Japanese snow monkeys don’t just soak in hot springs to escape the winter chill — their steamy spa sessions may also be reshaping their invisible world. Researchers in Japan found that macaques who regularly bathe show subtle but intriguing differences in lice patterns and gut bacteria compared to those who stay dry. Surprisingly, sharing the hot pools didn’t increase their parasite load, challenging assumptions about disease risk.
A new study has uncovered why some brain cells are more resistant to Alzheimer’s damage than others. Researchers found a natural cleanup system that helps remove toxic tau protein before it can form harmful clumps. The study also shows that cellular stress can produce a dangerous tau fragment linked to Alzheimer’s. Strengthening the brain’s natural defenses could point the way to new treatments.
An international team combining two major neutrino experiments has uncovered stronger evidence that neutrinos and antimatter don’t behave as perfect mirror images. That subtle difference may hold the key to why the universe didn’t vanish in a flash of self-destruction after the Big Bang.
Scientists have uncovered a surprising new hero in the fight against one of the world’s deadliest fungal infections: albumin, the most abundant protein in human blood. In a major international study, researchers found that people who develop mucormycosis — a fast-moving and often fatal “black fungus” infection — have strikingly low levels of albumin, and that this deficiency strongly predicts death.
In Yellowstone’s wild chess match between wolves and cougars, it turns out the real power play is theft. After tracking nearly a decade of GPS data and thousands of kill sites, researchers found that wolves often muscle in on cougar kills—sometimes even killing the cats—but cougars never return the favor. Instead of fighting back, cougars adapt. As elk numbers dropped, they shifted toward hunting more deer, which they can eat quickly and in safer terrain, helping them dodge wolf encounters.
When a bone break is too severe to heal on its own, surgeons often rely on grafts or rigid metal implants — but both come with serious drawbacks. Now, researchers at ETH Zurich have created a jelly-like hydrogel that mimics the body’s natural healing process, offering a potentially game-changing alternative. Made of 97% water, this soft material can be laser-printed into intricate bone-like structures at record-breaking speeds, down to details thinner than a human hair.
(The Center Square) – There are lots of words of support from Democrats at the Wisconsin Capitol for Gov. Tony Evers special session on redistricting, but the state’s Democratic leaders are measuring their words.
When this legislative session began, Wisconsin Senate leaders made the unusual decision not to create a committee dedicated to election policy for the first time in nearly two decades. That choice has had a measurable consequence: The Senate has taken up far fewer election bills than the Assembly, and several measures that cleared the lower chamber are now stalled with no clear path forward.
Of the 19 election bills that Votebeat has tracked this legislative session, 18 have gotten at least a public committee hearing in the Assembly, compared with nine in the Senate. Fourteen of those bills passed the Assembly, compared with six in the Senate.
Even in a session when the Senate has generally moved more slowly than the Assembly on many issues — as of Feb. 25, the Assembly had passed 439 bills since the start of the current two-year session, while the Senate passed 276 — the disparity is especially stark on elections.
Both chambers’ election activity is down compared to last session. With a dedicated election committee in the Senate, about 30 election bills received a committee hearing, compared with about 45 in the Assembly. Republicans have controlled both chambers for more than a decade.
“The lack of the dedicated committee has definitely changed things,” said Sen. Mark Spreitzer, a Democratic member of the local government and government operations committees. Without a clear Republican point person on election policy in the Senate, he said, the chamber is allowing the Assembly to drive most of the legislative action.
Some of the bills that have moved through the Assembly but haven’t passed the Senate include proposals to expand early voting hours and to bring the state in line with a 2022 federal law regarding the timing of casting electoral votes and certifying election results in presidential elections, designed to prevent the kind of post-election chaos that President Donald Trump and his allies sowed after the 2020 election.
“The lack of the dedicated committee has definitely changed things,” says Sen. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, who is shown in a Senate session, June 7, 2023, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Clerks have told Votebeat that some of the stalled bills would significantly improve their efficiency — including an omnibus proposal to create a system tracking voters adjudicated incompetent and also send voters text notifications on the status of their absentee ballots, said Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat. That proposal passed through the Assembly in November, but hasn’t been heard in the Senate.
Given the absence of a dedicated Senate election committee, Tollefson added, the Assembly has been doing the heavy lifting. But even with ready-made bills, the Senate does not appear to be eager to pass election legislation.
In every legislative session since 2009, there has been a Senate committee formally tasked with covering election legislation. Committee chairs typically serve as the go-to experts on their panels’ subject areas. They consult with lobbying groups, schedule public hearings and set up committee votes — giving them the power to advance or stall legislation.
But when election bills are scattered across multiple committees, there’s no clear point person in the Senate to guide them through the process.
In the absence of a dedicated election committee in this session, several committee leaders declined to explain whether or when the stalled election bills might move. And some voting groups say it has made it harder to know who to consult with in the chamber to discuss election legislation.
At a WisPolitics event in Madison on Feb. 12, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said that the absence of a Senate committee “doesn’t make it hard to pass election bills.” He added that there are “definitely avenues where election bills can run in the Senate,” including the Senate Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development and the Senate Committee on Transportation and Local Government.
LeMahieu, a Republican, didn’t respond to Votebeat’s request for comment. Sen. Dan Feyen, the chair of the government operations committee, didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. Sen. Cory Tomczyk, who chairs the local government committee, also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But even some of their fellow Republicans are seeing the effects. For example, Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara is the author of two of the bills languishing in the Senate, which would require and fund a certain number of early in-person voting hours in every municipality. Those reforms, she said, are “crucial to restoring confidence in our election process.”
She said in the Assembly, municipalities and clerks are working on a few details before the bills receive a final Senate vote, though both proposals passed the Assembly in November. The proposal to require the in-person hours got a Senate hearing in late January but has seen no activity since, while the bill to fund it hasn’t gotten a hearing at all.
There could still be a late flurry of committee activity. On Feb. 27, the Senate government operations committee approved the proposal to bring the state in line with new federal laws regulating presidential elections. But the next presidential race is two years away, and most of the bills that would affect all elections — not just presidential ones — remain stalled. Another bill to require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to hear complaints against itself was scheduled for a March 3 hearing.
With the legislative session entering its final stretch, though, the stalled bills face increasingly long odds. The last general floor session period of the biennium ends on March 19, and the Assembly is effectively finished for the session. That means the Senate only has a few weeks left to consider election bills that already cleared the lower chamber, and if the Senate modifies any of them, the Assembly is unlikely to return to approve the changes.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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While no hyperscale data centers are operating yet in the state, Wisconsin companies are helping power massive facilities elsewhere by supplying parts and equipment.
Just three Wisconsin companies have already amassed more than $1 billion in data center-related business.
It’s still unclear how much large-scale Wisconsin data centers will ultimately contribute to the state’s economy — and some question their long-term impact.
None of the billion-dollar-plus data centers planned for Wisconsin are yet online, but the nationwide, artificial-intelligence-fueled market is already spurring economic growth in the state.
Wisconsin business leaders say no comprehensive accounting has been done. But just three Wisconsin companies have already amassed more than $1 billion in data center-related business:
Regal Rexnord, a Milwaukee maker of motors, announced in February it had received $735 million in orders from data centers.
Generac, a Waukesha-based manufacturer, told Wisconsin Watch it has a backlog of $400 million in orders for backup generators for data centers. Moreover, Generac announced Feb. 19 it is acquiring a 120-employee Illinois engineering company to help meet data center demand.
Racine-based Modine announced in February 2025 it received $180 million in orders from a new customer for data center cooling systems to be manufactured in Virginia and Mississippi. In addition, the company in November opened a 155,000-square-foot plant in suburban Milwaukee to manufacture the systems.
Many companies don’t publicly report details on data center business they do, so it’s impossible to tally total economic impact in Wisconsin. But there are other examples.
Trane Technologies is manufacturing cooling systems for data centers in La Crosse, where it was founded in 1913, and says data centers are a strong part of its business. In November 2023, Excellerate opened a 385,000-square-foot plant in Little Chute, primarily to manufacture “modular electrical buildings” for data centers. Maysteel, a Washington County manufacturer, opened a data center hub in November 2024 and announced in February it is expanding the operation.
The sheer demand to outfit data centers has meant that some business has trickled down from larger companies to smaller ones.
Modular Power & Data has 90 employees in Dane County and suburban Milwaukee to manufacture electrical distribution products. Chief Operating Officer Erik Thompson told Wisconsin Watch that Modular did $10 million of data center business in 2025 and expects to more than double that in 2026.
That work is “transforming a very small company into what I believe will be a very large Wisconsin manufacturer,” Thompson said. “Without this growth, we’d always be much smaller.”
Employees at Modular Power & Data work on modular power systems in Cudahy, Wis., Feb. 25, 2026. (Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
Copper is shown at Modular Power & Data in Cudahy, Wis., Feb. 25, 2026. It’s used in electrical components that help power data centers. (Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
Because no hyperscale data centers are scheduled to begin operating in Wisconsin until later this year, their ultimate economic impact remains unknown.
Nationally, data centers are known for spurring construction work. That includes companies such as Brownsville-based Michels Corp., a lead contractor on the $15 billion data center under construction in Port Washington, and Waukesha-based Boldt Co. But those jobs are often temporary.
“The standard data center development model — speedy dealmaking and opaque negotiations — delivers short-term construction jobs and revenue, but little durable local economic upside,” the Washington, D.C.- based Brookings think tank concluded in February.
In Wisconsin, data center expenditures are projected to raise the state’s gross domestic product from $354 million in 2024 to $881 million in 2029, according to University of Virginia economist João-Pedro Ferreira, author of a study done for the Joyce Foundation. The data center workforce is expected to triple from 360 to 1,143 jobs, but constitute only 0.09% of the overall labor market.
“The impacts might seem a lot, but they are not,” Ferreira said.
At least $46 billion in hyperscale data centers are under construction or under consideration in Wisconsin. Besides Port Washington, $20 billion worth of data centers are under construction and planned in Mount Pleasant, and a $1 billion facility is being built in Beaver Dam. Proposals are pending in Janesville, Kenosha and Menomonie.
That’s as concerns about impacts on land, water and electricity spur loud opposition to data centers in Wisconsin. On Facebook alone, more than 24,000 people have joined groups to fight hyperscale centers that are proposed or under construction in the state.
But Wisconsin businesses see more growth from AI. In November, a foundation connected with Waukesha County-based Pieper Electric announced a $2 million donation to expand Waukesha County Technical College’s Applied AI Lab.
Dale Kooyenga, CEO of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and a former Republican state lawmaker, said skills being developed for data center construction have value after the facilities are built.
“These men and women building these data centers aren’t building just buildings, they’re building the world’s largest computers,” he said.
A generator for use in a data center manufactured by Waukesha-based Generac is shown at its plant in Oshkosh, Wis. (Courtesy of Generac)
Kooyenga also pushed back on claims that AI will be bad for the economy.
“The concept that robots and technology are out to get your jobs has been a concept in America since 1900. That’s not a new fear,” he said. “But the fact is, is that there will be a different-looking economy and different opportunities.”
AI’s growth is affecting workers unevenly across industries.
It’s reducing employment in the most AI-exposed industries, such as computer systems design, and it’s especially hitting younger workers, according to a new Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas analysis.
But wages in those sectors have continued to grow as AI tools are benefiting veteran workers — those who have gained knowledge from experience.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The Milwaukee Common Council is moving forward with local legislation to prepare for any potential escalation of federal immigration enforcement in the city
Republican state lawmakers partially approved a funding request from the Wisconsin Department of Instruction Tuesday, a move that comes about a month after the agency was scrutinized for spending $368,885 on a meeting at a Wisconsin Dells resort.
Opponents of a large livestock farm’s plans to expand in Pierce County blasted the state’s approval during a contested case hearing Tuesday, voicing concerns the expansion would raise risks of groundwater contamination.
From breakfast oatmeal to brandy old fashioneds at night, maple syrup plays a starring role. Several communities around the state — including Phelps — celebrate the ingredient with festivals.
Gov. Tony Evers has ordered Wisconsin lawmakers to return for a special session next month to consider a constitutional amendment aimed at ending partisan gerrymandering in state legislative districts.
Rep. Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) announces legislation that would allow people whose incomes don't make them eligible for Medicaid to buy coverage through BadgerCare Plus. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
With rising costs for health insurance purchased through the Affordable Care Act, Democrats in the Legislature are proposing another tactic to help more people afford health coverage.
Rep. Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) announced legislation Tuesday that would enable members of the public buy into the state’s BadgerCare Plus health insurance plan.
BadgerCare Plus is Wisconsin’s name for Medicaid and is available to families and individuals with household incomes up to the federal poverty guideline — $15,960 for a single person and $33,000 for a family of three.
Johnson’s bill would expand BadgerCare’s coverage by creating a “public option” — allowing families with higher incomes to pay for the health plan out of pocket. Democrats in Wisconsin have offered similar proposals in the past that have not advanced. At the same time, the idea has been catching on in some other states, Stateline reports, although not all of them are connected to Medicaid.
“When this law is passed, Wisconsinites will have an affordable option instead of the sky-high premiums and massive deductibles currently available from private insurance carriers,” Johnson said at a news conference in the Capitol Tuesday morning. “Public health care keeps prices down because it is not beholden to insurance company stockholders or bonuses for executives, and those savings will get passed on to Wisconsinites.”
“This will dramatically increase, for a large number of people, the number of affordable insurance options at a time when there is a crisis in affordability generally, and health care is one of the top reasons why,” said Robert Kraig, executive director of the advocacy group Wisconsin Citizens Action.
Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee). (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said the bill would provide an affordable health care alternative for people who had relied on plans purchased through the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, that was created by the Affordable Care Act. Enhanced subsidies that had lowered the cost of policies bought through the marketplace expired at the end of 2025.
On HealthCare.gov policies, “average premiums more than doubled when Republicans in Congress allowed those enhanced subsidies to expire at the end of last year,” Larson said. The subsidies were eliminated for families with incomes of more than 400% of the federal poverty guideline — around $86,000 for a couple.
For a 55-year-old couple at that income level, the premiums on the second-tier of plans sold at HealthCare.gov would increase “from $601 a month to $2,311 per month this year,” Larson said — or about $20,000 a year.
The legislation would “move us closer to the point where we need to get, where health care is a right for all and anyone can get the care that they deserve without a speck of fear that they are going to go broke just so that they can survive,” Larson said. “The fact that that is an open question right now is shameful for our state. It’s shameful for our country.”
The bill also would allow small businesses with fewer than 50 employees to enroll in BadgerCare plans. Madison chef and restaurateur Evan Danells said some of his employees had relied on ACA plans but were also confronted with increased premiums that many would have trouble being able to afford. Danells is a member of Main Street Alliance, a small business group that has organized support for the ACA among other policies.
Chef Evan Danells (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
“One of the coolest things about having a public option is it allows people to go in and get affordable preventative care,” Danells said. As a result, “they don’t become wards of the state health care system when they’re all of a sudden broke and the problem has snowballed.”
Indiana Hauser of La Crosse said she works two part-time jobs, neither of which provides health insurance. Last year she was able to purchase health coverage for $12 a month with the enhanced subsidies. “This year it went up to $400 a month for worse coverage,” said Hauser, who is active with the advocacy group Citizens Action of Wisconsin.
Hauser said she has life-long health complications due to a traumatic brain injury when she was a teenager. Nevertheless, she said, she has had to go without insurance this year because she cannot afford it.
An affordable community clinic helps her, she added, but many communities don’t have such resources. While rationing her medications and visits to the doctor, Hauser worries that she’s “one small accident away from a financial crisis,” she said.
“Across the state, there are people and families making life or death decisions, and it doesn’t have to be that way,” Hauser said. “The BadgerCare public option could change my life and the lives of people all across our state.”
Larson and Kraig said that due to changes made by the federal tax- and spending-cut bill that President Donald Trump signed in July 2025, the likely premiums people would pay for BadgerCare under the Public Option haven’t yet been calculated. A 2025 analysis by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau projected premiums could cost about $971 a month, but also noted that a variety of factors could increase or reduce that cost.
According to the Feb. 17, 2025, fiscal bureau memo, “It is possible that the purchase option population could be, on average, less costly, which could make the premium lower” compared with the medical needs of BadgerCare patients who qualify for Medicaid. “If, on the other hand, the purchase option attracts older individuals or individuals with more significant health conditions, the premiums may be similar to, or even higher than, the average cost of BadgerCare Plus coverage.”
Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee) (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
With the legislation being introduced after the Assembly has already wrapped up its floor period for 2026, the proposal seems unlikely to advance this year.
“I would say it’s always a good idea to introduce good bills,” Johnson said when asked about the timing of the announcement. Gov. Tony Evers, she noted, earlier Tuesday called fora special session to pass a resolution against gerrymandering the state’s legislative maps.
“We have five days on the calendar in March. We have five days in the calendar in April, I think it’s three days in May,” Johnson said. “There’s no reason that we cannot take up this legislation.”
Then she corrected herself. “Well, there is one reason, and it’s because the speaker chooses not to call us into session,” Johnson said.
“A lot of these bills are sitting in Google Drives,” added Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee). “All this session, we have bills ready to go. It’s a matter of will they be heard? It’s a matter of what is the appetite to have the debate about them? We know that this is something that Wisconsinites care about. They want us to stay here. They want us to get this done.”
A woman looks at health insurance options on Nevada’s health exchange. This year Nevada became the third state to add a public option plan to its marketplace. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/ Stateline)
Nearly two decades ago, progressives fought to include a so-called public option — a government-run health plan — in the broad health care overhaul known as Obamacare. That effort failed, defeated by heavy lobbying from the insurance industry and opponents who decried it as a government takeover of health care.
But the final Affordable Care Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010, didn’t bar states from adding a public option plan to their state-run insurance marketplaces. In recent years, several states have done so — and others might follow as rising health care costs, the expiration of federal subsidies and Medicaid cuts make coverage less affordable and available for millions of Americans.
This year Nevada became the third state, after Colorado in 2023 and Washington in 2021, to add a public option plan to its marketplace. So far, 10,762 people have signed up, according to figures provided by the Nevada Health Authority.
The goal of such efforts, said Christine Monahan, an assistant research professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, is to provide an alternative to profit-driven private insurance companies, “and to give people an option that doesn’t have that kind of capitalistic incentive in place.”
The results so far have been mixed, however. It’s still too early to say whether the states’ public option plans, which are public-private partnerships rather than purely government-run, will significantly lower costs for consumers or pay enough to providers to ensure their continued participation.
Meanwhile, other states’ efforts to create public options have stalled. In 2024, Minnesota delayed the creation of a public option amid concerns about the lack of a dedicated funding source. Efforts in Maine and New Mexico also have faltered.
“It’s really too early to see what the right combination of design of a public option is,” said Andrew Shermeyer, a doctoral candidate in health policy at the University of Minnesota and the author of a study on the Colorado plan. “We don’t know what works and what doesn’t. So that’s a real challenge for policy makers.”
Different approaches
As public-private partnerships, the public option plans in Washington, Colorado and Nevada rely on the participation of private insurers as well as health care providers. And they have to compete for customers with the purely private plans offered on the exchanges.
“We all know health insurance is extremely, extremely unaffordable and expensive. So the challenge behind it is you have to find something that’s attractive to consumers,” Shermeyer said. “You have to find something that insurers will comply with, and you have to find something that providers will feel adequately compensated for.”
States have used a combination of carrots and sticks to make sure those things happen.
In Washington state, private insurers that sell plans on the state marketplace can choose to offer the public option plan, which is called Cascade Select, but they don’t have to. To keep costs down and premiums low, the state mandates that participating insurers pay providers within a certain range.
In the first two years that Cascade Select plans were available, many providers were unwilling to participate. So in 2023, Washington began requiring that hospitals contract with at least one public option plan. The change has expanded the availability of Cascade Select plans — as of last year, they were available in every county — and boosted enrollment: Last year, about 30% of Washingtonians who purchased coverage on the marketplace enrolled in a Cascade Select plan, up from 1% in 2021.
We don't know what works and what doesn't. So that's a real challenge for policy makers.
– Andrew Shermeyer, researcher at University of Minnesota
Laura Kate Zaichkin, director of market competition and affordability at the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, said that figure is up to 40% this year. In 2021, Zaichkin said, Cascade Select premiums were a bit higher than for many other plans on the exchange. This year, they are about $100 per month cheaper, she said.
Zaichkin said the public option is more important than ever, because of the recent expiration of federal tax credits that had dramatically lowered the costs of purchasing marketplace coverage, as well as looming Medicaid cuts.
“I would say that it is a really important lever,” she said. “It always has been, and it is even more so right now, when individual market coverage is under threat and when customers cannot afford their premiums.”
Unlike in Washington, every private insurer that participates in Colorado’s marketplace must offer versions of the state’s public option plan, which is called the Colorado Option, in every county where it sells its own plans. Colorado Option plans all offer the same benefits across insurance carriers, so companies compete based on premiums, their networks of providers and customer service.
To keep premiums relatively low, participating health insurers are required to negotiate with providers to keep costs down. If state regulators think premiums are getting too high, they can take charge of the negotiations and mandate that hospitals or providers lower their reimbursement rates.
About 14% of marketplace enrollees chose the Colorado Option in 2023 when the plan launched. In 2025, the public option accounted for nearly half of the roughly 282,500 enrollees on the exchange, the state said.
But Julie Lonborg, senior vice president and chief of staff of the Colorado Hospital Association, said limiting payments to providers could end up reducing services and access to care for patients.
“Overall, enrollment continues to grow in the program, so it is having some success from the purchasers,” Lonborg said in an email. “But it is built on a fundamentally flawed policy of rate setting on hospitals that will result in consequences. Hospitals have felt pressured into rate reductions at a time when threats to health care funding are escalating.”
One of the arguments for a public option is that it introduces competition that pushes down premiums for all marketplace enrollees, no matter what plan they choose. But in his study of the Colorado marketplace, researcher Shermeyer said the Colorado Option only lowered premiums for people who were receiving the federal subsidies; unsubsidized enrollees saw higher prices compared with people living in other states.
Kyla Hoskins, a deputy commissioner who oversees the Colorado Option program at the state’s division of insurance, disputes that finding. Hoskins cited other research that found premiums across the state, even for private plans, declined by more than $100 after the Colorado Option was introduced.
She said more people are buying the Colorado Option plan because it’s more affordable and because of its simplicity.
“Your deductibles, your maximum out-of-pocket costs, the amount you pay when you see your primary care [provider] or fill a prescription — that cost sharing is the same no matter which health insurance company is offering the plan,” Hoskins said.
“And I think that clarity that standardization provides, has been a value to consumers,” Hoskins said.
Slow start in Nevada
Like in Washington, insurers in Nevada don’t have to offer a public option plan, called Battle Born State Plans (after the state’s nickname). However, the state has given them a strong incentive to do so by tying it to Medicaid.
Around 75% of Nevada’s Medicaid enrollees receive coverage through managed care. In order to remain eligible for Medicaid managed care contracts, insurers have to submit a bid to offer a public option plan that meets certain requirements.
Those Medicaid contracts are worth “millions if not billions to carriers,” said Stacie Weeks, director of the Nevada Health Authority, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program and its insurance marketplace. “Essentially, this new contractual arrangement leverages the state’s purchasing power with its Medicaid carriers to get a better deal for consumers in the private market.”
To ensure the participation of providers, Nevada’s law requires them to be in-network with at least one public option plan to remain eligible for Medicaid, public employee and workers’ compensation payments, according to the Century Foundation, a liberal-leaning think tank. Instead of regulating reimbursement rates, Nevada hopes to keep premiums low by mandating that they be at least 5% below those of private plans.
Nevertheless, enrollment has been slower than expected.
State officials predicted that around 35,000 people would sign up in the first enrollment period. The actual number is less than a third of that. And so far, only three out of the state’s eight health insurance companies on the state’s exchange have picked up the plan.
“We expect to see this number grow over time as public awareness increases and as Nevadans continue to seek quality coverage options that help reduce their monthly costs, regardless of their income,” Weeks said. She added that many Nevadans automatically reenrolled in their previous health plans, and may not know about the public option yet.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
In Minneapolis, a masked border patrol agent stands in front of protestors in January as people gather near the scene of a fatal shooting by federal agents. The Milwaukee Police Department has issued a policy banning Milwaukee police officers from wearing masks to conceal their identity. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
The Milwaukee Police Department has explicitly banned officers from using masks or other facial coverings to hide their identities, Milwaukee Common Council members announced on Monday.
“We met with the police chief, delivered the message of what our constituents were demanding, and he acted. This is about responsiveness, accountability and trust,” Alderperson JoCasta Zamarripa said in a statement that quoted four members of the council, including council president José Pérez.
The statement said the new policy is aligned with the council’s “ICE Out” public safety plan.
Last month, officials announced a package of local ordinance proposals that aim to prepare the city for a possible surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The package included a requirement for all ICE agents to be unmasked when interacting with the public in Milwaukee.
The department updated the uniform requirements in its standard operating procedure, effective Monday.
The Milwaukee Police Department procedure states that facial coverings and masks are allowed in certain circumstances. These include but are not limited to the following: protection to prevent exposure to hazardous materials, protection on assignments to prevent the spread of diseases or viruses and protection from cold or extreme weather during assignments that require a staff member to be outdoors for periods of time.
“Note: Facial coverings and masks shall not be used for the purpose of concealing identity,” the procedure states.
In a statement to the Examiner, the police department expressed gratitude to elected officials, the Milwaukee Police Association and the Milwaukee Police Supervisors Organization, who worked in collaboration to make the modification to the operating procedure, the unsigned statement said, adding, “We are always better together.”
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