Seizures, chest pain and long holds at a Phoenix ICE facility and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin with a look at the strains on a temporary immigration detention facility in Arizona — and the 911 calls that are coming from it. 

In North Dakota, an effort to ban kratom is gaining momentum during a special session of the legislature. New Jersey leaders have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on prediction markets and sports betting laws. 

And across the country, some state officials faced with implementing the Trump administration’s proposed new rules for mail ballots say it presents massive — if not impossible — challenges to reach compliance for the November midterms, when voters will decide whether to continue Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate.

In Phoenix, calls for medical assistance have increased at a temporary immigration detention facility that has largely gone under the radar, Arizona Mirror reports. 

911 recordings and other records obtained by the Mirror show that between December 2025 and March 2026, ICE agents called 911 to request medical help on 11 separate occasions. 

The midtown Phoenix ICE office features 10 holding cells that can hold upwards of 150 people. The facility has no beds, no on-site medical services, limited access to food and no shower that is accessible to detainees. According to ICE, it is meant to house people for no more than 12 hours. 

But as ICE has implemented President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda and immigration agents have sought to meet high quotas for arresting immigrants, detention sites have become more crowded and short-term facilities are being used for longer than intended. 

That means detainees in Phoenix were being held an average of 25 hours during the first three months of this year, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Arizona Mirror. 

More immigration coverage:

In some Kentucky communities where hyperscale data centers are being proposed, leaders in local governments and school districts are eyeing a potential tax windfall that they hope could lead to transformative investments back in their communities, Kentucky Lantern reports. 

In the small city of Burgin, a school board member argued a proposed data center there could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in local taxes over 15 years. In Hancock County, the local judge-executive believes a planned data center could bring “material local tax revenues” estimated by the developer to be over $22 million during the first year of operation.

Broadly, advocates for data centers point to communities across the country that have reaped local tax benefits, through property taxes and otherwise, because of having these power-intensive operations. 

But one progressive think tank worries there could be long-existing tax breaks in Kentucky law that data center developers could exploit to avoid paying those local taxes. “I think there’s a huge risk that communities will take what they’re being told about the local tax benefits, but that those benefits end up being mostly taken away by a court,” said Jason Bailey, the executive director of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. 

Related coverage:

New Jersey asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to review an appellate ruling that found a federal 2010 law bars states from regulating sports bets offered on prediction markets, arguing the high court should step in because lower courts have split on this issue, New Jersey Monitor reports. 

In a voluminous 332-page filing, the state argued a recent 2-1 decision from the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals would effectively kill all state regulation of sports betting — including for casinos — and expose existing sports book operators to violations of federal law. That decision found sports bets offered by platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket can only be regulated by the federal government.

“Companies like Kalshi claim to offer legal sports betting in all 50 States, but they refuse to follow the gambling laws of any State,” said New Jersey Attorney General Jen Davenport, a Democrat. “These companies have no right to offer their sports bets without following state law, which is why dozens of States across the ideological spectrum have opposed them.”

Arizona: The Attorney General’s Office is investigating three candidates for statewide office facing allegations that they falsely used voters’ information alongside fraudulent $5 donations to qualify for millions of dollars in public campaign funds.

Missouri: State Supreme Court judges on Wednesday repeatedly pressed attorneys defending Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to explain why voters should not see a referendum on congressional redistricting on the November ballot.

Colorado: An effort by Democrats to pass a mid-decade redistricting plan was struck down by the state Supreme Court earlier — but a conservative group’s countermeasure, which aims to prohibit any such partisan move in the future, is still set to go before voters in November.

South Carolina: The state will work to stop pulling money from orphaned foster children’s benefits, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster announced. It is the 36th state to end or announce an end to the practice, which is often called the “orphan tax.”

Michigan: The Livingston County sheriff has temporarily removed all of its Flock cameras in the wake of a repeated string of vandalism incidents targeting the cameras. 

Wisconsin: Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor, sent a directive to county departments and the sheriff’s office to limit Flock operations on county property, and to work towards adopting new transparency and accountability standards. 

Iowa: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins spoke at the state’s Farm Progress Show and announced plans to “modernize” agricultural data reporting with the goal of making it more accurate and less burdensome for farmers. 

New Jersey: Students are returning to classes this week with new backpacks, new outfits, and a new statewide law: no phones out during the school day — from the first bell to the last.

Carla Couture of Williston, North Dakota, holds up an empty bottle of pure leaf kratom while talking about her son's addiction during a legislative meeting Sept. 1, ahead of a special session of the Legislature. (Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

“Our family learned the hard way that legal does not necessarily mean safe, and natural doesn’t necessarily mean harmless,” Couture said at the committee meeting. “It all needs to be off our shelves, every single one of them.”

Last month, Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong temporarily banned all kratom products for 30 days and called the special session for the Legislature to enact kratom regulations, prohibitions and criminal penalties. In an executive order he declared a state of emergency resulting from a “public health crisis” related to kratom products. 

Legislation advanced Wednesday to permanently ban all kratom and synthetic products in North Dakota, hours after the governor urged the lawmakers to ban kratom “in all its forms.” 

Read the latest from North Dakota Monitor.

Related: Montana legislators eye reining in ‘Wild West’ kratom industry

President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new restrictions on mail-in voting would assign state officials a Herculean task to reach compliance before the crucial midterm elections, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

The order directed the U.S. Postal Service to strictly regulate the envelope design of mail-in ballots and to collect voter data from each state through an online portal, among other things. 

The Postal Service has argued in court that its rule is not an election regulation, but is within the agency’s purview as a standard for a specific type of mail.

But some state officials tasked with fitting their systems to the new regulations say it presents massive — if not impossible — challenges to reach compliance for the November midterms, when voters will decide whether to continue Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate. 

Ballot designs and printing are typically done months in advance of ballots being sent to voters, which begins this week. North Carolina is set to mail out ballots for the Nov. 3 general election on Friday. 

“In some States, it would be impossible at this point to comply with the last-minute rollout of USPS’ novel ballot-verification program,” more than 20 Democratic-led states suing to block the order said in a Wednesday court filing. “In other States, there will be chaos.”

A grass-eating invasive pest has been spotted in Georgia, and it could mean further headaches for cattle ranchers and farmers, Georgia Recorder reports. 

The pasture mealybug has been spreading across the Southeast since it was first confirmed in Texas last October, and Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper announced recently the insect had been spotted at a turf business in Decatur County in the southwest corner of the state in August.

The bugs are native to Southeast Asia, and researchers think they hitched a ride on storm winds from the Caribbean, where they had established a presence by around 2020.

“Pasture mealybug is a serious threat to Georgia agriculture, and we’re asking Georgia farmers and producers to stay vigilant in order to protect their operations,” Harper said. “This pest can spread quickly and kill grass, potentially causing significant losses for our farmers and making biosecurity more important than ever.”

Female pasture mealybugs are wingless and appear white and fluffy. Males are gnat-like and have wings but no mouthparts, do not feed in their adult stage and only live a few days as adults.