It's Friday, October 10, 2025 and in this morning's issue we're covering: Delta State University students are supporting each other through grief, Threat of ICE raids shadows every shift in Chicago’s food warehouses, Shutdown support for federal workers comes from range of businesses, charities, Good night for incumbents as voters trickle to polls in 18 NC counties, New law strips local regulation, oversight from future UNC Asheville campus developments, Rural Health Transformation Program Won’t Make Up for Federal Budget Cuts, Experts Agree, When the courthouse leads to the therapist’s office, Data centers in other states are raising power costs in West Virginia, Amid fiscal woes, Cantrell proposes smaller 2026 city budget, Aging environmental activists wonder who’ll carry on the fight?  

Media outlets and others featured: Mississippi Today, Investigate Midwest, Maryland Matters, Carolina Public Press, Asheville Watchdog, The Daily Yonder, CommonWealth Beacon, Mountain State Spotlight, Verite News, North Carolina Health News.

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Delta State students are supporting each other through grief after a classmate was found dead on campus

In the weeks following the death of their classmate, Trey Reed, students have rallied to process grief and foster connections in meaningful ways.

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by Candice Wilder October 7, 2025

CLEVELAND — One text message in a group chat. 

That’s all it took for Mtume Matthews to gather hundreds of Delta State University students, faculty, staff and neighbors to a candlelight vigil on the night of Sept. 18. 

There they mourned 21-year-old Demartravion “Trey” Reed, the first-year student who took his life earlier that week. 

The death of the Black student jolted the city of Cleveland, a small college town in northwest Mississippi with a roughly 2,700-student population, into national headlines. A flurry of social media posts with conflicting information on Reed’s death led to confusion about campus safety. 

There was also public outcry — prompting a response informed by Mississippi’s history of racism and violence — where many disputed his death twice ruled as a suicide by state and county authorities. Reed’s body was found hanging from a tree on campus Sept. 15. Results of a second independent autopsy commissioned on behalf of Reed’s family have not been released.

But Matthews said that moment of solemnity and stillness on the campus quadrangle that night gave him an idea. 

“In those first few days, students just wanted answers. That was the biggest thing,” said Matthews, a junior studying flight operations. “But now, it’s like, ‘OK, where do we go next?’ How do we hold each other accountable and build a family?” 

In the weeks following the death of their classmate, students including Matthews, Jamaal Bryant and Maitlynn White have rallied their peers to process grief. They’ve created memorials and fundraisers for Reed’s family, launched new mental health initiatives for student groups and provided solutions and support on campus. 

And, university officials are taking notice. 

The day after the vigil, Bryant, president of DSU’s Divine Nine chapter, approached Matthews with a solution. He wanted Black male students to open up and express their feelings about loss. Having a safe space to do it would make everyone more comfortable, he said. 

“There’s a stigma that Black men don’t talk to anybody. That we handle things by ourselves or we don’t need anyone to lean on,” Bryant said. “That can build so much pressure within us. (Reed) could’ve been looking for someone or a community in his time of need.” 

In 2023, suicide was the third-leading cause of death for Black people between the ages of 15 and 35, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Death by suicide spiked for Black males ages 10-24 by 36% between 2018-2021. 

Black youth are also less likely to receive adequate access to care than peers in other demographic groups, in part because of “systemic inequities, including racism, poverty, as well as deeply rooted stigma around mental health and well-founded cultural mistrust of the health care system,” according to an April 2024 report from Pew Charitable Trust. Risk factors for suicide can often be misunderstood or ignored in African-Americans males. 

Starting this month, the African American Student Council and Delta State’s Divine Nine, a council for the historically Black fraternities and sororities on campus, is hosting biweekly discussions on mental wellness. They  aim to provide students with coping skills to care for their mental health, as well as “building a family away from home”. 

“That’s what college is really about, you know,” said Matthews, president of the African American Student Council. “We needed to come around each other because we don’t want anyone to be isolated during this time.” 

Forty percent of the students at Delta State are Black.

The sessions will be on Fridays from 1-2 p.m. for men and 2-3 p.m. for women in the Statesmen Room. 

Each talk will feature a guest speaker, most likely a university official on campus who can share wisdom and insight on how they manage their health. They will be followed with break-out sessions and include pamphlets, guides and resources from the university’s counseling services center. 

“After the vigil, everybody kind of got the reassurance like, ‘we got each other,’” Bryant said. “We’re just trying to make sure that everybody is OK on campus. You know, get us back on a positive foot. ” 

‘The Resolve and Resiliency’

It has been difficult for students and faculty to feel like they’ve emerged from this “dark moment,” said Eddie Lovin, vice president of student affairs. 

When he was first alerted to the news, he called Paula King, the director of health and counseling services. They began to strategize what outreach and support would look like for their students. 

They opened Sillers Chapel, the university’s church, for prayer and meditation knowing that students would lean into their faith. 

King’s office began receiving an outpouring of emails and phone calls from other Mississippi public universities and colleges, Cleveland school system’s therapists and Life and Health, a community mental health agency. All offered to assist with services. 

In trying to use lessons learned from the fatal shooting on campus of history professor Ethan Schmidt in September 2015, King said her staff knew how to manage that swell of support. 

They learned that support for students was needed in weeks following a traumatic event, rather than in that moment. 

Symptoms of grief like irritability and trouble sleeping and concentrating, can show up much later, she said. The goal for King and her staff these past few weeks has been to increase awareness around resources and services. 

“We have definitely seen an influx of traffic,” King said. “A lot of what we’ve done has been making sure people know what to expect when you experience something traumatic and that you did not have to know (Reed) to be affected by his death. That it is kind of a human thing to feel that way.” 

Lovin also received a text from Hayden Kirkhart, president of the student government association. Kirkhart told him the students were setting up tables in the lobby of the Union so peer counselors could connect and talk. It was the initiative within those first few hours that overwhelmed Lovin with admiration. 

“Our student leaders stepped into the trenches right there alongside administration, faculty and staff trying to provide that support knowing that they were also dealing with everything going on,” Lovin said. “The resolve and resiliency of them in the face of everything, I got strengthened every time I found out they were doing this for each other.” 

‘Strong minds, Strong Statesmen’ 

The announcement of Reed’s death hit close to home for Maitlynn White.

White, a senior studying elementary education, lost a childhood friend from suicide during her freshman year. The pain she felt in the moment was heavy and isolating. But, it was small, simple messages that reminded her that her friend “was in God’s arms, at peace.”

“I realized how important it is to be there for others and  create spaces where students can support each other,” said White, president of College Panhellenic Council. “That experience inspired me to step into the role of being a student for students making sure no one has to grieve alone.” 

So White pulled a six-pack box of colorful sidewalk chalk from the trunk of her car. She walked to different spots on campus and wrote affirmations. 

“You got this,” said one note scrawled in blue chalk on the sidewalk near Cain-Tatum and Lawler-Hawkins Hall. It was accompanied by a big smiley face. 

“Strong minds, Strong Statesmen,” said another affirmation in white and black chalk, echoing school pride, colors and mascot. 

“You are loved,” one note said,  ‘o’ replaced with a pink heart. 

With an increase in mental health campaigns, students are encouraging open dialogue to create a campus culture where everyone is supported and valued, White said. 

The sidewalk messages to students were a break from the solitude, stress and confusion everyone was feeling at the time. Writing them became a reminder of her own strength in that moment. Everyone is processing this loss together, she said. 

“No college student wants to talk about how they’re really feeling,” White said. “Most of the students here are experiencing a loss of a peer for the first time. The mental health campaigns and initiatives we establish now will continue well after we graduate.”

Speaking of Reed, she said. “It’s to honor him and make sure that no Delta State student is left behind.” 

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Threat of ICE raids shadows every shift in Chicago’s food warehouses

by Jennifer Bamberg, Investigate Midwest, Investigate Midwest
October 6, 2025

This story is supported by funding from the Chicago Region Food Systems Fund.

Each day before sunrise, David Huerta checks his rearview mirror for immigration enforcement agents as he drives through the dark to a warehouse in a southwest Chicago suburb. Once he’s clocked in, he peers periodically through the windows on the truck dock, making sure ICE isn’t there. For hours this will go on, as he unloads pallets heavy with sacks of flour and salt, bound for grocery stores nationwide. 

When trucks pull into the dock, Huerta readies his forklift to begin unloading the pallets, but first, he must interact with the drivers. 

Most are professional while filling out the required paperwork. However, some of the drivers harass him, behavior that has increased since President Trump took office in January.

“The most degrading thing is when the drivers arrive with their MAGA caps and they ask, ‘Hey, when are you going back to Mexico?’ ” said Huerta, who works for a company that makes baking mixes and nutritional powders. “ ‘Soon, don't worry about it.’ That's the only answer you give, because you can't say more, because you don't know if when you close the door, they’ll make a call and say, ‘Hey, there’s some Mexicans in here.’ ”

Huerta is one of the 68,000 workers in the Chicago region’s food and beverage manufacturing sector, according to a 2023 report from World Business Chicago, an economic development agency. Warehouses operated by some of the nation’s largest food brands accept raw products from farms that are processed and mixed into edible goods, boxed, packaged and shipped to grocery stores and restaurants nationwide. 

The labor force of forklift drivers, box packers, mixers and inspectors that has helped turn Chicago into a global logistical hub is largely fueled by immigrants with varying legal statuses.

For decades, those jobs have often been difficult and sometimes unsafe, with undocumented workers having little recourse when their rights were violated. In recent years, worker advocates have said that state and federal policies have made progress in protecting vulnerable immigrants who anchor the region’s growing food logistics industry.

But now, the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies have revived fears that recent gains are unraveling and the stability of the region’s food system will be shaken. Trump has ended deportation deferral programs, increased workplace raids and sued the state of Illinois over some of its labor laws. 

Most notably, Trump terminated a Biden-era program called Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement, or DALE, which allowed undocumented workers who spoke out about labor violations to apply for a four-year work permit, essentially removing the threat of deportation. 

Huerta was granted a permit through DALE in 2024.  

He and dozens of other undocumented temp workers made formal complaints against their employer, a third-party food logistics company with several locations throughout the Chicago area. The workers alleged that management discriminated by giving them heavy or dangerous jobs that the company knew they couldn’t refuse because of their immigration status. As a result, Huerta was granted a temporary work permit and was able to switch jobs. 

“It turns out that the mistreatment, the distinction between full-time workers and temp workers is quite significant, because full-time workers are not usually given jobs that are as heavy as those given to agency workers,” Huerta said. 

Huerta feels vulnerable, even though he is, for the first time in 26 years, able to work legally in the U.S. 

“It's true that right now, I have my work permit, but it's the same thing, you're still undocumented, you're still the one who has no say,” said Huerta, whose temporary work permit does not provide a path to citizenship.

To better understand how Trump’s immigration policies are reshaping Chicago and its role in the national food system, Investigate Midwest spoke with dozens of warehouse workers, food manufacturers, immigrant advocates, lawmakers and neighborhood leaders. 

The increase in workplace raids across the country has made many too afraid to show up for work. 

Companies have laid off hundreds of people after Trump revoked some work permit programs. In suburban Schaumburg, more than 500 people were laid off in April from Nestlé USA’s Nation Pizza, the maker of DiGiorno and other popular frozen pizza brands. 

The end of DALE underscores a broader shift. Once seen as a tool to encourage workers to come forward about labor violations, its cancellation signals the administration’s possible intent to not investigate workplace violations.

“The climate of uncertainty that has been created here, I think it's particularly punitive, and it is affecting the food supply chain,” said Nik Theodore, a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. “There are wide-ranging impacts here, in very uncertain times.”

Temp work, exploitation and the fight for protections

Even before the first non-Indigenous settlers arrived in the Chicago area, the land between the Upper Mississippi River System and the Great Lakes was a confluence of trade. 

Over the past 170 years, the addition of railroads, river ports, major highways and airports has turned Chicago into one of the largest logistics hubs on the continent.  

As the region’s manufacturing sector declined in the 1970s, the area leaned into its logistics industry, which became “an economic fix,” according to José Miguel Acosta-Córdova, an economic geographer and historian.

“There was a large area of land available for purchase for development west of the city, and you had eager governments,” Acosta-Córdova said of the collar counties, a five-county region west of Chicago. “There’s the need to move goods efficiently and rapidly around the world, and the need to store those goods as they were moving, right? So then the ’80s and ’90s and onwards, you see this huge logistics boom started happening.”

As massive warehouses were built, thousands of new jobs were created. 

Over the last century, America’s agriculture and food production industries — including meatpacking plants, corn fields and industrial animal farms — have increasingly relied on immigrant labor as a way to maintain low pay and substandard working conditions. 

With few other options, some of the immigrants who have flocked to jobs at Chicago’s food warehouses told Investigate Midwest they are forced to deal with demanding quotas and unsafe conditions. 

“I came to this country with the American dream,” said Ricardo César González-Valentína, a warehouse worker from Mexico City. “But [abuse] begins to take away a piece of your life, of your body. You come here to work, you don't come to do bad things. When I get to know the warehouses, it’s work that sustains the country, because that's truly what we do. Contributing our part so that every American, from every country, can be fed. It has to pass through working hands. And those hands are mostly Latinos, from the moment a seed is harvested, from the moment it is planted, it blossoms, and the fruit emerges.”

While roughly 42% of farm workers are undocumented, less is known about how many undocumented people work in food manufacturing because it’s not tracked by a federal agency. 

“This is a number that's kind of difficult to put your finger on,” said Theodore, the UIC professor. “What we do know is that these workers are the backbone of the food system in Illinois and nationwide.”

Even before Trump’s second term, the food supply chain struggled to find enough workers, but in recent months, farms, meatpacking plants and warehouses have reported a rise in labor shortages. The work can be physically demanding and repetitive, and the pay is low.  Huerta is paid $18 an hour to drive a forklift all day. 

Theodore believes Trump’s mass deportations will worsen the problem.

“Labor markets are not going to just seamlessly adjust without friction,” Theodore said. “I don't think that there is a waiting workforce that is hoping to be employed by food processing plants. And this applies both to the city of Chicago, the collar counties, the rest of Illinois, and the major food manufacturing belts in Nebraska, in Iowa and elsewhere.”

Many individuals employed in the food distribution and processing industries are hired by temporary staffing agencies that often do not provide a clear pathway to full-time employment. This arrangement creates a "permatemp" workforce that critics say traps people in low-paying and sometimes hazardous jobs for decades.

González-Valentína, the warehouse worker from Mexico City, received a work permit through the DALE program before Trump took office. He described the food logistics company he previously worked for as “a mafia.” 

“They fire people every six months. The company won't let you have seniority because it doesn't want to give benefits,” he said. “When we were there, they fired people every six months and still had the nerve to hire another 100 people.”

Worker centers in and around Chicago have attempted to advocate for better pay and benefits, increased safety and more job security. But the decks are stacked against temp workers, according to Maria Alfaro, an organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice. 

“If [a higher up] doesn't like you, they'll give the harder spots to the people that don't have status, because they know that they need the job. And if they complain, they can get rid of them,” Alfaro said.

“That's where people are getting hurt. People are getting hernias. People are getting their hands messed up with rotary tears because of the weight that they have to carry. And some of these people are women, you know, puny women that are carrying 50-pound bags. I don't know how they do it all day.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqm6J1jAEA

State lawmakers push for worker protections

In recent years, Illinois lawmakers enacted measures enshrining public education rights for children of undocumented parents, approved driver's licenses for noncitizens, and restricted state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. 

Legislators also required employers to notify workers within five business days when federal authorities flag discrepancies in their E-Verify — the voluntary federal system that verifies worker eligibility — or I-9 employment forms. An I-9 audit means that ICE or the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division within ICE may do an on-site investigation of a worksite. A raid is different in that it won’t be announced. The law also prohibits employers from screening job applicants through E-Verify before hiring.

In May, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Illinois, arguing that its state law interferes with immigration enforcement. A federal judge in Chicago dismissed that lawsuit in August.

This past legislative session, lawmakers also nearly passed amendments to the Privacy in the Workplace Act, which would have allowed worker centers and workers, regardless of their immigration status, to sue employers for violating their rights. The proposal was a response to the Trump administration’s funding cuts to federal labor enforcement. 

Those funding cuts could put more pressure on states to investigate worker violations, but Illinois is facing its own funding challenges. 

“The state is in financial straits,” said State Rep. Edgar Gonzalez, a Chicago Democrat and a co-sponsor of the bill, who said the proposal will be brought back in November. “And we don't want to impose too much on the attorney general's office, or anybody who would need to enforce this. Allowing the interested party [to sue] allows them to go through other mechanisms in order to seek remediation.” 

One of the most significant improvements for undocumented workers prior to the second Trump administration came with the federal DALE program, which allowed undocumented workers to avoid deportation if they had credible information about a workplace violation. 

Before DALE, a complaint could mean losing a job. 

“Complaining means they tell you they don't need you anymore,” said Huerta, the worker from Puebla.  

DALE gave labor agencies access to workers and victims when investigating a potential case of child labor violations or a preventable fatality. 

“It made doing their work a bit easier,” said Ann Garcia, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. “Investigators could look into [reports] and not lose out on potential witnesses who otherwise wouldn’t have been there.” 

However, Trump ended DALE soon after becoming president, a move first reported by Bloomberg Law. 

Although only about 7,700 people had been granted DALE status by late 2024 (a fraction of the undocumented workforce), its end has had a ripple effect: Worker centers and community groups told Bloomberg they stopped filing applications altogether, fearing immigration authorities could use the personal information. 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processed DALE applications, did not respond to questions from Investigate Midwest.

“Unfortunately, we're kind of back to a situation today where neither of these agencies can do their work adequately,” Garcia said. "There's really no possibility at this point of getting this kind of relief.”

Garcia believes DALE could make a comeback, though, with the next administration in 2029. 

"I am hopeful that if we get a change in an administration that's more positive, then we might be able to pick up from where we left off,” she said. “We were just getting started building trust and getting the word out.”

Fear of ICE shapes life inside Chicago’s warehouses

For many warehouse workers, the greatest fear is an ICE raid. 

Chicago has been a focal point for the Department of Homeland Security, but federal agents have focused mostly on street arrests, using traffic checkpoints or entering public parks. 

Workplace raids have been rare, but there’s worry from both employers and employees. 

Some workers, who did not want their names published for fear of deportation, said they worry each time they leave for work. “I think we all worry about whether we're going to come back or not,” said a mother of two from Mexico. 

Brenda Palomares, a worker from the Mexican state of Guerrero, said the fear in her community reminds her of the shelter-in-place rules during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I think that this year, this year in particular, will be a year that no one will ever forget,” Palomares said. “It will go down in history, just like the pandemic. Right now, we’re in another pandemic, but it's Trump's pandemic, because they are tearing so many families apart.”

Since Trump took office, several food processing and warehouse businesses have reached out to local worker centers to ask how they should handle a raid. 

“We're normally training workers and fighting the boss, but now we're helping to train bosses how (to) protect your workers,” said Shelly Ruzicka, communications and finance director for ARISE, an advocacy group for temporary workers.

Kevin Amaro from Illinois Workers in Action, a Chicago-based worker center, said that preparing for an ICE raid is a lot like conducting a fire drill. It involves educating management about what their rights are and what to do if ICE comes to their facility, because “a lot of employers are scared, too.”

“We have a checklist...we really work with companies to strategize and figure out this plan,” Amaro said. “ I mean real training, not just ‘here’s a 10-minute talk. Here’s a flyer.’ Great. You ready? No, like an actual in-depth, 40 minutes or more, check-in and plan.”  

He emphasized the importance of not volunteering information beyond what’s legally required, and understanding the difference between audits, E-Verify checks and raids.

“There’s rights for everyone,” he said, “no matter your immigration status.”

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

Shutdown support for federal workers comes from range of businesses, charities

by Nicole Pilsbury, Maryland Matters
October 6, 2025

The Maryland Food Bank is monitoring traffic at food pantries across the state, with its network of about 800 community partners anticipating a rise in federal workers and contractors hit by the federal government shutdown, which currently has no end in sight.

As the shutdown continues, missing paychecks and the potential pause of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) support could lead to a surge of patrons at food banks around the state, said Chloe Woodward-Magrane, Maryland Food Banks director of communications.

“People should not go hungry because something is happening with their job,” Woodward-Magrane said.

The food bank is just one of the businesses, government agencies and nonprofits that have mobilized since last Wednesday when the government shutdown began, an event with an outsized effect in Maryland, where the economy relies heavily on federal spending.

The shutdown threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, many of whom were sent home Wednesday morning. Even those who are still coming to work because they were deemed essential workers — airport security, health care workers, customs workers and the like — are feeling the pinch, as they will work without pay until the shutdown ends.

Moore vows to keep some federal programs in Maryland operating – for now

Maryland is home to about 260,000 federal workers and 200,000 federal contractors, and has lost more than 15,000 federal jobs since the Trump Administration took office, according to an email sent Wednesday by the governor’s office.

“Shutdowns don’t just stop the government — they shortchange the people who need it most,” Lt. Gov. Aruna K. Miller said in the email.

As the Maryland Food Bank braces for an influx of federal workers and contractors, other groups are stepping forward to help ease the burden for federal workers during the uncertainty of the shutdown.

Utility protections

Utility companies are prohibited from turning off gas or electric services of impacted workers during a government shutdown or within seven days of the shutdown’s conclusion, according to a statement from the Maryland Public Service Commission. Those who are involuntarily furloughed or who are not paid during the shutdown are eligible.

In a letter to utilities Wednesday, Gov. Wes Moore urged companies to “go further” by exploring payment plans or suspending residential shutoffs during the shutdown, as opposed to requiring customers to reach out to companies themselves. He said that would help lessen the stress of “families who are already facing significant financial stress and uncertainty.”

“Taking this proactive step would demonstrate true corporate citizenship and provide a crucial safety net for all Marylanders, alleviating the need for impacted federal workers to negotiate individually,” Moore wrote in the letter.

WSSC Water, which provides water and sewer service to Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, on Wednesday suspended water turnoffs and waived late fees for federal workers impacted by the shutdown, according to Lyn Riggins, a spokesperson for the utility.

WSSC is also extending its “Get Current” program through November instead of its previous expiration date at the end of October. The program forgives a portion of customers’ balances and waives late payment charges and turn-on fees.

“While we are a large entity providing critical services, we’re also your neighbor,” said Riggins. “Anything that we can do to help our customers, to help our neighbors — this is what we can offer right now, and hopefully it will ease a little bit of the burden.”

Baltimore Gas and Electric and Pepco, two Exelon gas companies, said they are offering flexible payment options, late payment charge waivers, personalized bill assistance and streamlined verification that does not require proof of government identification.

Housing Protections

Moore, in another letter Wednesday, reminded state judges of a 2019 law that requires Maryland courts to temporarily pause mortgage foreclosures and evictions for federal workers who face a loss of pay during a shutdown.

“The Moore-Miller Administration is committed to ensuring that Maryland families, especially our dedicated federal workforce, are shielded from the consequences of inaction at the federal level,” the letter said.

Credit Union Support

As of Friday, 27 credit unions associated with the MD|DC Credit Union Association had offered assistance programs, such as short-term relief programs, low-rate credit cards, payment deferrals, fee waivers and financial counseling.

“Credit unions have a history of stepping up to serve their members in challenging times,” said John Bratsakis, president and CEO of the association. “We want members to know that credit unions are here with flexible options and solutions to help them through this federal government shutdown.”

How the federal shutdown is playing out across the government

Loan and Job Assistance

Moore announced other resources for Maryland workers impacted by the federal shutdown on Wednesday, including unemployment insurance, housing and utility protections, loan programs and resources for veterans.

“The federal government is stepping away from its basic obligations to Maryland and our people. But despite the challenge, our resolve is unwavering,” Moore said in Wednesday’s email. “I encourage federal government workers to take full advantage of these resources.”

Those who are working without pay during the shutdown can apply for a short-term $700 no-interest loan for essential expenses through the Federal Shutdown Loan program, starting Monday. The loan must be repaid within 45 days of the conclusion of the shutdown.

The Federal Worker Emergency Loan Program is available to federal workers who are laid off during the shutdown, and offers a $700 loan for support during financial hardship.

The governor’s Wednesday email also included links to resources that can help federal workers find a new job, such as job fairs, a virtual workshop designed for former federal workers and contractors and information about American Job Centers, which provide employment-related services.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.

Good night for incumbents as voters trickle to polls in 18 NC counties

by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press
October 8, 2025

Tuesday, voters in 18 counties trickled to the polls in the second of three sets of elections this fall to elect the leaders of North Carolina’s cities and towns.

The first round of elections in September decided which candidates would move forward to the general election in partisan contests, including Charlotte’s mayoral and city council races. 

Some of Tuesday’s elections decided which candidates made it past the primaries in nonpartisan contests. Others were general elections — in those, candidates who got over 50% of the vote won, while races where no candidate earned a majority set up the possibility of a runoff election in November. Any runoff elections would be held on Nov. 4, the same day as all other general municipal elections. 

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Each locality had its own, unique set of issues on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. Among the issues considered were how to preserve the safety, infrastructure and character of local communities amidst statewide growth and development pressure, as well as maintaining fiscal responsibility.  

Turnout was slightly higher than usual in most nonpartisan municipal races Tuesday, although it still ranged from about 10% of registered voters on the low end in Fayetteville to 30% on the high end in Louisburg. 

Final result or runoff?

Louisburg Mayor Christopher Neal was wrong. His re-election race will not go to a runoff, after securing 56% of the vote in a three-way fight. His winning margin will save the town upwards of $10,000. 

Louisburg leaders were angry earlier this year when the North Carolina General Assembly passed a law that changed their municipal mayoral elections from a plurality system without runoffs to a majority system where second elections are possible. 

Nobody knew about the late-added provision until it was too late to do anything about it. Still, nobody will own up to the change. 

Before Tuesday, Neal was confident that the mayoral election would end in an expensive runoff. But he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore — at least not this election cycle.

North Carolina law states that nonpartisan municipal elections are majority rule, meaning that if no candidate wins over 50% of the votes, the race might be decided in a runoff election. In this case, the second place candidate is allowed to request a second election, in which only the first and second place candidates’ names appear on the ballot. 

In offices where more than one candidate is chosen at once, like some city council races, the majority threshold depends on the number of people running. Similarly, if not enough candidates meet that threshold, then losing candidates may request a runoff. 

In New Bern, Mayor Jeffrey Odham narrowly missed the majority threshold in his four-way race. Second-place finisher Holly Raby finished about 400 votes behind, but could ask for a runoff. 

Trey Ferguson easily won an open seat in the city’s first alderman ward, and was joined by Sharon Bryant, Bobby Aster, Lainy White, Barbara Best and Dana Edwards Outlaw on the board. Bryant and White only got plurality wins though, putting them at risk of a runoff. White defeated incumbent Johnnie Ray Kinsey by 48 votes. Aster and Best are current aldermen. 

New Bern voters also had three bond referendums to weigh in on. They overwhelmingly approved of the combined $24-million effort to improve the city’s streets and sidewalks, parks and recreation offerings and stormwater infrastructure. 

In Roxboro, the seat of Person County, current Mayor Merilyn Newell did not run, making space for a three-way battle for her seat. The victor was current mayor pro temp Cynthia Petty, who will get the chance to be a full-time mayor with 55% of the vote. 

The three city council incumbents who ran for reelection — Shaina Blackwell Outlaw, Mark Phillips and Tim Chandler — were joined by newcomers Dustin Brann and Kendra Coggins as winners.

In Henderson, located in Vance County, voters chose their next board of aldermen. While incumbents Lamont Neal and Garry Daeke won their second and third ward seats back handily, respectively, two other incumbents fell short. 

In the first ward, Kenia Gomez-Jimenez bested three competitors, including incumbent Sara Coffey. In the fourth ward, Catherine Gill outran current alderman Ola Thorpe-Cooper and a third candidate. However, no candidate garnered a majority of the votes in the fourth ward, so Thorpe-Cooper could request a runoff. 

Elizabeth City Mayor Kirk Rivers won reelection in a landslide, and so did several city councilmembers. Joseph Peel, Johnson Biggs, Javis Gibbs, Rose Marie Cartwright, Kem Spence and Katherine Felton easily kept their spots on city council. 

However, Tim Jackson bested current council member Ronnie Morris by one vote in the fourth ward contest. Another council member, Johnnie Walton, placed a close third in the two-person seat, setting off a likely runoff. 

Finally, in Rocky Mount, Charles “Verb” Roberson strode past competitors Carl Revis, Bronson Williams and four others to win the open third ward City Council seat.

Incumbents Tom Harris and Jabaris Walker won in the sixth and seventh wards.

Making it to November for voters' final decisions

Several of North Carolina’s largest cities held nonpartisan primary elections Tuesday, including Greensboro, Durham and Fayetteville. 

In Greensboro, Marikay Abuzuaiter and Robbie Perkins will vie for outgoing Mayor Nancy Vaughan’ seat after taking the top spots on the leaderboard Tuesday. Abuzuaiter is on the current city council. 

Across the board, incumbent council members made it to the general election, including Hugh Holston and Jamilla Pinder in the at-large district and Zack Matheny in District 3. Pinder and Matheny placed fourth and second, however. In District 2, Cecile Crawford and Monica Walker will move on, and in District 4, Adam Marshall and Nicky Smith will continue.

Further south in Fayetteville, there were crowded primaries. 

Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin and Kathy Keefe Jenson will face off in the general election after fending off eight other candidates. Current City Council members Malik Davis, Brenda McNair and Deno Hondros placed first in their primaries, and will be joined by second-placers Gail Morfesis, Kathy Greggs and Joe McGee in November, respectively. 

The Fayetteville City Council District 1 and District 8 races had only newcomers competing; Stephon Ferguson and James Thomas III will progress in the former, while Shaun McMillan and Rodney Garvin will in the latter. 

Voters in three counties — Durham, Orange and Wake — headed to the polls for the Durham mayoral and city council primaries. 

Mayor Leonardo Williams came out on top with a 26-point lead over second-place finisher Anjanee Bell. The pair will match up again next month in the general election. 

City Councilmember Chelsea Cook had a similarly dominant run in Ward 3. She will face Diana Medoff.  

Other councilmembers Mark-Anthony Middleton and DeDreana Freeman cannot say the same. They placed second to Shanetta Burris and Matt Kopac, respectively, and will hope their odds with voters are better in November. 

Hickory and Asheboro held contests of their own. 

Hickory held one primary: the fifth ward alderman. Five people filed to run, and Arnita Dula and David Zagaroli will advance. Despite the nonpartisan label of the race, Dula is the known Democratic choice, while Zagaroli is the Republican choice. 

In Asheboro, the current mayor did not run, but two current council members, Joey Trogdon and Eddie Burks, secured their spots in the general election next month. Councilmember Kelly Heath also made it in the city council contest. However, another current council member, William McCaskill, placed only 7th in the 15-way city council primary, which is not enough to progress to the general election. 

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

New law strips local regulation, oversight from future UNCA campus developments

The provision — which targets Buncombe, Orange and Watauga counties — allows public university projects to avoid local ordinances

by JACK EVANS October 8, 2025

State university developments in Buncombe County no longer have to follow local building or zoning regulations, nor can they be subject to any local review, under a new law in effect this week.

The law, part of a regulatory package that went into effect Monday without Gov. Josh Stein’s signature, also preempts local regulatory control and oversight on University of North Carolina System projects in Orange County (home of UNC Chapel Hill) and Watauga County (Appalachian State University). A similar provision already existed in Wake County (North Carolina State University).

The provision — originally part of the North Carolina House of Representatives’ proposed budget, then moved to the Regulatory Reform Act in July — will loom over UNC Asheville’s plans to develop its so-called Millennial Campus properties, including 45 acres of woods that in recent months have become the subject of some of the most heated debate in the city.

Exactly how the change in law will affect the development will be unclear until UNCA decides to move forward with a specific development plan, said Asheville City Attorney Brad Branham. But in general, he said, it means UNC System projects no longer have to abide by Asheville’s Unified Development Ordinance, which governs all other development in the city. City regulations on issues such as stormwater management, tree maintenance and parking requirements go out the window; so do those governing height and density.

The law also strips what little oversight the city had when it comes to state university developments. State law already preempted local governments from making subjective decisions on whether to allow those developments, but local agencies still managed a technical review process, which evaluates whether projects meet objective requirements. Now that review will be done at the state level, Branham said.

“We’ve taken limited control and reduced it down to nearly none,” he said. “That’s really the headline.”

City won’t lose ability to enforce usage regulations

Such projects will still have to follow the state building code, which includes safety-focused requirements, Branham said. The city won’t lose its ability to enforce usage regulations, such as its noise ordinance.

A UNC Asheville spokesperson on Tuesday night said, in a written statement, that the university is “committed to providing the greatest benefit to the people we serve throughout western North Carolina and the state.

“It’s a privilege and a mission we take seriously,” the statement added. “We continue to uphold standards of transparency and good faith across our operations, and our decisions of mutual interest and concern will continue to be guided by conversations with stakeholders.”

UNCA announced in June that it planned to build a mixed-use development anchored by a 5,000-seat soccer stadium on the woods site; two months later, after sustained outcry from students, faculty and community members and amid pressure from elected officials, Chancellor Kimberly van Noort announced that the university would pause negotiations on that development and convene a commission to consider public input and other options.

UNCA and van Noort have come under criticism for lacking transparency in their development plans, a trend that has continued as its next steps seem to remain in a holding pattern. A university spokesperson on Wednesday did not immediately respond to a question about the status of that commission, which is to be selected by van Noort and Board of Trustees chairperson Roger Aiken. No public meetings or events involving the commission have been announced. UNCA said in August that it plans for the commission to finish its work in January “at the latest.”

The regulatory bill containing the university exemptions passed in late September, largely along party lines. Stein said in a news release last week that he declined to sign the bill because of concerns about “provisions that negatively impact water quality,” but he praised it for containing “common-sense regulatory reforms”; he did not note the university exemptions.

Rep. Brian Turner, D-Buncombe, was among the first to criticize the provision when it was part of the state budget. At the time, he said he couldn’t get answers about its provenance. In a text message Tuesday, he said he’d still never gotten clarity on where it came from.

“Everyone was very mum about it,” he said.

Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments about this story, which has been republished on our Facebook page. Please submit your comments there.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Jack Evans is an investigative reporter who previously worked at the Tampa Bay Times. You can reach him via email at jevans@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

New law strips local regulation, oversight from future UNCA campus developments • Asheville Watchdog

State university developments in Buncombe County no longer have to follow local building or zoning regulations, nor can they be subject to any local review, under a new law in effect this week. The law, part of a regulatory package that went into effect Monday without Gov. Josh Stein’s signature, also preempts local regulatory control […]

Asheville WatchdogJACK EVANS

Rural Health Transformation Program Won’t Make Up for Federal Budget Cuts, Experts Agree

by Liz Carey, The Daily Yonder
October 6, 2025

A new program touted to give $50 billion in federal funding to rural hospitals won’t necessarily keep rural hospitals from closing, according to several experts in rural health.

The funding is part of a compromise made in Congress to help rural communities after H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” now being rebranded as the “Working Families Tax Cuts Law,” eliminated more than $911 billion from Medicaid. At the time, opponents to the bill argued it would hurt rural hospitals and force many already at risk to close. 

In July, Congress members argued the compromise — $50 billion in temporary funding — would be a solution to ensure that rural communities have the funding they need to access care. Critics now say the funding won’t help rural hospitals stay open and won’t come close to the amount of money they will lose.

Because of the cuts from the Trump tax-cut plan, federal Medicaid spending in rural areas is expected to drop by $155 billion over 10 years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, or about $15.5 billion per year. The Rural Health Transformation Program will provide $50 billion over five years to help offset those losses, or about $10 billion per year. Many industry experts say that’s not enough.

“Fifty billion dollars over five years does not equate to $155 billion over 10 years,” Alan Morgan, president and CEO of the National Rural Health Association, said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. 

“This particular issue was almost a shell game aspect of the legislation. It was put into the bill recognizing that rural hospitals could potentially close. The whole discussion on Capitol Hill was about ‘We’ve got to keep rural hospitals open.’ But the legislation itself specifically says (RHTP funds) cannot be used as an offset for Medicaid. And the administration in multiple avenues has specifically said this cannot be used to keep rural hospitals open, period.”

In fact, the legislation is quite clear. The $50 billion will be allocated to qualifying states, which can then disburse them, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Half of the funding each year will be distributed evenly between states that qualify for the funding, and half will be provided proportionally to states that show the greatest need.

First, that means that $25 billion per year will be split evenly between the states. So, Connecticut, with four rural hospitals, two of which are at risk of closing, would get the same amount as Kentucky, with more than 60 rural hospitals, 35 of which are at risk of closing. And that’s if either of the states qualifies. 

To qualify, states would have to present a “rural health transformation plan” that outlines how the state plans to improve health care access and outcomes, prioritize the use of new technologies, initiate collaboration between rural health care providers, improve the rural workforce pipeline, and outline strategies for the long-term financial solvency of rural hospitals while identifying risk factors for rural hospital closures.

Additionally, if a state is selected to receive funding, it will also be assessed for additional funding based on its population, the number of rural health facilities it has, and the situation of the hospitals in the state to receive additional funds. Those additional funds would also be allocated based on “how well state applications align with program strategic goals,” according to a statement provided by the HHS. Those goals include – “Making Rural America healthy again and supporting rural health initiatives to promote preventative health and address the root causes of diseases”, among others.

“They are pushing this legislation to be used to improve the health of communities. They’re talking about improving veterans' care and improving emergency medical services. It's the whole ‘Make America Healthy Again,’ preventive services. And that's all great. At NRHA, we support that. We love the fact that we are focusing on the rural community,” Morgan said. 

“But you can see there's a huge disconnect here. The $50 billion cannot by legislation (and is not by the administration) going to be used to help rural hospitals keep their doors open. This $50 billion is about sustaining healthcare for the future. It has nothing to do with maintaining access today.”

For its part, HHS said the funding was intended to help rural communities in the long run, not provide just short-term solutions.

A spokesperson for the department wrote in an email to the Daily Yonder that the program is designed as a “catalytic investment” to support reforms and innovations that would strengthen rural health care systems beyond the life of the program.

“The Rural Health Transformation Program is designed as a catalytic investment,” the statement said. “The goal is to support reforms and innovations that strengthen rural health care systems — including hospitals, clinics, and providers — beyond the life of the program, creating models that are sustainable and better serve their communities in the long-term.”

Jason Griffin, managing director of digital health strategy and cybersecurity at Nordic Global, a healthcare staffing and technology solutions company, said what it all means and how it will all play out is still up in the air.

“I think we're all still trying to figure that out, to be quite frank,” Griffin said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. “There’s a lot that foundationally could happen with those funds. Infrastructure is going to be key. I'm still hearing from organizations that just stable access to the internet is a problem. I'm hoping that's where these funds go first — to attract and retain staff and establish a foundational infrastructure.”

Still, states aren’t even sure how to qualify for the funding, he said.

“There was no clear criteria for approval,” Griffin said. “That's what makes me nervous, is that, in our political climate, we don't start to pick and choose our favorites. I would hope that gets cleared up pretty quickly.”

The American Hospital Association (AHA) asked for as much in a letter to HHS in August.

As part of a letter to Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, on August 11, 2025, the AHA asked that the RHTP funding prioritize payments to rural hospitals, as well as using the funds on workforce development and for infrastructure and telehealth services.

“Aging rural hospital infrastructure is a pressing challenge that threatens the quality and availability of health care in many communities,” the AHA wrote.. “Most rural hospitals were constructed decades ago, often with funding from now-outdated federal initiatives like the Hill-Burton Act, and their physical plans have not kept pace with modern standards. Several are in need of significant maintenance, renovation, or even complete replacement, but rural hospitals face unique difficulties accessing capital for such investments since they operate on narrow or negative margins and are frequently excluded from traditional lending markets.” 

“Moreover, rural hospitals have emerged as leaders in advancing telehealth and remote patient monitoring technologies that bring care closer to patients’ homes,” the AHA letter continued. 

“These innovations not only expand the reach of skilled clinicians but also reduce unnecessary hospital admissions, improve patient satisfaction and help patients maintain better health outcomes in their own communities. With additional funding, more hospitals could invest in telehealth and digital health infrastructure to ensure that even those in the most remote areas receive timely, high-quality, and convenient care.”

Still, Oz, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said the money in the RHTP will change rural health for the better.

“This program is a historic investment that will catalyze needed change in rural health systems and improve lives for generations to come,” Oz said in a press release. “For too long, when it comes to health care access and infrastructure, we've left behind the backbone of America. That stops now with this program that will spark real change for rural health care.”

Applications from states for the funding are due on November 5, with announcements regarding which states have been awarded funding expected on December 31, 2025.

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

When the courthouse leads to the therapist’s office

by Jennifer Smith, CommonWealth Beacon
October 2, 2025

ACCESSING MENTAL HEALTH support can be difficult under normal conditions, with a workforce shortage worsening long wait times for emergency or routine behavioral health care. But for almost 20 years, the Bay State has had a way to connect some people deeply in need of mental health services to intensive treatment, case management, and housing support. 

The catch? They have to be arrested first. 

A set of three Boston municipal courts and five district courts hold special sessions of mental health court, or “Recovery with Justice.” They offer a ramp off the usual judicial process for defendants on pre-trial or post-conviction probation with serious mental health issues. If defendants, their attorneys, the district attorney, and the courts sign off, the participants embark on a supervised process of mental health treatment and assistance with job and housing supports, if needed.  

They are an attempt – part of a national movement toward such specialty courts – to grapple with overlapping issues of mental health and criminal conduct. 

"There's been a whole bevy of studies and articles that show that incarcerating someone with a mental health condition only aggravates the underlying symptoms and the underlying conditions,” said Judge Kathleen Coffey, who founded the Massachusetts mental health courts in 2007 and retired in September after 32 years on the bench. “So, in many respects, when we criminalize mental health by locking people up rather than providing them with the access to treatment and the mental health services that they need, we're turning people into criminals, unnecessarily, unfairly, and a lot of times without due process.” 

The mental health courts make a compelling offer: If the participants agree to use it, the system will connect them with long-term and accessible mental health supports often out of reach for people in prison or just trying to navigate the crunched behavioral health landscape. But they are expensive, resource intensive, and serve just a fraction of the people in need of mental health services in and out of the criminal justice system. 

Statewide, 1.15 million adults in Massachusetts struggle with mental health issues. Among young people with depression, 57 percent receive no care at all, based on KFF data on Massachusetts mental health outcomes.  

Health officials have warned for years that workforce shortages are leading to blockages in accessing intensive mental health care even as the stigmas around seeking treatment wane. And within the criminal justice system, mental health needs abound.  

In 2022, Hampden Sheriff Nick Cocchi, the vice president of the Massachusetts Sheriffs Associations, estimated that 75 percent of the inmate population incarcerated in county jails now require addiction and mental health services. 

More than 200 defendants are participating in the state mental health courts at any given time, according to Coffey. Defendants in the program must have serious mental illness or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, and their condition must be connected to their criminal behavior. 

According to an analysis of the program from the courts, 25 percent of mental health court participants are female and 75 percent are male. Forty-seven percent identify as white, 37 percent as Black. Over half have experienced homelessness. 

The Recovery with Justice process is something of a middle ground between the controversial practice of involuntary court-mandated mental health care and ignoring mental health factors in the criminal justice process. Massachusetts is one of only three states without assisted outpatient treatment laws, which allow judges to mandate outpatient mental health care, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit group that advocates for involuntary commitment laws. 

“While mental health courts are critical for people with severe mental illness who commit criminal acts and face prosecution, criminal conduct should never be a prerequisite for receiving effective treatment,” the group wrote in 2015 when discussing the expansion of mental health courts in Tennessee.  

The structure of the mental health courts is unusual – a twist on the typical adversarial criminal justice process. Participants agree to a program of at least 90 days of intensive outpatient services, after which they transition to a “stepdown” outpatient program, and then to an integrated primary care practice. The whole process typically takes 12-18 months. 

At a sitting of the mental health court in June, visited by Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Kimberly Budd, Coffey presided over about a dozen cases. Lawyers and clients offered updates on therapy progress, medication, work training, and housing situations. 

One man had missed several required therapy sessions, and prosecutors were mulling returning the case to trial.  

“You have to take your medicine and go to therapy,” Coffey urged. If he kept to the program, “this case is going to go away,” she said. “Criminal records aren’t good. They act as barriers.” 

He agreed, quietly, and promised to see his therapist that Friday. Outside the courtroom, after the session, his lawyer reiterated the seriousness of abandoning the mental health probation process and finding himself back on the trial track.  

Participation in the mental health courts is voluntary, though mental health advocacy organizations often consider the programs with a wary eye. 

“Mental health courts are inherently coercive because defendants with mental illnesses agree to treatment with the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads,” according to Mental Health America. At the same time, the organization says, “our support for mental health courts is predicated on the fact that even coerced treatment in the community is almost always better than the manner in which persons with mental illnesses are treated in prisons and jails.” 

The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law notes that mental health courts “do not solve the systemic problems that cause people with mental illnesses to be arrested and incarcerated in disproportionate numbers.” They may also “inadvertently create incentives to arrest people to get them into services” and “lead mental health authorities to prioritize scarce resources to be delivered at a late state, as part of a system that involves coercion.” 

The clinicians who work in these courts are employed by Boston Medical Center, not the court system, creating what Coffey calls "a true partnership" among the court, clinicians, probation officers, prosecutors, and defense attorneys. 

"The focus in a mental health session is, how can we assist this person to navigate systems, to access treatment, to monitor their treatment, to provide the necessary supports, so that when they complete a period of probation — either pre-trial probation or post dispositional probation — they have a skill set that will enable them not to get rearrested due to mental health concerns," Coffey said. 

Participants at the June session assured the judge that they liked their program, that it was a “good journey,” and that they were doing their best to keep up with their programming. But even with a dedicated team, system strains intruded. One probation official explained that her defendant was struggling to access treatment beds when needed. 

That is an all-too-familiar problem for Bay State residents generally.  

Massachusetts residents seeking mental health care through traditional channels can face wait times exceeding two months for an initial assessment, according to a 2022 report from the Association for Behavioral Healthcare. Patients who seek emergency room care for behavioral health visits encounter long wait times — stuck in emergency rooms without treatment in what is known as “emergency room boarding” for more than a day — due to serious staffing shortages, according to a report from the Health Policy Commission. 

The “growing trend” of behavioral health emergency room boarding “is not only harmful for these patients and their families,” HPC Director David Selz said, “but also impacts hospital staff, non-[behavioral health] patients, and emergency medical services across the Commonwealth.” 

According to a March 2023 report, 568 inpatient beds were unavailable due to staffing shortages in August 2022, and by the end of the year 666 patients were boarding in acute care emergency departments awaiting inpatient psychiatric placement. The commission launched a program aimed specifically at boosting the behavioral health workforce in 2024. 

Having access to immediate and tailored clinical support through the mental health courts can be something of a workaround to access care, for the small number of applicants that meet the strict criteria. 

As the state grappled with provider shortages, the past four years have been a period of growth for mental health courts in Boston, which were first backed by private foundation funding and championed by retired Judge Maurice Richardson. Coffey and others looked to models in Florida and New York as they developed the Massachusetts approach, landing on a supervised recovery model and a combination of state and private buy-in. 

An expansion of the Recovery with Justice program was funded for four years by a $4 million federal grant awarded in 2020. The Boston Outpatient Assisted Treatment (BOAT) Program supported the Boston Municipal Court and Boston Medical Center partnership until funds ran out in December 2024, though the broader Recovery with Justice program is still funded by the state specialty courts budget line item. 

The state's Fiscal Year 2026 budget allocates $7.97 million for the operation of all specialty courts statewide, a line item that covers not only the eight mental health court sessions but also 35 drug courts, six treatment courts for veterans, two homeless courts, and other specialized sessions across Massachusetts.  

Like many other parts of state government, the courts are feeling a financial squeeze in the face of looming federal cuts. While state lawmakers increased the Trial Court system budget this year, it fell far short of the extra $30 million court advocates said was needed to address serious staffing shortages and burnout.  

The program takes funding and coordination across courts, health centers, prosecutors’ offices, and treatment sites. While it has managed to weather workforce and bed shortages for the past two decades, even its boosters still note the paradox of walling off care behind a courthouse door. 

"There's a definite weakness and flaw in our system where people have to get arrested in order to access and have the necessary supports, without question,” Coffey said. “But unfortunately, that's the system that's been in place. To our credit, we're trying to make the courts accountable, accessible, and responsive to the needs of the community that we serve, and certainly individuals with a mental health condition are a very distinct and worthy community." 

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

Data centers in other states are raising power costs in West Virginia

This story was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight. Get stories like this delivered to your email inbox once a week; sign up for the free newsletter at https://mountainstatespotlight.org/newsletter.

by Sarah Elbeshbishi, Mountain State Spotlight
October 5, 2025

For decades, West Virginia was home to some of the lowest power rates in the country, but in recent years those costs have rapidly increased. 

The state’s continued reliance on coal, even as cheaper alternative energy sources have emerged, has contributed to the soaring electricity prices facing West Virginians. And the state’s declining population has exacerbated those increased costs.  

Now, data centers are adding to the problem. 

The latest explosion of artificial intelligence and data centers is expected to significantly increase the need for energy for the next several decades. 

But as straining power grids try to meet the new level of demand, they’re offsetting associated costs onto all of their customers, including West Virginians. 

Although West Virginia isn’t yet home to any major data center development, because the state shares the same power grid as a dozen other states, West Virginians are footing power costs associated with meeting the energy demand driven by Data Center Alley in northern Virginia. 

This could get worse if new data centers in the region tie into the power grid, regardless of whether they’re in West Virginia. 

Predicted demand for electricity outpaces supply

West Virginia is part of a regional grid run by PJM Interconnection, which operates the electric grid and plans the movement of electricity to meet demand across 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic region.

PJM forecasts how much electricity is needed, so it tries to secure enough generation from sources like power plants, solar farms and wind turbines. 

Over the last few years, the rise of artificial intelligence and data centers has substantially increased the demand for energy. As a result PJM has forecasted larger amounts of energy to meet peak energy demand.

But while the demand has surged, the supply of power generation hasn't. And since the supply hasn’t kept pace with demand, energy resources are much more limited than in previous years, causing costs to increase. 

Last year, the cost to secure enough power supply was $2.2 billion. But for this year, that cost rose to $14.7 billion. Those costs are spread across the entire grid, which is why ratepayers are beginning to feel that increase. 

This doesn’t impact the roughly 460,000 residents who are serviced by Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power because their parent company owns enough power generation to meet their customers’ demands. 

Data center energy demand increases other costs

In addition to needing more energy, data centers also need more electrical infrastructure. Such upgrades and improvements to the grid system are an expense typically paid for by PJM customers. 

Currently, there are two proposed transmission lines to address the growing electricity demand in the northern Virginia region, which is known as Data Center Alley. Both lines are proposed to cut through West Virginia, which has drawn fierce opposition from communities on the routes. 

Because of the way PJM determines the costs of infrastructure projects, all ratepayers will be on the hook for paying for these two lines. In fact, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that the two transmission lines would cost West Virginians more than $440 million over the next 40 years.

The energy research nonprofit and other groups urged PJM to reform how it determines who pays for infrastructure projects to prevent ratepayers from bearing costs caused by data centers. 

“One of the principles of electric rate regulation is that the entity that’s imposing cost on the system bear those costs to the extent possible,” said Cathy Kunkel, an energy consultant at IEEFA.

“Obviously, that is complicated in practice, but the historical way transmission cost allocation has been done is just not keeping up with that principle when it comes to data centers,” she added.

The sudden increase in energy demand has also increased the cost of fuel, which is also driving up power bills across PJM and West Virginia.

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

Amid fiscal woes, Cantrell proposes smaller 2026 city budget, her last as mayor

by Katie Jane Fernelius, Verite News New Orleans
October 1, 2025

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell on Wednesday (Oct. 1) proposed a leaner city budget for next year, as the city is facing a series of financial challenges, including decreases in anticipated tax revenues and federal spending. 

To balance the budget, Cantrell is asking the New Orleans City Council to approve spending cuts for nearly every department. Though there are no anticipated layoffs or furloughs to city employees in the proposed budget, Cantrell plans to continue a hiring freeze that has been in place since earlier this year. 

“No matter how we maneuver, we have to live within our means while we also work to bring more revenue into our city so that we can serve the residents of this great city with the resources, the public services that they need to live a very fruitful life in the city of New Orleans,” Cantrell said. 

Wednesday’s budget address before the City Council was Cantrell’s last, and the budget she proposed will ultimately be overseen by whoever succeeds her as the next mayor of the city. The mayor, who has served two terms and is barred by city law from seeking a third, will leave office in early January. 

Following her budget speech, Cantrell remained in the City Council Chamber for the duration of the meeting. It was a rare extended public appearance for Cantrell, who has generally kept a lower profile since August, when a federal grand jury indicted her on corruption charges, including alleged fraud and obstruction of justice. 

While the council works to finalize a 2026 spending plan over the next several months, the city continues to deal with a deficit — and resulting belt-tightening, including the hiring freeze — for this year. The shortfall was caused, in part, by increased overtime expenditures resulting from the New Year’s Day terror attack and the snowstorm that slammed the city with nearly a foot of snow. Some of those costs may be eligible for reimbursement by the federal government.

The mayor and her administration have pointed the finger at the City Council for what they’ve characterized as irresponsible budget management. But councilmembers have pointed to inaccurate revenue projections and a lack of budgetary transparency from the administration as also being partially to blame. The two sides again came to loggerheads at the meeting, with Cantrell and Council President JP Morrell taking shots at each other over who’s to blame. 

‘Where we are in this moment’

Cantrell’s proposed 2026 budget totals $1.59 billion. Of that, $725 million is the general fund budget — made up of recurring local revenues from city property taxes, fees and fines — over which the city has the greatest direct control. (The remainder of the budget includes federal and state grant dollars and special funds, much of which are earmarked for specific purposes.)

The proposed 2026 general fund is about $150 million lower than what was initially approved for 2025 — and $20 million below more recent projections for city revenues this year. The reduction is due to a combination of lower anticipated tax collections next year and, Cantrell said, a drawn-down city fund balance, which has previously been used to supplement the budget.

The proposed budget includes dramatic cuts to the Department of Public Works, Economic Development and Community Development, as well as more modest cuts to the Health Department. It also includes an 8% increase for the New Orleans Police Department.

Cantrell and her administration also proposed some “revenue enhancement” measures, like increasing sales taxes and parking meter rates. 

“We need revenue that is going to truly meet us where we are in this moment,” Cantrell said. “The nickel-and-diming will not work, and any expenses have to be aligned with a revenue source.” 

According to the administration’s presentation, despite these challenges, public safety, quality of life and economic development will continue to be prioritized next year.

The administration has also proposed a bond sale to raise $510 million to support projects focused on public infrastructure, affordable housing and drainage and stormwater. Voters will decide whether to approve the three bond issuances later this fall during the November general election. 

“So, while New Orleans continues to punch above her weight, we need to ensure that she's given the tools and the revenue and the resources to maintain that level of fight, that same level of commitment, and, more importantly, services that we know that our people need,” Cantrell said.

Cantrell defends handling of 2025 budget

Cantrell also used Wednesday’s meeting to defend her administration’s handling of this year’s budget and to lob criticism at the council for what she called its decision — during 2025 budget talks — to increase that budget by $70 million, putting the city in a worse financial position as it dealt with expenses related to the New Year’s attack and the snowstorm.  

Morrell defended the council’s record – noting that the amendment to increase the 2025 budget by $70 million was done “by request,” meaning that it happened in collaboration with the city administration. But Cantrell insisted that the council was funding its own priorities, not the administration’s. 

“We need to be honest and truthful relative to the ordinance that you're speaking about,” Cantrell said. “There are many millions that were not brought forth by the administration. You can go line item by line item, and you can see where the council added millions to a proposed budget that was balanced.”

But Morrell responded that the mayor and her administration have been sending conflicting messages around whether the city was in financial dire straits, and have not been fully transparent about the full scale of the city’s fiscal challenges.

To that end, the council has moved to bring in the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office to examine the city’s finances – a move that the administration also welcomed.

The City Council will now host budget hearings throughout October and November. However, this year, those hearings won’t start until Oct. 14 – after the Oct. 11 primary election, where locals will vote for their next mayor and City Council. If no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote, those races will proceed to a runoff on Nov. 15. 

“I alone made that decision after talking to my colleagues, because I didn't want elections interfering with budget hearings,” Councilmember Joe Giarrusso, who chairs the Budget Committee, said, adding that he also wanted to give enough time for the next mayor-elect to be involved in conversations about next year’s budget. 

The council plans to adopt its final budget on Dec. 1, the last possible day it can do so under the law. 

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

Aging environmental activists wonder who’ll carry on the fight?  

by Will Atwater, North Carolina Health News
October 1, 2025

By Will Atwater

Larry Baldwin stood before a crowd of about 60 people gathered in Northampton County for the screening of The Smell of Money, a documentary that follows rural North Carolinians standing up to the industrial hog industry, and he posed a question.

“This is a beautiful room,” he said, “but there is one thing missing. Anybody know what it is?” He paused, waiting for an answer. 

“It’s our youth,” he said.

Baldwin, an activist who works for the international clean water advocacy group NC Waterkeeper Alliance, co-hosted the screening with local resident and community activist Belinda Joyner. 

Baldwin’s question carried a sense of urgency, given that some of the people featured in the documentary are no longer living — including Rick Dove, a longtime environmental advocate who died in August. For years, Dove worked closely with Baldwin to educate the public about environmental harms — particularly the effects of factory farms housing thousands of swine and poultry — on land and human health. His death underscored a larger reality: As veteran activists leave the stage, fewer young people are stepping in to continue the work.

The absence of young environmental activists — especially in rural areas like Northampton County, where the air quality is affected by air pollution from nearby highways and a wood pellet factory, among other things — is striking at community gatherings like the one Joyner organized. At 72, she refers to herself as “a voice for my people.” That voice, like those of many colleagues who have fought for decades to improve air and water quality in low-wealth rural communities across the state, is getting older.

‘Where are the young people?’

While longtime community leaders like Joyner continue to speak out, many rural areas are aging as younger residents flee in search of better opportunities. In 2023, 21 percent of the U.S. nonmetro population was 65 and older, compared with 17 percent in metro areas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. With fewer working-age residents, rural communities have a smaller pool of young people to assume leadership roles. This threatens the future of grassroots activism in areas with a high level of environmental threats.

This demographic shift is unfolding against a backdrop of environmental insults that weigh on rural North Carolinians — especially those living in the eastern part of the state. There, massive hog farms dominate the landscape in places like Duplin County, where it’s said that hogs outnumber people.

North Carolina-generated research has also linked air pollutants from poultry farms — ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and fine particulates — to asthma, eye irritation and higher rates of heart disease and stroke. Managing the thousands of gallons of hog urine and feces generated daily has led to groundwater contaminated with nitrates and pathogens, which raises risks of gastrointestinal illness. Persistent odors, noise and truck traffic add stress and reduce quality of life. Giant poultry-growing operations pose similar risks, as piles of chicken feces release ammonia and generate dust that worsen asthma and may strain cardiovascular health. Overall, research suggests that people living near factory farms experience poorer health outcomes than those who don’t.

Activists point to several reasons it’s difficult to keep young people in their communities after high school.

“As [young people] graduate from school and leave to go off to college, they don’t come back, given the conditions they grew up under,” said Naeema Muhammad, 74. Muhammad began advocacy work as a teenager and spent 21 years as a community organizer for the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, a community advocacy organization. She is now a senior adviser for the group.

She believes parents can help address the issue by exposing their children to community work early on. 

“I always thought part of the problem was that when the adults came to meetings, they left their children at home,” she said. “I’d [ask] them, ‘Where are the young people, and why didn’t you bring your children or grandchildren with you to the meeting?’”

Getting children involved early and giving them responsibilities during community meetings, Muhammad said, would make them more likely to stay engaged in advocacy as they grow older.

That idea resonates with UNC Chapel Hill senior Mary Jane Watkins, 21, who said she began her activist journey at 19 after learning more about the alleged environmental harms to her hometown of West Badin by the Alcoa Aluminum Co., which operated a smelting plant there for a century before closing in 2007.

“This environmental justice issue, being so close to home and my family, motivated me to stand up and fight for the cleanup of Badin and other rural towns like my own,” Watkins said in an email to NC Health News.

She agreed that the best way to engage the younger generation in environmental and social justice issues is to reach them early.

“The biggest barrier that prevents young Black people from environmentally impacted communities from becoming advocates is the lack of education,” Watkins said. “Despite prior advocacy efforts that had been taking place for decades before I was informed, I did not learn about the damage Alcoa had caused in my town at school or from community members during my upbringing.”

“Beyond this, a lack of access to higher education due to economic and social barriers — especially in rural communities — prevents young people of color from gaining the knowledge and networks that might mobilize them against environmental racism.”

Engaging the next generation

“We haven't done a good job of getting young folks to understand how important this work is,” said Sherri White-Williamson, executive director of Environmental Justice Community Action Network, based in Sampson County. She noted that environmental justice requires many disciplines — from attorneys who shape policy to riverkeepers who protect waterways — because the work touches every part of the environment.

White-Williamson also highlighted another challenge rural communities face in keeping and recruiting young people.

“It’s hard to get young people because they want to be where things are sexy and fun and close to recreation and entertainment — and there’s just not that [here],” she said. “It’s going to take a different mindset, but it’s also going to take us, who are older and have been in this business, to figure out ways to get younger people engaged.”

Building career pathways is another hurdle. 

“We have a lot of internships, but we don’t have a lot of positions that open up,” said Emily Sutton, executive director of the Haw River Assembly, a Chatham County-based advocacy group, where she also serves as the Haw Riverkeeper. “We try to provide stipends and paid internships when we can and when we have funding for the projects that the interns are working on.”

Despite those hurdles, efforts are underway across the state to introduce young people — from grade school to college — to environmental justice work and potential career paths.

Bridging the gap

For more than three decades, the Haw River Assembly has run The Learning Celebration, a three-week program that introduces fourth graders to the river and its surrounding ecosystem, Sutton said.

Students spend a half day at the river, rotating through stations on stormwater pollution, aquatic insects as indicators of water quality, local history and art using native clay, and watershed animals. About 100 students participate each day, and the visit concludes with a puppet show and concert, Sutton said.

“There are kids that have grown up [coming here]. Their parents brought them along with them when they were infants to volunteer, and now they’re grown and [some] are environmental scientists,” she said. “I’ve been at meetings [where] people are like, ‘Oh, you work for Haw River Assembly? I remember going there on a field trip when I was in fourth grade.’ I don't think it’s an exaggeration or hyperbole to say that [the experience] really changes people’s lives.”

Sutton estimated that more than 40,000 kids have participated in the program in the past 35 years.

While the Haw River Assembly introduces elementary school students to environmental stewardship, other programs in North Carolina aim to engage older students and prepare them to become environmental activists and find professional work in the field.

Planting seeds

For the past three years, Catawba College, a small liberal arts institution in Salisbury, has offered students seven to 10 days of hands-on environmental and environmental justice education through the Clean Water Advocacy Boot Camp, a partnership with the Waterkeeper Alliance.

The boot camp was the brainchild of Larry Baldwin and Rick Dove, the late former riverkeeper and senior adviser to Waterkeeper Alliance. Their goal was to expose students to a wide range of environmental issues and introduce them to leaders in the field, such as Joyner who has spoken to boot camp attendees about environmental issues in her Northampton County community. 

Sarah Jackson, assistant professor of communication studies and digital media, has co-taught the semester-long course that precedes the boot camp. During the semester, students interact with guest lecturers, writers and policymakers such as Corban Addison, author of Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country on Trial (2022). The book recounts the hog nuisance lawsuits against Murphy-Brown/Smithfield Foods, which were tried in federal court in North Carolina between 2012 and 2019.

Another guest was documentary filmmaker Jamie Berger, producer of The Smell of Money, which also covers the hog nuisance trials from the plaintiffs’ perspective.

“They’re covering the same events but coming at them through two different media,” Jackson said. “The students get to hear both of their perspectives — how they worked on location and how they approached the subjects differently. It was cool for the students to see those two artifacts, the book and the documentary, and how they were both made.”

Third-year Catawba student Jenna Coleman, who is studying environmental studies and sustainability, said she would definitely recommend the boot camp course to other students. 

“It is so intensely hands-on. You really get to experience what is going on [in the environment] — you’re in the water, scooping [samples] into the little vial, rowing your boat … you’re doing it all.” 

Last summer’s boot camp participants spent time with Sound Rivers Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop, who took them on a canoe outing on the Neuse River. Recently, Krop reflected on her career path.

Krop said that she worried about climate change and land loss when she was a teenage volunteer, and she later discovered she could build a career in environmental advocacy. Her path was different from colleagues in science, law or agriculture, but she stressed that there are many ways into the work.

“I always tell students that whether you’re interested in education, advocacy, law or science — you can come at this work from [any] angle.”

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

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