a budgetary shortfall.

“If we control the growth in state spending, the state budget will be just fine,” Berger told reporters on Tuesday.

NC lawmakers, advocates push Leandro funding as 2026 legislative session opens in Raleigh

Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said North Carolina now ranks 50th in the country in public school funding effort.

“With our corporate tax rates set to shrink yet again, there has been a lot of talk in Raleigh about a fiscal cliff.  I will tell you that North Carolina public schools have been falling off a fiscal cliff for years,” said Walker Kelly, an elementary music teacher from Cumberland County.

“It is time to stop the giveaways and fund what really matters. We refuse to keep paying the price for corporate greed,” Walker Kelly said.

The NCAE plans to drive home that point on May 1, when thousands of teachers and education supporters converge on Halifax Mall in Raleigh to demand increased funding for public schools, an end to policies prioritizing tax cuts over students, and greater accountability for voucher spending.

A U.S. appeals court ruling last month that upheld West Virginia’s ban on Medicaid coverage for adult gender-affirming surgeries could embolden other states seeking to impose similar restrictions.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March overturned a lower court decision in Anderson v. Crouch that had reversed West Virginia’s ban on Medicaid coverage for adult gender-affirming surgeries. The lower court ruled that the ban was discriminatory.

The decision came after the Supreme Court last year upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for youth in U.S. v. Skrmetti. The court then vacated several lower courts’ rulings and handed back cases — including West Virginia’s — for reconsideration in light of the high court’s opinion in the Tennessee case.

In response, the new West Virginia ruling extends the Supreme Court’s reasoning to the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage for adult gender-affirming surgery. The judges wrote West Virginia’s policy applies only to certain procedures, contending that it doesn’t target certain people or a protected status such as sex.

In a unanimous opinion, the three-judge appeals panel wrote, “(I)t is not irrational for a legislature to encourage citizens ‘to appreciate their sex’ and not ‘become disdainful of their sex’ by refusing to fund experimental procedures that may have the opposite effect.” The panel added, “The Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti forecloses any argument to the contrary.” The plaintiffs have filed a request for a rehearing by a full panel.

Providing care to people that aligns with their gender identity has been associated with overall better well-being and mental health, some research shows. Gender-affirming care includes a range of services, including hormone replacement, chest and genital removal or augmentation, and facial surgeries.

Experts say that while the West Virginia ruling technically sets a precedent only for 4th Circuit states, it could embolden and influence other states that are aiming to impose similar restrictions on public funds for gender-affirming treatments for adults. It also aligns with the slew of federal directives issued by President Donald Trump, including his order that federal agencies only recognize a biological, binary definition of sex.

“This gives states leeway to enact laws that would potentially restrict access to gender-affirming care for trans youth and adults,” said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “It could encourage states to adopt more, broader bans, including Medicaid bans, even for adults.”

An estimated 152,000 transgender adults are enrolled in Medicaid, but less than half live in states that guarantee coverage for gender-affirming care, according to the Williams Institute. About 29% of LGBTQ+ people live in states that exclude coverage, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that also tracks legislation.

Carmel Shachar, assistant clinical professor of law and faculty director of Harvard Law School’s Health Law and Policy Clinic, called Anderson v. Crouch “a significant early case in the post-Skrmetti landscape.”

“(The ruling) is definitely influential,” she added, saying it’s “a sign of which way the wind is blowing right now when it comes to state policies.”

At least seven other states have faced lawsuits over banning or limiting insurance coverage for gender-affirming care, Reuters reported. According to the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that supports LGBTQ+ rights, 27 states explicitly include gender-affirming care in Medicaid coverage policies, and 11 states explicitly ban Medicaid funds from use for gender-affirming care for people of all ages.

Oklahoma is aiming to join that list. Republicans there are advancing legislation that would prohibit Medicaid funds from covering adult gender-affirming care. The bill would also bar public money from being used by any organization or individual to pay for gender transition. It passed the Senate last month and a House oversight committee 11-2 last week.

During a floor debate this month, Oklahoma state Rep. Ellen Pogemiller, a Democrat, asked the bill’s sponsor directly whether privately covered adults who get care in public hospitals would lose access to care. “That’s a grave concern,” said Pogemiller, who added that she’s received that question from constituents.

“Fair point. I don’t have an answer for you,” replied Republican state Rep. Erick Harris, a cosponsor of the bill.

Pogemiller also cited a 2022 national survey by The Trevor Project, which provides suicide prevention services for LGBTQ+ youth, that found 55% of Oklahoma transgender and nonbinary youth had seriously considered suicide in the previous year. The research on whether gender-affirming care prevents suicides in children or adults is inconclusive.

“Are you concerned with legislation like this leading to an increase in youth and adult suicide?” she asked.

“I am concerned about public funds being used for things that they shouldn’t be used for,” Harris said. “That’s what I’m concerned about.”

Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said the ruling in the West Virginia case could lead to more discrimination.

“It invites states to come up with creative ways to discriminate against other groups of people and disguise it as just regulation of medical care,” Minter said. “It’s dangerous when the law and the courts refuse to recognize that type of blatant discrimination.”

Hailey Briggs is the executive director of Oklahomans For Equality, which serves LGBTQ+ communities in the state, running support groups and an LGBTQ+-affirming clinic that offers hormone replacement therapy. She said the bill is triggering more fear in the community. Since the start of this year’s legislative session, the clinic has seen between four and six new patients each week, some driving from hours away, as well as an uptick in mental health care service calls.

“This entire legislative session in particular has been just absolutely brutal for folks,” she said.

The bill is “not a narrow policy change,” Briggs continued. “We do see this as really a sweeping attempt to push essential health care out of reach for a lot of folks.”

The organization anticipates a surge in patients and insurance denials should the bill be signed into law, since the clinic isn’t federally or state funded and offers low-cost care. “We work to supplement for folks who don’t have insurance or are underinsured,” Briggs said. “They are going to be turned away from their trusted providers in state-funded institutions.”

Texas is one of the states that bans Medicaid coverage for such care for people of all ages. Andrea Segovia, senior field and policy director at the Transgender Education Network of Texas, said there’s an ongoing “chilling effect” as a result of such policies. Her team is increasingly hearing of insurance denials, she said.

“They’re seen as cosmetics. They’re seen as not necessary,” Segovia said of some medical procedures. “Somebody will email us and say, ‘I lost my coverage,’ or ‘I got this letter from my insurance.’”

Shachar, of Harvard Law School, said the 4th Circuit ruling may make denying coverage easier.

“Private insurers would still be free to cover these services, even if Medicaid doesn’t cover them. But I think an insurer who doesn’t want to cover these services might feel a little more comfortable after this case,” Shachar said. “It definitely opens the doors there for insurers to (say), ‘Medicaid’s not covering it, we don’t want to cover it.’”

An opinion by Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton last month barred mental health care providers from assisting in transitioning youth’s care, and he said anyone helping with such care is “committing child abuse.” But now, even adults have told Segovia’s team that their mental health therapists are dropping them as patients.

“There have been multiple people — adults — who have lost their mental health care provider because (the providers are) concerned that the attorney general would come after them and their license,” Segovia said. “It’s just created a lot of confusion for our professionals.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice dropped its investigation Friday of the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell over building renovation costs, a move that could open the door for new Fed leadership next month — and signaled a victory for North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office closed the probe after a request to the Fed’s inspector general to examine the cost overruns.

“The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers. I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas,” Pirro wrote on X just after 10 a.m. Eastern.

Pirro said she “will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.”

Powell, whose term expires in May, has been the target of repeated public criticism from President Donald Trump, who threatened to fire the central bank’s chair if he did not lower interest rates.

The Trump administration’s criminal inquiry into Powell for a $2.5 billion renovation project at the Fed’s offices has been eyed with suspicion, including from his own party.

Tillis, R-N.C., said he would not vote for Trump’s pick to replace Powell, former Fed Board Governor Kevin Warsh, unless the administration dropped its “bogus” investigation.

A favorable vote by Tillis on the closely divided Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs is necessary to advance Warsh’s nomination, as all panel Democrats oppose him.

Tillis’s office did not immediately respond for comment.

A federal judge last month blocked the administration’s subpoenas to probe the Fed and Powell.

The Department of Justice declined to comment and referred States Newsroom to Pirro’s social media post.

A White House official reaffirmed Pirro’s announcement Friday.

“American taxpayers deserve answers about the Federal Reserve’s fiscal mismanagement, and the Office of the Inspector General’s more powerful authorities best position it to get to the bottom of the matter. The White House remains as confident as before that the Senate will swiftly confirm Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chairman to finally restore competence and confidence in Fed decision-making,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told States Newsroom in a statement.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., issued a statement dismissing the DOJ’s announcement as “an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair.”

“Let’s be clear what the Justice Department announced today: they threatened to restart the bogus criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell at any time while failing to drop their ridiculous criminal probe against Governor (Lisa) Cook. Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves,” she wrote on X and Bluesky late Friday morning, referring to Trump’s abrupt August firing of Feb Board Governor Cook over alleged financial fraud.

Cook successfully challenged her firing in two lower courts. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing whether Trump legally dismissed Cook. 

Trump, who routinely posts about news of the day on his own social media platform Truth Social, had not commented on the announcement as of 12:30 p.m. Eastern.

During an unrelated Oval Office event Thursday, Trump sidestepped a question about what he hoped to learn from Pirro’s investigation into Powell and the Fed.

Instead, Trump responded by saying he could have completed the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters renovation for $25 million and “had money left over.”

“On top of that, he’s been terrible on interest rates because he should have lowered interest rates. That’s why call him Jerome ‘too late.’ ‘Too late’ — that’s his nickname — Jerome ‘too late’ Powell. He likes me a lot,” Trump said.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

North Carolina House Republicans introduced a bill Thursday that would ban books from elementary school libraries and allow the state to withhold salaries from school district leaders who violate the state law known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights.”

House Democrats said Republicans are trying to distract voters from their failure to address the lack of the state budget and the rising cost of living in North Carolina.

House Majority Leader Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) announced the bill’s filing Thursday during a legislative oversight hearing on whether Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School District leaders are in compliance with the 2023 law.

On X, Jones said he introduced House Bill 1043 bill in response to what he called the district’s “blatant disregard for state law.”

The measure, titled the Curriculum Honesty, Compliance, and Child Safety Act — or “CHCCS Act,” sharing initials with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools — would authorize the state auditor and the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to investigate districts and impose penalties for noncompliance. Those penalties could include fines as well as the withholding of central office salaries and state funds until violations are corrected.

H1043 would also define library materials that aren’t used in classroom instruction as part of the “curriculum,” expanding the term to include “electronic, print or non-print resources for independent use.” That change would bring library collections under state restrictions on instruction in kindergarten through fourth grade.

Thursday’s meeting featured a repeat appearance by CHCCS Superintendent Rodney Trice, accompanied this time by Al McArthur, the district’s director of digital learning and libraries. The two leaders defended the district’s practices, saying school library books are optional reading, not instructional material, a distinction key to compliance with the law.

NC Republican lawmakers grill Chapel Hill-Carrboro School leaders over parental rights law

The hearing, while tense, lacked the theatrics of a past hearing last December in which Jones, who chairs the committee, threw a book from a CHCCS school’s library on the floor, calling it “trash.”

Jones blamed CHCCS leaders for the follow-up hearing Thursday. “You made us do this,” he said. “You forced it by your continual refusal to follow the law at the expense of innocent children.”

During the nearly three-hour hearing, Jones and other Republicans accused district officials of trying to circumvent state law, pointing to a list of 155 books in elementary school libraries they say violate the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

Trice said the district includes books reflecting a range of student experiences, including LGBTQ+ families. “It’s an expectation… that the resources we provide students reflect the diversity in our community, which includes gay students.”

He said books cited by lawmakers, like “Granddad’s Pride,” are available in school libraries for optional reading.

Republican lawmakers disputed that idea, arguing that the district’s own description of libraries as supporting the curriculum makes the books subject to restrictions on teaching gender identity in kindergarten through fourth grade.

McArthur said CHCCS has long given parents the ability to make sure their students don’t have access to books they don’t want them to read, although he said few parents have ever asked to do so.

“Parents can have conversations with their school librarians… to ensure that whatever title… they disagree with is withheld from their child,” said McArthur.

Jones’ bill would also tighten the law requiring districts to notify parents when students raise questions about gender identity. Republican lawmakers on the panel accused CHCCS officials of trying to circumvent the law in their directions to teachers about the issue.

Trice said parents are notified when there is a formal change to a student’s records. He said the law does not require notification if a student does not proceed with a request.

Democratic lawmakers defended the district and criticized the hearing as a distraction from broader issues, including the state budget and teacher pay, and noted that CHCCS is one of the highest-performing districts in the state.

“House Republican leadership is focused on hauling in school districts to yell at them,” House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said in a statement.

“If the Majority wants to talk about following the law, then it should start with the Constitution, including the First Amendment,” said Rep. Maria Cervania. “Certain ideas, and minorities, are being singled out unlawfully in this hearing and we need to apply the law as written, not as the Majority would like it to be.”

Mortgage lending patterns by banking giant Wells Fargo show “significant racial disparities” in Charlotte and across North Carolina, according to a new study by a national financial watchdog.

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund released a report Wednesday showing that Wells Fargo denied Black, Latino and Asian mortgage applicants about twice as frequently as white applicants.

“It does raise significant questions about Wells Fargo’s interest and willingness to serve the entirety of the community in North Carolina,” Patrick Woodall, managing director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization, told NC Newsline.

Between 2020 and 2024, the San Francisco-based bank, which has a regional hub in Charlotte with 27,000 employees, rejected 22.5% of Black applicants, 25.6% of Latino applicants and 20.3% of Asian applicants in North Carolina, compared with 10.3% of white applicants,  according to the report. 

The report calls on Wells Fargo to improve its performance in meeting mortgage needs in North Carolina, and to increase its outreach to Black, Latino and Asian applicants and communities. It also called on regulatory agencies to investigate Wells Fargo to ensure compliance with fair lending laws and asked local governments to revisit business relationships between their communities and the bank.

NC Newsline’s calls and email to Wells Fargo were not returned. 

Woodall said racial disparities in the bank’s lending pattern persisted even when controlling for income.

“It is highly suggestive to me that their businesses really focus on upper-income white borrowers and neighborhoods,” Woodall said “This can happen in a number of ways, but it’s suggestive of greater outreach and greater effort in whiter parts of North Carolina.”

Titled “Dreams Denied: Wells Fargo’s Troubling Pattern of Racial Disparities in North Carolina,” the report examined nearly 25,000 North Carolina mortgage applications and more than 16,000 mortgage loans at Wells Fargo between 2020 and 2024.

Here are more key takeaways from the study: 

• Wells Fargo mortgage denial rates for Black and Latino applicants increased between 2020 and 2024. Wells Fargo’s denial rates rose about a fifth for Black and Latino applicants over that period, , rising from 21.2% to 25.6% for Black applicants and from 25.0% to 29.8% for Latino applicants. Over the same period, denial rates for White applicants increased by only about a tenth.
• Wells Fargo underrepresents Black and Latino applicants and borrowers in Charlotte: Black adults make up 22.9% of the population of the metropolitan area of Charlotte — North Carolina’s biggest city — but they composed less than one-tenth of Wells Fargo’s applicants and loan originations in the area (8.2% and 7.1%, respectively). Latino adults make up 11.0% of the Charlotte population but represented only 7.4% of Wells Fargo’s applicants and 6.6% of its loan originations.
• Wells Fargo underrepresents communities of color: Wells Fargo took fewer applications and made fewer loans in census tracts where people of color made up a majority of the population. People of color comprise the majority of the population in 27.3% of North Carolina census tracts, but Wells Fargo took only 15.4% of its mortgage applications and made only 14.3% of its loans in these areas. 

Ericka Taylor, co-executive director of Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, said in a statement that the bank’s pattern of under-serving people and communities of color and its high rejection rates of Black and Latino mortgage applicants is “especially troubling” in the wake of the Trump administration’s effort to roll back civil rights and fair lending enforcement. 

“And the bank’s record of racial disparities in its home purchase lending not only undermines people’s ability to build wealth and invest in their families’ futures, but it also perpetuates the yawning racial wealth gap that is an injustice for these families and for all of us,” Taylor added.

In North Carolina, the nation’s fourth-largest bank saw a 70% decline in applications for conventional home purchase mortgages and mortgage loan originations from 2020 to 2024, the report said. And while some of the decline is tied to rising interest rates during that period, the report contends “multiple regulatory and enforcement” actions against the bank over racial lending patterns also contributed to the decline.

Bloomberg, for example, reported in 2022 that Wells Fargo rejected more than half of Black homeowners who sought to refinance their mortgages in 2020 during a period of historically low interest rates. Also in 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the bank to pay more than $2 billion in redress to consumers and a $1.7 billion civil penalty for legal violations across several of its largest product lines. The bank’s illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of their vehicles and homes.

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund partnered with North Carolina United Power for Action/NC Industrial Areas Foundation, Organized Power in Numbers and UNITE HERE North Carolina to produce the report.

“Housing is not a privilege for some — it’s a basic need. When race decides who gets access, it goes against our deepest moral beliefs,” said Bishop Herbert Reynolds Davis, chairman of the Board of Directors of NC United Power for Action. 

A new national study by the National Institute for Early Education Research finds North Carolina ranks 32nd in the nation in providing preschool access to four-year-olds. The 2025 State of Preschool Yearbook notes that North Carolina spent less on preschool programs and enrolled fewer children in the 2024-2025 school year than the previous year.

According to the report, N.C. Pre-K served 26,707 of the state’s four-year-olds, about 21%. Compare that to South Carolina, which served 45% of its four-year-olds and 6% of eligible three-year-olds.

Steve Barnett, NIEER’s senior director and founder, said it’s fair to say that North Carolina is heading in the wrong direction.

In 2024-25, North Carolina spent nearly $1,000 less per-pupil on the state pre-K program than the year before, Barnett said.

“Georgia, by contrast, has a universal preschool program that newly meets all 10 of our research-based quality standards, showing that quality preschool can be expanded at scale,” said Barnett.

Barnett said participation rates in pre-K are also vastly different from county to county in North Carolina.

“When the state underfunds the program, local dollars have to make up the difference,” said Barnett. “Some communities have those local dollars to make up the difference for more kids. Other communities, rural communities may already be stretched thin.”

Allison Friedman-Krauss, lead author of the NIEER report, said in recent years North Carolina, like other states, used federal COVID-19 funding to support their preschool programs. But with the loss of pandemic dollars, many states have decreased their spending per child and their overall spending on early childhood education.

At the same time, childcare centers have struggled to keep their doors open and retain high-quality staff. North Carolina has lost 262 childcare operators in the last two and a half years.

“That’s a real issue happening in child care, but also in preschools across the country,” said Friedman-Krauss. “Child care is expensive, and it’s really important that states and programs prioritize not just the access to those child care programs, but thinking about that quality … how can we get qualified teachers in those doors and then pay them so that they will stay?”

It’s a problem that many young parents are painfully aware of.

The average annual cost of an infant in child care in North Carolina is $11,720, according to the N.C. Task Force on Child Care and Early Education. For two children in child care, the average annual cost for parents is nearly $19,500.

It’s an affordability problem the state cannot afford to ignore, said Barnett.

‘Distraught and pissed off’: Businesses, providers sound alarm over cracks in NC child care industry

“Parents have to work. The question then becomes, what’s happening to their young children? Are they in arrangements that the parents aren’t happy with, that aren’t particularly good for the kids?” Barnett said.

In his budget recommendations this week, Gov. Josh Stein proposed a refundable child care tax credit providing an average credit of $250 per year to help offset childcare costs. Stein’s budget would also include an additional $11 million recurring investment in N.C. Pre-K for FY 2026-27. The governor’s budget earmarks $80 million to stabilize child care programs across the state and establishes a statewide subsidy reimbursement rate floor.

Barnett said lawmakers need to consider that children who miss out on pre-K and high-quality early childhood education programs do worse in school, struggle to focus, and may even have a smaller vocabulary.

“That’s going to hinder them for a long time,” said Barnett. “It’s very difficult to make up for these early deficits.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans approved a budget resolution early Thursday intended to speed the way for billions for immigration enforcement, sending the measure to the House, where GOP lawmakers in that chamber need to adopt it to unlock the reconciliation process. 

The 50-48 vote followed a marathon amendment voting session that Democrats used to highlight policy differences on cost-of-living issues and stalled federal emergency relief dollars for states. 

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were the two Republicans to vote against approving the measure. Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mark Warner, D-Va., did not vote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said just before the vote-a-rama began that Democrats would put Republicans on the record about the soaring cost of living and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. 

“America will see even more clearly tonight where the Republicans are — not on the side of lowering costs, but on the side of masked agents occupying our streets,” he said. 

Republicans plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process, which avoids the need for Democratic support in the Senate, to provide between $70 billion and $140 billion in additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

The money is supposed to cover those agencies for the next three years, avoiding the need for Republicans to negotiate constraints on immigration activities with Democrats, who have been calling for guardrails since federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. 

When combined with the Senate-passed bill that funds the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security for the current fiscal year, the two pieces of legislation are expected to end the ongoing shutdown at that department, which began in mid-February. 

One amendment adopted, 15 turned down

Senators ultimately debated 16 amendments, 12 offered by Democrats and four proposed by Republicans. The only one adopted was from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, which senators approved on a 98-0 vote. 

The proposal would create a reserve fund to bolster federal immigration agents’ ability to detain and deport adults who entered the country without proper documentation and were then convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor.

“Everybody in this body should be for this,” Graham said. “These people need to be caught, put in jail, or kicked out of our country.”

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said he supported the amendment because “under current law, undocumented immigrants who are convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor are subject to mandatory detention and deportation.” 

“What we object to is what is happening in the streets of Minneapolis and Chicago,” he added.

SAVE America Act sidelined

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy tried but was ultimately unable to convince his colleagues to add a new set of instructions to the budget resolution that would have allowed the Rules & Administration Committee to write a voter identification law. 

Kennedy said he wanted that bill to have three provisions. 

“Require that in federal elections, you have to be an American citizen to vote and provide for the provisions to enforce that. Number two, it would require that in federal elections, you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote, and it would provide provisions to enforce that,” he said. “Number three, it further instructs the Rules Committee that we’re going to go back to having an Election Day and not an election month, and it instructs the Rules Committee to provide the provisions to enforce that.”

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, the ranking member of the rules panel, opposed the amendment during debate, saying he couldn’t believe lawmakers were once again experiencing a “partisan attempt to rush through what I refer to as a solution in search of a problem.”

“Despite the president’s claims, there is zero evidence of massive voter fraud across the country, which is the premise of these proposals,” he said. “So not only is it a solution in search of a problem, to paraphrase a wise man, this measure is all foam and no beer.”

Padilla added that a provision in Kennedy’s amendment would have required states to count ballots within 36 hours of an election, a new mandate he said could cause considerable problems for larger states with millions of voters. 

“It’s unfortunate elections administration has been turned into a partisan issue,” he said. “I actually ask our colleagues to protect the early voters, not just in my state but in yours. Protect vote-by-mail opportunities, not just in my state but in yours. Let’s protect women who are married and change their name and their right to vote, not just in my state but in yours.”

Senators did not agree to waive a point of order against Kennedy’s amendment on a 48-50 vote. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Murkowski and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted with Democrats. 

Ban on Planned Parenthood funding via Medicaid

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley tried unsuccessfully to create a pathway to extend the one-year prohibition on Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood that the GOP included in its “big, beautiful” law. That funding ban expires on July 4. 

Hawley didn’t speak about abortion access during debate but focused his criticism of the organization on gender-affirming health care services for transgender youth. 

“Under no circumstance should Medicaid money dedicated to the poor and the needy be used for transgender surgeries and treatments for minor children,” he said. “It is a moral outrage. This body has a duty to stand against it.”

Planned Parenthood’s website states the organization provides surgery referrals as well as hormone therapy, puberty blockers and “transition support.”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden argued the amendment represented “Republicans’ latest attempt to strip women of the health care they need and depend on so that they can go score some political points.” 

Senators didn’t agree to waive a point of order against the amendment, which would have allowed it to move forward, by a vote of 50-48. Collins and Murkowski voted with Democrats. 

Private equity and home ownership

Senators rejected an amendment from Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley that would have addressed the rising cost of housing after he invoked comments President Donald Trump made during his State of the Union address. 

“We have an opportunity tonight to send a message that we agree with the president, that we have a challenge in home ownership, because home ownership is dying,” Merkley said. “And one of the factors is private equity buying up the homes.” 

Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno spoke out against adopting the amendment, saying lawmakers have already addressed it in a bipartisan way. 

“I obviously urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, because we’ve already passed it,” he said. We’ve already solved this problem. In fact, congratulations to all of us. 89 to 10. We banned institutional ownership of single-family homes. I think that’s fantastic.”

The Senate voted in March to approve a bill designed to increase the country’s housing supply, according to reporting from NPR. But since the House has approved a bill of its own, the two chambers will need to work out their differences before any housing bill becomes law. 

Senators did not agree to adopt Merkley’s amendment following a 46-52 party-line vote. 

Disaster relief funds from FEMA

California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff proposed an amendment that would have addressed stalled funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said is “holding more than $3 billion in disaster relief funding for California.”

“But as we debate this budget resolution, I know our state of California is not alone,” he said. “North Carolina is waiting on millions in relief designated for Hurricane Helene in 2024. Kentucky saw landslides and flooding just weeks after Los Angeles County burned. Florida and the Gulf Coast have also been battered. Texas communities under siege from last year’s floods have still not seen the federal relief their communities need and deserve.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford opposed the amendment, saying that while he agrees FEMA funds need to get to communities, the best way to do that is for the House to pass the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which the Senate already approved. 

House GOP leaders are holding on to that bill instead of putting it on the floor as they wait for the reconciliation process to play out. That Senate-passed DHS bill funds FEMA and all of the agencies that make up the department except ICE and Border Patrol. 

“Our challenge has been, we’ve been in a government shutdown on DHS now for two months,” Lankford said. “We’ve got to be able to get those funds released. That means we’ve got to get DHS funding completely done for all of DHS. We have FEMA employees that are being paid but they don’t have program dollars that they can actually release.”

The Senate rejected the amendment following a 49-49 vote. Collins, Florida Sen. Ashley Moody and Murkowski voted with Democrats. 

Amal Khalifa “felt human” for the first time after she fled Egypt in 2019 for the United States and found kind treatment from police when she reported being a victim of domestic violence.

“When I walked into that precinct I felt like a human being for the first time in my whole life,” Khalifa said. “I like the system here — it is there to help the people.”

Khalifa still faced a long road to asylum, which she gained last year, based on her fear of returning home to Egypt. As a government worker there she faced persecution for reporting corrupt activity by criminals and illegal pressure from the outlawed but powerful Muslim Brotherhood, she said.

But leaving her former fiancé after she got to the United States meant she had to support herself as her asylum case proceeded, and she was able to do that by working as an auditor for the New York State Department of Labor. She credits her ability to earn a living with legal work permission she could get after establishing her case.

That option to work could close soon for asylum-seekers for the foreseeable future.

Currently asylum-seekers must wait six months after filing an asylum request before they can work legally, but the Trump administration is seeking to extend that to one year. The new rule is open for comment until Friday. No effective date has been announced.

The proposal would also pause any new requests for work permission during times of high asylum case processing backlogs. Since the backlog is now 1.4 million asylum cases, that would effectively stop new and renewal work request applications for anywhere from 14 to 173 years, the administration estimates.

The rule would “make it impossible for asylum-seekers to work legally to support themselves,” and would result in more poverty and off-the-books workers competing with legal workers for jobs, according to a February statement from The Forum, a coalition of immigration-related advocacy groups.

At least half a million asylum cases would be affected immediately, if the rule takes effect, causing wage loss of $27 billion to $127 billion a year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated.

Not only new requests are affected — renewals will have to go through the same process and, if they’re even granted, would be shorter based on a rule change from December 2025. That new rule limits employment authorization and renewals to 18 months instead of the previous limit of five years.

“This makes it harder for people to gain work authorization and also more arduous to stay work-authorized,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that researches immigration policy.

The rule is meant to discourage “frivolous” asylum cases and “allow our asylum system to prioritize those actually seeking refuge from danger,” according to a February statement from the federal Department of Homeland Security.

“For too long, a fraudulent asylum claim has been an easy path to working in the United States, overwhelming our immigration system with meritless applications,” the statement said.

Amy Grenier, associate director for government affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a trade group, said there are less drastic ways to curb frivolous asylum claims. For instance, the Migration Policy Institute has proposed new policies such as posting asylum officers at borders who are trained to make quick decisions on cases before the applications clog immigration courts.

“This rule seems designed to make it impossible for people to apply for asylum in the first place — a right which is protected under our laws,” Grenier said. “The administration will cause hardship for American businesses that rely on these legal workers, worsen asylum backlogs and harm people already fleeing for their lives.”

The move is likely to exacerbate the number of immigrants not authorized to work, especially the millions who arrived earlier this decade and sought asylum.

A Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas analysis found that nearly 550,000 immigrants without legal status left the United States last year, including through deportations and voluntary departure. That has put a lid on job growth but has also kept unemployment stable, the report concluded.

Two groups that recruit asylum-seekers for jobs told Stateline they’re opposed to the proposed new rules. Many industries need immigrants such as Khalifa with valid asylum cases and professional experience in their home countries.

“Immigration is a vital part of the solution to labor shortages, especially in health care,” said Avigail Ziv, chief program officer at Upwardly Global, an organization that helps work-authorized immigrants, refugees and asylees restart their careers in the U.S. The group helped Khalifa find her state job in New York.

“In the U.S. right now there’s over 270,000 underemployed immigrants that have been trained in health care in their home countries,” Ziv said.

Another group that helps asylum-seekers find jobs is Tent Partnership for Refugees, whose CEO Gideon Maltz said, “When the U.S. government curtails employment authorization for those who are already here and working, they’re not only hurting people seeking refuge, they’re undercutting the companies and communities that depend on their labor.”

Employers in manufacturing, hospitality and logistics need more workers, Maltz said, and “refugees and asylum-seekers have been helping keep those industries running, reliably stepping into the hardest-to-fill jobs and contributing from Day One.”

Many asylum-seekers waiting for work authorization work in low-paying gig economy jobs such as food delivery, said Ernesto Castañeda, director of American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, which interviewed hundreds of asylum-seekers in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area for a research project.

The New York State Labor Department, in an attempt to clear clogged migrant shelters, set up a program in 2023 to connect asylum-seekers with valid work permission to jobs. Employers who participated included those in the industries of home health care, food processing, parking and building services, according to information the department sent to Stateline at the time.

The proposed federal rule suggests that American workers could benefit from the changes, and that employers would benefit by hiring available Americans. States could benefit as well, the department said, if lower immigration numbers reduce the strain on social services.

There were similar attempts by the first Trump administration to curtail work permission for asylum seekers, but they were all struck down in court, sometimes on technicalities.

A one-year waiting rule, as well as longer permitted processing times, were struck down in 2022 after a judge ruled that an acting Department of Homeland Security secretary did not have the authority to implement the rules in 2020. A 2018 court ruling also forced fast 30-day processing of work permission requests for asylum-seekers.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Upwardly Global’s role in helping asylum-seekers get jobs. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Four prominent North Carolina lobbyists have been indicted by a Wake County Grand Jury on criminal charges in connection with an April 2024 bourbon-tasting junket to Kentucky that included members of the General Assembly.

Named in the indictments are Kevin Wilkinson, North Carolina office director of the Southern Group; Bo Heath, a partner with McGuireWoods Consulting; Doug Miskew, president and founder of Public Sector Group and David Ferrell of Maynard Nexsen. They’re accused of giving or directing their employers, also known as principals, to give gifts, either directly or through a nonprofit, to Republican lawmakers who were invited on the trip. 

According to the indictments, Ferrell and Heath “unlawfully and willfully” directed their respective principals, North Carolina Spirits Association and beverage giant Diageo, to provide money to a group called Greater Carolina to “directly and indirectly” pay for lawmakers’ travel expenses, hotels accommodations and meals. 

Miskew and Wilkinson are accused of directing their respective principals, Churchill Downs and the Sazerac Company of Louisville, KY, to pay for events directly benefiting the legislators and other lobbyists and staff on the junket.

Under state law, neither lobbyists nor their principals are allowed to give lawmakers gifts, but lawmakers left themselves some gray areas for situations that involve events, travel or large groups of people, as long as no “corrupt intent” is evident. That flexibility could make prosecution difficult.

“Integrity, accountability, and transparency are not just professional obligations for me, they are core values,” Wilkinson told NC Newsline. “I welcome a complete and thorough review of the circumstances, and I’m confident I will be cleared of any charges through a fair judicial process.”

Mark Bowles, McGuireWoods Consulting’s chairman, said he believes Heath “did nothing wrong.” 

“We fully support Bo,” Bowles said, “and are confident” Heath’s innocence will be proven. 

NC Newsline also left messages with Miskew and Ferrell, but did not hear from them before this story was published. 

Greater Carolina, connected to former Republican state lawmaker Jason Saine, described itself as a nonprofit conservative social welfare organization created to promote pro-business and free-market policies in North Carolina. The group no longer has an online presence.

Under federal tax law, 501c4 social welfare groups can lobby for legislation, but they can’t intervene in political campaigns, and political activities cannot be their primary purpose.

The trip to Kentucky made headlines across North Carolina in 2024 after an anonymous post by a Kentucky hospitality worker on Reddit claimed the group had booked a private bourbon tasting, but were already inebriated when they arrived on their tour bus.

The person who made the post described some members of the group as “extremely rude, disruptive” and said they did not tip the bartender or tour guides and that one of them “vomited in our bathroom sink.”

At the time, Greater Carolina spokesman Jonathan Felts said that the poster’s account of boorish behavior was overblown. 

NC legislator who championed online sports betting resigns

“One attendee was a bit queasy upon arrival due to getting car sick enroute because the air conditioner was not working on the bus,” Felts told WRAL in 2024. “The person then, fortunately, made it to the first thing that had a drain and vomited. Upon completion of the vomiting, the person and friends/colleagues helped to clean up.”

Saine (R-Lincoln) resigned from the legislature in August 2024. That’s also when a complaint was filed with the IRS and state regulators against Greater Carolina by left-leaning group Carolina Forward. The complaint accused the group of bankrolling Saine, but Saine was not named in Wednesday’s indictments. 

Story update: NC Newsline received this statement Thursday from Jeff Grantham, managing shareholder, Maynard Nexsen:

“David Ferrell is a trusted partner in our law firm with a distinguished career.  Maynard Nexsen fully supports David. He did not do anything wrong, and we believe when the full facts come out, David will be exonerated.” 

A new proposal would make it easier for North Carolina county boards of election to throw out ballots of people who don’t show photo ID when they vote. 

Under the proposal, county boards would no longer have to agree unanimously that voters lied about the reasons they didn’t have ID. A majority on the county boards, on which Republicans currently hold three of five seats, could determine that voters were lying and reject their ballots.

The changes to the rejection threshold are part of a list of proposed election rules governing absentee ballots and conduct at polling places. 

The state Board of Elections took its first step Wednesday to advance the proposals, voting 3-2 to put them out for public comment. The board’s two Democratic members were opposed.  

After the 60-day comment period, the board would vote on any revisions. The Rules Review Commission would have to approve.

Voters who don’t have photo ID are given the option of casting a provisional ballot and filling out an exception form saying why they don’t have an ID. 

Current instructions that require unanimous votes to determine voters lied on those forms are in a “numbered memo” prepared by former state elections staff and sent to county boards, Board Secretary Stacy “Four” Eggers IV said.  Republicans voted against those instructions when they were in the minority on the state board, he said. 

The numbered memo “is an attempt essentially to undercut the requirement of photo ID,” said Eggers, a Republican. 

The need for unanimous county board votes is actually a formal requirement adopted by the Rules Review Commission.

Board member Jeff Carmon, a Democrat, said the current instructions ensure that no one’s ballot is thrown out based on a party-line vote. Determinations of a voter’s truthfulness shouldn’t be vulnerable to partisanship, Carmon said: “We don’t want that issue to come into play for something as important as this.” 

Democrats also objected to a proposal that would prohibit people from using bullhorns or amplifiers outside polling places during voting hours.

NC election officials approve new rules for noncitizen voter challenges

The proposal could shut down an effort called DJs at the Polls. The national group had DJs at polling sites around the state in 2024. DJs at the Polls is a nonpartisan voter turnout program aimed at making voting a celebration. Its website says it focuses on states where registered voters don’t regularly cast ballots. 

Carmons said the proposal was an example of “overregulating.”

The proposal would also give the chief judges at polling places the power to ask people making noises that can be heard inside to turn down the volume. 

Democrat Siobhan Millen said such a rule would be hard to enforce. “I can conceive of a situation where there’s a polling place in a high school, and it’s band practice,” she said.

Millen suggested that the state staff send county boards instructions to prepare for the possible presence of federal agents at the polls this November and the potential seizure of ballots, but the board rejected that idea along party lines.

Though federal law prohibits sending armed forces to polling places, some Democrats and voting-rights advocates are worried that ICE agents will show up at polls this fall, or that ballots will be confiscated. 

Border czar Tom Homan has refused to rule out sending ICE agents to polling places, The Hill reported. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche also appeared to support the idea of ICE at polling places, The Hill also reported. 

In January, the FBI raided the Fulton County, Ga. elections warehouse, seizing ballots from the 2020 election. Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, was central to President Donald Trump’s false claim that election fraud cost him the 2020 election.

County officials should know what to do if troops show up at polling sites or if federal officials come to confiscate ballots, Millen said. 

“Serious leadership on our part will be to get ready,” she said. 

Republicans said no instructions are needed because local elections directors know who to call for help when unusual situations arise. 

“I don’t think any of our chief judges or county directors would allow someone to walk into a polling place and walk off with their ballot box,” Eggers said. 

Updated at 7 am, April 23 to note that the need for unanimous votes on photo ID form falsity is a formal rule. 

The race by each party to redraw U.S. House districts in their favor could be headed for a draw after Tuesday’s big win for Democrats in Virginia, though major shifts are still possible before crucial midterm elections in November.

Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that clears the path for the state’s legislature, controlled by Democrats, to redraw congressional district lines to benefit Democrats in 10 of the commonwealth’s 11 U.S. House districts. 

That could net the party four new seats in Virginia, though state court cases challenging the proposal are still to be decided.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat who now leads the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University, said the results showed a dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and the nation’s capital in general.

“It sends a clear message to the administration, to the White House, to Washington, D.C., that they’re not happy with the status quo, with the policies that are coming out of Washington, that they want to see a change,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

After 10 months of bitter back-and-forth that began with Trump urging Texas Republicans to revise their congressional map to help gain seats in the House, neither party has netted a significant advantage.

But the tit-for-tat may have a lasting harmful effect on U.S. democracy, experts said.

If Virginia’s proposal goes into effect, Democrats would be favored in one more House district nationwide than they had been in 2024, according to the nonpartisan election research organization Ballotpedia.

Further changes, including the Florida Legislature potentially redrawing its House map and a U.S. Supreme Court decision to gut the federal Voting Rights Act’s protection of majority-Black districts in Southern states, could tilt the advantage back to the GOP. 

Republicans narrowly control the chamber now, 217-212, with one independent and five vacancies after Georgia Democrat David Scott died Wednesday. 

The president’s party typically loses House seats in midterm elections, and Trump’s sagging poll numbers and the results of special elections do not suggest anything different this year.

Good for Democrats, bad for democracy

Elected Democrats largely framed the Virginia results as a win for free and fair elections.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, wrote on X.

But the entire cycle could deepen political polarization, leading to less compromise and policymaking in Congress and ceding power to the executive branch, Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy at Northwestern University, said Wednesday.

“There were some quotes today from some leading Democrats about how you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and this is the only way to, like, save democracy, and sort of rationalizing it,” he said. “It’s still bad for democracy long term… It means that Congress, long term, is even more polarized and ineffectual.”

Mucarsel-Powell, who represented one of the country’s few competitive House districts, also said redistricting would make legislating more difficult.

“Redistricting doesn’t necessarily help the country overall,” she said. “As we continue to become more polarized, I think that having these maps being redrawn to favor one or the other party is just going to deepen the polarization. I think it makes it more difficult for members to be able to reach consensus. I’ve seen it, right? When you represent a solid red or a solid blue district, there’s really no incentive to compromise.”

Republicans sour on Virginia result

Republicans, from Trump on down, complained Wednesday that the result was unfair because it could give Democrats 91% of the U.S. House seats in a state where the party’s most recent presidential candidate gained only 52% of the vote.

In a post to his social media site Wednesday afternoon, Trump said the result was illegitimate — repeating, without evidence, his frequent assertion in elections he has lost that mail ballots were fraudulent — and called for courts to “fix” the result.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!” Trump wrote. “All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”

Questionable strategy

But the proposed Virginia map would only even the playing field after Trump initiated a rare mid-decade redistricting cycle last year by asking Texas officials to redraw the state’s districts. 

Texas’ new map could net Republicans five more House seats. But its creation kicked off an arms race that included California drawing five new Democratic-leaning districts, effectively neutralizing Texas’ move. 

Legislatures in Missouri and North Carolina then voluntarily redrew their maps, while an Ohio constitutional amendment and a Utah Supreme Court decision led to new district lines in those states.

Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under Republican President George W. Bush, bemoaned the Virginia results but called them a self-inflicted wound. States should stick to redistricting once a decade after a census, he said, blasting the GOP strategy to attempt mid-decade redistricting in some states.

“The GOP will now lose net seats across the country. If you’re going to pick a fight, at least win it. The other side will always fight back,” he wrote. “All this was foreseeable and avoidable. We should not have started this fight.” 

Fleischer linked to a post he’d written in August criticizing the GOP effort in Texas as that state geared up for a vote on the new map. “Mid-census change” was not the way to win more seats in the House, he’d said.

National Democrats celebrated.

“House Democrats have crushed Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering scheme,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York wrote on social media Tuesday night. “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”

What’s next?

Two more decisions could further alter the landscape for U.S. House races before November.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last year in a case challenging a Voting Rights Act provision that has been interpreted to require majority-Black districts in Southern states equal to their population. Louisiana is challenging a lower court ruling that threw out a map in which only one of the state’s six districts was majority-Black, though Black people make up about one-third of the state’s population.

Depending on the scope and timing of the conservative court’s ruling, several safe Democratic seats in the South could be in jeopardy.

And in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called the state legislature into a special session, scheduled to begin next week, to consider a redistricting effort and other issues.

‘Dummymanders’?

Florida Republicans have not fully endorsed a redistricting push, which could ultimately make some incumbents’ districts less reliably red. Gerrymandering relies on spreading a party’s voters across more districts, making some individual races more difficult, especially in a potential wave election year.

“Republicans are pushing back, saying that it’s going to actually lessen the power that they have in some of these districts,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “Because if you have (a district favoring Republicans by five points), with all the overperformance that we’ve seen, including here in the state of Florida, it’s very likely going to favor the Democrats.”

Jeffries in a Wednesday morning news conference practically dared Florida Republicans to dilute their U.S. House districts, comparing the effort to the Texas map that he said was not as Republican as they thought and calling the entire GOP effort a “dummymander” that would backfire.

“F around and find out,” Jeffries said. “If they go down the road of a DeSantis dummymander, the Florida Republicans are going to find themselves in the same situation as Texas Republicans, who are on the run right now.” 

“The Republicans are dummymandering their way into the minority before a single vote is cast,” he added. “They started this war, and we’re going to finish it.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Democrats will use the unlimited number of amendment votes they are allowed on Republicans’ budget resolution to illustrate policy differences on cost-of-living issues and immigration activities. 

“We are for reducing costs for the American people, whether it’s housing or whether it’s health care or whether it’s electric costs or whether it’s groceries or whether it’s child care,” he said. “And they are funding a rogue police force that is not even popular with the American people.”

Republicans voted Tuesday to begin debate on their budget resolution, which holds instructions that would allow the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as well as the Judiciary Committee to each write a bill that spends up to $70 billion on immigration enforcement. 

Amendment debate could begin Wednesday or Thursday, followed by a simple majority vote to approve the budget resolution, sending it to the House.  

GOP leaders are using the same complex budget reconciliation process they used last year to enact their “big, beautiful” law to approve three years of funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The earlier bill, enacted last July, included $170 billion to bolster the administration’s immigration activities. 

The House and Senate must vote to adopt the budget resolution before they can use the reconciliation process to approve a bill without having to garner 60 votes in the Senate to end debate.

Spending on those two agencies would normally run through the annual Homeland Security government funding bill. But that process stalled earlier this year when Democrats demanded new constraints on immigration activities after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. 

Negotiations between Republicans and Democrats moved rather slowly and contributed to a record-setting shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, which began in mid-February. 

President Donald Trump urged GOP lawmakers to vote against any Democratic amendments in a social media post.

“The Radical Left Democrats, and their so-called ‘Leader,’ Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, one of the most incompetent Senators in American History, will try to offer ‘Amendments’ during this process to divide Republicans,” he wrote. “Republicans must stick together and UNIFY to get this done, and to keep America safe — something which the Democrats don’t care about. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

‘Glaring contrast’ to be highlighted

Democrats said during their press conference they plan to use the marathon amendment voting session on the budget resolution that sets up the reconciliation process to force Republicans to take votes on several issues. 

“We are ready with our amendments to show the glaring contrast between the parties in terms of who’s for reducing your costs and who’s not,” Schumer said. 

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said that instead of working on legislation to bring down costs for everyday Americans, Republicans in Congress are focused on providing tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement. 

“Gas prices have surged. Health care premiums have doubled or tripled, or worse, pricing millions out of their coverage. So what are Republicans doing about all of that? Nothing,” she said. “Their urgent top priority this week is shoveling at least $70 billion at ICE and Border Patrol with zero accountability, zero reforms and zero strings attached.”

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said Republicans are sending a clear message about their policy goals and priorities by using the reconciliation process to provide the administration with another significant boost for immigration and deportation activities. 

“When you’re in the majority in the Senate, you get limited opportunities to use this unusual tool of reconciliation — once, maybe twice, in a year,” he said. “And so it’s pretty significant that using this tool, they have decided to do exactly nothing about the cost of living.”

Klobuchar decries $70 billion for immigration enforcement

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said that $70 billion in federal spending could go toward addressing many of the other challenges facing the country. 

Instead of giving it to ICE and the Border Patrol, she said, Congress could bolster the number of local police officers, or help people afford the cost of their health insurance premiums, or have Medicare cover dental and vision and hearing care, or build hundreds of thousands of new homes, or help lower the cost of child care for millions. 

Republicans, she said, also know there is a need to place limits on federal immigration agents after events like those in her home state and throughout the country. 

“They know there are serious problems. Why? A number of them joined with us at that Judiciary hearing to call for Kristi Noem to leave,” Klobuchar said, referring to the early March hearing that took place just days before the former DHS secretary was removed. “They asked just as tough questions, some of them, as we did.”

North Carolina House Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham) and members of his leadership team backed Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s budget priorities in a Wednesday morning press conference, stressing the need for higher pay for teachers and public safety officials and measures to combat the rising cost of living.

The press conference came on the second day of the legislative short session, hours before House and Senate lawmakers passed a Medicaid funding bill. Legislators continue to search for consensus on a comprehensive budget, which they failed to agree on in last year’s session, largely due to disagreements between House and Senate Republicans over whether to cut personal and corporate income taxes again.

“The people of North Carolina deserve better leadership than what they have seen so far from us. Our state’s gone more than 900 days without a comprehensive budget,” Reives said. “The only state in the nation to fail at the most basic responsibility we have.”

Stein pitches NC budget with teacher raises, tax cuts, Medicaid funding

A key issue for Democrats is raising pay for teachers, government employees and law enforcement, for all of whom North Carolina’s salaries lag behind most other states.

“How can you tell people how much you support law enforcement when you refuse to even do the basic steps it takes to make sure they can make more money in law enforcement than they can going to work right now at Costco?” Reives asked.

Rep. Vernetta Alston (D-Durham), the House Democratic conference chair, said the party is focused on the issues “draining folks’ bank accounts,” including housing prices, utility fees, food costs and child care.

“Working people are paying more at the grocery store than they have in years, while many small farmers are struggling just to break even. That’s the sign of a system that is failing,” Alston said. “Industry can thrive without coming at the expense of North Carolina households.”

Rep. Brandon Lofton (D-Mecklenburg) said raising pay for teachers in North Carolina is an urgent need. He recounted learning from his son that after his high school math teacher quit, they could not afford to find a replacement.

“He and his classmates sat in a room without a teacher and stared at a Zoom screen and watched a teacher from across the hall teach his class, and then that teacher would come over for the last 10 to 15 minutes of class to see if anyone had any questions,” Lofton said.

Reives said he doesn’t feel anything has changed with regard to House Democrats who lost their primaries — including Rep. Carla Cunningham (D-Mecklenburg), who lost to a challenger endorsed by Stein — amid speculation that some may join with Republicans to override Stein’s vetoes.

“Unfortunately, having been here 12 years, I’ve lost a lot of friends to elections, and we never know why,” Reives said. “Nothing’s changed with us because we didn’t vote them in, didn’t vote them out.”

Reives also voiced concerns over a proposed amendment backed by House Republicans to limit local autonomy over property taxes.

“You’re going to lose law enforcement, you’re going to lose school budgets, I mean, it’s going to be crushing for cities and counties,” Reives said. “If we started giving the money back to the counties that we gave 15 years ago to make sure that they were able to cover a lot of these things, all of them would be happy to reduce their property taxes.”

North Carolina House and Senate lawmakers voted nearly unanimously Wednesday to approve a measure that bails out the state’s Medicaid program, which was on the verge of running out of money after it was underfunded last year.

But the bailout bill, House Bill 696, comes with a long list of policy changes and “anti-fraud” measures. Bill supporters from both parties say the provisions are needed to make sure the state can maintain its expanded Medicaid program in the face of federal changes. But advocates say some changes are unnecessarily harsh and will have unintended consequences.

Republicans in the House and Senate failed to agree on a bill last year that would have provided the full funding the North Carolina Dept. of Health and Human Services said Medicaid would require for the year. Some Republicans doubted that the $319 million figure was accurate. But House and Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday they had agreed on the figure.

NC lawmakers will fill Medicaid funding gap, but larger state budget issues remain unresolved

However, House Speaker Destin Hall said Tuesday the funding bill would also include provisions to control costs. He said the increasing cost of Medicaid is unsustainable: “We’ve got to get our arms around it.”

The legislation adds oversight measures to mitigate waste and abuse. These include requiring county-level officials to more frequently review eligibility, changing monitoring from quarterly to monthly.

The bill also raises copays for inpatient hospital care to $25 per visit, the maximum allowable amount under federal Medicaid requirements. It also implements a three-month “lookback period” for work requirements, also the federal maximum, meaning applicants must demonstrate 80 hours of work, educational, or community service activities per month over the three months prior to be eligible for coverage.

John Broome, the government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network North Carolina, said the bill will place an especially heavy burden on cancer patients, who must receive frequent inpatient care.

“This bill creates unnecessary red tape for patients seeking cancer treatment as well as anyone needing access to screenings by adding extra layers of bureaucracy and increasing patient costs,” Broome said in a statement.

However, both Democrats and Republicans said the changes will maintain the state’s eligibility for the maximum 90%/10% federal funding match for the Medicaid program.

“I want you all to make sure you understand – 700,000 people got picked up on the Medicaid expansion,” said Rep. Carla Cunningham (D-Mecklenburg). “We were attempting not to lose as many as possible, even by putting the federal guidelines in place.”

A major source of concern for immigration advocates is a provision that requires workers at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to refer any Medicaid applicant or recipient for whom “citizenship or satisfactory immigration status could not be verified” to the Department of Homeland Security for investigation.

Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid benefits, with the exception of pregnant individuals, who may receive emergency Medicaid covering prenatal care, labor and delivery, and post-partum care.

Rep. Maria Cervania (D-Wake) said she was concerned about how the changes would affect pregnant women, children and their families. She predicted some would skip preventive care and wait until they’re very ill to seek care in emergency rooms instead.

“They love North Carolina, and those people may be facing the loss of access to basic health care coverage because of these new requirements,” she said. “Those costs don’t disappear just because we ignore them.”

According to news outlet The 19th, the Trump administration deported more than 300 pregnant, postpartum, and nursing immigrants between January 2025 and February 2026.

“By forcing our county workers to act as federal informants, the state is making every child in our community less safe,” advocacy group Siembra NC Co-Director Kelly Morales said in a statement. “North Carolina Republican Party leadership should present a clean Medicaid funding bill that provides care, not fear, to all North Carolinians.”

The bill also empowers the state auditor to conduct a “performance audit” of the state Medicaid program, providing the office with $500,000 to do so. This is among the measures that Hall said Tuesday are aimed at “cutting out waste, fraud, and abuse.”

“We’re going to ask the state auditor to do an audit of the program to look for areas of efficiency and where we may be inefficiently spending our resources,” said Rep. Tim Reeder (R-Pitt). “We’ve heard a lot in other states about fraud and waste and abuse, some really egregious examples.”

But House Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham) said on Wednesday that the provision serves only to undercut North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, who has authority over prosecuting Medicaid fraud.

He likened it to overhauls that shifted responsibility over the state Board of Elections and other regulatory entities from the governor’s administration to the auditor.

“There’s this office that we’ve got that presently still has its same duties, and we call it the attorney general,” Reives said. “I am confident that voters made a decision of who they wanted for attorney general, who they wanted for governor, who they wanted for state auditor, based on the definitions that were provided at the time.”

Nonetheless, Reives and every other House Democrat except Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) voted in favor of H696. It passed the House by a vote of 112-1, and passed 48-1 in the Senate, with Sen. Michael Garrett (D-Guilford) the lone “no” vote there.

The bill is scheduled for a final vote in both chambers April 28. It then goes to Gov. Josh Stein for his signature.

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom. It is  part of the Grist series Vital Signs, exploring the ways climate change affects your health. This reporting initiative is made possible thanks to support from the Wellcome Trust.

Bailey Magers and Sunil Kumar cut strange figures on Pensacola Beach. Bags of disinfectant solution surrounded them on the white sand; their gloved hands juggled test tubes while layers of rubber and plastic shielded their skin from the elements. As the two organized their seawater samples on the popular Florida beach last August, an older woman wearing a swimsuit walked over to ask what they were doing.

“We’re just actively monitoring water quality,” they told her, but she pressed on.

“Are you looking for that flesh-eating bacteria?”

“We’re looking into it,” they replied, hoping not to frighten her. The woman turned back toward the ocean, her curiosity satisfied. As she walked away, Kumar noticed that she had scrapes and bruises on her body. A few minutes later, he watched her step into the waves. He shook off a chill and returned to the task at hand. 

Magers and Kumar study a bacteria called Vibrio, part of a lineage of ancient marine species that likely emerged sometime around the Paleozoic Era. Enormous, shallow seas flooded the massive, interconnected supercontinents that constituted the Earth’s landmass at the time, and complex marine ecosystems developed that thrived in these temperate, freshly-formed bodies of water. Researchers think there are more than 70 Vibrio species in the environment today, hundreds of millions of years later. The organisms float in warm, brackish water, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. 

A small number of Vibrio species can sicken and even kill. In worst-case scenarios, a person who has been exposed to the most dangerous of them — by swimming in brackish water with an open wound or ingesting a piece of raw shellfish that is contaminated with the tasteless and odorless toxin — may find themselves with only hours before the flesh on one or more extremities starts to bruise, swell, and decay. Without the quick aid of powerful antibiotics, septic shock can set in and lead to death. Anyone can get infected, though it is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. Research shows that temperature and salinity are the largest predictors of how widespread Vibrio bacteria are. As water temperatures rise, so does the concentration of Vibrio in seawater — boosting the risk of infection for beachgoers and shellfish consumers. The bacteria start getting active in water temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as coastal waters warm throughout the summer. In recent years, scientists have documented Vibrio expanding into places that were once too cold to support the bacteria, pushing as far north along the U.S. East Coast as Maine and appearing with more prevalence in temperate seas around the world. 

Vibriosis infections in general are the leading cause of shellfish-related illness in the U.S. They have increased “more than any other illness caused by a pathogen in the U.S. food supply” since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, started keeping tabs on such illnesses in 1996, according to a 2019 analysis by the International Association for Food Protection. The report attributed the precipitous rise to a “perfect storm” of factors that include climate change, food handling practices, expanding globalization, a patchwork of regulatory oversight, and improved diagnosis. 

On their conspicuous expeditions to Pensacola and other Sunshine State beaches, Magers and Kumar are trying to understand where, and when, harmful Vibrio species are present across the state. The research they’re doing is part of an ongoing effort by a laboratory at the University of Florida to create a Vibrio early warning system for the eastern United States — a program that can alert public health departments to high Vibrio concentrations in any given area a month in advance. How many limbs would be saved, Magers wonders, if doctors and nurses could be warned ahead of time that their emergency rooms would soon see an uptick in these chronically underdiagnosed infections? 

The work serves more than one purpose: As Vibrio bacteria spread north into cooler waters, they serve as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions — giving researchers a heads-up that the familiar composition of marine species in their local waters may be starting to shift. In Europe’s Baltic Sea, for example, a spike in Vibrio infections in July 2014 closely mirrored a heatwave that rapidly warmed the shallow sea. The incident showed researchers that Vibrio spikes herald unusually warm marine conditions — and they have since been utilized as barometers for ocean heatwaves and sea-surface warming patterns, not just food safety.

“We see Vibrio as the indicator for climate change,” said Kyle Brumfield, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland who has been studying the bacteria for a decade. “We can use the presence of Vibrio and Vibrio cases as a proxy for water health in general.”

The CDC estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Of those 80,000 cases, most are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most commonly results in gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The vast majority of the deaths, however, are caused by a type of Vibrio called vulnificus — the Latin word for “wound-making.”

Vulnificus is so potent it can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. In the last five years, the CDC registered 429 such vulnificus cases, plus 136 foodborne cases. But even though foodborne cases are less numerous, the patients that contract vulnificus by eating contaminated shellfish are more likely to die than those infected via open wounds. Thirteen percent of those nonfoodborne cases died, compared to 32 percent of people who got the infection from eating seafood. Most cases occur in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions.

As far as infectious diseases go, vulnificus is exceedingly rare: The CDC reports between 150 and 200 cases a year. The sexually-transmitted disease chlamydia, by comparison, one of the most common bacterial infections in the U.S., infects northward of 1.5 million Americans annually. But vulnificus’ astonishing speed and high fatality rate — 15 to 50 percent, depending on the health of the person exposed and the route of infection — makes it a unique public health threat, particularly as climate change grows its pathways of exposure. 

Vulnificus is not the kind of pathogen you’d want behaving erratically, but that’s exactly what it’s been doing since the late 2010s. Across the Eastern Seaboard, local and federal health officials have been reporting “unusual increases” in vulnificus prevalence — jagged spikes in infections that appear to correspond to extreme weather events like hurricanes and marine heatwaves.

In 2022 and 2024, years when the brackish water that Vibrio bacteria thrive in was pushed inland by major hurricanes, Florida’s public health department reported 17 and 19 deaths, respectively, linked to vulnificus exposure via open wounds. North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut also saw small clusters of infections during a record-breaking heatwave in the summer of 2023. “As coastal water temperatures increase,” the CDC warned in its investigation of those outbreaks, “V. vulnificus infections are expected to become more common.”

A 2023 study that analyzed a 30-year database of confirmed vulnificus infections from outdoor recreation along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts found the northern boundary of infections has moved north by a rate of 30 miles per year since 1998. The study noted that “V. vulnificus infections may expand their current range to encompass major population centers around New York,” and that annual case numbers may double as temperatures rise and America’s elderly population grows. 

“In the 1980s, Vibrio abundance would increase in the late spring and stay high through the summer and drop in the middle of October,” Brumfield, who conducts research on Vibrio in Maryland, said. “Now … we can pretty much find them almost year-round.”

Two ways to get infected

Just how worried we should be about the changing dynamics of Vibrio bacteria depends on who you ask and what you read. The gruesome and fast-acting nature of the vulnificus infection makes it enticing fodder for local and national news media, fueling a spree of terrifying reports every time a new severe infection or death surfaces. “Virginia dad wades in calf-high water, dies 2 weeks later of flesh-eating bacteria that ‘ravaged’ his legs,” read a recent headline in People magazine. “2 dead after eating oysters, contracting flesh-eating bacteria, officials say,” per a 2025 web story about two deaths linked to oyster consumption in Louisiana and Florida. Like many others in their mold, neither story mentions how rare the bacteria are. 

The press is bad news for some in the seafood industry, which does not welcome a national conversation about the rise in vibriosis cases, vulnificus in particular. Shellfish farmers and industry representatives that Grist spoke to in Florida and New York argued media attention on the safety of their products is unwarranted. “‘Flesh-eating bacteria,’” said Leslie Sturmer, a researcher who works for the University of Florida’s shellfish aquaculture extension program and consults with the shellfish industry on research and regulation — “the media loves it.”

Paul McCormick, an oyster farmer in Long Island who sells 750,000 oysters a year, thinks all press is bad press. “Even if the title of your article says ‘New York oysters are the safest oysters in the universe,’” he told me on the phone from his office in East Moriches in January, “you’ve already created a problem.”

In unrefrigerated oysters left out in warm conditions, Vibrio bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. But in 2010, states began deploying strict protocols known as “Vibrio control plans,” which require harvesters to rapidly cool their catch onboard and then refrigerate it at a shellfish processing facility within a set number of hours. The measures have proven effective at stopping the growth of Vibrio in harvested shellfish and preventing disease.  

The fact that infections can happen in one of two ways — shellfish consumption and seawater exposure — makes it easy to shift blame and point fingers. Consumers have more control over how much exposure they have to Vibrio than they have with E. coli, for example. A person with a kidney condition can choose not to eat oysters on the half shell. E. Coli, often found in raw vegetables, is far tricker to avoid. Likewise, someone with an open wound can opt not to bathe in brackish waters if they are aware of the risks lurking in the surf.

For shellfish industry representatives, personal responsibility is the primary way to bring caseloads down. “The person is the risk,” said Sturmer. “Not the climate, not the water, not the bacteria.” Implicitly, this appears to be the government’s position as well: There is currently no numerical threshold at which state public health agencies will “shut down” a beach for outdoor recreation, though states will issue public advisories and, very rarely, close beaches if they happen to find high levels of Vibrio in the water.

But that perspective doesn’t account for the rapid marine changes brought on by climate change, the patchiness of vibriosis awareness, and the fact that Americans often make personal decisions that are at odds with their own health and safety.

The shellfishers Grist spoke to fully acknowledged the research underpinning Vibrio’s spread. McCormick studied environmental science in college, and Sturmer is running her own climate experiments in a laboratory in the fishing town of Cedar Key, Florida, putting different kinds of clams and oysters through heat stress tests to determine which species are best equipped to weather the decades ahead. Marine mollusks are uniquely threatened by rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, issues that can lead to thin shells, low crop yields, and mass die-offs on farms. A detailed understanding of climate science, in other words, is good business for those who make their living fishing.

The problem, according to Sturmer, is that shellfishers have been unfairly singled out for a health issue that doesn’t affect most consumers and is more often contracted by ocean bathing rather than raw oyster consumption. While beaches stay open even when Vibrio bacteria are present in the water and lead to infections, a small number of foodborne vibriosis cases can trigger state closures of shellfish harvesting areas and product recalls. The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science noted that these precautions “erode consumer confidence and likely decrease sales.” 

The panic that ensues after media reports of Vibrio infections has a similar effect: A 2024 study asked more than 350 shellfish consumers in Rhode Island — a state that relies heavily on its shellfish industry, particularly in summer months when people vacation along the coastline — to bid on entrees of raw oysters and clams. After showing study participants a real newspaper article about a 2015 Vibrio outbreak linked to an oyster farm in Massachusetts, the researchers reported that the news had a “significant negative impact” on participants’ willingness to bid on oysters. It had a depressive effect on clam sales, too.

“You should really be out there beating the drum on botulism or salmonella or E. Coli,” Sturmer told me on a recent visit to her lab in Cedar Key. “Why worry about [vulnificus] when the number of cases are so minimal?” Sturmer is quick to point out that even the term “flesh-eating bacteria” is a misnomer. She’s right, in a sense: The bacteria doesn’t “eat” tissue; it destroys it. But it’s hard to say whether someone who has survived a bout of necrotizing fasciitis, the medical term for what vulnificus does to the flesh, would care to dispute the difference.

Protecting consumers from being sickened by the deadly bacteria isn’t as simple as trusting people with underlying medical conditions not to eat shellfish. Americans consume 2.5 billion oysters every year, half of which are eaten raw. Vibrio infections, which most often resemble food poisoning, are still underreported and underrecognized, even among individuals who are most at risk of developing a severe infection. Vulnificus infections are also underreported, but much less so than other Vibrio-related infections because they often require a hospital or emergency room visit. 

“I’ve cared for many people with salmonella infections and water-borne infectious processes, but this is the one that is likely the most serious,” said Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine who is also a practicing infectious disease doctor in Gainesville, and has seen limbs and lives lost to vulnificus. 

Identifying coastal areas most at risk

When it comes to preventing Vibrio infections, the work Magers and Kumar are doing could take some of the onus off of individual responsibility. The researchers are identifying which parts of the eastern U.S. coastline will be most risky for overall vibriosis infections, and vulnificus specifically, as waters warm. Alongside a group of microbiologists from the University of Maryland, including Brumfield, the scientists have developed a computer model that can predict how high the vibriosis risk will be in any given coastal county on the Gulf or East coasts a month in advance. The team trained their model by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. 

The system is far from perfect. When the model was first trained and evaluated, it was only 23 percent precise in pinpointing high-risk counties, meaning just one in four of the counties the program labeled as high-risk actually ended up seeing a vibriosis case in a given month. But it was very good at determining which counties were low-risk, capturing those regions with 99 percent precision. And it improved over time as the quality of the data they fed it got better. When they had the model do a test run on data collected by the Florida Department of Public Health from 2020 to 2024, 72 percent of total cases occurred in counties the tool flagged as high-risk for vibriosis. 

Perhaps most significantly, the model was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

The tool is geared toward predicting water-borne infections, but it may also provide useful information to the shellfishing industry, though the system isn’t a replacement for the established protocols farmers already use — protocols that have proven to be effective, particularly in states that are aggressive about enforcing them. What the new tool could do, however, is supplement those Vibrio control plans, especially when an upcoming weather pattern deviates from the historical norm — something that has been happening a lot lately.

States currently use a rolling five-year average illness rate to calculate how many minutes or hours harvested shellfish can stay on a boat before moving into indoor refrigeration. In February, for example, Florida shellfishers have to get their oysters into refrigeration by 5 p.m. on the day of harvest. In July, they have no more than two hours, or they have to cool their catch in ice slurries on board. But these timetables don’t account for sudden temperature anomalies.

“It’s going to be 80 degrees this week in Alabama,” Andy DePaola, a Gulf Coast oyster farmer, told me in February. “Yet I can keep my oysters out for, like, 14 hours, because the rolling five-year average is 20 degrees less than that anomaly.” (DePaola is also a microbiologist who worked on Vibrio at the FDA for the better part of 40 years, and is the author of the 2019 analysis that diagnosed the “perfect storm” for Vibrio spread.)

But the shellfish industry doesn’t appear enthusiastic about the idea of assigning counties a risk category based on Vibrio prevalence. Vibrio researchers, by their own admission, haven’t done a good job of reaching out to shellfishers to find out how such a tool would work best for them. At an August meeting of the Delaware Bay Section of the ??New Jersey Shellfisheries Council last year, the director of a shellfish research laboratory brought up the idea of using Vibrio predictive models to “determine optimal days to harvest to reduce the transfer of infection to humans.” A lengthy discussion ensued. The consensus, ultimately, was that the model was a bad idea, and could be “used against the industry.”

Not all shellfishers are dead set against the kind of work Magers and Kumar are doing. “If Vibrio is an indicator of global warming, then that’s just an unfortunate bad luck scene for us,” McCormick, the Long Island oysterman, said. But it’s hard for him to see what relevance that research has to an industry that already has its own methods of controlling Vibrio. “In my mind that exists in one realm and the safety of our oysters is a whole different thing.”

As we move deeper into the 21st century, however, those two realms will have more overlap. If countries keep up their current pace of greenhouse gas emissions, most coastal communities along the East Coast will be environmentally primed for vibriosis outbreaks during peak summer months by midcentury. It won’t be a question of if there will be more vibriosis cases — it will be a matter of how to manage them. That’s the scenario Magers and Kumar are preparing for.

“In 30, 40, 100 years, these models won’t even matter because the risk is so high,” said Magers, the lead author of the predictive modeling study. “When it gets to that point, it would probably be a different kind of modeling strategy where we’d be modeling case numbers instead of infection risk.” 

Know the facts about Vibrio, a bacteria found in coastal waters and raw oysters

Stay informed about your risk level as you enjoy fresh shellfish and beach trips this summer. 

By Lyndsey Gilpin

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom.

What is Vibrio? 

Vibrio is a type of bacteria that has been around for hundreds of millions of years; researchers have identified more than 70 species. These species are mostly harmless, but some can cause infection. The bacteria thrive in warm, brackish (slightly salty) water such as estuaries and bays, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. Serious infections typically happen either through exposure to an open wound in saltwater or, more rarely, ingestion of raw shellfish that contain the bacteria. 

The concentration of Vibrio in coastal waterways is higher from May through October, when temperatures are warmer. Most U.S. cases are in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions. Vibrio is tasteless and odorless. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis (an infection caused by the Vibrio bacteria) occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Florida has the highest number of cases, with about 20 percent reported from the Indian River Lagoon region, a popular recreation destination on the Atlantic Coast. 

What happens if you come into contact with Vibrio?

Most people are not at risk of developing illness, or they may have only mild symptoms. However, those with compromised immune systems can develop life-threatening infections. 

The majority of the 80,000 annual U.S. cases are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most often infects people via the raw seafood they eat and usually leads to gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, fever and chills, weakness, fatigue, and headache. 

A different type of Vibrio, vulnificus, is much less common, but can cause severe illness. The infected wound may be red, swollen, and painful, or you may develop mild gastrointestinal issues such as watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, or vomiting. Symptoms typically appear within 12 to 24 hours and can last up to seven days. Healthy people tend to fight off the infection on their own. But if flesh on one or more extremities to bruise, swell, and decay, or symptoms of sepsis occur, it is a medical emergency. Vulnificus can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. This severe infection is rare, but it has a 15 to 50 percent fatality rate; the vast majority of the 100 annual deaths are from this strain. A severe vulnificus infection is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

How concerned should I be — and how do I stay safe? 

You don’t necessarily need to avoid oyster bars or cancel your beach trip, but you should know how to stay informed and take precautions. Here are a few ways to do so:

• Be aware that there are many fearmongering headlines about flesh-eating bacteria, despite vulnificus being one of the rarest forms of Vibrio exposure. Vibrio doesn’t attack random healthy flesh — there must be exposure through an open wound (a break in the skin) or it must be ingested, most often through raw shellfish. People who get sick often have underlying health conditions. 
• If you don’t feel well after eating raw seafood or swimming in brackish water, don’t wait — go to the doctor. Some medical professionals, particularly those in areas where the bacteria hasn’t historically infected people, don’t know what vibriosis is. Advocate for yourself — ask for a test. 
• If you have liver disease, your risk is much higher than the general population’s. Keep an eye out for public health advisories from state and local health officials and avoid swimming in ocean water with an open wound or consuming raw shellfish in warm months. Note that ocean temperatures, especially along the lower Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, have been elevated outside the typical seasonal range in some recent years.
• Be aware when eating raw shellfish, particularly raw oysters. It’s best to be confident that the shellfish was refrigerated and stored in compliance with government standards. The vast majority of foodborne Vibrio cases lead to food poisoning. (Food poisoning from bacteria is always a risk when eating uncooked shellfish and many other foods like salads or deli meat.)

How is climate change affecting Vibrio?

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. The bacteria start getting active in temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as waters warm throughout the summer. Vibrio is expanding into places that were once too cold to support it, farther north on the U.S. East coast and in other temperate seas around the world. As it spreads, it serves as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions.

What’s being done to address Vibrio?

There’s a lot of research happening to better understand the risks these bacteria pose under changing environmental conditions: A group of microbiologists at the University of Maryland, alongside other scientists, have developed a computer model that can predict how high the risk of vibriosis will be in any given coastal county in the eastern U.S. a month in advance. The team trained its model, which is still under development, by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. It’s far from perfect, but it’s improving. And it was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

Researcher Caitlin Gerdts planned to release a new study about abortion access for active-duty military service members, much like the one in 2019 that was published with input from 323 participants.

But over a six-month period in 2024, in a new legal environment for abortion access, the research team was only able to find three service members who agreed to participate, even though their identities would be kept secret. With that few people, a study couldn’t be completed, and the group published an analytical essay instead.

“It makes sense that this is a particularly difficult moment,” said Gerdts, vice president for research at international nonprofit Ibis Reproductive Health.

Researchers say it’s important to understand what kinds of barriers active-duty service members are facing when living in any state — especially in states with strict abortion bans. But those who spoke with Stateline said it is becoming increasingly difficult to access that population because of chilling effects around state laws, the actions of the U.S. Department of Defense under its current leadership, and factors specific to the military that existed long before federal abortion protections were overturned.

The Department of Defense did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment before publication.

Trump administration officially ends veteran abortion access

In many cases, research on abortion generally focuses on providers, especially with studies that involve interviews. But among organizations that talk often with civilian patients — including Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco — researchers told Stateline they haven’t experienced the same problems with recruitment that Gerdts described, suggesting the issue is specific to the military.

As of 2021, there were more than 230,000 women in active-duty roles in the U.S. military, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, and 95% are of reproductive age, between 18 and 44. The RAND Corporation found in 2022 that about 40% of women on active duty are in states with severely limited access to abortion or no access at all, including military-heavy states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.

Kristen Jozkowski, senior scientist at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, said not being able to gather data from a specific population can make it more difficult to help them.

“As a researcher and behavioral scientist, I think it is an issue when we cannot get access to any population, particularly ones who may be unique or at increased risk of something,” Jozkowski said. “It limits our ability to grow knowledge as a society and make empirically informed decisions and recommendations.”

Change in policy

After Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assumed office in January 2025, one of the first directives his department issued rescinded a 2-year-old policy that allowed service members to seek abortion care no matter where they are stationed without having to use one of the 30 days of leave they are entitled to each year. It also had allowed members and their dependents to be reimbursed for related travel expenses such as transportation, lodging and meals.

That policy took effect shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, under Democratic President Joe Biden. Over a period of seven months from June through December 2023, it was used 12 times, and cost about $40,000 for out-of-state travel, The Associated Press reported, citing data from the Pentagon.

Under the military’s TRICARE insurance, abortion itself has only ever been covered if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, or if it’s necessary to save the pregnant patient’s life. But the current policy also doesn’t allow out-of-state travel, related expenses or special leave.

More recently, the Trump administration has changed policies affecting military veterans.

In December, the U.S. Department of Justice officially rescinded a 2022 policy that allowed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide abortions and related counseling, permitting them only in instances when the pregnant patient’s life is at risk. Estimates from the nonprofit National Partnership for Women & Families, which supports abortion access, showed that as of June 2023, nearly 400,000 women veterans lived in states that had already banned abortion or were likely to ban it.

Scant research

The topic of abortion related to active-duty servicewomen is chronically understudied, said researcher and U.S. Army veteran Caitlin Russell. A review of existing studies between 1991 and 2022 that Russell recently completed found that in those three decades, there were 15 studies or policy papers specifically focused on that subject.

“I think even folks who are more sympathetic or evidence-based about protecting service members don’t realize the scope of the issue,” said Russell, researcher and track director for a nurse practitioner program at the University of Pennsylvania.

During her time in service, Russell said, she was unaware of what the military’s policies around abortion were. In the years since, she has talked to dozens of military health care providers, leaders and personnel who also don’t know the existing policies. She helped create a website called Camo Care with information from military sources to help bridge that gap.

As a veteran, Russell has been successful in finding participants for previous studies, but she said she has struggled more lately, in part because of limitations by social media companies. Russell paid for an advertisement to run on Facebook and Instagram in late 2024 seeking active-duty participants, and it was rejected because of a policy against ads about social issues, she said.

Russell said the lack of engagement from military members makes sense given its culture of silence and discouragement around women’s issues in general. She served in the Army from 2006 to 2013, including a year and a half as a company commander at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and during two deployments to Afghanistan. Russell said the culture treated women like they were weak for things such as menstrual pain.

“When I was at Bragg, you didn’t even talk about your period, let alone an abortion,” she said.

That rings true for Joanna Sweatt, a former Marine Corps member who learned she was pregnant with a fourth child in 2002 while stationed in California, despite using contraception. She knew she would be deployed to Iraq soon, and couldn’t afford another child.

She learned she was pregnant through a routine test at an on-base medical station largely staffed by nurses, after she told them she wasn’t feeling well. The possibility hadn’t crossed her mind when it came back positive, but she knew right then what her decision would be.

“I was like, ‘I have to have an abortion.’ And I recall saying that out loud, and the person telling me, ‘Well, we can’t help you at all. That’s something you have to do on your own.’ And that was just it,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt did her own research to find a clinic, and the only appointment she could get was on a Thursday, which meant she needed to ask for leave. That meant she had to detail the reason why she needed to take time off, where she would be, and how many miles away it was from the base, and she had to get the request approved. And after that, she said, it became part of the gossip on base that she’d had an abortion.

“Your life is public once you join the service, basically,” Sweatt said.

Sweatt is now the national organizing director for Common Defense, a veteran-led progressive advocacy organization, and said events that have been happening nationally can feel chilling for military members who work under strict chains of command that expect deference. She referred to the Trump administration deploying the National Guard to U.S. cities, to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detaining veterans and family members of active-duty immigrants, and to recent reports that Hegseth has denied promotions to people in the military based on race and gender.

She also cited the firing of more than a dozen senior military officers and the termination of multiple Judge Advocates General — better known as JAGs — in early 2025.

All of those events add to a culture that was already known for retaliatory behavior, Sweatt said, and make service members unlikely to want to participate in any activities that might put a target on their back, even an anonymous survey.

Russell said when she was in the Army, she wouldn’t have trusted that information she gave out would remain private either. She assumed her phone and computer were monitored.

“It sounds a little paranoid, but that’s just the reality that you live in,” she said.

As part of her organizing work, Sweatt said Common Defense conducts surveys and holds community meetings at places with large bases — such as Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas — but many people ask for some of their information to be redacted on surveys, including their base. And at community events, including online Zoom meetings, some military members are sending a family member in their place to ask questions on their behalf.

“They are being very careful as to who they engage with,” she said.

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Tuesday that the Trump administration will require every state within 30 days to turn in a plan to revalidate the health care providers that participate in their Medicaid programs.

The Trump administration has pledged to root out what it calls rampant fraud in state Medicaid programs. But thus far, it has focused almost exclusively on Democratic-led states, even though fraud involving government benefits isn’t any more prevalent in Democratic-led states than in Republican-led ones, according to federal data.

Oz said Tuesday that the administration will expand its Medicaid anti-fraud effort to all 50 states.

“We’re asking the states to own that problem… red and blue, all of them,” Oz said during a health care summit hosted by Politico. “If you don’t take it seriously, it indicates to us that we might have to take the audits… more aggressively,” he added.

In announcing earlier this month that Vice President JD Vance would lead the administration’s anti-fraud effort, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that Vance would focus on fraud “‘EVERYWHERE,’ but primarily in those Blue States where CROOKED DEMOCRAT POLITICIANS, like those in California, Illinois, Minnesota (Somalia beware!), Maine, New York, and many others, have had a ‘free for all’ in the unprecedented theft of Taxpayer Money.”

During the interview with Politico, Oz said that his agency had already halted payments to about 450 hospices and home health care centers in Los Angeles. Oz also referred to the decision to hold back $259.5 million in federal Medicaid payments to Minnesota, noting that the state will have an opportunity “to go back and prove to us that they actually have the backup to some of the bills they’ve sent us.”

Andy Schneider, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, said he was pleased that Oz “did not use this forum to announce more deferrals against Minnesota or other states.”

“Perhaps he’s beginning to understand that withholding federal funds from states does not actually do anything to reduce fraud against Medicaid. Time will tell,” Schneider said.

Laith Quasem, a Seattle-based attorney at the Chapman Law Group who represents Medicaid and Medicare providers and suppliers in fraud cases, said many of his clients have been swept up in the California crackdown and have either had their payments suspended or been removed from the government programs.

“I truly believe CMS is really abusing its discretion right now, and they’re revoking and suspending, but asking questions later,” Quasem said.

“Some of it may certainly be well-founded. Under any administration there are always program integrity concerns,” he said. “But it’s not OK during a crackdown to just put providers out of business without a credible allegation of fraud.”

“Let’s say you’re a hospice, right? What do you do if you’re not getting paid? You’re not going to be able to keep the doors open,” he said. “What do you do with your patients?”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org

The North Carolina legislature has agreed to shore up the state’s Medicaid program with a $319 million infusion, but disagreements between Republicans in the House and Senate on the rest of the state budget remain unresolved. 

Republican legislators and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein had been jousting for months over filling the state’s Medicaid funding gap. 

Republicans in the House and Senate failed to agree on a bill last year that would have provided the money. Some Republicans doubted that the $319 million the state Department of Health and Human Services said it needed was accurate. But House and Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday they have agreed on the figure.

House Speaker Destin Hall said the $319 million intended to get the program to the end of June will be included in a bill that also looks to control costs.

The bill was not publicly available at 4 pm Tuesday. 

Medicaid cost increases over the last two years are unsustainable, Hall said. 

“If it continues on, the debates about all these other issues we’re talking about are not going to matter, because Medicaid’s going to swamp it all out,” he said. “So we’ve got to get our arms around it.”

North Carolina was the only state in the country that didn’t pass a comprehensive budget last year. State employees and teachers haven’t received raises, state agencies are having trouble recruiting for crucial jobs, and state universities are living with budget uncertainty. 

“The budget talks continue,” Hall told reporters. “I’m optimistic, more so than I have been in the past, that we’re going to get a budget done and a good budget done.”

While he did not offer specifics, Hall said “some progress has been made” on what he identified as three budget negotiation sticking points – future income tax cuts, salaries, and funding for a new children’s hospital in Apex.

NC lawmakers return to Raleigh with teacher pay high on the agenda

Likewise, Senate Leader Phil Berger declined to offer details on the progress of budget negotiations. But he was more guarded than Hall about reaching a deal.

“Something that may be okay today ends up being less okay tomorrow,” he said. “Probably best to just leave it at ‘We’re working on it and we’ll see where we go.’”

House and Senate Republicans disagree on the timing of automatic personal income tax cuts, baked into the budget, that are triggered when the state hits given revenue targets. 

The individual tax rate is scheduled to fall from 3.99% to 3.49% in 2027. The rate is to fall again to 2.99% in 2028. The reductions mean the state will have less to spend in future years. 

House Republicans want “responsible” cuts, Hall said, which could involve pausing the cuts to address revenue needs. 

“When we pass a budget, I anticipate it continuing to contemplate reductions in the income tax rate over some period of time,” Hall said.  

At a news conference presenting his budget, Stein said the planned tax cuts will result in a $5 billion shortfall. He too is calling for state lawmakers to pause the scheduled cuts. 

But Senate Republicans want to stick with the reductions as planned. 

“We’ve made a promise to the voters in North Carolina,” Berger told reporters Tuesday. ”I don’t think we should go back on that.” 

Berger said he believes Stein’s projections are wrong. 

“It’s my belief that we will have more money than is projected, and that if we control the growth in state spending, the state budget will be just fine,” Berger said.

With courts no longer enforcing the Leandro plan, Rep. Julie von Haefen (D-Wake) on Tuesday renewed her long-running push to fund it in the legislature, as dozens of public school advocates rallied outside the North Carolina General Assembly.

This marks the seventh time von Haefen has filed the proposal, which has repeatedly failed to receive a committee hearing. “I’m tired of asking. I’m tired of filing these bills. I’m tired of standing at microphones begging this state to fund public education.”

It also comes on the heels of an April 2 state Supreme Court decision that shifted the responsibility of funding the Leandro plan back to the General Assembly. Von Haefen’s bill requires the state to fund the series of reforms laid out in the Leandro case, a decades-long school funding lawsuit first filed in 1994.

At the same time, some two dozen advocates gathered outside the North Carolina General Assembly on the opening day of the short session to press for action on both the Leandro plan and broader education funding priorities. Speakers described schools strained by staffing shortages, limited student services and growing disparities between districts.

Xavier Adams, a teacher at Orange High School and the 2022 North Carolina beginning teacher of the year, said schools are increasingly relying on temporary funding streams to maintain programs while struggling to keep educators in the profession.

“Teachers should not and cannot continuously rely on a patchwork of nonrenewable grants,” he said.

Morgan Taylor, a student advocate from Pitt County, said her district has lost nearly 70 teaching positions, leading to larger class sizes and fewer extracurricular programs. “It means bigger classes, less support and teachers who are doing everything they can, but are stretched,” Taylor said.

“Fully funding public schools should not be a debate. It should be a given,” Taylor said.

Other speakers pointed to gaps in mental health services and special education staffing, saying families are absorbing more of the burden as school resources fall short.

Stein pitches NC budget with teacher raises, tax cuts, Medicaid funding

On the same day, Gov. Josh Stein proposed a new budget that includes about $2.3 billion for public education. The plan calls for an average 11% raise for teachers and would raise starting teacher pay to the highest level in the Southeast.

North Carolina ranks second to last in the nation in per-pupil spending and below all neighboring states in starting teacher pay.

“If we’re going to continue to build our economic success, there’s one area where we cannot afford to fall behind: our public schools,” said Stein. “Our children are our future, and investing in them and the educators that help them learn will pay off for generations to come.”

The North Carolina Association of Educators released a statement praising the budget proposal. “It raises teacher pay at all levels, restores master’s pay, eliminates the mid-career pay plateau, invests more in Exceptional Children programs, and ensures every child can eat breakfast at school,” said Tamika Walker Kelly, NCAE president.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, vowed Tuesday the central bank would remain “strictly independent” if he’s confirmed to the top spot, even as the president has broadcast his demand for the new Fed chair to lower interest rates.

Warsh, a former Fed board governor, faced questions during his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, as the clock winds down on the term of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who is in Trump’s crosshairs.

Trump’s criminal probe into Powell, over a $2.5 billion renovation project at the Fed’s offices, stands in the way of Warsh’s confirmation on the closely divided committee. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., maintains he will vote against Warsh’s nomination until Trump directs federal prosecutors to halt their “bogus” investigation into one of his most high-profile political foes.

The Senate Banking Committee is made up of 13 Republicans in the majority, and 11 Democrats in the minority. All Democrats plan to oppose the nomination, and with Tillis, a tied vote means Warsh’s nomination would not advance to the full Senate.

The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, alleged Trump wants to install a “sock puppet” and “use monetary policies to artificially juice the economy in the short term, and this is his last chance to do that before the November elections.”

Instead of questioning Warsh, Tillis displayed a series of images and figures illustrating the “unfortunate, but legitimate” cost overruns at the Federal Reserve’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. 

“If we put everybody in prison in federal government that had had a budget go over, we’d have to reserve an area roughly the size of Texas for a penal colony,” Tillis said. “… Let’s get rid of this investigation so that I can support your nomination.”

Court action

U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, for the District of Columbia, last month blocked the administration’s subpoenas to probe the central bank and Powell, pointing to “a mountain of evidence” that Trump is using the investigation to force Powell to lower interest rates, or resign.

Still, the president has not backed down. One week before Tuesday’s hearing, two investigators from the office of Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, showed up unannounced at the Fed’s construction site, according to details reported by the New York Times.

On more than 100 occasions, according to Boasberg’s order, Trump and his allies have made public statements ridiculing Powell and threatening to fire him if interest rates were not lowered.

Powell’s term expires May 15. During a recent press conference, Powell said he plans to stay on, as permitted by Fed regulations, as chair pro tempore until his successor is confirmed.

If Powell stays on, “well then, I’ll have to fire him,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on April 15. 

A ‘battle-tested’ pick

While Trump’s clash with Powell overshadowed Warsh’s nomination hearing, Republicans largely praised the former board governor, who served from 2006 to 2011.

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., said Warsh is “battle-tested” after helping to steer the central bank during the 2008 financial crisis.

“During his first term as governor, he helped our economy through the crisis and restored faith in the economy,”Scott said.

But Democrats questioned Warsh’s ability to remain independent of Trump’s demands, particularly as the president must justify higher costs from tariffs and the Iran war ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when voters are expected to focus heavily on affordability issues.

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., asked Warsh, “Do you agree that the American families are struggling right now with affordability?”

Largely laying the blame on post-COVID-19 monetary policy decisions under President Joe Biden, Warsh said the Fed bears “some responsibility for the things that you’ve described, and that the legacy of inflation, what I think is the biggest economic policy error in 40 or 50 years, happened just a few years ago, and we’re still living with the with the remnants of it. I think inflation is less problematic than it was a couple of years ago.”

When Kim pressed whether the Fed should be concerned about spiking fuel and fertilizer costs amid Trump’s continuing war in Iran, Warsh said, “Senator, if my reform agenda, if confirmed, stands for anything, it’s for the central bank, especially the Fed chairman, to stay in its lane.”

Lisa Cook firing

Warren and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., also invoked Trump’s contested August 2025 firing of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, currently under review in the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The high court’s oral arguments in January drew a high-profile appearance from Powell. Trump alleged Cook committed financial fraud, but even conservative Supreme Court justices questioned his argument for her firing.

“Will you commit to defending Governor Cook’s tenure as Chairman Powell has done?” Alsobrooks asked.

“Senator, it was a pleasure to meet you in your office, and spend time with you. As I said to you then, I’ll repeat here to the broader committee: If I stand for anything, it’s the Fed should stay in its lane. As I understand that matter, it’s pending before the United States Supreme Court,” Warsh said.

In his opening statement, Warsh defended a president’s right to share opinions on interest rates but told Democratic lawmakers multiple times Tuesday that Trump has not asked him for a commitment.

Following up on an answer Warsh provided earlier during the hearing, Alsobrooks asked, “You said he never — ‘specifically’ is the word you used — demanded that you decrease interest rates. Well, did the president generally suggest this to you as well?”

“I wasn’t trying to be clever. The president never generally or specifically instructed me, or suggested I should commit to any interest rate path whatsoever,” Warsh said.

North Carolina teachers could receive the highest starting salaries in the Southeast if the legislature follows Gov. Josh Stein’s recommended budget, which he revealed on Tuesday. 

Lawmakers returned to Raleigh for their 2026 legislative session after failing to pass a comprehensive budget in 2025. It’s the only state to end the year without one. 

Although Stein highlighted North Carolina’s top ranking in several categories — like business, economic and workforce development and job growth — he said there’s still work to be done.

“We’re experiencing this success because of our people and because as a state, we have invested in them over decades, but we’re putting that winning formula at risk,” Stein told reporters at a press conference Tuesday morning. “Our state has fallen behind in key metrics for public education, public safety and healthcare.”

State lawmakers rarely follow the governor’s budget recommendations, especially when legislative leaders and the governor are from different parties, as is the case this year. However, the governor can sometimes bargain for a few key priorities during final negotiations.

Salary increases for state workers

Stein wants to raise pay for teachers, state employees and public safety workers.

He’s asking to provide an 11% average raise for all educators, restore additional pay for teachers with master’s degrees, and eliminate the 10-year salary plateau for teachers. He also wants to increase pay for school-based administrators and give a $1,000 bonus to teachers and local education employees, with an additional $500 bonus for those making less than $75,000. 

“If we’re going to continue to build on our long term economic success, we must start by investing in our public schools,” Stein said. “Our children are our future. Investing in them must be our greatest priority.”

For state employees, Stein requests a 5% pay increase across the board — 2.5% each for fiscal year 2025-26 and fiscal year 2026-27. He’s also asking for a $1,000 bonus for all state employees, plus $500 more for those making less than $75,000, and a 2.5% supplement for retirees each year. 

The governor is pitching his highest pay increase – 15% – for law enforcement, correctional officers, nurses and healthcare technicians. 

“Several recent high-profile incidents have ended in tragedy, and as we mourn the loss of all of those lives taken by violence, many people feel unsafe in their homes or in their communities,” Stein said. “To remedy this, it starts with law enforcement, the people who protect us and we must recruit and retain the best.”

Tax cuts for families

While Gov. Stein is once again asking lawmakers to pause scheduled tax cuts that are projected to reduce recurring revenue by billions, his budget would offer four more modest tax cuts.

Stein is proposing lawmakers increase the state’s standard deduction, adopt a working families tax credit as well as a refundable child and dependent care tax credit.

“It helps families deal with the high cost of childcare, but it also puts more money in the child care system so that it makes it a better business proposition for childcare operators,” said Stein.

North Carolina has lost 262 childcare operators in the last two and a half years, according to the governor.

The governor’s budget proposal would also restore the back-to-school sales tax holiday. North Carolina eliminated that popular holiday in 2013 as part of a tax overhaul signed by then-Gov. Pat McCrory.

“Every August, [parents] have to go buy all their kids school supplies, and that’s a real crunch,” said Stein. “We recognize that and we want to make that experience a little less painful.”

Fully funding Medicaid

The governor’s proposed budget would fully fund the Medicaid rebase for FY 2026-27. Medicaid’s $319 million shortfall has become a political football between the Republican-led General Assembly and the Stein administration.

Tuesday morning, Stein voiced optimism that progress was being made with key budget writers. Hours later, Republican legislative leaders announced that they have reached a deal to cover the shortfall. They’re expected to vote on the proposal Wednesday.

Can North Carolina lawmakers pass a budget? Here’s what to watch as session begins

More than three million North Carolinians, about a quarter of the entire state, rely on Medicaid. N.C. Health and Human Services Secretary Dev Sangvai has repeatedly warned that without a fix, the program will run out of money by the end of May.

Stein said more must also be done to control health care inflation.

“We’re a high-cost health care state separate from Medicaid, just in terms of what each of us pay,” said Stein. “We’ve got a lot of work to do on health care, and I’m eager to partner with the General Assembly to tackle that issue.”

Modernizing government

Stein proposed lengthening services and hours for the Division of Motor Vehicles, bolstering cybersecurity and assisting veterans in transitioning to civilian life. 

In some cases, boosting efficiency would mean incorporating artificial intelligence. Stein said his AI Leadership Council engages with each state agency to identify how AI could streamline their processes. 

“We want to use technology to help us increase our efficiency and lower costs for taxpayers,” he said. 

Notably, the governor is also seeking a recurring $110 million to enhance unemployment insurance benefits.

More than half of North Carolina workers laid off through no fault of their own exhaust their UI benefits before finding a new job, according to Stein. 

North Carolina offers 12 weeks of unemployment benefits, among the shortest duration in the country. 

Student food aid, SNAP help for counties

The governor’s budget recommends free school breakfast for all public K-12 students, an idea that’s enjoyed bipartisan support among state lawmakers in recent years.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green has also advocated for a universal breakfast program.

Stein’s budget would also commit $5 million in state funding to help unlock federal funds for the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s SUN Bucks program. SUN Bucks provides grocery-buying benefits on a debit card that can be used to buy food during the summer months when schools are not in session.

“It’s a 25-to-1 federal to state match. That is an incredible return on state investment,” said Stein, noting that one in five children go hungry every day in North Carolina.

The governor is also proposing the state help counties with the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SNAP). Under the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, SNAP benefits are set to be reduced, with expanded work requirements that counties will need to monitor for compliance, requiring more work hours for county staff. 

Stein’s budget recommends $15 million, in addition to federal funding, to strengthen SNAP and align the program with new federal requirements.

One of the reasons some children and adults who use Medicaid in North Carolina have rotting teeth is because they can’t find dentists who will accept their insurance. 

State Medicaid payment rates for dentists haven’t changed since 2008. Dentists and some state senators say it’s long past time for increases. 

“Children are living with pain,” said Crystal Adams, director of the N.C. Oral Health Collaborative. “Adults are unable to find employment because of their oral health. That should not be the reality in our state.” North Carolina’s Medicaid reimbursement rates rank in the bottom third nationally, she said. 

Adams spoke at a news conference Tuesday about increasing payments to dentists as a way to improve Medicaid beneficiaries’ access to oral healthcare. 

State Sens. Gale Adcock (D-Wake), Jim Burgin (R-Harnett) and Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) introduced a bill Tuesday that would appropriate an additional $80 million to Medicaid reimbursements for dentists. The increase would bring Medicaid reimbursement rates from 34% of commercial rates to 50%. 

It’s critical to “understand and acknowledge that it’s impossible to be healthy without adequate attention to oral health,” Adcock said.”Surveillance and screening, preventive measures like cleanings, fluoride applications and sealants, and timely interventions like fillings, restorations, and extractions all contribute to overall health.”

Dentists say they lose money treating Medicaid patients. 

Most dentists don’t accept patients who use Medicaid. According to a 2024 report prepared under the auspices of the N.C. Institute of Medicine, only about 40% to 45% of active licensed dentists participate in the Medicaid dental program. Many don’t accept new patients. In 2022, dental procedures comprised 14% of services to Medicaid beneficiaries, but payments to dental providers accounted for only around 2% of Medicaid spending.

Low payment rates combined with the challenge of finding dentists in some rural counties means people in those areas are even more likely to go without needed care, resulting in unfilled cavities and worse, said Dr. Frank Courts, a pediatric dentist. He called it a “crisis.”

NC doesn’t pay dentists enough to treat Medicaid beneficiaries, new report says

“Without this care, the cost of treatment becomes dramatically higher, and the health outcomes become much worse,” Courts  said. “Poor oral health is a significant risk factor in cardiac conditions, diabetes, dementia, and a myriad of other medical conditions. Oral health is general health. Without oral health, you’re not going to have a healthy body.”

Kristen Jarrell, a foster parent who lives in Alexander County, told of the struggles she’s had finding dental care for foster children. 

“We need more providers who can afford to accept Medicaid,” she said. “We need reimbursement rates that replace actual costs of care, so dentists can say ‘yes’ to these kids. Because right now, there are too many saying ‘no.’”

The call for increased payments to dentists comes as the increase in existing Medicaid costs became a point of contention between Gov. Josh Stein and the Republican legislature. Stein had been pushing legislators since last year to appropriate an additional $319 million to fill a funding gap as the state Department of Health and Human Services warned the program was about to run out of money. 

House and Senate Republicans were unable last year to agree on a bill giving Medicaid more money. It was only Tuesday that Republicans said they are ready to provide the funds. 

Despite the current strife over Medicaid costs, Adcock said it’s still important to highlight inadequate dental rates. 

Advocates talked for years about Medicaid expansion before the legislature approved it, she said. 

“What we know is that there’s never a perfect time to do this,” Adcock said. “We’re going to continue to ask for this until such time that it becomes reality, because here’s what we believe: everything looks impossible until it becomes inevitable.”

Partisan legislators have squabbled over a state budget for months, but a few measures appear likely to pass the North Carolina General Assembly with support from across the aisle.

Lawmakers return to Raleigh today for the 2026 legislative session. 

Property tax reform

Democrats and Republicans are in agreement that rising local property taxes are making it difficult for some low-income and senior homeowners to stay in their homes. But they don’t agree on how to address the problem. 

Republicans are backing a proposed change to the North Carolina constitution that would allow state lawmakers to limit how much and how quickly property taxes can rise. They believe the amendment is needed to reel in what they say are unreasonable and unjustified increases in some counties.

The House Select Committee on Property Tax Reduction and Reform, formed by Republican House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell), approved the proposed amendment last week, putting it in play for the short session. The amendment would require a three-fifths vote in both chambers. If it passes, voters will be asked to approve it on the Nov. 3 ballot. 

Can North Carolina lawmakers pass a budget? Here’s what to watch as session begins

Hall has been emphatic in recent weeks about the need to control local governments’ ability to increase property taxes.

“Property tax hikes are overburdening North Carolina families, who are footing the bill while some local governments take in far more than inflation and population growth can justify,” Hall said in a statement..

Democrats have been equally blunt in their criticism of the proposed amendment. Its passage, they say, would hamstring local governments’ ability to pay for schools, public safety and public health programs. 

Many of them lay the blame for high property taxes at the feet of Republican legislative leaders and the cuts to state spending they’ve championed.

“For years, they have pushed state responsibilities like public safety and school funding onto counties and now fault them for providing basic services to their residents,” House Democratic leader Robert Reives said in a statement.

Reives pulled no punches, calling the constitutional amendment a political stunt to give vulnerable GOP incumbents “a platform to run on when very little of substance has been accomplished this biennium.” 

State Rep. Julia Howard (R-Davie), co-chairwoman of the tax reform committee, told colleagues last month that she is certain voters will approve the measure if placed on the ballot. 

“People are very concerned about their property tax, but they’re gonna speak loud and clear,” Howard said. “When they do, then it’s gonna be your responsibility to address the issue, and it’s not an easy fix.” 

The N.C. League of Municipalities, which represents cities and towns across the state, believes lawmakers should focus on improving existing tax relief programs instead of limiting local governments’ ability to increase property taxes. 

“The General Assembly has the ability to consider targeted tax relief through changes to the homeowner circuit breaker and homestead exemption programs, helping retirees now,” the league said in a statement. 

Property taxes are the primary source of revenue over which locally elected officials have control, the league said. 

Many cities and towns spend more than 40% of their general fund budgets on public safety, the league said, and any “significant restrictions on property taxes will ultimately lead to less safe communities.” 

Affordable housing tax loophole threatens to drain local government budgets in NC

As NC Newsline previously reported, the committee also endorsed a proposed bill to close a loophole in a law that allows for-profit apartment complex owners to take advantage of property tax exemptions aimed at nonprofits. 

The for-profit companies claim the tax exemptions by partnering with nonprofits that provide housing to low- and moderate-income residents. The loophole costs local governments tens of millions of dollars each year that would otherwise go to fund schools, libraries, and public safety.

The legislature could take up both proposals in its session starting this week. The tax loophole bill appears to have more bipartisan support than the levy limit proposal. 

Data center tax breaks

Opposition to data centers is growing across the state, with a handful of municipalities implementing one-year moratoriums so they have more time to conduct research and write rules.

At the state level, Gov. Josh Stein wants legislators to modify or repeal sales tax exemptions for data centers. It’s a topic likely to gain bipartisan traction this session, and similar proposals have also been considered in other states this year. 

Currently, North Carolina provides sales tax breaks on data center purchases of electricity and equipment. These exemptions were initially enacted in 2006 and expanded upon in 2015. 

Stein urges review of data center tax breaks as cost to NC residents rise

“We lived in an entirely different world at that time,” Stein told the North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force earlier this month. “No one could have anticipated the explosive growth of data centers and how much energy they consumed, and because data centers at that point were a brand new industry, they benefited from financial incentives to induce capital to invest.”

Changing the tax breaks could save the state millions of dollars. The North Carolina Dept. of Commerce estimates that data centers in the state receive about $50 million each year in state sales and use tax exemptions, according to the governor’s office, and that number is expected to rise sharply as more data centers are planned and built. 

A full repeal of the exemptions could leave the state with up to $450 million in revenue each year in the future, in addition to avoiding the substantial cost of the construction exemptions, Commerce projected. Even a partial repeal or rewrite could save the state tens of millions. 

Stein noted that President Donald Trump has also made efforts to protect consumers from increased energy rates due to data centers driving up costs. The president called for a ratepayer protection pledge in March. 

“We must be clear-eyed about the cost of data centers to ratepayers in terms of higher power bills, and clear about their cost to taxpayers in terms of lost revenue,” Stein told the task force.

State lawmakers are back in Raleigh for the 2026 legislative session and in at least one important way, it will be a gathering of historic note. Thanks to his stunning defeat in the March primary, this will be Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s 16^th and final go-round running the General Assembly’s upper house. Only one other Senate leader in state history – Berger’s immediate predecessor, the late Marc Basnight, who held the job for 20 years – served longer.

Interestingly and unfortunately, however, unlike Basnight, a conservative-leaning Outer Banks restauranteur and businessman who evolved and grew during his two decades in leadership to become a formidable champion of, among several laudable causes, higher education and environmental protection, the Phil Berger of today is pretty much the same guy who rose to power after the 2010 “Tea Party” election.

As NC Newsline reported, Berger highlighted this disappointing fact in a recent pre-session news release in which he reiterated his opposition to pausing scheduled regressive income tax cuts — cuts that even his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives have effectively acknowledged will do great damage to core state structures and services if they are allowed to take effect.

“Our policy success is largely grounded on the continuing exercise of discipline on two fronts – tax reduction and spending restraint,” Berger said. He went on to restate the tired old right-wing claim that unless North Carolina remains on this track, it will find itself losing out to other states in the “never-ending competition…for economic growth, job creation, and a better future for our people.”

What “policy success” Berger might have in mind – other than the tax and spending cuts themselves and the relentless gerrymandering, voter suppression tactics, and far right social agenda items he and his Republican colleagues have pursued – is not at all evident.

Yes, North Carolina has continued to grow over the last decade-and-a-half – mostly in urban and suburban Piedmont communities in which Republican politicians struggle – but to attribute that fact to GOP tax and spending cuts that chiefly benefit the wealthy and out-of-state corporations strains credulity. If anything, it’s more accurate to say that North Carolina has continued to grow despite those cuts.

North Carolina was already a fast-growing magnet for new residents and businesses long before (and immediately prior) to the Republican legislative takeover. What’s more, it was a state in which new and aspiring residents were often attracted not just by already moderate taxes, but also by diverse, rapidly improving, and award-winning K-12 and higher education systems and the graduates they produced, a comparatively mild climate and appealing natural environment, a comparative lack of sprawl and congestion and a forward-looking commitment in many locales to social progress.

Now, of course, as Berger winds up his Senate years, many of these erstwhile attractions are no more.

Where once North Carolina’s K-12 schools were an upward trending national model and envy, and an inspiring magnet for new teachers, relentless tax and spending cuts authored by Berger and approved by his handpicked state Supreme Court have left them threadbare, eviscerated and demoralized. Today, both per-student funding and funding effort are at or near the bottom of national rankings.

Likewise, North Carolina’s once proud public universities now hemorrhage talented faculty members and administrators to systems that are capable of paying competitive salaries and willing to respect the tradition of academic freedom.

And whereas North Carolina once sought to pursue a hopeful model for intelligently marrying economic and population growth with a commitment to coping with climate change and preserving much of the natural environment that helped make it so appealing in the first place, today, environmental regulation of any kind, as well as funding for the programs that make it work, are anathema to Berger and his fellow Republican lawmakers.

And the list goes on.

Be it health care access, public health and disease prevention, early childhood education, services to people with mental health needs and developmental disabilities, the criminal and civil justice systems, disaster relief, affordable housing, unemployment insurance, workplace safety, consumer protection, scientific research, economic development, an adequately funded and independent election system, or numerous other critical common good services that make a broadly middle class society healthy and sustainable, North Carolina is demonstrably worse off than it was 16 years ago thanks in large measure to the tax policies Berger and his colleagues have championed.

And sadly, while Berger may seek to portray these destructive cuts as somehow emblematic of “discipline,” the truth is the precise opposite. Genuine discipline in public financing involves not just spending restraint that avoids waste, but also a commitment to sustained investment and shared sacrifice that asks the well-off to pay their fair share, elevates the common good, and promotes a rising tide that lifts all boats.

As he prepares to walk off into the sunset, it’s a sad commentary that one of the most powerful politicians in North Carolina history continues to mistake one of the state’s biggest problems for a solution.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Customs and Border Protection tariff refund system went live Monday, marking what small business advocates call a “complex” first step for entrepreneurs to recoup $166 billion in import taxes accrued under President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February. 

Importers and brokers can now upload a detailed list of each tariff paid under Trump’s now illegal order to charge duties under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA. 

Customs officials estimate 330,000 importers paid the duties. Refunds are expected within 60 to 90 days, according to CBP.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision earlier this year found Trump’s steep global tariffs exceeded his presidential powers.

Following the high court’s decision, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton ordered the government to stop charging the tariffs and establish a refund system.

A handful of small businesses and Democratic state attorneys general led the legal challenge to Trump’s 2025 “Liberation Day” tariffs. 

Small business owners angry, frustrated

States Newsroom documented the experiences of several small businesses across the U.S. who faced increased costs following Trump’s change in international trade policy.

Now many are experiencing a “confusing mix of relief,” Richard Trent, executive director of Main Street Alliance, told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.

Trent, whose organization advocates on behalf of small businesses said “our entrepreneurs, many of whom were angry that they had to pay tariffs in the first place, and were frustrated by the back-and-forth over the last year, opened up the portal this morning only to see that it had crashed. It just feels like the uncertainty just keeps popping up.”

Trent, who spoke to “five or six” businesses Monday morning who experienced technical issues, said the portal was up and running again by afternoon.

Customs and Border Protection did not confirm for States Newsroom whether the system had crashed, but rather provided a written statement.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection has developed a new tool, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE), to efficiently process refunds, pursuant to court order, for importers and brokers who paid IEEPA duties,” according to an agency spokesperson. 

“CBP has issued guidance to the trade community to help them prepare to use the new CAPE tool. Importers and brokers can visit CBP’s website for resources and step-by-step guidance,” the statement continued. 

Monday’s launch is the first part of a four-step process in refunding the taxes paid by American businesses of all sizes.

Trent said the “complex” process is yet another hurdle for small operations.

“This is progress, but it’s not yet justice,” Trent said in an earlier statement Monday. “Small business owners should not have to jump through hoops to get back money they never should have had to pay. We need a refund process that is simple, accessible, and fast.”

Guides for refunds

The Liberty Justice Center, the libertarian legal advocacy group that represented small business plaintiffs before the Supreme Court, has established the Tariff Equity Refund Resource for America. The platform offers online guides for how to properly submit documentation for the refunds.

“We took this fight all the way to the Supreme Court on behalf of small businesses, and we’re not stopping now,” Sara Albrecht, chair of the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement Monday. “We are a nonprofit law firm — our only goal is to help businesses recover every dollar they are owed, not to take a percentage of it. At a time when others are looking to profit off confusion, we are making this process clear, accessible and free.”

Trump declared international trade a national emergency just over a year ago, citing a trade imbalance on imports and exports between the United States and several other countries. The president imposed a 10% blanket tariff on all global imports and steeper double-digit taxes on products from some of the top U.S. trading partners.

The president delayed and changed the rates on numerous occasions. 

Following his Supreme Court loss, Trump imposed a new round of universal, temporary tariffs under a separate statute. The Liberty Justice Center is again representing small businesses in court to fight the new import taxes.

Just months before voters cast their ballots in the 2026 U.S. Senate election, North Carolina’s Republican-led General Assembly announced a committee to investigate the Democratic nominee, former Gov. Roy Cooper.

The joint legislative panel, made up of 10 Republicans and four Democrats, will take aim at a 2021 court-ordered settlement between the Cooper administration and civil rights groups that released roughly 3,500 prisoners due to dangers from the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision inaccurately ascribed to Cooper by a Monday press release from Republican legislative leaders.

The Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations Subcommittee on Prisons will be chaired by Sen. Buck Newton (R-Wilson) and Rep. Brenden Jones (R-Columbus).

The committee’s mandate mirrors a frequent line of attack by Republican U.S. Senate nominee Michael Whatley, who has repeatedly blamed Cooper for the releases and crime across the state at large. It will also review the state’s prison system and other criminal justice issues.

House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) said in a statement that the releases were a “serious miscarriage of justice” and endangered public safety.

“This committee will investigate exactly how these early release decisions were made, who was responsible, and whether proper safeguards were followed,” Hall said.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) blamed Cooper for not properly informing the public about the releases. “He made every effort to hide what he did, and Republicans in the General Assembly are going to hold him and Gov. Stein accountable for releasing violent, repeat offenders and endangering our citizens.”

Cooper, Whatley face off in dueling Triangle events over who can deliver affordability

The speaker’s office characterized the list of inmates as a “secret” kept from the public by the governor’s office. Those names were in fact withheld from the public because a judge ordered the settlement list to remain sealed, which it was until the legislature’s Government Operations committee obtained and released it earlier this year.

Jordan Monaghan, a spokesman for the Cooper campaign, said in a statement that the committee’s inquiry is based on “blatant lies,” noting that the former governor “fought against these releases in court.”

“North Carolina law enforcement officials and parole officers looked to similar criteria President Trump used a year prior when his administration released thousands of federal prisoners due to COVID-19,” Monaghan said. “North Carolina Republican leaders were regularly briefed on this process over five years ago, only now raising this issue in the middle of a political campaign.”

David McLennan, a professor of political science at Meredith College, said he cannot recall the General Assembly probing a U.S. Senate candidate months before the election, nor a former governor five years after the alleged misconduct.

“It seems just overtly political,” McLennan said. “The initial response I had was this was an attempt to paint Cooper in a very poor light in terms of crime.”

Republicans have sought to tie Cooper to the fatal Charlotte stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska. Lawmakers have repeatedly alleged that DeCarlos Brown Jr., the man charged with her murder, was released by Cooper’s order. In fact, Brown was already out of prison on post-release supervision at the time of the order after having served his full sentence, according to PolitiFact.

In the settlement requiring the release of thousands of inmates from state prisons, the state sought to lower the number of prisoners it would have to release by retroactively counting some that had already been released since the pandemic began. Plaintiffs and the judge agreed to allow that. Brown was part of that group.

The committee begins its work as Cooper leads his Republican opponent Whatley by double digits in some polls, with many voters still knowing little about the latter candidate. Whatley has faced his own scrutiny on criminal justice issues, including his role appointing a convicted sex offender to help draft the party’s rules during his time as state GOP chair, drawing backlash from some conservative activists.

McLennan said he expects the proceedings to resemble high-profile congressional hearings, centering more around drawing headlines than finding facts, with Republican lawmakers potentially seeking to call Cooper and other top officials to testify. “In the end, I suspect there will probably be a report issued, late summer, probably just in time for the fall campaign season, that will be very critical of the governor,” he said.

“Crime is one of the issues that Democrats are most vulnerable on, just historically,” McLennan said. “I think they’ll paint a very compelling story. Now, whether or not voters of North Carolina will see through it in terms of it being just a political committee, I don’t know.”

Six weeks away from the official start of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein is doing his best to keep legislators focused on the damage caused during the 2024 hurricane season. Stein is using the short session to encourage the N.C. General Assembly to invest $792 million in the next phase of Hurricane Helene recovery funding.

Legislators voiced their dismay at an oversight meeting in early April that only 30 single-family homes had been completed 18 months after the storm. Matt Calabria, director of the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, clarified Monday that progress is being made through different revenue streams and different partners. Nonprofit partners using state funds have helped rebuild or repair 800 homes.

Lawmakers press NC disaster recovery officials on Stein’s $792M Helene request

“It’s not a matter of the nonprofit sector as separate from the state moving on various work. It’s an integrated effort,” Calabria stressed to reporters after a meeting of the advisory committee on Western North Carolina Recovery.

Calabria said nonprofit partners and volunteer organizations have been able to move quickly on repairs because they are not using federal funds, and are able to avoid the bureaucratic requirements that the state must meet.

“We understand that they can do things that we can’t, and they understand that for the larger or more complicated projects, the state plays a role that they don’t easily fill,” Calabria said. “One of the roles of GROW NC is to play air traffic controller and make sure that we’re all communicating.”

Calabria says that the larger pool of money that the federal government can provide is essential. Helene caused $60 billion in damage across 26 N.C. counties, that’s double the last state budget North Carolina enacted.

Stephanie McGarrah, deputy secretary for community revitalization in the North Carolina Department of Commerce, said one area that continues to be a significant chokepoint is the lack of housing.

“We have a lack of space for people to move to, and also people do not have enough funds to find a place to live for the period of time that the recovery will take,” McGarrah said during Monday’s advisory committee meeting.

McGarrah said the agency wants the General Assembly to allow it to use some of the money previously appropriated to provide temporary relocation assistance for residents who have demonstrated hardship.

“We are also working with the Housing Finance Agency to co-fund large Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects. LIHTC allows you to have low-income housing for folks for up to 30 years, and they are across Western North Carolina,” McGarrah said.

McGarrah said the state would need $600 million if it were to fully fund the applications received. The Division of Community Revitalization initially budgeted $60 million.

“There is absolutely a large need for affordable housing, whether it be for ownership or for rental,” she said.

The initial round of LITHC projects is expected to be awarded in mid-2026.

NC governor seeks nearly $800 million in state funding in latest Helene recovery request

Another big ask this session is for private roads and bridges. Eighty sites have already been completed with 169 more sites in progress. The governor’s office is asking for $100 million in additional funding.

Leah Wong Ashburn, president and CEO of Highland Brewing, told the governor’s advisory committee a volunteer firefighter in Buncombe County recently shared a story with her about responding to a house fire where the private bridge, damaged during Helene, was still out.

“They took a side bridge and that bridge couldn’t handle the weight of the fire truck,” Ashburn said.  “They were making all kinds of adjustments to try to help but it was too late  — there was loss of home and loss of life.”

Ashburn said with the severe drought, property owners are facing an imminent danger in areas where bridges have not been repaired.

North Carolina has experienced more than 550 wildfires since a statewide burn ban was issued in late March.

Calabria said the governor’s latest request will include $17.3 million for a range of needs related to wildfire risks, continuing to repair state parks, and protect natural resources.

Stein will release his full budget recommendations for fiscal year 2026-27 on Tuesday morning.

As state lawmakers return to Raleigh this week for their 2026 legislative short session, there’s one issue that looms as the most important and most challenging: the state budget. Thanks to a long series of personal and corporate income tax cuts (and more that are scheduled to take place), the state will soon face a massive new budget shortfall that will endanger an array of core public systems and services that are already being run on shoestring.

Now add to this that House and Senate Republicans haven’t even been able to agree on a budget for the current fiscal year and it’s no wonder that a growing chorus of experts has issued a dire warning about what lies ahead for the state fiscal picture absent swift action, and recently we sat down with one of those experts – the NC Budget and Tax Center’s Sally Hodges Copple – to learn more.

Click here to listen to the full interview with the NC Budget and Tax Center’s Sally Hodges-Copple.

The state of North Carolina finds itself in a fiscal policy mess thanks to a series of regressive income tax cuts, there’s no larger or more important public function that will be adversely impacted than public education. For many years now, thanks to the decisions of Republican legislative leaders, North Carolina public schools have listed along near the bottom of national rankings in a host of important funding categories.

A landmark lawsuit – the Leandro case — sought to alter this situation by establishing that all schoolchildren in the state have a constitutional right to a sound basic education, but GOP lawmakers ignored the ruling and recently succeeded in getting a Republican majority on the court to effectively gut it. So where do things stand now and what’s next for public education in our state? Recently, Newsline sat down to discuss these questions with the Public School Forum of North Carolina’s Senior Director of Policy and Interim President/CEO, Lauren Fox.

Click here to listen to the full interview with the Public School Forum’s Lauren Fox.

The biggest story in North Carolina politics right now – indeed, it’s a big national story – is the recent primary election defeat of longtime state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger. The veteran Rockingham County Republican lawmaker lost to his local sheriff, Sam Page, by just 23 votes.

So, what happened and why and is Berger’s defeat indicative of a pattern that reaches beyond the borders of North Carolina? Last week, Newsline caught up with the Durham-based New York Times reporter who covers the politics and culture of our state and the rest of the south, Eduardo Medina, to get his assessment.

Click here to listen to the full interview with New York Times reporter Eduardo Medina.

Follow Medina’s work in The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer will step down from her post, the Trump administration announced Monday, following multiple reports alleging work misconduct including misuse of funds and more.

Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican from Oregon who lost her U.S. House reelection bid in 2024, will take a role in the private sector, White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung wrote in a social media post. 

“She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives,” Cheung said. 

Keith Sonderling will lead the agency as acting secretary of Labor, he added. Sonderling also worked at the Department of Labor during the first Trump administration, in the Wage and Hour Division. 

Chavez-DeRemer is the most recent member of the Donald Trump Cabinet to be ousted, following former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The Department of Labor’s independent watchdog started an investigation into Chavez-DeRemer and her top aides over allegations of sending inappropriate messages to young staffers at the department, according to the New York Times. 

The department’s inspector general was also investigating reports of misuse of department funds for personal travel and into allegations Chavez-DeRemer had an extramarital affair with a member of her security detail.

Separately, her husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, was barred from entering the Department of Labor after female staffers said he touched them inappropriately, according to the Times. 

The slate of unfinished business greeting North Carolina legislators when they return to work Tuesday could include consideration of vetoes Republicans want to override. 

Vetoed bills in the override queue span issues from immigration to diversity to guns. 

Overrides are easier in the Senate, where Republicans hold a veto-proof majority. But both the House and Senate must vote to override a veto in order for a bill to become law. 

House Republicans are one vote short of a veto-proof majority, so they’ve had to rely on at least one Democrat voting with them to short-circuit Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s rejection of bills. 

NC lawmakers override Stein’s vetoes, as key House Democrats defect

Last year, the legislature overrode eight Stein vetoes with help from House Democrats who later went on to lose their primaries. Reps. Carla Cunningham and Nasif Majeed, both of Mecklenburg, and Rep. Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe each voted to override Stein at least twice. 

Another House Democrat who joined Republicans in two successful override votes, former Rep. Cecil Brockman of High Point, resigned from the legislature last year after being charged with child sex crimes. Brockman has denied any wrongdoing.

The House has six overrides on its Tuesday agenda, but Republican leaders will only take them up for debate them if they believe they have enough votes. Otherwise, they will postpone them, which they’ve done many times over the past six months.

Four of those bills began in the state Senate, which voted on party lines last July to override Stein’s vetoes of all of them. If the House succeeds in overriding them as well, they become law over the governor’s objection. 

Senate Bill 153 would allow state law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws and require them to work with ICE. State agencies would be required to make sure that non-citizens are not receiving state-supported health or housing benefits.

“Let them be worried:” NC Dem Carla Cunningham on the upcoming legislative short session.

Cunningham is a potential swing vote for an override. She has voted for other immigration enforcement bills. She provided the crucial vote to override a bill on sheriffs’ cooperation with ICE, introducing that vote with a controversial floor speech.

Senate Bill 50 would allow adults to carry concealed handguns without permits. The House passed the bill 59-48 back in June with no Democrats voting for it, and two Republicans voting against it. The two Republicans who opposed the bill, Reps. Ted Davis of New Hanover and Bill Brisson of Bladen County, are retiring at the end of the session. 

Senate Bill 227 targets diversity, equity, and inclusion in K-12 public schools with a ban on teaching “divisive concepts” concerning race or sex. 

Senate Bill 558 would impose the same teaching bans as Senate Bill 227 at UNC system universities, schools and community colleges. The UNC Board of Governors repealed the system’s diversity, equity and inclusion policy in May 2024. 

Two other vetoed bills began in the House, so the House must vote first to override the vetoes before they go to the Senate. 

House Bill 171 bans diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state and local government and would allow employees or former employees to sue other employees for alleged violations. 

House Bill 87 would have the state participate in a federal tax credit where taxpayers would be able to deduct up to $1,700 in donations to nonprofits that offer private school scholarships. When Stein vetoed the bill, he wrote that he was waiting to see if the federal government allows the money to also be used for public school programs.

A seventh vetoed bill in the pipeline doesn’t appear to be up for consideration Tuesday. 

House Bill 96 would make it easier for property owners to remove squatters from homes. Stein said he vetoed the bill because of a late addition that limits local government regulation of pet shops. He wrote that the provision would make it easier for puppy mills to operate. The House sent this bill back to its Rules Committee in August, 2025.

Jason Johnson, Orange High School principal, has been named the 2026 National High School Principal of the Year.

The National Association of Secondary School Principals announced the honor last week at its leadership awards in Washington. Johnson, who is also North Carolina’s 2025 Principal of the Year, is a 25-year veteran of the classroom and administration. He was selected from a pool of state-level winners.

In a statement, Johnson credited the “direction set” by the state Board of Education and the local community for his success.

“This award validates the work we are doing across the state of North Carolina, and it affirms the direction set by the North Carolina State Board of Education and Superintendent Mo Green.”

Green described Johnson as a “transformational and collaborative leader” in a statement.

Johnson returned to lead Orange High in 2021 following a stint as a coach with the state’s Department of Public Instruction. He previously held leadership roles in Chatham and Guilford counties.

As the North Carolina principal of the year, Johnson served as an ambassador and advocate for public schools; now, he will take that to a national level.

Johnson was one of four top educators recognized in D.C. alongside Sonia Ruiz, an Illinois principal named the national middle school winner. Two assistant principals from Tennessee and Wisconsin were also honored for their work on student discipline and closing achievement gaps.

Nine NC principals named regional finalists for 2026 Principal of the Year

“In education, we talk a lot about closing gaps and building culture,” said NASSP CEO Ronn Nozoe. “But these four leaders actually did it in real schools, with real kids, under real constraints. That’s not a small thing. Effective principals like them add up to three additional months of learning a year for their students. That difference is life changing.”

Earlier this year, North Carolina announced its nine regional finalists for the 2026 North Carolina Principal of the Year award. One of the finalists will be selected as the statewide winner May 15 at a ceremony in Cary.

Eviction filings fell in 2025 for the second straight year in the cities and states tracked in a new report — areas home to roughly a third of the country’s renters — though some of those places saw increases.

Landlords filed more than 1.23 million eviction cases in the 10 states and 38 cities where data was collected by Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, a research center. That’s slightly lower than the 1.25 million in 2024. 

Across those locations, the average eviction filing rate was 7.9%, which means that landlords filed roughly one eviction case for every 13 renter households in 2025.

The areas of Atlanta (25%); Richmond, Virginia (24%); Charleston, South Carolina (17%); and Indianapolis (14%) had filing rates that were at least double the national average, the report said. In Atlanta, landlords filed 144,000 eviction cases, a 4% drop from previous years. 

Eviction filings were up in 13 of the 48 sites relative to the typical number of eviction cases filed annually in 2023 and 2024 — with the highest increase at 30% in the greater Austin, Texas, area. Miami recorded far fewer cases, with the largest drop in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where landlords filed 20% fewer cases than average.

New York City had a comparatively low eviction filing rate, at 5%. Researchers credit strong tenant protections such as universal access of lawyers for eviction cases in court despite high-rents and a competitive real estate market. 

The report also found that Black renters are significantly overrepresented in eviction filing cases. Despite making up 28% of the renter population, 39% of eviction filings tracked by Eviction Lab named a Black defendant. In contrast, 37% of eviction filings were against white defendants, lower than their 45% of the renter population.

Like previous years, the report also found that eviction cases are concentrated among a small number of landlords.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

A comprehensive state budget is more than nine months overdue, North Carolina’s Medicaid program is about to run out of money, and state employees and teachers are clamoring for raises.

The General Assembly returns to work Tuesday staring at the same divisions it left at its last regular meeting last year. Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, has disagreements with the Republican-run legislature, and House and Senate Republican leaders don’t agree with each other.

Lame-duck legislators who lost their primaries, including Republican Senate leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), one of the most powerful politicians in the state, as well as several House Democrats and Republicans, are wild cards factored into delicate budget negotiations.

Flock of lame ducks at NC legislature could upend short session dynamics

House Republicans proposed average teacher raises of more than 8% over two years, with a big boost in starting teacher pay to $50,000 a year. The House budget also paused future cuts to the personal income tax rate. The House had proposed spending $32.6 billion in the current budget year.

Senate Republicans proposed teacher raises averaging 3.3%, and wanted the future tax cuts to go ahead as planned. The Senate proposed spending $32.3 billion this year.

Medicaid and the children’s hospital

One of the pressing issues for the legislature is a $319 million Medicaid shortfall. The health insurance program that covers about 3.1 million North Carolinians is about to run out of money, and Stein has been demanding the additional money for months.

In committee meetings over the winter and spring, Republicans have questioned state health officials about the Medicaid numbers and extent of the shortfall.

At a March event on civil debate about health care, Rep. Grant Campbell (R-Cabarrus) said he supported filling the Medicaid budget hole, but wanted to make sure it will really cost $319 million.

“I’m all for it if you can show me the money has been calculated appropriately,” he said.

House and Senate Republicans differed on funding a children’s hospital being built in Apex. Senate Republicans want additional funds approved for the hospital. They attached $103.5 million for the hospital to a bill on added Medicaid funding. House Republicans have resisted more spending on the hospital.

Automatic tax cut

The largest hang-up in budget talks between House and Senate Republicans is automatic tax cuts.

House Republicans want to pause those reductions, while Senate Republicans want the cut to go forward as planned.

The offices of House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Caldwell) and Senate leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) did not respond to requests for interviews.

Berger acknowledged in a recent press release that “progress was elusive” on tax issues in last year’s session, but said “circumstances do exist for us to reach an agreement on a comprehensive state budget.”

“Our policy success is largely grounded on the continuing exercise of discipline on two fronts — tax reduction and spending restraint,” Berger wrote. “Failure to adhere to fundamentals on either front will thwart sustaining progress in our never-ending competition with other states for economic growth, job creation, and a better future for our people.”

The tax cuts are based on revenue triggers that the state is expected to meet. But the reductions mean that the state will have less money to spend in future years.

The individual tax rate is scheduled to fall from 3.99% to 3.49% in 2027. The rate is to fall again to 2.99% in 2028.

Stein wants to pause the cuts too, and his Office of State Budget and Management projects that the first reduction will mean the state collecting $2 billion less each year.

The corporate income tax is being phased out, with elimination set for 2030.

The individual and corporate tax cuts will result in a structural budget deficit, reducing annual state revenues by $7.7 billion in 2033-2034, OSBM anticipates.

Federal fallout 

A major federal law shifted more of the cost of providing food benefits, known as SNAP, from the federal government to counties.

Looming federal cuts to food stamps could impact state and local budgets in NC

The total increase to counties comes to $52 million starting in July, according to the NC Association of County Commissioners. The association is asking the General Assembly to cover the cost.

Sen. Jim Burgin, chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services budget committee, told NC Newsline the state can’t afford it.

The state will also need to foot the bill for monitoring new work requirements and verification requirements for Medicaid. DHHS officials have said that could run into the tens of millions of dollars.

Burgin said DHHS may be able to help the counties with additional tasks that will fall on local caseworkers.

Hurricane Helene relief

Stein is pushing lawmakers for a third round of recovery funding to western North Carolina, requesting $792 million in a March proposal.

Among the largest line items in the budget request is $100 million for repairs to private roads and bridges. Another recommendation would allocate $50 million for a revolving loan program to help local governments avoid budget cuts while funding repair efforts.

Republican lawmakers have grown skeptical of the governor’s handling of Helene relief, grilling recovery officials earlier this month over rising costs and a home rebuild and repair initiative that has completed work on just 30 houses since its inception.

“The numbers don’t add up and meanwhile, the citizens of North Carolina are suffering,” said Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Macon), the House Majority Whip, at a Helene oversight meeting on April 2. “We’re going to have to have a lot more conversations and a lot more oversight and a lot more efficiencies in the program to ever make this work out.”

The U.S. Forest Service’s plan to close scores of research stations could threaten the nation’s wildfire readiness, many foresters fear, and erode decades of work to understand timber production, soil health, pests and diseases, watersheds and wildlife.

Late last month, the Forest Service announced plans to close 57 of its 77 research stations, located across 31 states, merging them into a single organization in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The agency described the move as a way to consolidate, not cut, the agency’s scientific work, and “unify research priorities.”

It’s unclear how many scientists will be affected by the transition, but it comes as part of a larger agency reorganization that is expected to move roughly 5,000 employees to new outposts. Forest Service leaders have framed the closures as a way to reduce the agency’s real estate footprint, citing a facilities budget Congress has shrunk, as opposed to curtailing its scientific work.

But many longtime foresters fear the closures will threaten vital research that has been the backbone of forest management for state agencies, timber companies and tribes. Many of the research stations slated for closure study fire behavior, forecast smoke dispersal and help inform evacuation decisions.

“The research arm of the Forest Service is one of the unsung heroes in forest management around the world,” said Mike Dombeck, who served as chief of the Forest Service under President Bill Clinton and remains a vocal conservation advocate. “It is the premier forest research entity in the world, on everything from invasive species to wildland fire risk, watershed protection, basic silviculture and harvest methods.”

The Forest Service’s revamp also will relocate the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and restructure its regional management system.

The Forest Service did not grant a Stateline interview request. The agency has not said how much money it expects to save by closing the research stations.

Many Western leaders are skeptical that the consolidated operation will be able to replicate the work of the existing research stations. State officials said they’ve been given few details about how the transition will play out and whether existing research will continue.

In Washington state, the Forest Service plans to close research stations in Seattle and Wenatchee, while maintaining a facility in Olympia.

“The station in Seattle does some of the most practical-based research that we use for fire and forest management,” said Washington State Forester George Geissler. “We don’t want to lose that work. They’ve said they’ll keep Olympia open, but we don’t know what that looks like. Are they making sure we don’t lose the ongoing research?”

Forestry veterans say it’s important for the agency to continue its scientific work across a wide variety of forests and climates.

“This is research that’s been going on for decades or even a century or more,” said Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a nonprofit that advocates for agency workers. “They’re able to see how climate change impacts are playing out in a dry ponderosa forest or a humid hardwood forest. There are research plots and experimental forests that have been diligently studied for decades. This could be a loss of a lot of knowledge.”

The Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory, for instance, plays a crucial role in issuing wildfire smoke forecasts that are relied on throughout the Northwest. After a hot, dry winter, that work could be critical as a dangerous wildfire season approaches.

In Vermont, the Burlington research station slated for closure studied maple syrup production and the effects of acid rain on different tree species, according to VTDigger.

And in Mississippi, the Southern Institute of Forest Genetics, also on the chopping block, has guided tree improvement programs that improved growth and pest resistance in Southern timber forests.

Some conservation advocates are concerned that the research station closures are aimed at suppressing studies that might show the environmental harms of logging or mining. President Donald Trump has pledged to increase timber production on federal lands. He has moved to limit environmental reviews and protections for endangered species to speed up logging projects.

In an interview with the Deseret News, Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said that the move was designed to ensure that the Forest Service’s research “will better align with the priorities of the administration” — minerals, recreation, fire management and “active management” of forests, which can include timber harvests and thinning projects. He said the research would support not just forests but also private landowners.

“It’s not streamlining, it’s dismantling,” said Chandra Rosenthal, Western lands and Rocky Mountain advocate with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that defends whistleblowers in the federal service. “It’s going to really impact how the Forest Service makes decisions on the ground. The way the Trump administration is trying to make a lot of decisions is gut feelings.”

In a webpage set up to respond to news coverage of the move, the Forest Service said it is a “myth” that the station closures will eliminate scientific positions or cancel research programs. But many forestry veterans said that attrition is inevitable, as researchers are asked to move their families across the country to work under a new model with few details.

“There’s concern that we’re going to see a lot of really good individuals who cannot uproot their families that we’ll lose,” said Geissler, the Washington state forester. “It’s taken a long time to develop that kind of expertise. It’s scary.”

Foresters in both conservative and liberal states said they rely heavily on the research the Forest Service provides. Most were unwilling to comment extensively about the closures without seeing more details.

“That work is absolutely important, and I sure hope it continues,” said Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris. “I don’t think research should stop. It may need to look a little different.”

Some leaders said there may be opportunities for states, through forestry agencies and universities, to pick up the slack and ensure research continues, even if the Forest Service is no longer playing a lead role.

“This is still a little bit of an unknown area, but we’ll have to make sure that if there’s a gap there, that we’re working with our universities and (state) research centers to make sure that is still being provided,” said Utah State Forester Jamie Barnes.

Nick Smith, public affairs director with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, expressed support for the agency’s effort to consolidate its work, saying he’d had “limited interaction” with the research stations.

While some of the Forest Service’s work is controversial, agency veterans say its research program is valued by loggers and tree-huggers alike.

“Nobody was asking for this,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment during the Obama administration. “There was no call to do anything like this.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

Some of the Trump administration’s controversial new warehouse immigration detention centers are getting scaled back and postponed as states and cities fight back and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reviews actions taken by his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem.

Some states and cities have seen more communication and compromise as Mullin takes over and the Department of Homeland Security faces a continued funding shutdown that has reached 60 days.

That includes discussions about a proposed Arizona detention center where DHS agreed to scale back the number of prisoners by two-thirds and pay a city for lost taxes, and a proposed center in Maryland with a similar offer from the department. A lawsuit also is holding up work on that detention center. And in Georgia, a small city cut off the water supply to a proposed immigrant holding site.

A plan to house up to 1,500 immigrants in Surprise, Arizona, starting as soon as May was scaled back to 542 detainees starting in October at the earliest, and DHS agreed to pay the city $300,000 a year for lost property taxes. The department also may offer more to help with any police costs, after negotiations with DHS under Mullin.

“With the new leadership there’s been a lot of communication,” Surprise Mayor Kevin Sartor told a local radio show April 15, a contrast to the “very frustrating” experience of how the city learned from news reports in January that DHS had purchased a 418,000-square-foot distribution center for $70 million.   

“We do have a different leadership style,” Mullin said in a CNBC interview April 16, comparing himself to Noem. “We want to make sure people understand that we’re here working for the people, not against you.” 

In Maryland, the new DHS administration has also offered a scale-back from 1,500 detainees to 542, in a Williamsport warehouse bought for $102 million in January. An April 15 court order keeps most work on the center paused as the state continues a lawsuit claiming “impacts on the environmental, economic, and public health and safety interests of the state.”

In Arizona, dozens of Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter in April asking the city of Surprise to “stop the facility from opening at all costs,” but Mayor Sartor has said he doesn’t see a legal basis for a lawsuit. The mayor’s office is nonpartisan, but Republicans predominate among registered voters in the city by almost 2-1 over Democrats. 

Communities across the country are facing the results of a massive detention expansion fueled in large part by the record $45 billion approved for increased immigration detention by Congress last summer.

U.S. Reps. Maxwell Frost & Darren Soto tell Kristi Noem not to open ICE facility in Central Florida

Other state and local action on the plan to repurpose warehouses for detention centers include a Kansas City, Missouri, ban on nonmunicipal detention facilities passed in January, Developers halted the sale of a south Kansas City warehouse in February.

Owners of an Indiana warehouse sent a letter saying they weren’t in active negotiations with for the site, which had been reported as a potential detention center and drew local opposition from the town of Merrillville. Democratic lawmakers in Florida opposed plans for a warehouse detention center near Orlando in February, while some Republican lawmakers supported it. 

In Georgia, the city of Social Circle cut off water and sewer service for a $128.6 million warehouse proposed to hold 10,000 detainees, saying the town of 5,000 people did not have the capacity to serve it.

“The city’s infrastructure cannot accommodate this level of demand,” according to a February statement from the city, despite a “certainly creative” solution suggested by DHS to fill a water-supply cistern at times of low demand.  

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

An environmental group is asking the North Carolina Dept. of Environmental Quality to address ongoing wastewater pollution flowing into the Haw River.

The Saxapahaw wastewater treatment plan in Alamance County has been discharging high levels of fecal bacteria into the Haw River for months, according to a statement released Friday by Haw River Assembly. 

During water quality sampling conducted since the beginning of 2026, Haw River Assembly detected E. coli levels that are more than 12 times greater than levels deemed safe by Open Water Data in the plant’s discharge. Some samples were brown in color, carried a foul odor and contained floating solid material, according to Haw River Assembly. 

DEQ found similar readings on March 2, documenting fecal coliform in the plant’s discharge that exceeded the state water quality standard, the statement said. 

High levels of E. coli in water used for recreation can cause sickness, sometimes serious, in people who come in contact with it. It’s not unusual for public health officials to close beaches and river access points where bacteria levels are high. 

A local canoe and kayaking company rents to individuals a little upstream of the wastewater discharge point, which could lead to people traveling directly through the contaminated zone. 

“The Haw River is a beloved resource for our community — people swim here, paddle here and bring their families here,” said Emily Sutton, Haw Riverkeeper and executive director at Haw River Assembly. “With swim season fast approaching, we need this to be remedied as quickly as possible.”

Fuquay-Varina seeks new water source due to growth, drawing opposition

Haw River Assembly is calling for DEQ to investigate the facility’s treatment failures. The group also wants the agency to review the plant’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, incorporating stronger monitoring requirements and enforceable limits. 

Residents and visitors in Saxapahaw have reported ongoing foul smells coming from the facility, according to Haw River Assembly. 

Laura Oleniacz, public information officer for DEQ’s Division of Water Resources, said the agency has been in touch with the operator and owner of the Saxapahaw Wastewater Treatment Plant to address violations of their permit conditions.

“The permit does not currently have limits in-place for fecal coliform, however the permit is up for renewal, and the renewal application is being reviewed. DWR plan to review concerns during the permit renewal process,” Oleniacz wrote in an email.

The Alamance County Environmental Health Department did not immediately respond to NC Newsline’s request for comment.

There’s perhaps no better advocate for North Carolina’s higher education system these days than NASA Astronaut Christina Koch. A mission specialist on Artemis II, Koch graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham in 1997 and went on to North Carolina State University to earn Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and physics, followed by a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering.

That academic pedigree was on full display Thursday as Koch delivered a video message to the UNC System Board of Governors. She recounted how her time at NCSSM and then N.C. State taught her how to rechannel fear into focus.

“To have people that sat me down and pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself was really instrumental,” Koch said in her message. “Just to realize that there was so much more to explore, so much more to learn, and the amount that my mind opened during that time just can’t be understated.”

UNC System President Peter Hans said while Koch and her fellow Artemis II astronauts were peering at the surface of the moon last week, the system was doing its best to peer into the future and anticipate what the economy and society will need in the years ahead.

“With the state growing and our current workforce facing a wave of retirements, there’s going to be a strong need for many of the vital professions that our public universities were designed to fill,” said Hans.

The UNC System’s newly released Workforce Alignment Report shows that while the current economy is strong, the state needs 5,000 to 10,000 additional college graduates annually over the next several years to meet growing employer demands. Fields where the demand is greatest include nursing, engineering and education.

Hans said investments made in higher education bring new opportunities for growth and “keep North Carolina’s best and brightest closest to home.”

But to address gaps in the future workforce, the UNC System needs support from state legislators now, he said.

Top budget priorities for the UNC System in the short session include $169.7 million to cover enrollment funding, building reserves, and repairs and renovations across the 17 campuses. The UNC System will also be requesting funding “commensurate with state agencies” for faculty and staff.

Alan Porch, UNC System Staff Assembly chair, reminded the board that modest legislative salary increases over the last five years have not kept up with the cost of living.

Frustration over rising costs, changes with the state health insurance plan, increased copays, increased prescription costs, and challenges locating providers have all been weighing on university staff.

“Work volume increases, salary doesn’t for any number of reasons, and it can just be stressful,” said Porch. “That stress puts a strain on the engine that moves us all forward.”

While no agreement was reached in the last legislative session to ease that strain, Senate Bill 659 proposed a 3% increase for UNC System employees and community college personnel.  The Democratic-sponsored bill never moved. A more modest proposal (Senate Bill 599) by Republicans would have provided a 2.5% increase for UNC System employees and many others in state government. That bill also did not make it across the finish line.

In light of that, UNC system leaders are trying to manage expectations about what they can accomplish in the short session. They noted that each 1% increase in salary and associated benefits costs the state $40 million.

Sally Hodges-Copple, a public policy analyst with the N.C. Budget and Tax Center, says salary increases and other priorities will be challenging this year as scheduled income tax cuts means revenue will decline next year.

UNC Board of Governors poised to increase tuition despite pushback from prominent conservative

“What the revenue forecast tells us is that’s not going to improve,” said Hodges-Copple in an interview with NC Newsline. “That’s going to get worse in the coming years because the state will not be bringing in enough revenue to sustain those already very low levels of state funding and services.”

The Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) estimates that the automatic tax cuts will create a $2.8 billion structural budget deficit by the 2028 fiscal year 2028.

The Budget and Tax Center estimates that if lawmakers fail during the upcoming short session to address the automatic tax cuts, they will be forced to  cut spending to balance the budget. To put that in perspective, $2.8 billion in spending cuts is the equivalent of eliminating all state funding for community colleges and then some.

“It’s an enormous sum of money,” said Hodges-Copple. “And that’s a very near-term problem.”

WASHINGTON — Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s legal team is urging a federal appeals court to uphold a ruling that allows the former Navy captain to keep his retirement rank and pay while his First Amendment case against the Pentagon moves forward. 

Benjamin C. Mizer, partner at Arnold & Porter, wrote in a brief filed April 15 that the Defense Department violated Kelly’s constitutional rights when it tried to punish him for appearing alongside other Democrats in the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video. 

The Trump administration’s appeal of the district court’s ruling, he wrote, doesn’t cite “a single case” that has expanded the limited speech rights of active-duty military members to “retirees like Senator Kelly.”

The legal precedent the Trump administration did reference, Parker v. Levy, “involved an active-duty officer directly urging soldiers at his wartime military post to refuse specific orders to deploy and fight,” Mizer wrote. 

“Senator Kelly, by contrast, is a retired officer and legislator who publicly called, alongside other Members of Congress, for adherence to settled law, not defiance of it,” Mizer wrote. 

‘Illegal orders’ video posted in November

Kelly, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, New Hampshire Rep. Maggie Goodlander, and Pennsylvania Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, all Democrats with backgrounds in the military or national security, posted the video at the center of the case on Nov. 18.

They said that Americans in those institutions “can” and “must refuse illegal orders.”

“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant,” they said. “But whether you’re serving in the CIA, in the Army, or Navy, or the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.”

Mizer wrote in his legal brief that “Kelly never told members of the armed forces to refuse any particular military orders. The video did not even identify any specific military orders or operations.”

Mizer added the obligation to refuse clearly illegal orders “is a bedrock of the law of armed conflict.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in January that he would attempt to downgrade Kelly’s retirement rank and pay for his participation in the video, leading the senator to file a lawsuit. 

Senior Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia District Court issued a preliminary injunction in February, blocking that from taking effect while the case progresses through the legal system. 

The Trump administration appealed the preliminary injunction to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has scheduled oral arguments for May 7.

Karen LeCraft Henderson, nominated by President George H.W. Bush in 1990; Cornelia T.L. Pillard, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2013; and Florence Y. Pan, nominated by President Joe Biden in 2022, make up the three-judge panel that will decide whether to uphold the district court’s preliminary injunction or overturn it. 

DOJ argues discipline at risk

Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate wrote in a 71-page brief filed March 20 the district court judge’s ruling “was gravely wrong and sweeps far beyond Kelly’s suit, calling into question the military’s ability to maintain discipline among servicemembers.”

Shumate added later in the filing that “while retired officers may well have greater speech rights than active-duty servicemembers in some respects, the district court erred in holding that they are indistinguishable from civilians for purposes of First Amendment analysis. 

“The court reasoned that retired officers cannot undermine discipline as significantly as active-duty servicemembers, but that conclusion is unsupportable.”

Shumate contended that the “district court also erred insofar as it suggested that Kelly is entitled to heightened First Amendment protection because he is a Member of Congress. Whatever enhanced speech rights Kelly has in that capacity, they come from other constitutional provisions, not the First Amendment.”

“If anything, Kelly’s role in Congress provides more, not less, reason to hold him as accountable as other servicemembers for counseling disobedience to lawful orders, given that his ‘leadership position’ as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee gives him ‘unique sway over the military,’” Shumate wrote. 

A federal appeals court will reopen consideration of a North Carolina lawsuit that has left state regulations on mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortions, on hold for nearly two years.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that attorneys could file new motions in the case, known as Bryant v. Moore, which has been on hiatus since December 2024.

The case arrived at the appeals court in June 2024, after U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles struck down parts of the North Carolina law restricting mifepristone, including a requirement that only physicians could prescribe the pill.

Both supporters and opponents of North Carolina’s abortion restrictions said in 2024  that Eagles had erred in blocking some, but not all, of the provisions of Senate Bill 20 concerning mifepristone.

North Carolina abortion pill restrictions struck down by federal judge

Republican legislative leaders first appealed, seeking to lift the district court’s order striking down some elements of the law. Attorneys for former House Speaker U.S. Rep. Tim Moore (R-N.C.) and state Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) argued that blocking the state from setting its own restrictions could have “devastating effects on real people.”

“[The district court’s ruling] puts in jeopardy not only North Carolina’s commonsense safety requirements for abortion drugs but also any state law that imposes a ‘safety-related’ protection on particularly high-risk drugs,” lawyers for Moore and Berger wrote in their 2024 opening brief.

The plaintiff in the case, Hillsborough OB-GYN Amy Bryant, also appealed the case in hopes of lifting the remaining restrictions. Those barriers, her attorneys argued in their 2024 brief, were “expressly considered and rejected” by the FDA.

“The court erred by holding that some of the challenged restrictions are not preempted because they are not ‘directed to the risks of mifepristone’ but instead relate to ‘broader health issues,’” her attorneys wrote.

Neither the attorneys for the Republican lawmakers nor Bryant’s attorneys responded to a request for comment on the case moving forward.

The appeals have been on hold while the 4th Circuit considered a separate case blocking mifepristone access in West Virginia under the state’s near-total abortion ban. That case was resolved in July 2025, when the 4th Circuit upheld West Virginia’s restrictions on mifepristone, ruling that FDA regulations do not supersede a state’s right to ban abortion at large.

In that case, 4th Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in his opinion that allowing mifepristone as a means to circumvent West Virginia’s abortion ban would undermine the Supreme Court’s intent in Dobbs v. Jackson. “For us to once again federalize the issue of abortion without a clear directive from Congress, right on the heels of Dobbs, would leave us one small step short of defiance.”

Bryant v. Moore is one of a dozen ongoing cases relating to mifepristone, one of the most hotly contested abortion policy issues in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.

In a March 26 motion, attorneys for Moore and Berger asked the 4th Circuit to allow supplemental briefs addressing the West Virginia decision so the North Carolina case may move forward.

Abortion opponents have taken the West Virginia decision as a signal that higher courts are open to state restrictions on mifepristone, while advocates say the courts may still oppose state restrictions that directly contradict the Food and Drug Administration’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies policies.

Susanna Birdsong serves as general counsel for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which has no involvement in the case. She said state lawmakers may feel “energized” by the West Virginia decision, leading them to push to continue the Bryant case now.

But she says there are “key differences”  between the two laws being challenged — namely, that North Carolina’s law seeks to regulate mifepristone, not ban it, so the FDA’s drug safety guidance is more likely to prevail in the North Carolina case.

“The North Carolina case is really a finer kind of overlay of looking at these specific restrictions in North Carolina law,” Birdsong said. “We’re not talking about a total ban on access. We’re talking about specific limitations or restrictions in North Carolina law that are in direct conflict with things that the FDA has studied.”

The 2024 ruling kept in place requirements for an in-person exam and consent visit, as well as a 72-hour wait period before the pill can be prescribed. But it continued to allow any health care provider to prescribe mifepristone and to do so via telehealth in accordance with FDA policy, making it possible for a patient to avoid having to make a second in-person visit to an abortion provider.

“In the same way that telehealth has revolutionized access to health care, it has also revolutionized access to medication abortion care,” Birdsong said. “If you have to travel a farther distance, if you have to figure out child care and time off work for two appointments versus one, that can be an insurmountable burden for some folks.”

Parties in the Bryant v. Moore case will have until April 27 to file supplemental briefs on how the ruling in the West Virginia case changes how the court should view the North Carolina lawsuit.

North Carolina lawmakers return to Raleigh on Tuesday for a new session, still without a full state budget after more than a year of negotiations stalled by divisions over spending. 

Teacher pay is expected to be one of the central issues lawmakers will try to resolve. Leaders in both parties agree that raises are needed, but they remain divided on how much to increase salaries and how to structure those raises. 

House Republicans have proposed an average 8.7% raise over two years, including a 22% increase in starting pay. Senate Republicans, citing concerns about long-term costs, have backed a smaller plan, offering about 3.3% over the same period, supplemented by one-time bonuses. 

Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s plan would give teachers nearly a 6% raise on average, along with restoring extra pay for teachers with master’s degrees and increasing compensation for veteran teachers and school leaders. 

The debate comes as North Carolina continues to lag behind much of the country in teacher pay. The state ranks 43rd nationally, with an average salary of $58,292 — nearly $14,000 below the national average — and lower than every neighboring state. 

Top NC House Republican says teacher pay top priority as lawmakers return to Raleigh

A top House Republican said earlier this month that teacher pay will be a priority as lawmakers return. 

Rep. Brian Biggs (R-Randolph), chair of the House Education Committee, told education advocates last week that the state must offer meaningful raises this year, not small increases that fail to keep teachers in the profession. 

While the short session is scheduled to run through the summer, Biggs signaled that negotiations could stretch much longer. 

“We’re working now, getting ready for this short, long session,” Biggs said. “If we’re there December 31, that’s fine. We’re going to get it done.” 

The session also begins in the wake of the state Supreme Court’s decision to end the long-running Leandro school funding case earlier this month, shifting responsibility for education funding away from the courts and squarely back to state lawmakers.  

North Carolina ranks near the bottom nationally for teacher pay growth and per-student public school funding, according to multiple reports. 

Public education advocates say they will use the weeks ahead to pressure legislators to increase spending, arguing the court’s decision leaves elected officials with little excuse not to act. 

As the midterms approach, Republican and Democratic election officials are split over a powerful federal computer program at the center of President Donald Trump’s quest to expose noncitizen voters and compile lists of voting-age Americans.

A U.S. House Administration Committee hearing Thursday underscored the partisan divide over the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE program. The online tool can verify U.S. citizenship by checking names against a host of government databases.

Republicans have embraced SAVE — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — as an effective new way to identify potential noncitizen voters. But Democrats have spurned it amid fears Trump is building a national voter database and concern that the program wrongly flags U.S. citizens.

Kansas Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon staked out opposing views on SAVE during Thursday’s hearing. Purging noncitizens registered to vote is an ongoing focus of the Trump administration, though studies show noncitizen voting is extremely rare.

Kansas ran its voter roll through SAVE last year after the Trump administration refashioned the program, initially intended to check whether individual noncitizens are eligible for government benefits, into a citizenship verification tool and made it free for states. Schwab said SAVE had led Kansas to identify more than 5,500 registered voters who had died out of state.

“SAVE is one of the most important tools states have to verify voter information,” Schwab told the committee.

But Simon has previously raised concerns about the program. He signed a Dec. 1 letter with 11 other Democratic secretaries of state that said SAVE was likely to degrade rather than enhance state efforts to ensure free, fair and secure elections. The program is likely to misidentify eligible voters and chill voter participation, they wrote.

“I’m not throwing shade on my colleague, Secretary Schwab, but we have made the determination that it’s not yet ready for use in Minnesota,” Simon said Thursday, adding that Minnesota law doesn’t allow the use of SAVE.

Program central to Trump elections push

SAVE underpins Trump’s efforts to assert more White House power over federal elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are administered by states.

The Department of Justice is suing 29 states and the District of Columbia for access to their unredacted voter rolls, including sensitive personal data on voters, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. 

A Justice Department attorney said in federal court last month that the department has an agreement to share the information with Homeland Security for the purpose of identifying noncitizens.

Trump also signed an executive order last month that limits voting by mail and directs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age American citizens. The order says the lists will be derived from SAVE data, along with naturalization and Social Security records. At least five lawsuits have been filed against the order, including a challenge brought by Democratic state officials.

The White House is also pressuring Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s signature elections proposal. The measure would require voters to provide documents proving their citizenship. Among its provisions is a requirement that states run their voter rolls through the SAVE program.

The House passed the bill in February. The Senate is debating a version of the legislation, which doesn’t appear to have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.

Nonprofit alternative available

“Election integrity is not a complicated issue. Only eligible voters should be casting ballots in our elections. One illegal vote is too many,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican and the House Administration Committee chair.

In January, Steil introduced the Make Elections Great Again Act, which contains similar provisions to the SAVE America Act but is more sweeping in its scope. It would impose additional limits on mail-in voting and require states to use SAVE to update voter lists every month.

Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the committee, suggested states already have effective options other than SAVE. He singled out ERIC, or the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit organization that allows states to compare voter registrations and other data to identify out-of-date registrations, deceased voters and in some cases possible illegal voting.

“I think it would probably be malpractice not to talk about Electronic Registration Information Center,” Morelle said.

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia belong to ERIC. Some Republican-led states withdrew from the organization several years ago after Trump urged them to leave amid false conspiracy theories, which he helped promote, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Simon said ERIC offers “really good” data that provides tremendous value in helping to keep Minnesota’s voter roll up to date. 

“Good data is the coin of the realm here,” he said.

Kansas doesn’t participate in ERIC. Schwab, who is running for governor in Kansas’ Republican primary, said it would be a good tool but that it’s expensive.

ERIC charges new members a one-time $25,000 fee, in addition to annual dues approved by its board of directors, according to the organization’s bylaws. Larger states pay more each year than smaller ones, with annual dues ranging from roughly $37,000 to $117,000, its website says.

“We don’t have the resources to join,” Schwab said.

Elections officials in North Carolina counties may soon be able to challenge “potential noncitizens” on their voter rolls, a move that detractors say will burden citizens called to government offices to show documents. 

The proposed election rule is part of the Republican-run election board’s intensified effort to find people who are not U.S. citizens who may be registered to vote. 

The State Board of Elections adopted the new rule with a 3-2 party-line vote, establishing a procedure for verifying the status of people on the voter rolls who may not be citizens. It’s a step the board is taking as it anticipates getting lists of names from the federal government’s SAVE database.

The North Carolina Rules Review Commission must approve the new procedures before they can be used. 

SAVE is an online database maintained by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, that governments use to determine citizenship status of people seeking government benefits. The Trump administration revamped it and is encouraging states to run their voter lists through the database to find people who are not citizens. 

NC elections board will pursue citizenship checks on voter rolls as feds draw up new program

The state board voted in November along party lines to partner with Homeland Security to use the database. The state could start feeding voter names to the federal government as soon as Friday. 

However, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found widespread errors where SAVE mistakenly flagged Texas voters as noncitizens. And national studies have found that noncitizen voting is extremely rare. 

Board member Jeff Carmon, a Democrat, equated the requirement that people produce documents to a poll tax. 

“We’re saying you have to show your papers to prove you’re a citizen of this country,” Carmon said. 

Board Secretary Stacy “Four” Eggers IV, a Republican, disagreed. 

“Our obligation is to enforce the rules, and one of the rules is you have to be a citizen of the United States, among other criteria, in order to be an eligible voter,” Eggers said. 

Board member Siobhan Millen said she wants clean voter rolls, but using the SAVE database was not the way to achieve that goal. 

“It has been shown it’s not a very reliable tool,” she said. 

More than 15,000 people commented on the proposed rule changes, staff lawyer Adam Steele told the board. An analysis of comments provided by Deborah Oronzio of Raleigh, a member of progressive voting-rights group Democracy Out Loud, showed a vast majority of commenters opposed the rules. 

Under the proposed procedure the state elections board endorsed Thursday, when people are flagged as potential noncitizen registrants, their county’s elections administrators will be notified and will search their own records for proof of citizenship. If they can’t find any, people flagged would be called in to preliminary hearings to show documentation. If there’s a question after the preliminary hearings, the county boards will hold challenge hearings. 

After the board meeting, Kate Fellman, executive director of  You Can Vote, a nonprofit that encourages voting, worried about young people being discouraged by the new rules. 

“That population really concerns me about them having to jump through all of these hoops,” she said. “They might just sit out, not thinking that they can actually still vote.”

The state has already begun looking for noncitizens using jury duty questionnaires. People who say they are noncitizens in response to jury summons are checked for voter registration. 

Brian LiVecchi said most of the people contacted so far through that program have said they don’t know how they were registered and want to be removed. 

“Historically, what we’ve seen is shock and surprise from people who find out they are on the voter rolls, because they didn’t know,” LiVechhi said. “And they are just as eager as we are to have themselves removed.”

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified before Congress on Thursday that he’s not pleased with how spending cuts to programs that help lower-income Americans afford food will affect his efforts to bolster healthy eating habits. 

“Am I happy about the cuts? No, I’m not happy about the cuts,” Kennedy said during a lengthy hearing in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of several congressional panels he’ll testify before in the days ahead. 

Kennedy added that President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought also didn’t truly want to propose funding cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, often called WIC, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. 

“Nobody wants to make the cuts. Russ Vought doesn’t want to make the cuts. President Trump doesn’t,” he said. “But we got a $39 trillion debt.”

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, who asked the questions, then referenced comments Kennedy made earlier in the hearing about Froot Loops, when he said it “isn’t even a food. It’s just poison.”

Moore noted the cereal is “a lot cheaper than good, healthy food.”

Froot Loops includes a corn flour blend, sugar, wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, modified food starch and other ingredients. 

Trump advocates reductions for HHS

The Trump administration’s budget request for the fiscal year set to begin on Oct. 1 proposes Congress increase defense spending by more than half a trillion dollars, accounting for a 43% boost, and that lawmakers cut domestic spending by 10%. 

It suggested Congress reduce spending at HHS by $15.8 billion, or 12.5%, to $111.1 billion, though lawmakers largely rejected proposed spending cuts to the department during last year’s government funding process. 

Vought testified earlier this week that the administration expects to ask Congress for additional defense spending for the war in Iran, though he said he couldn’t give lawmakers a ballpark estimate for how much that will add to the current request for $1.5 trillion in defense funding. 

Lawmakers questioned Kennedy about dozens of other issues throughout the hearing, including how he’s spoken about vaccines since being confirmed HHS secretary, the rise in measles cases throughout the country and comments Kennedy and Trump made about the possible causes of autism. 

Utah Republican Rep. Blake Moore, after sharing that his 10-year-old is on the autism spectrum, said he was “underwhelmed” by what the administration has released so far about possible causes. 

He also said that his wife was hurt by claims from Trump and Kennedy that women who take Tylenol when pregnant could increase the risk their children are later diagnosed with autism. 

“We don’t even know if she took Tylenol during her pregnancy, but that was a hurtful moment for her,” Blake Moore said. “And I just want to encourage the administration and your team to keep at it. And I think there’s more we can do here with low expectations.”

Medical experts say that decades of research shows autism is the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors.  

Measles death

California Democratic Rep. Linda T. Sánchez questioned Kennedy about comments he made during his Senate confirmation hearing on vaccines, arguing that he hasn’t stuck to the commitments he made during that process. 

She then asked him if the measles vaccine could have prevented a boy from dying of the disease in Texas. 

“It’s possible, certainly,” Kennedy said. 

But, he repeatedly declined to answer a question from Sánchez about whether Trump approved the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to remove a messaging campaign to encourage vaccination, even as she asked it several times. 

Sánchez then displayed a poster showing a photograph of Kennedy and Kid Rock to illustrate her discontent with his work so far as HHS Secretary. 

“Now, one thing that I find incredible is that you suspended this pro-vaccine messaging campaign. But somehow you’re spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock,” she said. “And somehow you think that’s a better public health message than informing the public about the importance of vaccines.”

Day care, Medicaid, Black maternal health

Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis pressed Kennedy about whether he agrees with a statement Trump made earlier this month when the president said, “We can’t take care of day care. It’s not possible for us to take care of day care. Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection.” 

Kennedy responded that he was “told to make a 12% cut across our department” because the national debt, which has accumulated over decades, has reached $39 trillion. 

“We’re now having to tighten our belt,” Kennedy said. 

Davis also questioned Kennedy on funding and initiatives to reduce Black maternal mortality, saying “the Trump administration is undermining Black maternal health from all sides.”

“The GOP slashed over a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which pays for over 40% of births in the United States. President Trump just proposed cutting maternal and child health programs by over $800 million,” he said. “DOGE canceled funds for several research projects that could save countless Black mothers, like the Morehouse School of Medicine research on improving the health of Black pregnant and postpartum women.”

Kennedy responded by arguing that he and others in the Trump administration are “doing more to advance maternal health than any other administration in history.”

“There was tremendous duplication in the departments. We had 42 different maternal health services in our department,” Kennedy said. “And we cut some of those and consolidated them. Right now, we are investing huge amounts of money in maternal health.”

North Carolina House lawmakers grilled N.C. Health and Human Services Secretary Dev Sangvai and Attorney General Jeff Jackson over allegations of fraud in the state’s Medicaid program during a committee hearing on Thursday. 

The Medicaid program is facing a $319 million funding gap, jeopardizing healthcare for about 3 million lower-income or disabled North Carolinians. Sangvai has repeatedly warned that the program will run out of money by the end of May.

NCDHHS officials asked state lawmakers to make up the shortfall last year, but Republican leaders did not agree to provide that funding, questioning whether it was truly necessary and accusing NCDHHS of not doing enough to root out fraud and waste in the program.

“We must ask: How many millions are being lost to waste, fraud or abuse before a single case is opened? How many investigations result in convictions, settlements or recoveries, and how long does it take to intervene once red flags appear?” asked Rep. Grant Campbell (R-Cabarrus), who chaired the session of the House Select Committee on Oversight and Reform.

The Medicaid shortfall has become a political football between the Republican-led General Assembly and the administration of Democratic Governor Josh Stein. Last fall, Stein directed the program to cut reimbursement rates to reduce spending, blaming Republican lawmakers for failing to fully fund it. Lawmakers said they were blindsided by the cuts, which they called unnecessary and politically motivated. The governor ultimately reversed the cuts after court challenges blocked them. 

Stein calls for full Medicaid funding during Black maternal health event

Comments at Thursday’s meeting made it clear that some lawmakers still harbor resentment about the episode. Campbell accused NCDHHS leaders of engaging in “a PR campaign to twist public opinion, to force the General Assembly to continue the endless flow of taxpayer dollars to Medicaid without allowing questions to be asked about the potential of waste and fraud occurring.”

Sangvai explained that the program has several ways of collecting reports about and investigating allegations of fraud, but many don’t turn out to be criminal behavior. He said the management organizations that implement the Medicaid program are able to catch and eliminate most waste and fraud.

Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash) asked the state officials if they see any inefficiencies within the program. 

In response, Sangvai pointed out that the program is massive, with total expenditures around $35 billion and about 18,000 employees when fully staffed. A program that large, he said, is bound to have some inefficiencies. One, he said, is the number of different Medicaid plans in North Carolina.

“What that creates is a complexity from which there are some benefits, particularly around maybe the fraud, waste and abuse framework, but also a tremendous amount of work on our Division of Health Benefits to work with multiple plans under the various rules, being able to understand what one plan is doing versus the other and creating some consistency around there,” Sangvai said. 

The agency would require action from the legislature to figure out how many plans are suitable for coverage in the state, according to Sangvai. 

Rep. Mike Schietzelt (R-Wake) questioned why the state Dept. of Justice hasn’t secured more convictions for Medicaid fraud. 

Jackson, a Democrat who previously served a decade in the North Carolina Senate, defended his office’s work. But he said state criminal law lacks teeth when it comes to Medicaid provider fraud, so they often refer cases to federal prosecutors. 

“The reason why our criminal Medicaid fraud cases have to go federal is because they have real sentences,” Jackson said. “They can get real time. Under state law in North Carolina, they can’t.”

North Carolina ranks eighth nationally for total Medicaid recovery over the last six years, and fourth in the country when accounting for staff size conducting those investigations, according to Jackson. 

“There is no question that North Carolina is punching way above its weight,” he said. “We are nationally regarded as one of the finest and most effective Medicaid Fraud Investigation divisions in the country.” 

Jackson asked lawmakers for partial funding for an additional investigator position that would be focused on data mining, which he said would further improve the unit’s performance.  

Lawmakers also asked Sangvai and Jackson whether they are confident that fraudulent providers have been removed from the program.

When officials become aware of a fraudulent provider, they’re able to flag it in the system for awareness, Sangvai said.

“We have the opportunity to aggregate all those claims, validate that those types of behavior are happening,” he said. “Then we are able to communicate to other plans about that provider.”

Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax fatally shot his wife, Cerina Fairfax, before taking his own life early Thursday at the family’s home in Annandale, Fairfax County police said, in what authorities described as a sudden and tragic act of domestic violence amid a pending divorce.

Officers responded to the home just after midnight after one of the couple’s teenage children called 911, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said during a morning news briefing. Both of the couple’s children, who are in high school, were inside the home at the time of the shooting.

“One of the children was the 911 caller,” Davis said, adding that the son described events that investigators have since corroborated through interior home surveillance cameras.

Police said Cerina Fairfax was shot and killed before Justin Fairfax took his own life. Davis said the violence unfolded quickly, with little or no gap between the shooting and the 911 call.

“If there was a window, it was a very short window,” Davis said. “I think it all kind of happened at once. It all happened pretty spontaneously.”

Authorities gather evidence, cite domestic strain in shooting

Authorities are executing a search warrant at the home to recover evidence, including the firearm used in the shooting and any additional weapons.

Davis described the case as both “high profile” and deeply tragic, noting Fairfax’s once-prominent political standing.

“At one point in time, I think it’s fair to say that Justin Fairfax was a rising star politically, not just in Northern Virginia, but in Virginia,” Davis said.

“So it’s high profile in nature. It’s tragic in nature, certainly a fall from grace for a relatively high-profile family that seemingly had a lot of things going in their favor.”

 

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A post shared by Justin Fairfax (@lgjustinfairfax)

The couple had been separated but continued living in the same home in separate bedrooms, Davis said. 

Divorce proceedings were underway, with court appearances scheduled in the near future. Fairfax had recently been served legal paperwork related to the case, which investigators are examining as a possible factor.

“That may have been a spark … that led to this tragedy,” Davis said, while cautioning that detectives are still working to determine a definitive motive.

Police said the department had previously been called to the home once, in January, after Fairfax alleged that his wife assaulted him. Investigators reviewed footage from cameras installed inside the residence and determined that no assault had occurred, Davis said. 

The cameras later helped corroborate the sequence of events described by the 911 caller, he added.

Davis emphasized that authorities are prioritizing support for the couple’s children, who lost both parents in the incident.

“Our victim services division is leaning into the family, the surviving relatives, the children in particular,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can for them.”

He also noted the broader emotional toll of domestic conflict, particularly during separations.

“Half of America probably goes through divorce proceedings at some point in time, and very, very rarely, thankfully, does it ever end up like this,” Davis said. “It is very sad for this community.”

Virginia leaders react with shock, grief over Fairfax deaths

A wave of shock and grief rippled through Virginia’s political community Thursday, with officials expressing condolences and focusing on the Fairfax family’s children.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger urged Virginians to keep the children in their thoughts following the killings. 

“I am deeply saddened by the tragedy that occurred last night. I am praying for the Fairfax children, and I ask my fellow Virginians to hold them in their hearts and prayers,” she said. 

Spanberger called the death of Dr. Cerina Fairfax “a horrific tragedy,” remembering her as “a devoted mother” and “beloved dentist in the Fairfax County community,” and extended condolences to both the Wanzer and Fairfax families. 

She added that the case is a reminder that “domestic violence can occur in any family and in any place,” noting that resources are available for those facing abuse or mental health crises.

Former Gov. Ralph Northam said he and his wife Pam were “devastated by this heartbreaking news.”

“I had the privilege of getting to know the Fairfaxes while our families served together. We are praying for (the children), and the entire Fairfax family during this incredibly difficult time,” he said.

Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi said the news had shaken the commonwealth and that she was awaiting more details. 

“Virginia woke up this morning to the devastating news regarding Cerina Fairfax and former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax. My thoughts are with their children, loved ones, and numerous friends,” she said.

House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, called the killings “an unspeakable tragedy.” 

“Our hearts are with the family, especially the children and loved ones whose lives have been forever changed by this devastating loss,” he said.

House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, said, “There aren’t words to describe this tragedy. My prayers are with their children and their extended family.”

U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said in a joint statement they were praying for the family “as we all process this shocking and horrifying news.”

Fairfax, 47, served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022. A Democrat, he was elected alongside Northam and was once viewed as a potential future statewide candidate.

Fairfax’s political career was derailed in 2019 when two women publicly accused him of sexual assault. Fairfax denied the allegations, and no criminal charges were filed. 

The accusations sparked national attention and calls from some Democratic leaders for his resignation, which he resisted.

Before entering politics, Fairfax worked as a federal prosecutor and later in private legal practice. After leaving office, he returned to practicing law, Davis said, though details about his recent employment were not immediately available.

The investigation into Thursday’s fatal shooting remains ongoing. Authorities said they are continuing to collect evidence and interview witnesses as they work to piece together the final hours leading up to the killings.

The Virginia Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Hotline is a free, confidential resource that is available 24/7. Virginians can chat online with a trained advocate, text an advocate at 804-793-9999, or speak on the phone with an advocate at 1-800-838-8238.

The Virginia Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 at 9-8-8.