How one Kentucky county is grappling with a tick-borne scourge and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we have a look at how one Kentucky county is grappling with the rise of tick-borne illnesses, which have more than doubled nationally in the last two decades. 

In Utah, a man who was twice-sentenced to death row was released on bail, following a new DNA analysis of evidence in the case. 

On Capitol Hill, Democrats and others denounced a $20 million taxpayer-funded TV ad campaign about immigration enforcement as election-year propaganda. And the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the administration to resume deportations to third-party countries. 

Across the country, Astronauts for America is telling young people: “Going to the polls is one small step for you, and one giant leap for our country.”

Rural communities throughout Kentucky and the nation are grappling with a rising number of ticks and the illnesses they bring, including alpha-gal, Kentucky Lantern reports. 

Among Owen County potter Eliza Petzinger’s immediate family, five people have been diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome, an allergic reaction by the body to a sugar molecule found in most mammals but not in humans. A bite from a tick, primarily the lone star tick found throughout Kentucky, can expose a person to the alpha-gal molecule and trigger an immune response. 

Dr. Larry Johnson said he’s gone from diagnosing zero alpha-gal cases in a month to one to two cases a week during some months this spring and summer. “It just seemed like all of a sudden it was just spreading like wildfire,” said Johnson. 

In the four-county area served by the Three Rivers District Health Department, the rate of cases of tick-borne illnesses per 100,000 people has skyrocketed — from 83 cases per 100,000 people in 2024 to more than 300 cases per 100,000 people in 2025 and 2026. 

It’s not clear to Johnson and other medical practitioners whether they’re finding more local alpha-gal cases because there’s more awareness of the condition and doctors are testing for it more, or if there are other factors. Kentucky joined a minority of states last year to require cases of alpha-gal syndrome to be reported to public health officials.

Amid a clash between a new immigration jail and the city that hosts it, residents from Leavenworth, Kansas, and nearby areas gathered last month to talk strategies for protecting people held in the facility, Kansas Reflector reports. 

For some, it was just the latest meeting in a long resistance against the jail opened by the private prison company CoreCivic.

Leavenworth, a small city in eastern Kansas, is known for embracing its multiple prisons and a military fort. But some residents refuse to accept the city’s latest installation. The local activists have taken on two contradictory efforts: ensuring quality conditions in the facility and opposing its existence. 

Related: California governor signs new laws to rein in immigration agents as Trump’s deportation campaign escalates

Arizona: The U.S. Attorney for Arizona responded to concerns by the state’s top lawyer and election chief about how the Trump administration is using state data to identify noncitizen voters, telling them that the federal government will not back down. 

Tennessee: A Democratic state senator sued the chamber leader over her committee reassignment and other restrictions implemented after she protested during a special session to redraw the state’s U.S. House map.

New Hampshire: A panel recommended reforms to the state’s disability care system, after a States Newsroom investigation last year uncovered evidence of hundreds of abuse and neglect incidents.

Florida: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations and two other organizations as domestic terrorist groups.

Minnesota: Ron Schutz, the Republican candidate for attorney general, owns more than $10,000 of stock in 174 companies, holdings that span industries often the subject of litigation, including at least six companies currently being sued by the state.

New Jersey: Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. won his seat in Congress by hammering his opponent over stock trades. His own are now a focus of his new challenger, Democrat Rebecca Bennett.

Oregon: A California-based energy company is advancing plans for a data center on federal land, which the Trump administration has opened up for such development in several western states. 

Georgia: As the state becomes a national leader in new data center construction, debate over how to regulate the booming industry has become an issue in the hotly contested race for governor.

Wisconsin: As Republicans vie to maintain control of the state Assembly, GOP candidates in competitive districts are distancing themselves from party leaders in Washington, D.C., and the state.

Alaska: A major dam failure at a massive proposed gold mine could unleash catastrophic flooding that would make one village uninhabitable, poison drinking water and harm fish habitats, according to a new analysis by federal regulators.

Arkansas: A judge is considering whether to dismiss the constitutional challenge to the state’s abortion ban after hearing arguments from the plaintiffs and the state in a two-hour hearing.

Douglas Carter, twice sentenced to die, leaves Utah County Jail on the evening of Sept. 28 after spending most of his life in a Utah prison cell. (Photo by Annie Knox/Utah News Dispatch)

Leaving the jail Monday, Carter pushed a cart of belongings he amassed over 40 years in state custody: a pillow and boxes of legal documents charting his efforts to prove he’s not guilty of murdering a Provo grandmother in her home in 1985. 

Those efforts culminated in a judge granting him bail on Monday, in light of new analysis of crime scene DNA evidence that was not a match to him. He still faces additional legal proceedings. 

The Utah Supreme Court ordered a new trial for him last year, citing “intentional misconduct” on the part of investigators and prosecutors. Almost two decades after he was convicted by a jury, two key witnesses in the case said police had threatened them with deportation, given them gifts and told them to lie.

On Monday,  Carter’s defense attorney Neal Hamilton described his client’s new reality by highlighting what’s absent from it: a phone, income, and a sense of how modern technology has transformed society over the last four decades. 

“This is going to be not just a day at a time, but minute-by-minute at a time,” Hamilton said of Carter’s next chapter, describing him as traumatized by his time on death row.

Read more from Utah News Dispatch. 

President Donald Trump is tapping $20 million in Homeland Security funding to pay for TV ads that heavily feature him ahead of the midterm elections, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

The Trump administration recently moved the funds into a U.S. Customs and Border Protection budget line intended for “commemorative events” related to border security, according to federal records. Congressional Democrats said the dollars appear to be funding the ad campaign.

The ads face mounting criticism as Republicans confront an angry electorate that, according to polling, appears likely to place Democrats in control of the House and possibly the Senate. Yet the messaging reflects Trump’s strategy of centering the election on himself and telling supporters to vote as if he was on the ballot, as he urged during the GOP midterm convention.

The three ads released so far feature stylized imagery of Trump and include “Paid for by the U.S. Government” disclosures. One is nearly identical to a 2024 Trump campaign ad. Some $2 million in ads have aired on cable and broadcast stations over the past week. 

Most judges on a federal appeals court seemed inclined during oral arguments Tuesday to allow a federal judge to continue investigating Trump officials for possible criminal contempt-of-court charges for defying a judicial order by sending more than 100 Venezuelan men to a brutal Salvadoran prison last year, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

The administration is challenging whether U.S. District Judge James Boasberg can continue a contempt investigation after the Justice Department said former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was the sole official responsible for violating Boasberg’s oral and written orders.

Ending an inquiry would be “unfair” to Noem, “who might be a sacrificial lamb because you have picked who you want to go forward,” Judge J. Michelle Childs said. 

The case stems from a proclamation that President Donald Trump signed in March 2025 that invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rapidly deport Venezuelan males 14 years and older who were suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang. 

The American Civil Liberties Union sued to stop several deportation flights of 137 Venezuelans, and Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to stop the removals. But the flights landed in El Salvador and the men were detained at a brutal mega-prison known as CECOT for four months before being released in a prison exchange with Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted, for now, the Trump administration’s request to continue rapid third-country deportation of immigrants to countries not their own, the bureau reports. 

More from the D.C. Bureau: 

Two decades ago, former NASA astronaut John Harrington, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, became the first enrolled member of a Native American tribe to fly in space as part of the 16th Space Shuttle mission, spending nearly 20 hours doing spacewalks. 

It’s an event that is commemorated on a 2019 edition of the Sacajawea dollar coin, and one Harrington has been recounting to college students around Montana while encouraging them to register to vote in November’s elections, Daily Montanan reports.

“That’s what our responsibility is, as citizens of this great nation, to get people to go out and vote,” Harrington said in an interview. “Not tell them who to vote for, just get out and do your responsibility.”

Harrington has toured campuses as a member of Astronauts for America, a nonpartisan organization with more than 100 members that launched this spring.

Harrington said a few of his colleagues first approached him last fall with concerns they had about the country’s increasing divisiveness, and how they could use their experience and platform to make a difference. 

Riffing on one of the most iconic statements of the 20th century, the campaign’s message is that “Going to the polls is one small step for you, and one giant leap for our country.”