Eyes on the sky track ICE flights and more news from the states

Good evening. In Idaho, a group of volunteers are tracking Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights — in part to connect detained migrants to their attorneys amid fast-tracked legal proceedings. In other immigration enforcement news, a judge in Texas denied Minnesota’s extradition request for the ICE agent charged with a January shooting.

Maryland Democrats faced a setback in their effort to put a congressional redistricting question to voters in November. 

And in Arizona, “sham” candidates are now facing an investigation over possibly false campaign donations. 

Forty-seven states announced what they characterized as a landmark legal settlement with Meta over allegations the social media giant failed to protect children from the harms of its apps. 

Read to the end to learn which state is trying to set up AI guardrails in court proceedings, which could be summed up simply: “Please, don’t be dumb.”

In Idaho, Shelly McDaniel and her husband, Tim McDaniel, have recorded more than 500 immigrant detainees being flown out of the Magic Valley Regional Airport since mid-May, Idaho Capital Sun reports. 

Shelly McDaniel records a video of the boarding process for each flight and later takes a screenshot of each person who boards. She and other observers contribute to a volunteer network that tracks ICE flights called Habeas Flight Watch. The goal is to make the information available to attorneys so they can find their clients. 

McDaniel said she’s concerned that the detentions and deportations happen too quickly for the court process to finish. 

“I know of people that have been taken on a Sunday, and on Tuesday they’re on a plane,” she said. “...there’s just no way they’re even able to present their case in court.”

Flights operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, happen every Tuesday and Thursday at the airport in Twin Falls. 

More immigration coverage: 

Maryland Republicans challenging a proposed state constitutional amendment that would set standards for how congressional districts are drawn won an initial courtroom skirmish, Maryland Matters reports. 

The 10-page decision came almost 24 hours after the conclusion of a daylong hearing that focused on whether the legislative Democratic supermajority erred as they rushed a constitutional amendment to voters.

A state judge issued an injunction preventing the question from being placed on the ballot but stayed his order pending an expected appeal to the Supreme Court of Maryland.

The fate of the ballot question faces a tight Aug. 31 deadline for the State Board of Elections to finalize roughly 1,200 different ballot versions that will be used by voters across the state.

The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission is set on Thursday to discuss accusations that three candidates unlawfully qualified for $4.7 million in public funds and broke campaign finance rules — and it may ask them to repay the money, Arizona Mirror reports. 

In letters sent Tuesday to Green Party candidate for governor Risa Lombardo, Green Party candidate for secretary of state Duwayne Collier and Republican candidate for governor Scott Neely, Clean Elections Commission Executive Director Tom Collins told each of the candidates to seek legal counsel and to expect to be required to repay the money. 

Those letters were sent on the same day that the Arizona Mirror published a story detailing accusations from six Arizona residents that the three candidates falsely used the voters’ names on small-dollar contributions to qualify for millions in public campaign funding. 

“(T)he Arizona Mirror made blistering assertions that, frankly, corroborate my investigation thus far,” Collins wrote in the letters. 

The Green Party has disavowed the Lombardo and Collier campaigns, accusing them of being Republicans in disguise, aimed at pulling votes from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in the general election to benefit Republican gubernatorial hopeful Congressman Andy Biggs.

Oklahoma: Bolstered by an endorsement from President Donald Trump and millions of his own money, Mike Mazzei narrowly secured the Republican gubernatorial nomination. (More election results here.) 

South Carolina: Voters elected Republican Darline Graham to take the place of her brother, the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, on November ballots, as support from President Trump helped overcome criticism of her political inexperience.

Georgia: Everton Blair will finish the term of the late Democratic Congressman David Scott after defeating Marcye Scott, the lawmaker’s daughter, in a special election. Blair is the first Black openly gay man elected to Congress from a Southern state. 

Idaho: A federal judge has narrowed a previous ruling that had allowed abortions to protect a mother’s health or from self-harm to only apply to the Boise doctor who challenged the law. 

Alaska: The state Supreme Court heard legal challenges over a November ballot question that would abolish ranked choice voting, along with other changes to elections. 

Kentucky: Election officials have created a new regulation to match voter registration against out-of-state records following a lawsuit from Kentuckians For The Commonwealth. 

Iowa: Though the state has seen major Republican victories in the last several election cycles, a new poll found the races for U.S. Senate and governor are shaping up to be highly competitive.

Ohio: In a congressional race with national scrutiny, a Democratic city councilman from a working class suburb, Brian Poindexter, is mounting a challenge to embattled Republican Rep. Max Miller. 

Kansas: One transgender state resident had her driving privileges reinstated after challenging a state law that regulates gender markers on driver’s licenses; hundreds of other trans Kansans await a final decision in the case, which could determine the standing of an anti-trans state law.

Indiana: Crime victim advocates say a backlog of untested rape kits, shortage of trauma-informed investigators and forensic nurses and forthcoming cuts to federal funding is hampering the state’s sexual assault response.

Arkansas: Lawmakers and community members expressed frustration with the State Police director’s absence from a Legislative Black Caucus meeting about a state trooper punching an 18-year-old during a traffic stop.

Tennessee: State transportation officials picked a road-building group to take on the state’s first toll project despite a series of bumps the consortium’s companies hit over the past decade-plus, ranging from bankruptcies to price-gouging accusations.

Maine: After years of delays, the Public Utilities Commission moved forward with plans for a new transmission line and an 800 megawatt wind project.

Libby Smith Nehrbass of Lafayette, Louisiana, holds up a sign that reads, “Paradise Lost," to protest SpaceX's announcement of Spacebase Louisiana in Vermilion Parish. She and her husband, who own a hunting and fishing lodge on Pecan Island, attended the company's announcement Aug. 25 in Abbeville. (Photo by Wes Muller/Louisiana Illuminator)

SpaceX’s plans to launch thousands of rockets a year from coastal Southwest Louisiana will put habitat and hurricane protection at risk, according to wildlife groups that oppose waivers to federal regulations aimed at expediting the development.

The revisions, which involve 13 wildlife, water and public health laws, would be detrimental well beyond the 200-square-mile footprint for the SpaceX facility near the Freshwater Bayou Canal about 5 miles south of Pecan Island, the groups say. Their particular concerns center on potential threats to species, some of them endangered, that live in or migrate to the coastal wetlands, as well as the loss of their habitat.

The Louisiana Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Federation and Pontchartrain Conservancy filed comments on proposed rule updates with the Federal Aviation Administration, just ahead of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry announcing the $100 billion project Tuesday.

Read more from Louisiana Illuminator. 

Democrat-led states and voting rights groups re-filed lawsuits Wednesday to block the Trump administration from executing a new regulation to restrict mail-in voting, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

Officials in 24 states and the District of Columbia launched the new federal lawsuit challenging a U.S. Postal Service rule establishing federal vote-by-mail standards as unconstitutional, while a coalition of voting rights advocates filed a supplemental complaint against the rule after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar challenge as premature.

The new case was filed as a federal judge lifted a nationwide pause on the policy in line with this week’s Supreme Court decision that handed the administration a procedural win.

The voting rights groups said the rule would create a significant burden for voters.

The Democratic officials added that the requirements would place a significant strain on their resources, forcing them to scramble to overhaul their vote-by-mail systems less than three months before midterm elections.

And the rule impedes on a power that the U.S. Constitution expressly gives to states: election administration.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, on Wednesday agreed to pay 47 states, the District of Columbia, and a handful of U.S. territories, up to $17.1 billion in penalties over claims that its social media platforms are addictive and a danger to children, Stateline reports. 

As part of the settlement, Meta also pledged to make changes to Instagram and Facebook that are designed to reduce young people’s use of the platforms. 

Meta has not admitted wrongdoing and the company is trying to drag its competitors along with it. Under the settlement terms, Meta will pay out just 70% (about $12.7 billion) to states unless TikTok and Alphabet-owned YouTube also agree to child safety measures and multibillion-dollar payments to states. 

State officials are calling the settlement the biggest consumer protection win since the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s.

Just three states, Florida, New Mexico and Texas, aren’t part of the settlement. New Mexico won its own lawsuits against Meta this year. Texas negotiated its own settlement with Meta that includes a $1 billion payout. Florida is pursuing its own trial against the social media giant. 

Related coverage:

New state oversight laws are pumping the brakes on private equity’s push into healthcare, Stateline reports. 

The number of private equity-involved healthcare deals has declined since last year, and the value of those deals in the first half of 2026 is lower than it was for the same time in 2025, according to a new report from Pitchbook, a company that tracks private capital markets and investment data.

The report’s authors say that a slew of new state laws is one reason why.

More from Stateline: Some states raise pay for home caregivers as shortage looms

Two New Mexico judges told a panel of state lawmakers this week that the underlying theme of the guidelines they’re crafting for artificial intelligence use in the courtroom is, “Please, don’t be dumb,” Source NM reports. 

Second Judicial District Family Court Judge Jane Levy and Sixth Judicial District Judge Jarod Hofacket spoke before the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee in Albuquerque this week and updated them on their AI-focused efforts. They said they are working on three separate sets of guidelines — one each for self-representing litigants, attorneys and judicial staff.

They pointed to two examples of AI-related fiascos in the courtroom as evidence that guardrails are sorely needed.

An Arizona family last year used AI to recreate their deceased relative, who died in a road rage incident, to deliver his own courtroom statements. And the New Mexico Supreme Court recently found a local attorney in contempt for using AI to file a brief that contained fabricated witnesses and testimony.

Levy and Hofacket sit on the state Supreme Court’s Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts, which also includes academics and state lawmakers, and is set to produce annual recommendations so that anyone interacting with the legal system understands the expectations regarding AI use.

“It’s a tool to be used, like anything else — like spellcheck. But it is just a tool,” Levy said. “How do we make it so every lawyer appearing in the state understands what the rules are in front of every judge?”