Prison sale costs the community and more news from the states

Good evening. We start in Wisconsin, where the sale of a private prison to the federal government means a major financial blow to local governments. In Kansas, a resident is shocked by a rude response by a lawmaker to her heartfelt plea. And in Alaska, the quiet fire season comes to a fiery end.

In Colorado, severe drought will leave its mark on the economy for years. In Kentucky, election officials ask for help with their new “I voted” sticker from the state’s youngest residents.

In national news, the Trump administration is finding creative ways to get around court rulings and a judicial ruling in Idaho could spell big changes for abortion bans.

The federal government’s purchase of a 1,600-bed prison in Appleton, Wisconsin for an immigrant detention facility could deal a major blow to city, county and school finances, Wisconsin Examiner reports. 

The prison had been owned and operated by CoreCivic from 1996 until its closure in 2010, which led to significant job loss and population decline. Even as the prison sat empty, however, CoreCivic regularly paid property taxes on the facility, generating 30% of Appleton’s tax revenue. 

Earlier this month, CoreCivic announced it had sold the prison for $496 million to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and signed a $500 million contract to operate the facility over the next five years. The federal government isn’t obligated to pay local property taxes.

In 2026, CoreCivic paid more than $800,000 in property taxes, with the majority — more than $500,000 — going to the city of Appleton, according to property tax records. Swift County received more than $100,000, and the rest was split between the local schools and state government. 

While the prospect of more than 500 new jobs is expected to bring new residents and economic activity to the area, it’s not clear how much that will offset the decrease in property tax revenue, especially given new pressures on the local police and infrastructure.

Related coverage:

Winfield resident Lisa Spoon emailed every member of the Kansas House this week, saying she was writing “with a heavy heart and deep frustration” about a mass shooting in her south-central Kansas town of about 12,000 people, Kansas Reflector reports. 

Last week, her next-door neighbor shot and killed his wife and their four children before killing himself.

She urged lawmakers to consider policy changes, such as mandating universal background checks on all gun sales and transfers and considering “threats of violence as a rationale for a warrant, search and removal of guns from a household.”

Rep. Rick Wilborn, a McPherson Republican who didn’t seek reelection this year, replied to Spoon, and everybody else, early Friday.

“You folks never miss an opportunity … to promote your gun shaming hypothesis,” Wilborn wrote. “More people are killed by illegals with a criminal record. Please spare me.”

Kansas Reflector interviewed Spoon after obtaining a copy of the email exchange. She hadn’t yet seen Wilborn’s reply, and read it before answering questions.

“I’m a little shocked to be honest because there was no compassion, no empathy, no nothing,” she said. “You know, when you start an email out that says, ‘you people’ — he doesn’t know me. I tried to write the most logical, sensible email that I possibly could muster, and immediately he went to ‘you people’ and ‘immigrants shoot more people in the United States than anybody else.’ So there was nothing there. I mean, he apparently is somewhat void of compassion.”

As much of the West faces a devastating wildfire season, one relatively bright spot has been Alaska — at least until this week.

A quiet year for Alaska wildfires is closing out in dramatic fashion with a late-season blaze that has burned homes and prompted evacuations in an Interior Alaska community, Alaska Beacon reports.

As of Thursday, only about 83,400 acres had burned in Alaska wildfires this year, far short of the approximately 1 million acres that has become typical for recent years.

But the Mukluk Fire, first reported on Aug. 17 and ignited by a downed power line and estimated at about 5,000 acres as of Thursday, has caused particular problems.

It broke out in the Alaska Highway community of Tok, home to about 1,600 people. At least 20 structures have been lost, said Jessi Morse, an Alaska Division of Forestry public information officer.

Alaska’s fire season usually peaks in June or early July, paralleling the time of maximum lightning strikes and summer daylight. That makes it “very unusual” for a new fire to break out in mid-August, Morse said.

More wildfire coverage: 150 people evacuated as crews battle wildfire in south Arkansas

South Carolina: A week after negotiations publicly blew up, the Legislature’s chief budget writers have reached a deal on spending $350 million on local projects.

Arkansas: A special election to fill a legislative vacancy resulting from a member’s resignation following domestic violence charges will coincide with the Nov. 3 general election.

Washington: Deaths and serious injuries of children involved with the child welfare system last year were even higher than record levels the state previously reported, new data show.

Kentucky: A lawsuit arguing that the state tax on menstrual products is unconstitutional will be allowed to proceed through the courts, a judge ruled.

New Jersey: Four business groups have sued to overturn a new law that requires companies with at least 50 employees covered by Medicaid to pay the state annual fees to offset its cost.

Virginia: Head Start advocates say federal changes to the preschool program, which serves 11,000 children in the state, could end up destroying it altogether.

Michigan: A former records clerk for Oak Park is suing the city for alleged discrimination against her as a Muslim woman, as well as harassment and privacy violations.

Utah: The governor joined the chorus of people expressing concern over the growing network of Flock surveillance cameras, saying he is “deeply troubled” by issues of privacy and abuse.

Ohio: The state Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for the sale of wind energy this week in a decision regarding out-of-state vendors of the renewable natural resource.

Tennessee: The state is on track to lose $110 million per year after Republican lawmakers banned popular cannabinoid-derived hemp products, projections show.

North Carolina: The Republican majority on the state Board of Elections voted against including Sunday hours as part of early voting plans in most counties.

Maryland: Health officials are rolling out a controversial program using court orders to mandate those with severe mental health challenges comply with their medical plans.

Water levels in the Wolford Mountain Reservoir in Grand County, Colorado, which dams a tributary of the Colorado River, have dropped by more than 30 feet during extreme drought conditions in 2026. (Photo by Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

The effects of this extreme drought, part of a long-term warming and drying trend fueled by human-caused climate change, will be felt across Colorado long after the dismal 2026 water year ends, experts and farmers say, even if hoped-for projections of a wetter-than-average winter come true. Hard choices will need to be made as feed remains scarce, and fuel, fertilizer and other input costs for farmers and ranchers continue to soar.

“Decisions being made with cattle herds in Grand County will be similar to the ones being made in Routt County, in Gunnison County, in Saguache County,” Mike Ritschard, a Middle Park rancher and Colorado River District board member, told a state water conference this week. “How do we hold it together for the next year and the year after? Do we cut cattle numbers to the feed we have? Do we buy feed and haul it to the cows so they can stay on the ranch? How much is the cost of hay or alfalfa, the cost of trucking?”

Other drought impacts can be felt across Colorado’s economy, especially in mountain resort towns where dry streams and rivers limit fishing and rafting, and many reservoirs are closed to boating. But it’s the agricultural sector where chronic drought conditions pose the most immediate and existential threats.

Read more from Colorado Newsline.

Related coverage:

President Donald Trump has not slowed his pursuit of central policy goals and personal pursuits, even after major setbacks at the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports in a detailed analysis of Trump’s legal moves.

The high court in its 2026 term delivered blows to Trump’s core campaign promises to upend a constitutional provision governing who becomes a U.S. citizen at birth and to swiftly address the growing national debt with “trillions of dollars” raised by taxing imports. 

The justices also ruled the president cannot fire, without cause, Fed Board Gov. Lisa Cook and deny her a chance to plead her case. And a lower court blocked Trump from installing his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

But even after the Supreme Court ruled against him, Trump is forging ahead and using what some legal observers describe as “creative lawyering” to find alternative routes to push his agenda, even as public support fades.

The moves test the power dynamic between the executive and judicial branches, but are not illegal or even unconventional in modern times, experts said.

“What he's doing is distinct from outright disobedience or ignoring a Supreme Court's decision, and it's important to stress that that line has not been crossed,” said Thomas Berry, a legal scholar with the libertarian Cato Institute.

More from the D.C. Bureau:

A federal court ruling out of Idaho has potential implications for exceptions in abortion bans nationwide and could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, Stateline reports.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled earlier this month that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides a narrow right for a pregnant patient to obtain an abortion if the pregnancy could be a risk to their health, including their mental health. It’s the first ruling since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022 to find that the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion access in certain situations.  

Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, said Winmill’s ruling could be the beginning of a “slow erosion” of the Dobbs decision, similar to the way that anti-abortion advocates used lawsuits and legislation to chip away at abortion rights established by the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.

“They kind of worked over the course of decades to do a death by a thousand cuts, chipping away at its breadth,” Ziegler said. “This may be kind of a funhouse mirror version of that.”

In states such as Colorado and New Jersey, record-high temperatures have led to a spike in heat-related illnesses. In agricultural states like North Dakota and Wyoming, farmers are struggling to grow crops amid withering drought. 

Throughout the U.S., extreme heat days are becoming more frequent and more intense. State policymakers are now attempting to plan for extreme heat’s growing risks, which could strain public health and infrastructure budgets and the agricultural economies.

In Episode 42, you’ll hear from Andrea Snyder, an associate manager at The Pew Charitable Trusts. She’s been researching how the hotter summers could affect communities across the country and how some states are responding.

You’ll also get a weekly news wrap-up from Daybreak newsletter writer Madyson Fitzgerald. She’s got you covered with the latest on: Flock camera misuse, a ballot measure about Arizona’s school voucher program and data center legislation. 

Subscribe to Stories From The States on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

Lizard Man, Elmo, Abraham Lincoln and more are on the ballot for a heated race to decide which Kentucky student’s “I Voted” sticker will be available during November’s election, Kentucky Lantern reports. 

Kentuckians can vote for their favorite design at the Secretary of State’s Office’s booth during the Kentucky State Fair this week. Polls opened Thursday with the start of the fair in Louisville. 

Drawings from eight finalists appear on the ballot from students across the state. Much like during Kentucky’s regular elections, voters may use a paper ballot to mark their choice and return it to a scanner.

Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams told the Lantern his office received “several hundred” submissions and he “spent an afternoon doing nothing but going through these.”

“We try to find ones that we think people will like. Obviously, we try to have a variety of representation around the state. … Creativity is a factor. A lot of kids just use AI, and that’s not interesting. We want to actually see kids with crayons,” Adams said.