Medicaid coverage for legal immigrants and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin in New Jersey, where a federal rule change could remove thousands of legal immigrants from the state’s Medicaid program.

In Montana, the Helena City Council paused its approval of a federal grant that would have provided money for security upgrades after learning the terms and conditions of the agreement require the city to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

Three news organizations that were barred by President Donald Trump from entering the White House have filed a lawsuit against the administration, calling the president’s action a “direct assault on the First Amendment.”

In Nebraska, the mayor of Omaha was inspired to write and sing a song to celebrate the groundbreaking for a new grocery story in a disadvantaged neighborhood.

Immigrants who came to the United States as victims of domestic violence, for humanitarian reasons or to escape human trafficking, are among the thousands of legal, noncitizen residents in New Jersey who may soon be without health insurance, New Jersey Monitor reports.

State officials estimate as many as 25,000 noncitizens could lose access to their Medicaid coverage on Oct. 1 under a federal regulatory change that is part of Trump’s efforts to reduce government spending on social service programs and slow U.S. immigration. The changes are contained in a law Trump signed last summer that strips Medicaid coverage from some noncitizens, imposes new eligibility requirements on other Medicaid members, and cuts federal funding for healthcare.

State Department of Human Services Commissioner Stephen Cha stressed that those targeted for removal from the program, known in the Garden State as NJ Family Care, are legal residents of this country.

“We’re talking about victims of trafficking. We’re talking about the husbands, wives, and children of lawfully residing veterans. We’re talking about refugees who have fled persecution in their own country,” Cha told the New Jersey Monitor.

Diesel prices hit a record average of $6.51 a gallon Monday, and some in Trump’s own party are breaking their support for the ongoing war in Iran that has driven fuel prices to staggering levels, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

Already House Republicans locked in tight races as the November midterms approach have distanced themselves from the president’s conflict and his administration’s stagnant negotiations with Iran over reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passage for global petroleum products.

The cost of diesel, which fuels the movement of goods through the United States, is up nearly $1 since last month, and up from just over $3.69 a year ago, according to AAA.

Trump said he is in “deciding mode” about next steps in Iran, and that “big things” will happen in the “not so distant future,” he told Fox News on Sunday. 

More than a year after federal regulators abruptly canceled a $7 billion solar energy grant program — with funds already distributed and even partially spent — a Rhode Island federal judge has ordered them to revive the program, Rhode Island Current reports.

But it’s too early for the group of union laborers, solar panel installation companies, homeowners and nonprofit advocates who filed the complaint in October 2025 against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare victory.

“The result is maddeningly difficult to talk about what happens next because we just don’t know what they’ll do,” said Kevin Hubbard, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

The 20-page order issued by U.S. Judge Mary S. McElroy of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island determines that the federal agency overstepped its statutory authority when it ended the $7 billion Solar for All grant program in August 2025. 

Originally included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-era incentive program sought to make solar panels more widely accessible by offsetting the installation costs for low-to-moderate-income homeowners and renters.

Montana: A routine grant that would have funded cameras around Helena city buildings led to an uproar after residents discovered new requirements to cooperate with federal immigration officials and prohibitions on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Washington: A grassroots organization has successfully raised enough money to spare 29 acres of trees on state forestland in the Northern Olympic Peninsula from being cut down, employing a new conservation method that also replaces timber revenue.

Nebraska: In a survey of Nebraska Economic Development staff, roughly half of the current workers heavily criticized the department’s leadership, claiming management cares more about budget cuts and downsizing than taking care of their employees.

Indiana: Two coal-fired generating plants scheduled to retire last year must remain available through December under renewed Trump administration orders, prolonging a dispute over the cost of keeping the aging facilities on the grid.

Arizona: Voters will decide in November whether city governments must earn their approval before raising grocery taxes. While Republicans say doing so will help ease residents’ financial burden, some city officials warn that it will make it harder to provide public services.

North Carolina: A new statewide poll found that 78% of voters say the ability to find and afford childcare is a crisis or major problem. The concern crosses party lines, with a majority of Republican, independent and Democratic respondents in agreement.

Pennsylvania: Lawmakers will have two state Supreme Court decisions at the top of their agenda when they reconvene next week: one determining that mandatory life sentences for felony murder are unconstitutional and another that puts slot machinelike gaming terminals at risk of seizure. 

Minnesota: From job loss to nudification technology, a recent forum on artificial intelligence underscored the low-boil anxiety of Minnesotans about unsettling technological change — and myriad policy questions emerging from it.

Property owned by the Utah Trust Lands Administration in Wasatch County, east of Heber City, Utah, is pictured on Sept. 19. (Photo by Katie McKellar/Utah News Dispatch)

Following Wasatch County’s rejection of a developer’s proposal to build 144 homes on about 740 acres of land owned by the Utah Trust Lands Administration, a senior adviser to Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox told the Heber City Council and mayor that they risked losing state road funding.

The disagreement comes in the midst of a yearslong housing shortage, and follows passage of a controversial 2024 state law that allows up to three land owners to apply to create their own municipality.

The threat to withhold funding has since been pulled back, and state and local leaders are now communicating about housing and development issues in the area. But Wasatch County residents who were angered by the governor’s message want accountability and answers about his tactics.

Read more from Utah News Dispatch.

The three news organizations that Trump has barred from entering the White House filed a lawsuit against the administration on Monday, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico wrote in a joint statement the suit is intended “to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement continued. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

Trump announced last week on social media that he intended to bar journalists from those three news organizations, airing a years-running grievance that he doesn’t believe their reporting is accurate.

The Trump administration’s top wildlife official issued a directive last week that expands a recent rollback of endangered species protections much further than the feds had told the public, Stateline reports.

Individuals and industries may kill endangered animals in the course of logging projects, developments and other activities, it said — so long as the activity’s purpose isn’t killing species.

The memo issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik is the most drastic move yet in the Trump administration’s campaign to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act. 

Wildlife advocates and experts said the nation’s bedrock wildlife conservation law would offer few safeguards under the new federal guidelines. 

“Unless you’re wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m here to draw the blood of endangered species,’ you’re basically off the hook,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation nonprofit. “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, go crazy, we’re not gonna prosecute you.”

A jingle created and sung by Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. kicked off a groundbreaking for a grocery store described as key to restoring dignity and economic vitality to one of Nebraska’s most distressed areas, Nebraska Examiner reports.

The full-service grocery in North Omaha, to be run as a social enterprise by nonprofit Heart Ministry Center, is to span 25,000 square feet — about half the size of an American football field.

It is funded partially by a state grant program intended to boost revival of underserved areas most hurt by the pandemic. An official previously estimated the price tag at about $7 million. The state awarded $1.5 million.

The market will offer fresh, affordable food while creating jobs for community members and graduates of Heart Ministry’s Fresh Start job training program. That program serves as a hands-on workforce pipeline for people overcoming crises and on the path to self-sufficiency.

Ewing, who grew up in North Omaha, called Saturday a milestone. He said he was encouraged to write a tune for the occasion, and kiddingly said he took a “huge risk” by sharing it onstage. 

“I cannot sing,” the mayor told those gathered, including his wife, Viv. But he said that one of his goals when he retired from the Omaha Police Department was to have more fun than anyone else. He first sang alone, then asked the audience to join in.