It's Friday, February 13, 2026 and in this morning's issue we're covering: Britain quit coal, but changed to burning Louisiana's trees, Medicaid’s retroactive safety net is shrinking — patients, hospitals could feel the fallout, DHS buys El Paso warehouses for $123 million ICE mega detention center as deportation capacity expands nationwide, Inside Minnesotans’ moonshot to cover rent for their immigrant neighbors, Investing in rural health. Federal program holds promise for NC, but faces significant challenges, People in 15 Mississippi counties can receive replacement SNAP benefits without application, City Hall Hires Just 31 From 80,000 Applicants in Mamdani’s Job Portal, Michigan drinking water expert ousted from EPA council.

Media outlets and others featured: Verite News, North Carolina Health News, El Paso Matters, MinnPost, Carolina Public Press, Mississippi Today, THE CITY, Planet Detroit.

Editor's Note: Bolts has a guide on elections to watch in February.

The 20 Elections to Watch This February - Bolts

Democrats hold the narrowest of majorities in Maine and Pennsylvania’s state Houses. They now need to defend vacant seats to retain their edge in each through the end of the... Read More

BoltsDaniel Nichanian

Britain quit coal. But is burning Louisiana’s trees any better?

by Tristan Baurick, Verite News New Orleans
February 6, 2026

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Verite News and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change. This story is the third of a three-part series. Read part one here and part two here.

BARLOW, ENGLAND  – Kathleen Watts’ flowers bloom much brighter now that the wind no longer blows black. Pulling weeds in the garden outside her red brick house, she recalled when coal dust would sometimes drift through her quiet corner of northern England, a rolling patchwork of farms and villages under the shadow of what was once the United Kingdom’s largest coal-burning power station. 

“When the dust came our way, we’d have to come out and clean our windows,” said Watts, who has lived in the North Yorkshire village of Barlow for more than 30 years. “And when we’d get snow in winter, there’d be a lot of black over it.”

Thankfully, she said, the wind usually blew northeast, pushing the station’s smoke and dust toward Scandinavia. Locals liked to joke that the air pollution was mostly Norway’s problem. There, it caused bouts of acid rain that damaged forests and poisoned lakes. 

The U.K. has quit coal — a lengthy process culminating in the closure of the country’s last deep-pit coal mine in 2015 and the shutdown of the U.K’s last coal plant in 2024. 

The giant station near Barlow, however, is busier than ever, fueled now by American forests rather than English coalfields. Trees felled, shredded, dried, and pressed into pellets in Louisiana and Mississippi are shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, loaded onto trains, and then fed into the station’s immense boilers. Operated by Drax Group, the station gradually stopped burning coal until it made a full switch to wood in 2023. It now burns enough pellets to generate about 6 percent of the country’s electricity. 

The U.K. government, in a bid to meet its ambitious climate goals, is giving Drax the equivalent of $2.7 million a day in subsidies to keep burning pellets, which the company touts as “environmentally and socially sustainable woody biomass.” 

But a growing number of Brits aren’t buying it. After years of celebrating the shift away from coal, U.K. residents are realizing that wood pellets aren’t the cleaner, greener alternative they were supposed to be. 

“I still have difficulties in my little brain figuring out how you can grow wood at the other end of the Earth, chip it, ship it to here … and then burn it, and say, ‘Isn’t that nice and green?’” said Steve Shaw-Wright, a former coal miner who serves on the North Yorkshire Council. 

Burning wood for power instead of one of the dirtiest fossil fuels offers the illusion of sustainability and robust climate action, said William Moomaw, an emeritus professor of international environmental policy at Tufts University. But in reality, it’s doing more harm to the environment than burning fossil fuels, he said. “England is off coal — isn't that wonderful?” Moomaw said. “But there’s no mention of the fact that it's because they're now burning wood from North America, which emits more carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity than does coal.”

The Drax station in North Yorkshire emitted more than 14 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2024, making it the largest single source of CO2 in the U.K., according to a report last year from the climate research group Ember. That amount is more than the combined emissions from the country’s six largest gas plants and more than four times the level of the U.K.’s last coal plant. 

A Drax spokesperson called Ember’s research “deeply flawed” and accused the group of choosing to “ignore the widely accepted and internationally recognized approach to carbon accounting,” which is used by the United Nations and other governments. 

But several scientists say burning wood can’t help but produce more emissions. Wood has a lower density than coal and other fossil fuels, so it must be burned in higher volumes to produce the same amount of energy. Between 2014 and 2019 — a period when coal was in steep decline — the country’s CO2 emissions from U.S.-sourced pellets nearly doubled, according to a report by the Chatham House research institute in London. “Almost all of this U.K. increase was associated with biomass burnt at Drax,” the report’s authors wrote. 

The station’s cross-continental supply chain is also heavy on emissions. For every ton of pellets Drax burns, about 500 pounds of CO2 are released just from making and transporting the product, according to Chatham House. About half of Drax’s supply chain emissions are tied to production, while transportation via trucks, trains, and ships accounts for 44 percent, according to the company’s estimates. 

The switch from coal to pellets created a new pollution problem in Louisiana and Mississippi, where most of the station’s fuel is produced. Drax’s pellet mills have repeatedly violated air quality rules at its two Louisiana mills, located near Bastrop and Urania, and its mill in Gloster, Mississippi. The mills emit large quantities of formaldehyde, methanol, and other toxic chemicals linked to cancers and other serious illnesses, according to regulatory findings and public health studies. Residents of these poor, mostly Black communities say the mills’ dust and pollution are making them sick. In October, several Gloster residents sued the company, alleging that Drax has “unlawfully released massive amounts of toxic pollutants” in their community for nearly a decade.

The Drax spokesperson said the company is improving its mills’ pollution controls in line with a longstanding dedication to “high standards of safety and environmental compliance.” On its website, Drax says the company is “committed to being a good neighbor in the communities where we operate,” offering funding for environmental education programs, ensuring its wood is sourced from “well-managed forests,” and supporting land conservation efforts, including the establishment of a 350-acre nature reserve near Watts’ home in Barlow. 

Much of the timber that Drax harvests comes from private lands in the Southern United States that function more as tree farms than natural forests. But in recent years, Drax has sourced an increasing share of its wood from western Canada, including from British Columbia’s treasured old-growth forests. 

In 2024, Drax agreed to pay a nearly $32 million penalty after U.K. energy regulators determined the company had been misreporting data on where it sources its wood and how much of it comes from environmentally important woodlands. The practice of pelletizing Canada’s mature trees appears ongoing, according to a recent report by the environmental group Stand.earth. Citing logging data from 2024 and 2025, the group claims Drax has been accepting truckloads of trees from British Columbia that were hundreds of years old. Drax downplayed the report, emphasizing that the logs were legally harvested and of insufficient quality to go to sawmills.

Drax sees itself as one of the most environmentally conscious companies on the planet. “Sustainability is the cornerstone of long-term success and the transformation of our business,” said Miguel Veiga-Pestana, Drax’s chief sustainability officer, in a statement. 

While most pellets Drax makes in the U.S. are derived from logged trees, the company also uses sawdust and other leftovers from lumber mills. The company supports forest thinning, a practice it says can ease crowding in densely planted timberlands, improve the health of the remaining trees, and diversify habitat for wildlife. 

“By ensuring that we source sustainable biomass, and that we embed sustainable practices into every facet of our operations, we can build lasting value,” Veiga-Pestana said. 

The loophole that gave rise to an industry

The value of the entire utility-scale wood pellet industry depends on what many scientists call an “accounting loophole” entrenched in some of the earliest international policies aimed at combating climate change. 

During the 1990s, the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol established land use and energy use as two separate categories for counting a country’s greenhouse gases. To avoid double counting wood burning across both land-use and energy-use categories, the U.N. assigned wood pellet emissions only to the land-use sector, believing that normal forest regrowth would keep pace with the modest harvests for pellet production. The wood pellet industry at the time was tiny, selling the bulk of its products to homeowners with small pellet-burning stoves. Any carbon released by burning would be balanced by new trees that work as natural CO2 absorbers, the thinking went. 

The effect, though, was that regulators would count CO2 from burning oil and coal, but CO2 from burning timber could stay off the books. 

“Drax and other bioenergy companies took that and said, ‘Look, we have no impact — we’re instantly carbon neutral,’” said Mary Booth, director of the environmental organization Partnership for Policy Integrity. 

This exemption was incorporated into the Kyoto Protocol, the first international treaty that set legally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets. Experts were soon warning of troubling consequences. In a study published in the journal Science in 2009, scientists said the exemption was an “accounting error” that could spur deforestation and hinder attempts by governments to curb emissions. 

“The error is serious, but fixable,” said Tim Searchinger, a Princeton University energy policy expert, in a statement at the time. “The solution is to count all the pollution that comes out of tailpipes and smokestacks whether from coal and oil or bioenergy, and to credit bioenergy only to the extent it really does reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Other scientists challenged the industry’s claim that planting trees would neutralize power station emissions. According to a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it can take 44 to 104 years for forest regrowth to pay back the carbon debt from pellet burning. While the planet waits decades for the trees to regrow, glaciers melt, seas rise, and weather from droughts to hurricanes grows more extreme. 

Despite these warnings, the European Union latched on to wood burning as a relatively quick and cheap way to meet tighter climate mandates. Rather than blanket the landscape with wind turbines and solar panels, countries could dust off old coal plants and put them on a diet of “carbon-neutral” pellets. 

The shift toward bioenergy accelerated in 2009, when the EU set a target of getting 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020. Pellet demand in Germany, Belgium, Italy, and other EU countries immediately began to increase, but in the U.K., the growth was explosive. Between 2012 and 2018, the U.K.’s pellet consumption surged by 471 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

The U.K. left the EU in 2020, and it remains the world’s biggest buyer of wood pellets. In 2024, the country imported nearly 10.3 million tons, a record high spurred partly by a dip in pellet prices. 

Wood burning has helped the U.K. come within striking distance of its goal to eliminate oil and gas from its electrical generation by 2030. Nearly 74 percent of the national grid is powered by what the government calls “low carbon” energy sources. Wood pellets and other forms of bioenergy supply about 14 percent of the low-carbon mix, with wind, solar, and hydropower accounting for the rest. 

From coal to pellets

Every workday, Ian Cunniff climbs into his orange overalls, pounds his helmet tightly on his head, and steps into a cage that drops 459 feet into a maze of dark tunnels littered with old machinery.  

The stout Yorkshireman is one of the last miners still working in the coal pits, but now his job is to lead tours along the rich seams he once risked his life to dig out. Cunniff is a guide for the National Coal Mining Museum at Caphouse Colliery, a former West Yorkshire mine dating back to the 1790s. His last “real” mining job was at Kellingley Colliery, the U.K.’s last deep coal pit and a major feeder of Drax’s power station before it switched to wood. 

In the depths of the Caphouse mine, Cunniff grew wistful over the coal still embedded in the walls. The seams once provided nearly everything a man and his family needed, he said. “It was your future; it was your retirement. So much of it has never been touched.”

Wood pellets didn’t kill the U.K.’s coal industry. It began to wither as the country shifted from cheaper, imported coal in the 1980s to natural gas in the 1990s. Coal’s decline left gaping holes in Yorkshire’s economy and social fabric. The wood pellet industry has contributed some jobs and tax dollars, but it can’t replace what the region once had, said Shaw-Wright, the county council member. 

“With coal, you didn't really need to get an education much because you were going to get a job at the pit,” he said. “And if you had a job at the pit, you would have it for life.”

At its height between the two world wars, the industry employed 1.2 million people in the U.K. In some northern England counties, 1 in 3 residents was employed in coal mining. The Selby Complex, a group of deep-pit mines near the Drax power station, employed about 3,500 workers before it shut down in 2004. The industry also supported cooperative groups that funded social halls, community brass bands, libraries, sports clubs, and welfare programs for injured miners and their families.

In contrast, the Drax-dominated bioenergy industry employs about 7,400 people across the U.K., including about 1,000 people at the Drax station. The increasingly automated industry has seen its job numbers fall by more than a third since 2014, according to data from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics. 

A similar trend is playing out in Louisiana and Mississippi, where the three Drax wood pellet mills employ far fewer people than the older pulp and paper mills that once played a dominant role in the Deep South. The paper mill in Bastrop, for instance, once employed 1,100 people. Drax’s pellet mill near the town has just 71 workers on its payroll. 

Shaw-Wright appreciates the economic activity the wood pellet industry brings to Yorkshire but said most of the region’s recent job growth actually comes from a surge in distribution centers for online retailers — a trend that has turned Yorkshire into the country’s “capital of warehousing.” Many of these massive facilities now sit on former coal fields, including the old Kellingley Colliery, yet the work of unloading and sorting parcels doesn’t provide the pay, stability, or sheer number of jobs that mining once did.

After giving another tour, Cunniff rested in the colliery’s old locker room. He knows coal isn’t coming back, but he doesn’t believe cutting and burning trees to power the grid is any better — for Yorkshire or the planet. 

“So you’re taking away what’s cleaning the atmosphere, and you’re burning it?” he said. “That’s the big picture, isn’t it?”

Growing skepticism, rising awareness

The Drax power station is the dominant feature across several miles of North Yorkshire countryside. Its 12 cooling towers are each big enough to hold the Statue of Liberty. Every day, about 17 trains full of pellets arrive to top off four storage domes with a combined 360 million-ton capacity. The pellets are pulverized as fine as flour and blown into several boilers. Stored in hangar-like structures in the station’s center, the boilers consume some 8 million tons of pellets each year with fires that reach 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Just outside the station’s 3 miles of razor-wire fencing is a village, also called Drax, with one tiny pub. Inside, there was little love for the big neighbor. 

“They’re taking wood from where they shouldn’t be taking it,” Tony Emmerson said as he sipped a beer at The Huntsman’s bar. “I think we should go back to coal, personally. We’ve got a hundred years of coal right here just waiting to be burned.”

Many of Drax’s post-coal era promises — lower energy bills, cleaner air, and a decarbonized grid — have proven hollow, Emmerson said.

“They get all this tax money but we don’t get cheaper power bills,” said Peter Rust, The Huntsman’s owner. “And they say they’re carbon neutral, but how’s that possible when you have to bring the pellets across an ocean?”

The growing doubts about the wood pellet industry are seeping into public debate, leading the government to rethink its support for Drax. Last February, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government decided that the current subsidies for Drax would be cut in half in 2027. The subsidy renewal, which lasts until 2031, also requires Drax to increase the proportion of “sustainably sourced” biomass from 70 percent to 100 percent. Michael Shanks, the energy minister, told Parliament that the government made the move because Drax was making “unacceptably large profits” and “simply did not deliver a good enough deal for bill payers.” 

Shanks, however, emphasized that wood pellets will still play a key role in powering the U.K.’s grid, and he welcomed Drax's new efforts to bolster its green credentials. That includes a massive investment in carbon capture and storage technology. For years, Drax has been planning a pipeline that would divert about 8.8 million tons of the station’s CO2 emissions into storage under the North Sea. Reduced subsidies, though, are likely to slow these projects, the company has warned.  

Many Yorkshire residents knew exactly — and proudly — where the Drax station’s coal came from. They’re much less sure about where the wood is sourced. Watts, the gardener in Barlow, assumed the trees were grown on English farms. Shaw-Wright was also far off the mark, thinking the pellets came from Australia. At The Huntsman, guesses were slightly closer, with people calling out South America and Eastern Europe — regions that together supply only 10 percent of the station’s fuel. The fact that the U.S. meets nearly 80 percent of the station’s demand was a surprise to many. 

Environmental groups, meanwhile, have been campaigning for a broader understanding of the industry’s impacts. U.K.-based Reclaim the Power and Biofuel Watch have been highlighting the concerns about emissions as well as the pollution affecting mill towns in Mississippi and Louisiana. 

Several groups had planned to stage a large protest outside the Drax station in August 2024. Drawing hundreds of activists from around the country, the “Drax Climate Camp” was to feature five days of “communal living and direct action.” But police preemptively arrested 25 protesters and halted a convoy of vehicles carrying tents, composting toilets, wheelchair-accessible matting, and other gear. Activists staged a much smaller protest outside the police station where their fellow campaigners were held, but the groups decided the camp couldn’t continue without the equipment. 

The aborted protest got Shaw-Wright thinking more about the connection between the pellet mills in the Deep South and the electricity that lights his home. 

“Louisiana, that’s where they make the ‘gumba’ and they love cooking crocodiles, right?” Shaw-Wright said, half joking. “I think people will be surprised where the wood comes from and … know nothing of how it's produced or what it entails. We need to be educated more about the communities that, in essence, benefit the Drax power station. And we all benefit from it. But if it’s at the expense of others, it gives you a different perspective.”

Rust, the pub owner, wasn’t so reflective, but he was deeply disappointed the camp was quashed. “I thought we were going to get loads more customers,” he said. “I bought loads more bottles when I heard about it. I thought finally Drax was going to do some good for me.”

This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Medicaid’s retroactive safety net is shrinking — patients, hospitals could feel the fallout

by Jaymie Baxley, North Carolina Health News
February 6, 2026

By Jaymie Baxley 

When people qualify for Medicaid after a medical emergency, the program can currently reach back up to three months to pay for care they received before they applied — a safeguard that often prevents a hospital stay or ambulance ride from turning into lifelong debt.

That protection is about to shrink.

Beginning in January 2027, federal changes will sharply limit how far back Medicaid can cover medical bills for newly approved enrollees. 

For adults covered under Medicaid expansion — a group that now includes more than 700,000 North Carolinians — retroactive coverage will drop from three months to just one. Other Medicaid populations, including children, seniors and people with disabilities, will see the window reduced to two months.

State officials say the changes are largely outside North Carolina’s control, but consumer advocates, legal aid attorneys and hospital groups warn that the shorter timeline could leave patients and providers burdened by costs that Medicaid would previously have covered.

How retroactive coverage works — for now

Sarah Gregosky, chief operating officer for NC Medicaid, said the current rules allow people applying for Medicaid to request coverage for medical services they received before submitting their application, as long as they were qualified at the time they received care.

When an applicant requests retroactive coverage, the state reviews their eligibility month by month — both prospectively and retroactively — which can result in Medicaid paying claims for care that occurred as much as 90 days before the person ever realized they qualified.

“What’s going to happen is the periods in which we’re reviewing retrospectively, when folks indicate on their application, is going to shorten,” Gregosky said. “For our traditional Medicaid programs, [...] folks will have a 60-day period that they can say, ‘Hey, I had medical claims. Can you review my eligibility in those months?’ And for our expansion population, it will be limited to the 30 days prior to eligibility.”

Gregosky said the state has little flexibility in how the change, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last summer by President Donald Trump, is implemented.

“It’s largely prescribed by federal rules,” she said. “We don’t have discretion in extending that period.”

A safety net in case of emergency

Retroactive coverage is most commonly used by people who only realize they qualify for Medicaid after something goes wrong — a hospitalization, accidental injury or sudden illness that forces them into the health care system.

“Typically, folks who are looking for that retrospective coverage had some sort of event that is triggering them to apply,” Gregosky said. 

(The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services was unable to provide NC Health News with data for how many retroactive claims are submitted and approved each year.)

Health care navigators who help people enroll in Medicaid say the three-month window has been crucial since North Carolina expanded the entitlement program to cover more low-income adults in 2023.

“That three months retroactive coverage has been a big lift for a lot of people who really need emergency services, [who] go in and are hospitalized for a certain amount of time and are not able to enroll before that,” said Nicholas Riggs, director of the NC Navigator Consortium. “Or they had some sort of life change or experience and just haven’t had a chance to get coverage.”

Riggs said navigators regularly work with people who assumed they weren’t eligible for Medicaid until a health crisis forced the issue.

That’s especially true, he said, for people who qualify through expansion, which raised the state’s strict income threshold for Medicaid. The measure opened up the program to many working adults with lower incomes who previously made too much money to qualify.

“A lot of folks deem that they’re ineligible for coverage, when the contrary is true,” Riggs said. “They would have been eligible the whole time.”

With less time for coverage to be applied retroactively, Riggs said even small delays or misunderstandings during the application process could carry far greater consequences for patients who qualify for Medicaid but don’t realize it until after an emergency.

“My biggest advice to folks is don’t wait to enroll,” he said. “If you have any change in eligibility, even if you don’t think that you’re eligible for coverage, try to enroll because you never know.”

The looming changes come as enrollment assistance resources are thinning. Riggs said federal funding cuts forced the NC Navigator Consortium to reduce its staff by about 25 percent last year, which limited the group’s capacity to help people understand their eligibility and complete applications.

“We are worried about being able to reach the number of people that we were before with so many policy changes going into effect,” he said, adding that the state’s need for navigators “has never been more critical.”

Less room for mistakes

Attorneys at Pisgah Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm serving western North Carolina, are anticipating an increase in clients facing medical bills they would previously have been able to resolve through retroactive Medicaid coverage.

“If you’re not navigating eligibility and not navigating these systems and seeing what goes wrong, you could think, ‘Well, what’s the big deal between one month and three months?’” said Thomas Lodwick, a managing attorney at the firm who specializes in cases concerning health and income. “But the big deal is that stuff goes wrong all the time. Applications get lost. They get erroneously denied.”

Lodwick said the existing three-month window acts as a “buffer,” giving applicants time to identify and fix issues that might otherwise derail their enrollment after an expensive emergency.

“Even if something goes wrong the first time [they apply], you can kind of clean it up and get them covered for that same period, and then they can avoid a crushing medical debt,” Lodwick said. “Frankly, a lot of times it can take months for that initial application to get processed or for the person to even find out that they were denied.”

With that buffer shrinking, Lodwick said the financial consequences will not stop with patients.

“Realistically, if you’re visiting the ER in an ambulance and you’re someone who qualifies for Medicaid, you’re not going to be able to pay these thousands and thousands of dollars,” he said. “At some point, that means the hospitals and other emergency service providers are going to be providing uncompensated care, further straining their abilities to provide care to everyone.”

Shortened retroactive coverage, he added, “affects everybody who wants hospital or ambulance services that are well-funded and running as well as they can be.”

Hospitals brace for higher unpaid bills

When North Carolina became the 40th state to expand Medicaid in 2023 (Washington, D.C., has also expanded), lawmakers imposed a special tax on hospitals to help offset the cost of covering hundreds of thousands of newly eligible residents.

It was a worthwhile tradeoff for hospitals, which saw significant reductions in uncompensated care as more patients gained health insurance.

But advocates and hospital groups say the reduction in retroactive Medicaid coverage threatens to shift some of those costs back onto providers — particularly when patients qualify for Medicaid but miss the narrower retroactive window.

In a statement to NC Health News, the North Carolina Health Care Association said the changes are “likely to create additional administrative challenges” for the more than 130 hospitals it represents across the state.

“There is also a heightened risk of uncompensated care during potential administrative gaps,” an association spokesperson said. “Hospitals that serve a higher percentage of low-income individuals may feel these impacts more acutely, with smaller, community hospitals facing a disproportionate burden.”

Uncompensated care costs have contributed to the closure of nearly 200 financially struggling hospitals in rural communities across the United States. At least 12 rural hospitals in North Carolina have shuttered since 2010, according to data from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC Chapel Hill.

Cuts collide with other changes

Navigators and legal aid attorneys worry that the loss of retroactive coverage comes at the worst possible moment — just as new work requirements and reporting rules increase the risk of coverage lapses that people may not discover until they need emergency care.

“This is just another thing that we need to make sure that folks are aware of as they apply,” Gregosky said. “There’s a lot of changes that are going to happen for beneficiaries."

The One Big Beautiful Bill law also introduces a federal work requirement for Medicaid. Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, many beneficiaries will be forced to prove they are working, volunteering or attending school for at least 80 hours a month to maintain benefits.

Advocates fear the work requirement will result in an untold number of beneficiaries losing coverage — not due to unemployment, but paperwork issues. 

Most of the enrollees who will be subject to the requirement, which applies only to expansion beneficiaries, already have jobs, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. But technological limitations, language barriers and other challenges could prevent many from regularly submitting the documentation needed to confirm their employment status.

Lodwick said even brief lapses caused by missed notices, processing delays or confusion over the new rules could leave people uninsured when an emergency strikes, with fewer options to retroactively fix the problem afterward.

“You could be cut off and not know it, and then find out when you end up in the emergency room,” he said. “I think there are a lot of us who kind of use health care as needed and, fortunately, don’t need it very often. But then when you do, you really need that retro coverage to get you back on.”

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

DHS buys El Paso warehouses for $123 million ICE mega detention center as deportation capacity expands nationwide

by Cindy Ramirez, El Paso Matters
February 6, 2026

The federal government has purchased industrial park warehouses in Far East El Paso County for nearly $123 million to be used as a massive ICE detention center, according to newly filed deeds. The purchase comes as hundreds of residents speak out against the project and city and county leaders question what authority, if any, they have to intervene.

A general warranty deed filed with the county this week shows the property transfer from El Paso Logistics II LLC in Delaware to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was executed Jan. 17. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans a 8,500-capacity mega detention facility on the property off Gateway Boulevard East near Clint. The property falls within the boundaries of the city of Socorro.

The property in an industrial zone – Eastwind Logistics Center – comprises three reinforced concrete warehouses of about 296,000 square feet each, with an adjacent plot of land available for expansion, a commercial real estate brochure indicates. The park was previously available for lease, but disappeared off real estate and developer websites the past month.

A second deed filed with the county this week sets up long-term drainage and stormwater obligations for the property, with an effective date reversing back to Jan. 1. That includes shared stormwater detention ponds for multiple parcels – including future development. The effective date indicates the infrastructure work likely began before the land sale was complete. The facility falls within the Lower Valley Water District service area, raising questions about the availability of water to the facility housing thousands of people. Officials with the water district didn’t return calls for comment. 

READ MORE: Planned ‘mega’ ICE detention center in Far East El Paso County has rocky start with tribe-owned businesses

State Rep. Vincent Perez, D-El Paso, on Friday warned about potential fires at the planned mega center, citing the lack of water pressure and infrastructure as dangerous. He urged El Paso County Emergency Services District No. 2 that serves the area to deny a permit for the center. He noted the 2023 fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez that killed 40 detainees and injured 27 others as an example of the potential dangers.

“It's one thing to have these facilities as they currently exist as industrial warehouses for that purpose, but it's a whole other ball game if you have intentions of housing thousands of detainees,” Perez said.

READ MORE: Misplaced fire extinguishers. No sprinkler system. A key missing in plain sight. How a Juárez migrant detention center fire turned into a death trap.

Because federal facilities are largely exempt from local zoning and building rules, cities have limited leverage over detention centers — a concern echoed by community leaders in Oklahoma City, Kansas City and Orange County, New York. But certificates of occupancy are often required from local planning and fire departments, though it’s unclear how or if the federal government would seek those out.

The El Paso property is one of several recent warehouse purchases by the DHS under the Trump administration’s latest efforts to expand immigration enforcement and deportations. The plan includes creating a fast-moving pipeline where detainees would be shuffled from processing centers that hold about 1,500 people to the mega facilities of up to 10,000 people that would serve as deportation staging sites.

DHS has reportedly spent $120 million for a Maryland facility and $70 million for one in Arizona. The purchases don’t include the costs of converting the warehouses into detention centers complete with sleeping quarters, kitchens, restrooms, showers and other amenities.

DHS officials didn’t respond to El Paso Matters’ request for comment, but in a statement last month said “it should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space.”

El Paso is a strategic location for the Trump administration because of Biggs Army Airfield, where deportation flights have increasingly taken place.

More than 1,130 immigration enforcement departure flights, including removal and shuffle flights, took place in El Paso all of last year, according to the Human Rights First immigration flight monitor. Only Alexandria, Louisiana, and Harlingen, Texas, recorded more flights – about 2,430 and 2,430, respectively. Shuffle flights refer to those between detention facilities. El Paso was also among the top three immigration enforcement destination cities last year, recording more than 1,030 arrivals.

SEE ALSO: ICE custody death, immigration raids in El Paso spark calls to action, pleas for enforcement without cruelty

The detention expansion comes as calls grow louder for the closure of Camp East Montana – a tent complex that opened on Fort Bliss property in El Paso in August. The facility has been inundated with allegations of human rights violations, and has recorded three detainee deaths in two months. The facility holds the largest number of ICE detainees in the nation, averaging nearly 3,000 a day as of January. About 70,780 people were being held in ICE detention centers nationwide – about 18,700 in Texas alone. 

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, who visited Camp East Montana for the sixth time Friday, said there’s no need to build additional detention sites that are only making private contractors richer.

“Not only have things not improved, but everything we have flagged over and over again persists,” Escobar said. “The level of dysfunction inside the facility is shocking and the services DHS is paying for are not being delivered – and that’s fraud.”

In a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons this week, Escobar said El Pasoans do not want more detention centers in their community and urged the agency to suspend any and all plans to build new ones.

El Paso city and county leaders this week formally opposed a proposed mega detention center, acknowledging their limited authority over federal immigration matters.

On Monday, the El Paso County Commissioners Court directed the County Attorney’s Office to review the legal framework surrounding detention facilities and report back within 30 days, while also calling for a stakeholder task force to address future proposals. The court will also send a formal letter opposing the facility.

A day later, the El Paso City Council asked city attorneys to develop a plan to block ICE detention centers within city limits, including protocols requiring judicial warrants for federal enforcement actions in city or county facilities. The city will also explore a moratorium on permitting, zoning and licensing for ICE facilities.

“El Paso must stand firm. There will be no concentration camps here. We want ICE out now. Make no mistake, ICE is prepared to expand in El Paso, and if they are successful, it will mean more civil rights violations, more human rights violations, more violence and more death,” Tonya Hall said during the meeting. 

Hall is with Indivisible the 915, a grassroots group that has been leading protests and vigils against the controversial immigration enforcement and setting up campaigns for residents to call and write lawmakers at every level.

Ruben Garcia, founder and executive director of the Annunciation House network of migrant shelters, said he applauds the local government’s response and people being vocal about their stance. But he warns that even if the Trump administration decided not to open the facility in El Paso, it would do so elsewhere.

“Even if that were to happen that it’s not built here, it’s not going to be something that you celebrate because it won’t be about one less detention center, just one less detention center here,” Garcia said. “I think we’re saying, or should be saying, don’t build these. Don’t build these at all. We’re saying if Camp East Montana is your poster child for detention facilities, it’s woefully, woefully inadequate, so, don’t build them at all.”

Nonprofits such as Annunciation House are extending help to migrants stranded in the city after being released from Camp East Montana with only the clothes on their backs. The vast majority don’t get back their cell phones or documentation – IDs, passports, birth certificates, work authorizations – and are left stranded, Garcia said. 

Many of them are immigrants arrested in Minneapolis, one of a handful of cities where thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents have been deployed. More than 3,000 people have been arrested by immigration officers there. Federal officials this week said they were withdrawing hundreds of agents following growing protests over violent enforcement tactics and the deaths of two U.S. citizens by federal agents.

“This – the release of migrants from the facility – has been going on even before all the activity in Minneapolis. We’ve been getting those releases, but yes, we’ve seen a lot more recently,” Garcia said, noting that Annunciation House received 15 people released from Camp East Montana on Thursday alone. In January, Annunciation House took in more than 180 migrants – about 50 who were arrested in Minneapolis.

LEARN MORE: El Paso judge: Trump-backed immigration appeals rulings deny migrants long-standing bond rights

Garcia said he has been working with organizations in Minneapolis and other cities to help people released from El Paso detention centers get back to their families.

But, he said, it’s important to note that the vast majority of those migrants who are released have support systems – family, friends, coworkers – who are able to gather funds to pay for attorneys and bonds.

“When people are fortunate enough to have a lawyer to be able to petition a judge to set a bond, those are the releases we are getting,” Garcia said. “So, the question becomes, what about all those who can’t get attorneys? Who can’t get bonds? … So, if you’re feeling like you want to help, that’s one way – one meaningful and significant way – to help.”

This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Inside Minnesotans’ moonshot to cover rent for their immigrant neighbors

by Trevor Mitchell, MinnPost
February 9, 2026

On a recent weekday morning as Ashley Fairbanks sat in a salon chair getting her hair done, she put out a call to her 49,000 followers on BlueSky: Twelve families needed their rent paid, urgently.

There was no time for fundraisers or applications for emergency rental assistance; they needed the money now. If anyone had the means to help, she said, they could send money directly to families through Venmo.

Two hours later, those families had their rent paid. Twelve hours later, 43 families had been helped. The trend caught on: Others on social media took up the challenge and launched their own successful campaigns.

Despite talk of a drawdown, the ongoing presence of ICE and other federal law enforcement officers continues to compel thousands of immigrants to stay in their homes and out of work. 

Even without work, rent is still due

Still, rent is due. Many, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul city councils, have called on Gov. Tim Walz to implement an eviction moratorium, which would allow more time for residents to come up with the necessary cash. But even as people like Fairbanks raise thousands of dollars, local leaders and immigrant activists know the need is far greater.

Some compare it to the need for rent relief in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, the federal government pitched in, providing Minnesota with $673 million for emergency rental assistance on top of $100 million provided through state funds.

“This is not something that we will GoFundMe our way out of,” said Minneapolis Council member Robin Wonsley (Ward 2).

Jessica Mathias, executive director of Open Your Heart To The Hungry And Homeless, is using a COVID-era playbook to meet the current moment. During the pandemic, her organization quickly raised funds to assist renters in need. Today, Mathias and her team are managing funds from existing fundraisers as well as organizing their own rent relief, prioritizing households with children and those at immediate risk of eviction.

Related: Mothers of massive resistance: PTA members organize Minneapolis relief efforts

“Minnesota is a very generous state,” Mathias said. After opening up applications for assistance on Jan. 28, she said the first round of rent relief reached 12 households within a week.

The current crisis is a reminder, she said, of how many people are one paycheck away from losing their housing, particularly those without a safety net of friends or family. For anyone who is able to help, she said, “I think it’s our calling to be able to do so.”

‘It’s not sustainable’

Fairbanks, a former Minneapolitan who now lives in Texas, says she’s “just a lady with a website.” But that website, Stand With Minnesota, has had 2 million hits since she created it about two weeks ago.

The site is a massive repository of Minnesota-based fundraisers, organizations and mutual aid networks that are looking for donations, including a number of rental assistance funds.

Fairbanks has taken a special interest in those, noting that as larger funders begin the slow work of processing applications, the need for rental assistance continues to grow — especially as residents approach the period when the eviction process can begin.

Related: County attorneys nix proposal for Minnesota sheriffs to coordinate with ICE

Both the response to her website and what she’s started to call the “adopt-a-rent” campaign have been inspirational, she said — and evidence that elected officials need to step up with more robust efforts.

“It’s not sustainable,” Fairbanks said. “People are maxing out their credit cards and emptying their savings accounts to pay other people’s rent.”

Yusra Murad, an organizer with United Renters for Justice, said many Minnesota renters faced challenges even before Operation Metro Surge. 

Nearly half of the state’s renters are housing cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their income for housing. And those figures are higher for immigrants and people of color. When those same renters feel unsafe going to work, the upshot is a crisis unfolding indoors — one that’s less visible than arrests and detentions on the streets, but still deeply unnerving.

People in Minnesota and beyond have responded with overwhelming generosity, Murad said. She tried to keep track of fundraisers that cropped up, but found it an impossible task. Some had raised thousands for rental assistance, others had raised hundreds of thousands.

“I still know that it’s not enough,” Murad said. “It’s not enough even for the month of February.”

She mentioned one fundraiser that had raised $200,000, focused solely on a community centered around a school. “It was gone within the first two days of February,” Murad said.

‘A drop in the bucket’ on rent

On Feb. 5, the Minneapolis City Council approved sending $1 million in funds to Hennepin County to support one-time rental assistance, but only after a grueling two-hour discussion on the topic that saw two failed votes regarding where to find the money. 

Council member Aisha Chughtai said the funds would help about 250 families, calling it “a drop in the bucket.”

Related: Twin Cities elected officials push the limits of their power against ICE, on the job and off

The city’s $1 million will add on to the estimated $9.6 million that Hennepin County expects to have available for emergency rental assistance, according to Will Lehman, who works for the county in homelessness prevention. That’s enough to help about 2,500 families avoid eviction, he said.

How great is the need? It’s a tough question and one that cities ask regularly to determine appropriate budgets, said Nick Graetz, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota.

Graetz reiterated that while the work of mutual aid groups is inspiring, “we need to be serious about the scale of need.”

A 2025 report from Minnesota Housing found that the estimated annual cost of meeting emergency assistance just for the state’s low-income households is $350 million.

The report notes dispassionately that the $28 million available to such households through the state’s Emergency Assistance, Emergency General Assistance and the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance programs will “fall short.”

And those are rough estimates for one segment of the population, under significantly different circumstances. 

It is, as nearly everyone admits, an impossible sum of money to raise through well-meaning individuals. But as calls for an eviction moratorium grow louder, residents show little sign of flagging in their efforts to help their neighbors as best they can.

“Every single avenue that could possibly keep a family housed is worth pursuing,” Murad said.

This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Investing in rural health. Federal program holds promise for NC, but faces significant challenges.

by Lucas Thomae, Carolina Public Press
February 9, 2026

The federal government pledged to give North Carolina $1 billion over the next five years to “transform” rural health care. Now, the NC Department of Health and Human Services must devise a plan to maximize the return on that investment.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in December that it was awarding North Carolina $213 million for the first year of the program. That funding originated from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress last year, which committed $50 billion to rural health initiatives in all 50 US states.

Rural communities face unique health challenges requiring an approach different from urban areas, said Debra Farrington, DHHS Deputy Secretary for Health, whose many roles include overseeing the agency’s Office of Rural Health.

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North Carolina boasts the second-largest rural population among U.S. states, behind only Texas. Nearly one-third of the state, more than 3.5 million people, live in rural areas as defined by the US Census Bureau.

People living in rural areas experience higher rates of diabetes compared to their urban counterparts. Mothers are more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications, and medical professionals of all types tend to be few and far between in these places, from primary care physicians to mental health workers to dentists.

In many ways, it’s an economic story.

Rural hospitals are facing significant financial stressors, Farrington said. Since 2006, 12 rural hospitals across the state have closed or been forced to change their operating models because of shortfalls caused by low patient volumes and inadequate reimbursements from insurers.

Meanwhile, many of the graduates coming out of the state’s medical schools are going to where they’ll make the most money: places like the Triangle or Charlotte metros.

North Carolina is betting that this new tranche of federal dollars will attract more medical service providers to underserved communities.

“This plan enables us to be able to directly place resources toward efforts to address the gaps and shortages that we see in workforce,” Farrington said.

“Specifically, we want to build on some existing efforts that are already ongoing in our state: to expand rural training centers, to expand rural fellowship programs and certification programs and rural residency incentives.”

For Nicole Barnes, the director of the Martin-Tyrrell-Washington District Health Department, a true transformation of rural health care would mean equity.

“Rural residents should have the same opportunities for health as someone living in an urban area,” she told Carolina Public Press.

“A transformed system would look like no one delaying care because of distance or cost, reliable access to primary and maternal health services locally, strong telehealth connectivity throughout our region, a stable healthcare workforce and preventative services that reach families early rather than reacting to a crisis.”

Barnes said her public health district — as well as partners including county governments, local health care providers and nonprofits — has been actively engaged in conversations with DHHS regarding the federal funding.

“Our goal is to maximize every dollar through coordinated planning to ensure greatest impact,” she said.

The specifics of how North Carolina will implement its Rural Health Transformation Program have yet to be solidified. DHHS is awaiting approval of its first-year plan by CMS before it opens applications for subgrants later this year.

The primary goal of year one is to broaden the scope of existing state programs aimed at improving health outcomes, Farrington said. According to the state’s plan, that means expanding behavioral health clinics, crisis services, mobile outreach, school-based care, and access to opioid treatment and mental health services.

Meeting rural residents where they’re at, rather than making them go out of their way to receive care, is the philosophy which undergirds the initiative.

The state has already identified two future subgrantees: the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC Chapel Hill and the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy. Both research centers confirmed to CPP that they’ve already made plans with DHHS to help with implementation of the program.

“Duke-Margolis can help the state with coordination across multiple initiatives supported by Rural Health Transformation Program funds, as well as other ongoing state and federal programs, to advance the impact and sustainability of the state’s investments in improving rural health,” Rebecca Whitaker, a research director with Duke-Margolis said in an emailed statement.

Two other educational institutions which are perhaps better positioned, at least geographically, to contribute to rural healthcare initiatives preferred to stay quiet on their potential involvement.

ECU Health, whose stated goal is to be a “national model for rural health and wellness,” declined to be interviewed for the story.

The health system launched a bid last year to revive Martin General Hospital as a “rural emergency hospital,” a plan which has since stalled because of cuts to Medicaid which were included in the same bill that created the Rural Health Transformation Program.

DHHS, through spokesperson James Werner, stopped short of saying that the federal funding would help Martin General to reopen.

“While the program prioritizes rural emergency hospitals as part of its broader goals, NCRHTP resources will focus on creating conditions that make rural hospitals more viable long-term, such as improving care coordination, expanding telehealth, and supporting value-based payment models,” he said in an email.

Campbell University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine also didn’t respond to several requests for comment before the publication of this story.

Osteopathic medicine is a practice unique for its holistic approach which emphasizes preventative care and treating the root causes of health problems. Osteopathic doctors are licensed by the North Carolina Medicine Board and prescribe medicine and perform surgery just as MDs can.

Osteopathic physicians “fill a critical need by practicing in rural and medically underserved communities,” Campbell’s website states.

DHHS currently runs an incentive program which helps with student loan repayment for allopathic and osteopathic physicians who operate private practices in rural and underserved areas of the state. Whether that program specifically will receive increased funding is unclear.

Health care partners of all types, from large health systems to community-based groups, will be brought to the table to execute the state’s plan, Farrington said. It involves lots of moving parts and the meshing of old systems with new ideas, some of which aren’t fully fleshed out yet.

Barnes, who oversees public health in some of the state’s least populated counties, said she’s excited about the effort but emphasized the need to simplify its implementation as much as possible.

“For us, transformation isn't about building more systems on top of what we already have,” she said.

“It's about making care simpler, closer and more connected for those we serve.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

People in 15 counties can receive replacement SNAP benefits without application

by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
February 6, 2026

The federal government approved mass replacement of benefits for recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in 15 Mississippi counties hard-hit by the treacherous January ice storm that swept through Mississippi, the state Department of Human Services announced Friday. 

The benefits will be automatically uploaded to beneficiaries’ accounts in the selected counties without an application and are expected to appear in accounts in the next few weeks, said spokesperson Mark Jones. He said he did not yet know the specific date. 

“We’re working quickly to try to get those out,” Jones said Friday afternoon.  

SNAP recipients in an additional 28 counties will receive an extension until Feb. 23, 2026, to apply for replacement benefits. Only existing SNAP clients are eligible to receive these benefits. 

All people who lost power for more than four hours during the storm were eligible for replacement benefits. These benefits are available year-round in case of food destroyed due to a natural disaster, including flood, fire and severe weather. However, recipients are normally required to apply for replacement benefits within 10 days of the outage. 

When applying for replacement benefits, recipients are asked to report the value of the food lost in the disaster. If approved, replacement benefits equal to the lost food’s value will be issued, up to the maximum amount of SNAP benefits issued for the month, according to MDHS’ website. 

Winter Storm Fern struck Mississippi the weekend of Jan. 24-25, causing up to 180,000 power outages at its peak. The storm covered roads with ice, snapped trees and downed powerlines across north Mississippi. On Friday, at least 22,000 utility customers in Mississippi remained without power, according to poweroutage.us.

Jones advised people applying for replacement benefits to ensure that all information submitted is accurate. 

“Please make sure that the power outage documents you use are for your address,” Jones said. 

SNAP recipients in the following 15 counties do not need to apply for replacement benefits. Eligible clients will be issued benefits automatically. 

• Alcorn County
• Choctaw County
• Claiborne County
• Grenada County
• Holmes County
• Humphreys County
• Lafayette County
• Montgomery County
• Panola County
• Sharkey County
• Tallahatchie County
• Tippah County
• Tishomingo County
• Yalobusha County
• Yazoo County

SNAP recipients in the following 28 counties who suffered food loss as a result of the winter storm must apply for replacement benefits by Feb. 23, 2026.

• Adams County
• Attala County
• Benton County
• Bolivar County
• Calhoun County
• Carroll County
• Chickasaw County
• Coahoma County
• DeSoto County
• Issaquena County
• Itawamba County
• Jefferson County
• Lee County
• Leflore County
• Lowndes County
• Madison County
• Marshall County
• Pontotoc County
• Prentiss County
• Quitman County
• Sunflower County
• Tate County
• Tunica County
• Union County
• Warren County
• Washington County
• Webster County
• Wilkinson County 

To access the replacement request form (MDHS-EA-508), households should visit the MDHS website at https://www.mdhs.ms.gov/economic-assistance/snap/snap-replacement-benefits/. The completed form may be submitted by mail, email, or uploaded directly to the MDHS website using the document upload feature at the SNAP Replacement Benefits page. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

City Hall Hires Just 31 From 80,000 Applicants in Mamdani’s Job Portal

The successful 0.039% includes new Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn — a DOT veteran who had also been selected as a member of Mamdani’s transition team.

by Katie Honan Feb 6 3:07pm EST

Days after he won the mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani unveiled a job portal so his team could hire for his incoming administration with an eye on transforming government.

“For too long in city government it’s been more to do with who you know than what you do, and we want to turn that on its head,” he said in a television interview. “We want it to actually be about the work.”

Within a week, 50,000 people had submitted their resumes, his team said, with 30,000 more applying in the following two weeks. Mamdani boasted that his transition team had received applications from nearly every ZIP code in New York City.

But three months after launching the portal and more than a month after Mamdani was sworn in as mayor, just 31 people who applied through it have been hired by the new administration to work inside of City Hall, according to mayoral spokesperson Dora Pekec.  

That amounts to just under 21% of the administration’s 149 new hires so far — and to an overall success rate of 0.039% for the portal’s 80,000 applicants. (Pekec said that the total number of applicants hadn’t increased substantially since the end of November.)  

While there are thousands of jobs open for New Yorkers who want to work for the city in various roles, many fewer are hired through City Hall to work in the administration.

One of the few successful job-seekers on the portal included new Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn, who told The New York Times that he applied for his gig through it. Flynn, however, was also selected for the transition team, and had more than a decade of prior experience at the DOT.

Pekec did not answer questions about who controls the portal now that the transition is over or whether its applicants are being shared with city departments.

The new mayor has brought back many officials who worked under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, including Dean Fuleihan who returned as first deputy mayor and former commissioner Steve Banks as corporation counsel.

He’s also kept many high-level employees who worked under former Mayor Eric Adams, including the city’s sheriff, Anthony Miranda, the acting sanitation commissioner Javier Lojan, and Michael Garner, the city’s chief diversity officer. 

Looking Far and Wide? 

Mayor Mamdani’s goal of demystifying city government — and bringing a fresh perspective and team to City Hall — helped him win an historic election last year. But that goal is in real tension with the city’s hiring processes. 

New York City’s government employs more than 300,000 people in hundreds of roles, from teacher to firefighter to gardener. 

Many employees working in agencies outside of City Hall are hired through civil service exams. There are currently thousands of open civil service gigs at more than 100 city agencies who won’t be hired through the portal. That hiring process often takes months, if not longer, to onboard candidates. 

Applicants who submitted their resumes through the portal — and who declined to use their names for fear of retribution — told THE CITY they hadn’t heard much after sending in their applications. 

“I’ve never received any call back or anything,” one longtime government staffer who submitted their resume through the portal told THE CITY, calling the process “total BS.” 

Others said they’d heard of a “friends and family” portal for people working on the transition. An administration spokesperson said transition members had recommended their own applicants, but said there had not been a separate portal for them.

There were other doorways to having a resume seen by the administration. 

The Progressive Talent Pipeline, a national organization launched in 2018 to push progressives into federal government jobs, set up its own portal to recommend candidates to the Mamdani administration even before he’d won the general election in November.

Executive Director Becca Watts said in an email that it had done so because so many people expressed interest in working for the Mamdani administration.

The group began working on a way to recommend potential employees – particularly those who left the federal government in 2025 as newly elected President Donald Trump declared war on much of the federal workforce – in September or October, she said. When Mamdani announced his own portal, they connected with his transition team. 

“This isn't an alternative or priority portal — and we encourage people to submit to the main portal as well,” she told THE CITY, noting that they hadn’t been asked by the transition team to launch it. 

“Since we've done this as a project to encourage public service since 2018 in DC, relative to Congress and the Biden transition, it was a natural fit to orient towards New York with such a surge in need/interest there.”

Joe Calvello, another spokesperson for Mamdani, said he found three of his six deputy press secretaries through the portal, although some were already working at city agencies.

“We made sure to look far and wide at the diverse backgrounds of people who wanted to work for this administration,” he told THE CITY. 

Calvello, a former aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders, said he also applied through the portal as soon as it went up, eager to be part of the next mayor’s plan for New York City. But he acknowledged that may not be how he was hired. 

Mamdani reportedly showed up at a bar in Greenpoint in late December to personally pitch Calvello to join his administration, according to POLITICO.

Michigan drinking water expert ousted from EPA council: A warning to whistleblowers?

by Nina Misuraca Ignaczak, Planet Detroit
January 28, 2026

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed Michigan-based drinking water engineer Elin Betanzo from the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, months after placing her under investigation for signing a public letter criticizing Trump administration environmental policies.

Betanzo was notified last week that her “services are no longer needed” on the 15-member advisory council, according to an email obtained by Politico. The dismissal follows a seven-month period during which she was barred from participating in council activities while the EPA reviewed her “potential signature” on a declaration of dissent opposing federal rollbacks on science and environmental protections.

The decision appears to single out Betanzo rather than reset the full council, which has remained largely intact since its membership was last amended in 2024.

“As far as I can tell, I’m the only council member who has been removed,” Betanzo told Planet Detroit. “That’s what makes this so unusual.”

Investigation without explanation

Betanzo said the dismissal email is the agency's first substantive communication since she was placed under investigation last July.

“They never asked me any questions. They never explained the scope of the investigation or told me what conclusions they reached,” she said. “Seven months later, out of nowhere, I’m just told I’m done.”

An EPA spokesperson declined to answer questions about Betanzo’s dismissal or whether other council members were affected, citing a policy of not commenting on individual personnel matters.

The advisory council provides recommendations to EPA on drinking water regulations and includes water utility executives, state regulators, and public health experts. Members serve as special government employees and are paid for time spent participating in meetings and committee work.

Role on the council

Betanzo served one full three-year term on the council during the Biden administration and had just begun a second term in January before being sidelined. She worked on the council’s microbial and disinfection byproducts committee, which produced a detailed set of recommendations for EPA as the agency prepares to revise national drinking water rules.

“That work was significant,” Betanzo said. “It highlighted real weaknesses in how we regulate drinking water and reflected consensus across industry, public health, and state regulators.”

EPA had asked her to return for a second term based on that work, she said.

In a statement, the EPA said it is “committed to ensuring all Americans have access to clean drinking water” and emphasized that it intends to continue collaborating with its advisory committees as it carries out its mission of protecting human health and the environment.

The agency added that, “in keeping with longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on individual personnel matters.”

Broader pattern of retaliation concerns

Betanzo’s dismissal comes amid broader scrutiny of EPA actions targeting employees and advisors who signed the “Stand Up for Science” declaration of dissent. According to union leaders and reporting by Politico’s E&E News, dozens of EPA staff were investigated, suspended, or fired following the letter’s release.

Planet Detroit previously reported that Betanzo and another scientist were barred from advisory roles as part of that investigation, raising concerns about whether scientific advisors are being punished for protected speech.

“When I agreed to serve, no one ever told me I was giving up my First Amendment rights,” Betanzo said. “This feels like a targeted effort to remove advisors who prioritize science, data, transparency, and the needs of communities dealing with unsafe water.”

EPA has said the dissent letter misled the public and violated agency policies but has not identified which rules were broken.

Unlike other EPA advisory panels that were fully reset after Trump took office, the drinking water advisory council has largely remained unchanged — making Betanzo’s removal stand out.

“It shows a willingness to go out of their way to cut out advisors they previously valued,” Betanzo said. “That should concern anyone who cares about independent, science-based drinking water policy.”

This article first appeared on Planet Detroit and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.