Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island speaks during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Dec. 11, 2025, as Chairman Roger Wicker looks on . The hearing examined the Trump Administration's deployment of the National Guard across the United States. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers who oversee armed services policy split along party lines Thursday when examining the deployments of the National Guard to cities across the country under what President Donald Trump describes as a crime-fighting strategy.

Members of the Senate Committee on the Armed Services questioned for nearly two-and-a-half hours high-level Department of Defense officials, including the Pentagon’s No. 2 lawyer and the head of U.S. Northern Command who oversees National Guard troops under federal deployment.

The hearing on Capitol Hill came less than one month after a gunman shot two West Virginia National Guard members in broad daylight outside a Washington, D.C., Metro station just blocks from the White House.

U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is recovering from critical injuries. A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with American troops in Afghanistan has been charged with first-degree murder. 

Senators on the panel expressed bipartisan messages of support and gratitude for Beckstrom, Wolfe and their families, but divisions were apparent over why and on what grounds Trump deployed the guard to five U.S. cities since June: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Ore.; Chicago and Memphis, Tenn.

Trump also threatened to send the guard to other places, including New York City, Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans.

Trump first federalized the California National Guard in early June, deploying them to Los Angeles against the wishes of Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats. 

A California federal district judge ruled Wednesday the Trump administration must return the troops to Newsom.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled Nov. 20 — six days before Beckstrom and Wolfe were attacked — that Trump’s deployment of the guard in the district was illegal. A federal appeals court has allowed the service members to remain in the district while the appeal plays out. 

Other cases, including challenges to Trump’s deployment of the guard to Oregon and Illinois, have also been tied up in court.

Countering crime

Sen. Roger Wicker, Armed Services Committee chair, opened the hearing by saying, “In recent years violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” citing the Department of Justice.

For that reason, he said, Trump “ordered an immediate and coordinated response by deploying the National Guard to some of our nation’s most dangerous cities.”

“Not surprisingly, Democratic governors and left-wing pundits have decried these deployments,” the Mississippi Republican said, dismissing any concerns as “manufactured and misguided.”

While capturing accurate crime statistics is challenging — as many crimes go unreported — murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery all decreased nationwide in 2024, according to the FBI’s latest crime statistics.

Data also show U.S. property and violent crime plunged between 1993 and 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. 

However, the analysis showed attitudes about crime split according to party affiliation.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., argued Thursday that guard deployments to cities across the U.S. are not out of the ordinary.

He asked Charles Young III, principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense, to explain how the process works.

Young, pointing to a stack of books on the table, said the examples are “voluminous.”  

“Rather than bringing in troops from the regular Army or the active component … the Founding Fathers wanted to resort to utilizing the National Guard because they were citizens and from the communities that were involved. And these books that I have here are just books on the role of federal military forces in domestic disorders,” he said.

‘Is that a legal order?’

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Army National Guard veteran who said she pushed for the hearing, slammed Trump’s guard deployments when she delivered the Democrats’ opening remarks.

Duckworth said Beckstrom’s death and Wolfe’s injuries “should never have happened in the first place.”

“Military service involves risks, and our service members accept those risks knowingly, selflessly. So we better be damn sure that the mission is the right one,” said Duckworth, who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm in Iraq when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade

Duckworth and other Democratic senators on the panel questioned the legality of Trump’s guard deployments and alleged the president was using the show of force to curtail public demonstrations and free speech.

Duckworth recalled Trump’s Sept. 30 speech to military generals in Quantico, Virginia, when he said the administration should use American cities as “training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military because we’re going into Chicago very soon.” 

In that same speech, Trump said Democratic-run cities are “in bad shape,” and “it’s a war from within.” 

Harking back to reports that Trump asked former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper about shooting protesters in 2020, Duckworth asked, “Let’s say the president issued such an order. He said so. Is that a legal order?”

“Senator, orders to that effect would depend on the circumstances,” Young replied.

“We have a president who doesn’t think that the rule of law applies to him, and he wants to show force,” Duckworth responded.

Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s ranking member, delivered a similar line of questioning, asking Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, “If the president declared an organization, a terrorist organization … and you were ordered to attack them on U.S. soil, would you carry out that order?”

“Sen. Reed, as with any order I get, I would assess the order, consult the legal authorities to ensure that it was a lawful order, and I would, if I had questions, I would elevate that to the chairman and the secretary, as they welcome at all times,” Guillot said. 

“And if I had no concerns and I was confident in (the) lawful order, I would definitely execute that order.”

Reed noted that Guillot was present for Trump’s speech in Quantico.

“The president essentially indicated that you should be prepared to conduct military operations in the United States against this enemy within. Are you doing that?” he said.

“Sir, I have not been tasked to do anything that reflects what you just said,” Guillot replied.

Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he didn’t believe testimony delivered Thursday by Mark Ditlevson, principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense, that Trump is “clearly doing the right thing” and the guard is working in conjunction with local authorities.

King, of Maine, said the testimony “was borderline humorous.”

“That didn’t happen in Illinois or in California,” King said. “We’re talking about a broader issue here that I think is extremely dangerous, and the reason it’s particularly dangerous in the present moment is we have a president who has a very low bar as to what constitutes an emergency.”

Cities targeted

Trump deployed thousands of guard troops to Los Angeles after local immigration raids sparked protests that city officials said local law enforcement were able to handle without assistance.

In D.C., he based his deployment on a “crime emergency” and the deployment of troops on the district’s streets happened as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out weeks of raids, traffic stops and other actions as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. 

District residents protested the deployment, and opposition posters, stickers, flags and graffiti sprang up across the city.

Trump justified sending the guard to Portland after falsely claiming the city was “burning down.”

District of Columbia and Tennessee officials have worked with the administration to bring the guard to their cities, which grants the troops power to assist local law enforcement. 

Illinois, Oregon and California officials have not agreed to work with the guard, which results in an order restricting members to only duties of protecting federal property.

Trump previously activated the National Guard to the nation’s capital in response to protests during the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A lot has changed since Caterham introduced its fully electric Project V concept all the way back in July 2023. Zero-emission sports cars don’t sound as appealing as they did, with many automakers now rethinking and delaying their electrification plans. But not Caterham.

The British company is preparing to unveil the first working prototype of its EV coupe at the Tokyo Auto Salon next month, a move that signals continued investment in a project it believes has long-term potential.

More: Caterham’s CSR Twenty Is The Priciest, Most Premium Seven Ever

According to the latest update, this initial prototype is being used for “testing and evaluation” as Caterham moves toward full-scale production. The company hasn’t pinned down a new launch window, but it’s understood that the previously suggested timeline of late 2025 or early 2026 is no longer on the table.

The last major update came in October 2024, when Caterham confirmed the Project V would use a Yamaha-supplied e-axle. The concept had originally promised 268 hp (200 kW / 272 PS) from a single electric motor, the same configuration Yamaha previously used on the 2022 Subaru STI E-RA concept. That figure still appears to stand.

A few months later, in December 2024, Caterham shared another technical development: the car will use immersion-cooled battery packs supplied by Xing Mobility. These cells, which use CTP (cell-to-pack) architecture, are said to provide 200 Wh/kg of energy density, outperforming traditional liquid-cooled alternatives. In practice, that likely means more range and less weight to carry around.

What’s Next for Project V?

The company’s next steps include continued evaluation of the electric powertrain, additional testing of the Xing battery system, and a round of chassis durability assessments. All of this will help shape the final production model, which still appears to share much with the original design study.

Besides the rolling prototype set to debut on January 9, Caterham also confirmed that the show car will make its US debut at the 2026 CES in Las Vegas on January 6. It’s likely this will be the same white vehicle displayed at the IAA Mobility Show in Munich last September

More: Another Gas Sports Car Dies So An Electric One Can Live

Having both cars on the circuit at once suggests that the Project V’s exterior and interior designs will carry over largely intact into the next stage of development.

A New Hand on the Wheel

In other news, Caterham announced last month that Bob Laishley had stepped down as CEO after four years at the helm. Laishley, a former Nissan executive, has been succeeded by Kazuho Takahasi, who is also the President and Founder of parent company VT Holdings.

Commenting on the prototype’s debut, Takahasi said:

“This is a significant milestone in the development of Project V, with our prototype making its public debut at the Tokyo Auto Salon. This next step enables us to begin a comprehensive vehicle testing program in collaboration with our technical partners. Our objective remains unchanged: to realise our vision of a pure electric sports car that embodies the unmistakable DNA of a Caterham.”

Caterham

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, June 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is ratcheting up pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to finish a study into medication abortion and to change its prescribing guidelines, sending a letter to Commissioner Marty Makary on Wednesday that the pace of the review is “totally unacceptable.”

The letter came just one day after leading anti-abortion groups called on President Donald Trump to fire Makary, following a report from Bloomberg Law that he planned to delay the agency’s review into mifepristone until past the November midterm elections. 

Hawley wrote in the two-page letter he posted to social media that it was “unclear” whether the FDA was actually conducting a review of the current prescribing guidelines and the safety of medication abortion. 

“There are more abortions in America now than when Roe was still law,” Hawley wrote, referring to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling from the Supreme Court, which established the constitutional right to an abortion. “And this is largely because of the chemical abortion drug and its generics, like the one you approved.”

Hawley asked Makary to reply to three questions before Dec. 15, including whether the FDA is “conducting a comprehensive safety review of mifepristone separate from the (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies) process,” if Makary delayed any safety reviews of mifepristone and if the FDA has plans to revert prescribing guidelines to require in-person dispensing. 

President Donald Trump, asked about the timeline during a roundtable at the White House, said he would find out whether the FDA was stalling. 

“I’ll find out. I’ll ask them,” Trump said. “I don’t think they’re slow walking anything, but I’ll find out.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, said that “FDA’s comprehensive scientific reviews take the time necessary to get the science right, and that is what Dr. Makary is ensuring as part of the Department’s commitment to gold-standard science and evidence-based reviews.”

Second day of pressure on Makary

Hawley’s letter continued the public pressure campaign from anti-abortion organizations and lawmakers that began Tuesday when leaders at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Live Action called for Makary to be fired over the Bloomberg Law news story reporting he had delayed the review of mifepristone over political considerations related to the midterm elections.

Americans United for Life CEO John Mize released a statement after meeting with Makary, saying it “is glaringly obvious that flawed political calculations” have stalled the FDA’s review of mifepristone, but not calling for him to lose his job over it. 

Access to mifepristone

Mifepristone is one of two pharmaceuticals used in medication abortion. It is approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and can be prescribed via telehealth and shipped to patients. 

Reducing or eliminating access to mifepristone has become a linchpin of the anti-abortion movement since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion in 2022. 

Anti-abortion medical organizations, represented by Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Erin Morrow Hawley, tried unsuccessfully to have the Supreme Court revert the prescribing guidelines for mifepristone in 2024. 

Josh Hawley and Erin Morrow Hawley are married. 

Numerous medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, filed briefs to the justices in that case attesting to the safety and efficacy of medication abortion. 

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming: major adverse events occur in less than 0.32% of patients,” the groups wrote. “The risk of death is almost non-existent.”

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State funding of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been reduced by more than $100 million per biennium in the past 30 years.

A key factor: smaller debt payments.

DNR received $334.3 million in state general purpose revenue in the 1995-97 state budget and $226.2 million in 2025-27.

That’s a reduction of $108.1 million, or 32%.

Between the two periods, debt service dropped from $234.7 million to $103.4 million. 

A Wisconsin Reddit user posted Nov. 22 about the cuts.

A 2023 report on DNR by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said those savings have been used to fund Medicaid, K-12 schools, prisons and tax cuts. Republicans have controlled all or part of the state budget process for all but one cycle since 1995.

The DNR is charged with protecting and enhancing air, land, water, forests, wildlife, fish and plants and provides outdoor recreational activities.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau: 1995-97 Wisconsin State Budget
• Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau: 2025-27 Wisconsin State Budget — Natural Resources
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: This Land Is Our Land
• 2025-26 Wisconsin Blue Book: The Executive
• 2025-26 Wisconsin Blue Book: Wisconsin governors since 1848

Has biennial state funding for the Wisconsin DNR dropped by $100 million over 30 years? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. 

“Crimes of this nature — most especially when it comes to our kids — should be punishable by the full extent of the law,” Evers said in a statement. “With this bill, we are helping ensure that we’re protecting some of our most vulnerable youth and holding predators accountable, most especially when they prey on our kids.”

The bill includes increases to the maximum amounts of prison time a person can receive for human and child trafficking crimes, and it allows more time for prosecution of human trafficking crimes. 

Human trafficking involves using force, fraud or coercion for labor, services or a commercial sex act. Trafficking of a child can involve a knowing attempt to recruit a child for commercial sex acts. Wisconsin trafficking law also bans benefiting from trafficking or knowingly receiving compensation from the earnings of debt bondage, a prostitute or a commercial sex act. 

Last month, the Wisconsin Examiner reported on lawmakers’ reasons for supporting the bill, such as preventing human traffickers from doing further harm. Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) cited cases that appeared to have taken place in other states in which people convicted of sex trafficking received between six and eight years in prison. 

The Examiner reported on criminal justice advocacy groups and attorneys’ criticisms of the mandatory minimums, including a concern from attorneys that judges would sentence people who are trafficking victims themselves to the mandatory minimum punishment without being able to consider whether the person deserved a lighter sentence because their trafficking crime was influenced by their trafficker. The bill didn’t contain an exception to the mandatory minimum for that type of situation. While Wisconsin law allows a defense in court for people who committed a crime as a “direct result” of trafficking, that didn’t allay critics’ concerns.

The anti-sex trafficking organization Shared Hope International gave Wisconsin law failing grades on multiple categories relevant to survivors of child sex trafficking: “protection from unjust criminalization,” “legal relief” and “survivor-centered supports.” The analysis was based on laws enacted as of July 1. 

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An oak savannah in southern Dane County that the Badgerland Foundation is working to conserve using Knowles-Nelson Stewardship funds (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

The looming shutdown of Wisconsin’s decades old Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program has put conservation projects across Wisconsin at risk as land trusts attempt to muddle on without the program that has protected more than 700,000 acres of land in the state. 

Without the stewardship fund, projects to conserve 1,300 acres of Northwoods forest near the headwaters of the Wisconsin River in Vilas County, hundreds of acres of “ecologically significant” wetlands in Door County and dozens of acres of prairie and grassland in Dane County could go unfinished. 

“It’s a bit bleak and it’s so disheartening to know that there’s so many beautiful, wonderful places kind of on the chopping block right now all across the state,” says Emily Wood, executive director of the Door County Land Trust. “It’s not just us. We hear from our partners that there are hundreds and thousands of acres that are just not going to be protected if [the program] goes away, and that’s going to have such an impact, domino effect, on future generations.” 

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship fund was created in 1989 to fund land conservation in Wisconsin. The program provides grants to local governments and non-profits to cover some of the costs for purchasing and conserving land that can be used for recreation, preserving animal habitats and supporting local industries such as forestry. 

The program enjoys massive bipartisan support, yet in recent years, some Republicans in the state Legislature — largely from communities in the northern part of the state — have grown hostile to it, claiming that the program has too often been used to fund the purchase of land up north, depleting local tax bases. 

Republican legislators have also complained that they no longer have oversight over the Department of Natural Resource’s management of the program after a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision last year found that the Legislature had given itself an unconstitutional veto authority over the DNR’s grant decisions. 

Several attempts have been made to save the program from expiring next summer. In his initial state budget proposal, Gov. Tony Evers asked to extend the program for ten years with $100 million in annual funding. Republicans stripped that provision from the budget immediately. 

Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) and Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) have authored a bill that would extend the program for four years at $28 million per year. The bill also includes a provision that would require the full Legislature to approve any land purchases that cost more than $1 million — a proposal that critics say would be far too slow for the speed at which real estate transactions need to move. 

A separate proposal from Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) would re-authorize the program for six years at $72 million per year and create an independent board made up of members appointed by the Legislature to approve large land purchases through the program. 

But there has been little progress made on advancing either proposal and now conservation groups are trying to plan for the next year without the support that Knowles-Nelson has traditionally provided.

Wood says that her organization is trying to protect the landscape in one of the most ecologically significant parts of the state. The challenge for her group is that Door County’s natural beauty draws tourists and increased development, yet too much development would damage the natural beauty. 

The Door County Land Trust has protected more than 5,000 acres of land in the county and Knowles-Nelson has covered half the cost in nearly every transaction, according to Wood. With the program shuttering next year, three projects totaling about $1 million — all of which scored highly on the DNR criteria — are at risk. 

“The county as a whole receives a ton of money from the Knowles-Nelson stewardship fund, because we are so geared towards tourism and access to natural resources,” she says.  The stewardship fund is critical for Door County to continue “to be the county that you know, everyone expects us to be when they get in the car and come up here.” 

Near the southern border of Dane County, Filip Sanna and the BadgerLand Foundation are working with the Driftless Area Land Conservancy and The Prairie Enthusiasts to protect and restore vital oak savannah and prairie in southern Wisconsin. 

Hundreds of years of agriculture have all but destroyed the native prairies in what was once one of the most ecologically diverse regions in the world.

The foundation has already conserved and gifted to the Driftless Area Land Conservancy hundreds of acres between Belleville and New Glarus that will soon be open to the public for hiking and hunting and used for sustainable practices such as regenerative agriculture. But future plans are threatened by the looming loss of stewardship funds. 

Recently, a tract of about 30 acres became available on the market within an area environmental groups have targeted as important for protecting grassland bird habitat. The Prairie Enthusiasts wanted to conserve the land but funds through the stewardship program wouldn’t be available fast enough. So the BadgerLand Foundation and the Prairie Enthusiasts reached an agreement in which the foundation would purchase the land and then sell it to the Prairie Enthusiasts once the stewardship grant comes through. 

Now those funds are uncertain and Sanna says it could sidetrack future plans.

One of the arguments Republican legislators have often made against the Knowles-Nelson program is that more populated areas in the southern part of the state should bear more of the land conservation burden. 

But the program dying off could jeopardize land conservation in the population centers because land is more expensive there. Dane County’s recently enacted 2026 budget doubled the size of the county’s conservation fund from $5 million to $10 million. That, Sanna says, can be a Band-aid for now. But county and local governments are facing their own budget challenges and smaller counties won’t be able to step into the DNR’s conservation shoes. In many places, the local governments are also dependent on stewardship program funds to conserve and maintain public land. 

“One of the responses we have to the uncertainty about Knowles-Nelson is to try to look to the county level and then some combination of county funding and private donations,” Sanna says. “That might work in Dane County, where we have a relatively strong tax base. But if you go to the neighboring counties around, Green and Iowa and Lafayette and all of those counties, that’s probably not an option.” 

“if [Knowles-Nelson] dies, the next step is going to be, now you’re going to have nice parks around all the wealthy people, but all the rest of Wisconsin that is smaller population centers that’ll just be like towns, rural housing, farmland, private land,” he continues. “There won’t be public land.” 

Way up in Vilas County, in the part of the state where the fight over land conservation has been most heated, a handful of administrative delays might end up killing a 1,300 acre conservation project because stewardship funds will no longer be available. 

The Northwoods Alliance and Partners in Forestry are working together to use federal and Knowles-Nelson funds to preserve two tracts of land west of the town of Land O’ Lakes. Joe Hovel, director of Partners in Forestry, says the project would include trails as part of the extensive Wilderness Lakes bike path system. 

Because the real estate deal on the project got delayed, and the slow speed at which the state and federal government have moved, it’s likely that the chance to use Knowles-Nelson dollars has already passed. 

Hovel says the complaints about land conservation up north discount the economic value of protecting the land for recreational uses. 

“It’s really short sighted in a sense that there isn’t enough respect for the recreational value of this land conservation stuff,” Hovel says. “The value of public access conservation land dwarfs, I mean it literally dwarfs, the value that timber revenue brings in.” 

A report from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable found that recreation on federal public lands generates $128.5 billion in economic activity every year. All the logging on federal land generates $200-300 million per year.

The Legislature has just over six months to extend the program. Wood says it would be a self-inflicted wound if elected officials allow a program that other states look to as a model to expire. 

“It’s so disheartening to hear that the fund that has had so much success over the years, that other states look to how to fund conservation, they look to Wisconsin’s model on how to do it, and that we as a state, that same model is going to go down just because of partisan gridlock,” she says. “We really just need to keep it alive because funding it in a later year, or coming back and making changes to make it better are way more possible if it’s an existing program.” 

“But coming up with another one from scratch, it just seems like it would be an impossibility. So right now, it does feel like we are just screaming to keep it, just keep it alive. Just don’t kill it.”

After a botched rollout and years of lackluster demand, General Motors announced plans to end production of the slow-selling BrightDrop vans. The announcement was made in October and it appears dealers are having a fire sale to get rid of remaining inventory.

I originally noticed this after a local Chevy dealer was advertising a van for roughly $22,000 below MSRP. However, that’s a drop in the bucket as Chevrolet of Troy, Ohio has knocked $28,315 off a 2025 BrightDrop 400. This means you can get the $68,310 EV for as little as $39,995.

More: GM Kills Electric Van Leaving Over 1,000 Canadian Workers In Limbo

That’s barely more than a Ford Mustang Mach-E, which starts at $37,995. More importantly, it undercuts the Ford E-Transit Cargo by $13,265.

Of course, that’s far from the only example as Miami’s Bomnin Chevrolet has their $69,435 BrightDrop 400 listed for $40,435. That’s a discount of $29,000, which means you can buy a 2027 Chevrolet Bolt with the savings.

Ray Chevrolet of Fox Lake, Illinois isn’t as generous, but they’ve marked their BrightDrop 400 down $28,348. That means you can get the $69,935 delivery van for just $41,587.

If the standard model is too small for your liking, you can always upgrade to the BrightDrop 600. Kool Chevrolet has a very cool discount of $23,600 on theirs, meaning you can get it for $47,450. That’s significantly better than the original MSRP of $71,050.

It’s a similar story at Columbus’ Ricart Chevrolet, which has slashed $25,253 off the price of their 2025 BrightDrop 600. As a result, the $73,430 EV can be had for $48,177.

These huge discounts are made possible thanks to $21,500 in customer cash. The offer requires buyers to take retail delivery by January 2, so you might want to act fast if you want to own a testament to GM’s ill-fated belief in EVs.

Subaru introduced the 2026 Uncharted earlier this year, and now the company has announced it will arrive at dealerships early next year for $34,995. That positions the new entry-level EV well below the Solterra, undercutting it by $3,500, and places it a full $5,000 beneath the upcoming Trailseeker.

Kicking things off is the Uncharted Premium FWD, marking the first front-wheel-drive Subaru sold in the United States in decades.

It features an edgy design that is largely identical to the Toyota C-HR. While it won’t win any points for originality, the model sports LED headlights, rain-sensing wipers, and a power liftgate. The crossover also has 8.2 inches (208 mm) of ground clearance and 18-inch alloy wheels with gloss black covers.

More: Subaru’s New Trailseeker Costs $5,000 More Than The Outback

Moving inside, drivers are greeted by a minimalist cabin that has a 7-inch digital instrument cluster and a 14-inch infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The latter screen resides above a stubby center console with a rotary shifter and a dual wireless smartphone charger.

Elsewhere, there are heated front seats with 10-way power adjustment on the driver’s side. The Uncharted also sports an ambient lighting system, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and a dual-zone automatic climate control system. Rounding out the highlights are a six-speaker audio system and digital key technology.

The EyeSight driver assistance system comes standard and provides Adaptive Cruise Control, Front/Rear Cross Traffic Alert, and Lane Departure Prevention. They’re joined by Proactive Driving Assist, Road Sign Assist, and Emergency Steering Assist. Other highlights include a Blind-Spot Monitor and Safe Exit Assist.

Power comes from a 74.7 kWh battery pack that feeds a front-mounted motor producing 221 hp (165 kW / 224 PS). It should enable the model to have a range in excess of 300 miles (483 km). When the battery is low, owners can use the NACS port and a DC fast charger to take it from 10% to 80% in as little as 28 minutes.

Uncharted Sport

The Uncharted Sport begins at $39,795 and features a lightly revised exterior with roof rails. Buyers will also find an upgraded cabin with StarTex upholstery and a heated leather steering wheel. The model also has an eight-way power front passenger seat and a driver’s seat memory function.

The mid-level crossover gains additional driver assistance systems as well. They include Lane Change Assist, Traffic Jam Assist, and a Surround View Monitor.

The big news is a dual-motor all-wheel drive system producing 338 hp (252 kW / 343 PS). That’s a huge improvement over the base model and range doesn’t take much of a hit as Subaru predicts the Sport will be able to travel more than 285 miles (459 km) on a single charge.

Uncharted GT

Last but not least is the $43,795 Uncharted GT. It’s notable for having a panoramic glass roof as well as 20-inch wheels with a gunmetal finish. Customers can build on that by getting an optional two-tone paint job for an extra $970.

Interior changes are relatively minor, but the range-topping trim sports heated and ventilated front seats as well as heated rear chairs. They’re joined by an 11-speaker Harman Kardon premium audio system and a digital rearview mirror with HomeLink.

While the powertrain carries over from the Sport, the larger wheels and additional equipment conspire to rob the model of range. However, Subaru expects owners will be able to travel more than 270 miles (435 km) between stops.

2026 Subaru Uncharted Pricing

Prices exclude a $1,450 or $1,600 destination fee

2,469 cars. That’s the number of ID. Buzz EVs Volkswagen moved in the first nine months of the year, a figure that makes it the weakest seller in its American lineup, unless you separate out the Golf R and Golf GTI, which, realistically, you shouldn’t.

Read: The Buzz Is Gone As VW Quietly Pauses Production

Given that, it’s no real surprise that VW dealers continue to sweeten the pot on the electric van as the year winds down and they look to clear inventory ahead of the new model year.

What’s VW Offering Now?

If you’ve had your eye on the ID.Buzz, now might be the time to move. Just before the end of November, VW bumped up its Retail Customer Bonus on the ID. Buzz from $2,500 to a way more generous $7,500. While the promotion was introduced as part of Black Friday, it’s sticking around well into January. And that’s not the only offer on the table either.

The ID. Buzz is also eligible for a separate $2,500 Dealer Bonus. That brings potential savings to $10,000, at least in theory. As noted by Cars Direct, the dealer incentive isn’t guaranteed to make it into the buyer’s column. Dealers are within their rights to retain the $2,500 themselves.

So if you’re serious about landing a deal, expect to negotiate. Whether or not that bonus is passed along may come down to how convincingly you make your case.

Both bonuses appear to apply across all trims. The ID. Buzz starts at $59,995 for the Pro S variant, not including the $1,550 destination and delivery fee. Subtract the incentives, and the starting figure can dip to $51,545.

It’s Worth Shopping Around

That’s a solid cut, but as we discovered on Autotrader ourselves, shop around and you’ll find even more aggressive pricing. Several VW dealerships across the country are listing base ID. Buzz Pro S models well under MSRP.

For example, Tynan’s Volkswagen in Aurora, Colorado, has three 2025 Pro S models in its inventory, all with asking prices of just $36,695, a massive $25,500 off the $62,195 stickler. All three have 15 miles or fewer on their odometers.

These aren’t the only cheap ID.Buzz Pro S models available. Karen Radley Volkswagen in Woodbridge, Virginia, has two listed for sale through Autotrader, both available for $45,195 and with a total of zero miles on the clock, for a substantial $17,000 discount from the original $62,195 MSRP.

There are dozens of other Pro S models available across the US for less than $48,000, so if you’re hunting for a deal, there are plenty of good options.

Source: Cars Direct

Older men play cards in a park in New York City's Chinatown in 2024. Medicare, the public health insurance for older Americans, is piloting a new prior authorization program powered by artificial intelligence that some physicians fear will result in more denials and delays in medical care for patients. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

A Medicare pilot program will allow private companies to use artificial intelligence to review older Americans’ requests for certain medical care — and will reward the companies when they deny it.

In January, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will launch the Wasteful and Inappropriate Services Reduction (WISeR) Model to test AI-powered prior authorizations on certain health services for Medicare patients in six states: Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington. The program is scheduled to last through 2031.

The program effectively inserts one of private insurance’s most unpopular features — prior authorization — into traditional Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older and those with certain disabilities. Prior authorization is the process by which patients and doctors must ask health insurers to approve medical procedures or drugs before proceeding.

Adults over 65 generally have two options for health insurance: traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Both types of Medicare are funded with public dollars, but Medicare Advantage plans are contracted through private insurance companies. Medicare Advantage plans tend to cost less out of pocket, but patients enrolled in them often must seek prior authorization for care.

AI-powered prior authorization in Medicare Advantage and private insurance has attracted intense criticism, legislative action by state and federal lawmakers, federal investigations and class-action lawsuits. It’s been linked to bad health outcomes. Dozens of states have passed legislation in recent years to regulate the practice.

In June, the Trump administration even extracted a pledge from major health insurers to streamline and reduce prior authorization.

“Americans shouldn’t have to negotiate with their insurer to get the care they need,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a June statement announcing the pledge. “Pitting patients and their doctors against massive companies was not good for anyone.”

Four days after the pledge was announced, the administration rolled out the new WISeR program, scheduled to take effect in January. It will require prior authorizations only for certain services and prescriptions that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has identified as “particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse, or inappropriate use.” Those services include, among other things, knee arthroscopy for knee osteoarthritis, skin and tissue substitutes, certain nerve stimulation services and incontinence control devices.

The companies get paid based on how much money they save Medicare by denying approvals for “unnecessary or non-covered services,” CMS said in a statement unveiling the program.

The new program has alarmed many physicians and advocates in the affected states.

“In concept, it makes a lot of sense; you don’t want to pay for care that patients don’t need,” said Jeb Shepard, policy director for the Washington State Medical Association.

“But in practice, [prior authorization] has been hugely problematic because it essentially acts as a barrier. There are a lot of denials and lengthy appeals processes that pull physicians away from providing care to patients. They have to fight with insurance carriers to get their patients the care they believe is appropriate.”

CMS responded to Stateline’s questions by providing additional information about the program, but offered few details on what the agency would do to prevent delays or denials of care. It has said that final decisions on coverage denials will be made by “licensed clinicians, not machines.” In a bid to hold the companies accountable, CMS also incentivizes them for making determinations in a reasonable amount of time, and for making the right determinations according to Medicare rules, without needing appeals.

In the statement announcing the program, Abe Sutton, director of the CMS Innovation Center, said the “low-value services” targeted by WISeR “offer patients minimal benefit and, in some cases, can result in physical harm and psychological stress. They also increase patient costs while inflating health care spending.”

A vulnerable group

Dr. Bindu Nayak is an endocrinologist in Wenatchee, Washington, a city near the center of the state that bills itself as the “Apple Capital of the World.” She mainly treats patients with diabetes and estimates 30-40% of her patients have Medicare.

“Medicare recipients are a vulnerable group,” Nayak told Stateline. “The WISeR program puts more barriers up for them accessing care. And they may have to now deal with prior authorization when they never had to deal with it before.”

Nayak and other physicians worry the same problems with prior authorizations that they’ve seen with their Medicare Advantage patients will plague traditional Medicare patients. Nayak has employees on staff whose only role is to handle prior authorizations.

More than a quarter of physicians nationwide say prior authorization issues led to a serious problem for a patient in their care, including hospitalization or permanent damage, according to the most recent report from the American Medical Association.

And some patients are unfairly denied treatment. Private insurers have denied care for people with Medicare Advantage plans even though their prior authorization requests met Medicare’s requirements, according to an investigation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published in 2022. Investigators found 13% of prior authorization denials were for requests that should have been granted.

But supporters of the new model say something must be done to reduce costs. Medicare is the largest single purchaser of health care in the nation, with spending expected to double in the next decade, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent federal agency. Medicare spent as much as $5.8 billion in 2022 on services with little or no benefit to patients.

Congress pushes back

In November, congressional representatives from Ohio, Washington and other states introduced a bill to repeal the WISeR model. It’s currently in committee.

“The [Trump] administration has publicly admitted prior authorization is harmful, yet it is moving forward with this misguided effort that would make seniors navigate more red tape to get the care they’re entitled to,” U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, a Washington Democrat and a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a November statement.

Physician and hospital groups in many of the affected states have backed the bill, which would halt the program at least temporarily. Shepard, whose medical association supports the bill, said that would give CMS time to get more stakeholder input and give physicians more time to prepare for extra administrative requirements.

“Conventional wisdom would dictate a program of this magnitude that has elicited so much concern from so many corners would at least be delayed while we work through some things,” Shepard said, “but there’s no indication that they’re going to back off this.”

Adding more prior authorization requirements for a new subset of Medicare patients will tack on extra administrative burdens for physicians, especially those in orthopedics, urology and neurology, fields that have a higher share of services that fall under the new rules.

That increased administrative burden “will probably lead to a lot longer wait times for patients,” Nayak said. “It will be important for patients to realize that they may see more barriers in the form of denials, but they should continue to advocate for themselves.”

Dr. Jayesh Shah, president of the Texas Medical Association and a San Antonio-based wound care physician, said WISeR is a well-intentioned program, but that prior authorization hurts patients and physicians.

“Prior authorization delays care and sometimes also denies care to patients who need it, and it increases the hassle factor for all physicians,” he told Stateline.

Shah added that, on the flip side, he’s heard from a few physicians who welcome prior authorization. They’d rather get preapproval for a procedure than perform it and later have Medicare deny reimbursement if the procedure didn’t meet requirements, he said.

Prior authorization has been a bipartisan concern in Congress and statehouses around the country.

Last year, 10 states — Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming — passed laws regulating prior authorization, according to the American Medical Association. Legislatures in at least 18 states have addressed prior authorization so far this year, an analysis from health policy publication Health Affairs Forefront found. Bipartisan groups of lawmakers in more than a dozen states have passed laws regulating the use of AI in health care.

But the new effort in the U.S. House to repeal the WISeR program is sponsored by Democrats. Supporters worry it’s unlikely to gain much traction in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Shepard said his organization has talked with state and congressional representatives, met with the regional CMS office twice, and sent a letter to CMS Director Dr. Mehmet Oz.

“We’ve looked at all the levers and we’ve pulled most of them,” Shepard said. “We’re running out of levers to pull.”

Venture capital jumps in

CMS announced in November it has selected six private tech companies to pilot the AI programs.

Some of them are backed by venture capital funds that count larger insurance companies among their key investors.

For example, Oklahoma’s pilot will be run by Humata Health Inc., which is backed by investors that include Blue Venture Fund, the venture capital arm of Blue Cross Blue Shield companies, and Optum Ventures, a venture capital firm connected to UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of UnitedHealthcare. Innovaccer Inc., chosen to run Ohio’s program, counts health care giant Kaiser Permanente as an investor.

Nayak said she knows little about Virtix Health, the Arizona-based private company contracted by the feds to run Washington state’s pilot program.

“Virtix Health would have a financial incentive to deny claims,” Nayak said. “It begs the question, would there be any safeguards to prevent profit-driven denials of care?”

That financial incentive is a concern in Texas too.

“If, financially, the vendor is going to benefit by the denial, it could be a problem for our patients,” Shah said. He said that Oz, in a speech at a recent meeting of the American Medical Association, assured physicians that their satisfaction and turnaround times would be metrics that Medicare would factor into the tech companies’ payments.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a reference to Medicare Advantage and to CMS Director Dr. Mehmet Oz’s speech to the American Medical Association.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

Farm workers harvesting yellow bell peppers near Gilroy, California. (Nnehring/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Thursday announced new restrictions for immigrants, reducing the work authorization periods from five years to 18 months, the latest crackdown on legal immigration.

The new policy follows the shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members by an Afghan national granted asylum earlier this year. 

The shift will not only affect hundreds of thousands of immigrants, but the shortened period for work authorization could create massive backlogs at the agency responsible for processing legal immigration requests, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

“Reducing the maximum validity period for employment authorization will ensure that those seeking to work in the United States do not threaten public safety or promote harmful anti-American ideologies,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said in a statement.

“After the attack on National Guard service members in our nation’s capital by an alien who was admitted into this country by the previous administration, it’s even more clear that USCIS must conduct frequent vetting of aliens,” he continued. 

Immigrants affected by the new changes include refugees; those granted asylum; those with a withholding of removal; those with pending applications for asylum or withholding of removal; those adjusting their status, for example by gaining a green card; and those who fall under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997.

That act applies to certain Nicaraguans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, nationals of former Soviet bloc countries and their dependents who in the 1990s had applied for asylum and were systematically denied.

Additionally, USCIS fees for applying for permits and other paperwork increased as a result of the massive tax and spending passage that Republicans passed over the summer and President Donald Trump signed into law. For initial employment authorization, fees are now $550 and $275 to renew. 

Following the shooting, U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died. A second guard member, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains critically wounded but hospitalized in stable condition. 

In response, the Trump administration has ramped up its crackdown on legal immigration and highlighted the need for its mass deportation campaign. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, pleaded not guilty to several charges in court on Tuesday. 

This week, all immigration applications from 19 countries listed on Trump’s “high-risk” countries or travel ban from earlier this year, were paused — a move that freezes processing for green card holders and citizenship applications.

Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke on the arrest of Brian J. Cole Jr. from Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. Standing behind Bondi, from left to right, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Washington Field Office Special Agent in Charge Anthony Spotswood, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Darren Cox. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities arrested a Virginia man Thursday morning who they say was involved in planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committee offices on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, according to the Department of Justice.

FBI agents took Brian J. Cole Jr., 30, into custody “safely and successfully,” in Woodbridge, Virginia, Attorney General Pam Bondi said at an afternoon press conference at DOJ headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Cole is a resident of Woodbridge, a distant suburb of Washington, according to charging documents.

Bondi would not comment on a motive.

The arrest marked a breakthrough in the five-year-old case. Bondi claimed Thursday it could have been solved earlier as “evidence has been sitting there collecting dust.”

Officials did not offer details about which piece or pieces of evidence led them to the suspect, but said the FBI scoured 3 million lines of data and sifted through 233,000 sale records of black caps the suspect used on the ends of the pipe bombs he created.

“Let me be clear: There was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work, working as a team along with ATF, Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police Department, and, of course the FBI,” Bondi said.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the operation Thursday morning was “flawless.”

“I’m proud to stand here before you and say, we solved it. He will have his day in court,” Patel said. 

Cole is charged with transporting explosive devices across state lines and attempting malicious destruction by means of explosive materials, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.

Pirro said pinpointing the suspect was “like finding a needle in a haystack.”

Bondi said additional charges could be forthcoming but declined to provide details. The investigation is “very active and very ongoing” and search warrants were being executed Thursday, she said. 

Purchases at Home Depot, Lowe’s

According to the FBI, Cole placed pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 5, 2021. 

Charging documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia detail Cole’s purchases in 2019 and 2020 at Home Depot and Lowe’s of materials to produce the pipe bombs.

Investigators also obtained cell phone provider records that revealed Cole’s phone connected to multiple cell towers in the vicinity of the DNC and RNC on the night of Jan. 5, 2021, according to the court filings.

Additionally, investigators say they tracked a transaction Cole made at a restaurant within steps of the RNC less than a month before he allegedly planted the bombs.

Authorities had publicized several video clips of a masked individual in a gray hooded sweatshirt carrying a backpack to transport the pipe bombs. The FBI increased its reward to $500,000 in January 2023, up from $100,000, for information leading to an arrest.

Reports of explosives on Jan. 6

The bombs did not detonate. Police received reports of an explosive device near the RNC headquarters around 1 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 6, 2021. Roughly 15 minutes later, authorities were alerted to another explosive device a few blocks away in the vicinity of the DNC, according to the charging documents.

The national party headquarters are within a five-minute walk of each other and within close proximity to the U.S. Capitol. Then Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was inside the DNC when the pipe bomb was discovered, Politico reported in 2022.

The FBI’s Darren Cox, assistant director in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office, said “Fortunately, these bombs did not explode, although they certainly could have.” 

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement Thursday that the committee is “grateful to the law enforcement officers who have dedicated years to investigating the pipe bombs planted at the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters on the eve of the January 6th insurrection.” 

“Those responsible for this horrific act must be brought to justice, and political violence should never be accepted in America,” Martin said.

RNC Chair Joe Gruters issued a statement Thursday blaming the administration of former President Joe Biden for not finding and arresting the suspect, and credited current administration officials “who prioritized this case and delivered long-overdue answers to the American people.”

“For four years, the Biden administration allowed a terrorist to walk the streets while DOJ leadership was busy targeting parents at school board meetings, Catholics at church, and enforcing their DEI agenda instead of getting a potential mass murderer off the streets,” Gruters said. 

Bongino role

Several conspiracy theories swirled for years on far-right internet spaces about the pipe bomb case.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who previously accused the FBI of covering up the pipe bomb investigation, thanked President Donald Trump and Bondi at the Thursday press conference for giving him “latitude” to solve the case.

“I spoke with Ms. Bondi very early, maybe day two, and I said, ‘We’re going to get this guy.’ She said, ‘Yes, you are.’ And we did,” said Bongino, who until early 2025 hosted the podcast “The Dan Bongino Show.”

Subaru introduced the 2026 Trailseeker earlier this year and now the company has announced the wagon-like crossover will start at $39,995. That’s $5,000 more than the redesigned Outback, but the Trailseeker is far more attractive.

Kicking things off is the entry-level Premium trim, which features a fully enclosed grille that is flanked by LED headlights. Buyers will also find automatic windshield wipers, a power liftgate, and 18-inch alloy wheels with aerodynamic covers.

The model is also notable for having 8.3 inches (211 mm) of ground clearance, which is more than the redesigned Jeep Cherokee.

More: Toyota Made An Electric Subaru Outback As Powerful As A Supra

The minimalist interior comes nicely equipped with a 7-inch digital instrument cluster and a 14-inch infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. They’re joined by heated front seats that are wrapped in StarTex upholstery and have 10-way power adjustment on the driver’s side.

Other highlights include an automatic climate control system, ambient lighting, and a dual wireless smartphone charger.

The EyeSight Driver Assistance suite comes standard and provides Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Tracing Assist, and Traffic Jam Assist. The model also has Front/Rear Cross-Traffic Alert, Pre-Collision Braking, Active Lane Change Assist, and Lane Departure Prevention. Rounding out the highlights are Safe Exit Assist and a Blind Spot Monitor.

Trailseeker Limited

Moving up the trim ladder is the $43,995 Trailseeker Limited. It features a lightly revised exterior with 20-inch wheels and a hands-free power liftgate.

Bigger changes occur inside as the cabin is more luxurious thanks to a heated leather steering wheel and heated rear seats. Buyers will also find a power passenger seat and a Harman Kardon premium audio system.

The upgrades don’t end there as the Limited features digital key technology and a 1500 watt AC power outlet in the rear cargo area. They’re joined by parking assist and a panoramic view monitor.

Trailseeker Touring

Sitting at the top of the lineup is the $46,555 Trailseeker Touring. It’s distinguished by a panoramic glass roof and a gloss black accent on the hood. Customers can also get a unique two-tone paint job for $795.

Interior changes are minor, but the range-topping variant has a digital rearview mirror, ventilated front seats, and radiant leg warmers. Customers can also shell out $300 to get black and blue leather seats.

The Fastest Subie In America

Regardless of which trim is selected, all Trailseekers have a 74.7 kWh battery pack that feeds a dual-motor all-wheel drive system. The latter produces a combined output of 375 hp (280 kW / 380 PS) and it enables the model to accelerate from 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in 4.4 seconds.

Besides being the fastest Subaru ever sold in America, the model is expected to have a range of approximately 280 miles (451 km). When the battery is low, the 150 kW DC fast charging capability can deliver an 80% charge in as little as 28 minutes. It’s also worth noting the model has an NACS charging port.

2026 Subaru Trailseeker Pricing

Prices exclude a destination fee of $1,450 to $1,600

REDFORD, Mich. – Redford Union School District is taking a major step towards cleaner, quieter transportation with the planned deployment of five Type C zero-emission electric school buses and six Tellus chargers, at no expense to local taxpayers. The project is being delivered through a collaboration between Durham School Services, the district’s transportation provider, and Highland Electric Fleets, the leading provider of Electrification-as-a-Service (EaaS).

Redford Union is part of a growing number of school districts across Michigan introducing electric school buses to modernize their fleets and deliver long-term benefits to students and families. Electric school buses offer quieter rides, lower maintenance needs, and can help reduce fuel costs over time. The new electric buses are expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2026 and are primarily funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program (Round 2).

“Bringing zero-emission buses into our fleet is more than a transportation upgrade, it’s an investment in our students’ well-being and the long-term health of our community,” said Judy Nachman, Redford Union School District Interim Superintendent. “Cleaner rides mean fewer emissions, lower operating costs, and a modern system that reflects the values we want to pass on to our kids. We’re thankful to Durham School Services and Highland Electric Fleets for standing with us in this effort. Their support has been critical in moving our district toward a safer, healthier future.”

“We are excited to embark on this new EV journey with the Redford Union School District,” said John Juniker, Fleet Services Manager at Durham School Services. “This endeavor will bring about positive environmental and health benefits for the students and community and reaffirms both Durham and the school district’s commitment to being environmentally responsible leaders. Our team looks forward to working together with the school district and Highland on this EV project to build a safe, healthier future for everyone.”

Highland Electric Fleet is supporting this deployment by managing every step of the electrification process. While Highland’s contract is directly with Durham School Services, its work will ultimately benefit Redford Union’s students and the broader community. Highland is overseeing infrastructure upgrades, coordinating charger installation, and working closely with DTE Energy, the local utility provider, which is contributing make-ready funds to help power the new buses.

“Redford Union School District is making an important investment in its students and its community,” said Brian Buccella, Chief Commercial Officer at Highland Electric Fleets. “We’re proud to support the district alongside Durham School Services, helping deliver the benefits of electric transportation for students and families in Redford Union.”

By working together, Durham School Services and Highland are helping Redford Union School District modernize its fleet and provide students with a cleaner, quieter ride to school.

About Redford Union School District
Where students belong, Redford Union Schools is a public school district in Metro Detroit committed to providing excellence in a safe and challenging learning environment. The district transforms lives by offering an innovative, collaborative, tradition-rich and future-focused education to the students it serves.

About Durham School Services
As an industry-leading student transportation provider, Durham School Services and its sister brands, Stock Transportation and Petermann Bus, are dedicated to the safety of our students and People. Collectively, for more than 100 years, we have been committed to Excellence and upholding our mission of getting students to school safely, on time, and ready to learn. Through this mission and a grassroots approach to our operations, Durham School Services and its sister brands have earned recognition as a trusted transportation provider among our Customers and the Communities they serve.

About Highland Electric Fleets
Highland Electric Fleets is North America’s leading provider of Electrification-as-a-Service. Founded in 2019, Highland partners with school districts, municipalities, and fleet operators to make the transition to electric fleets simple and affordable. Highland proudly serves as the Official Electric School Bus Provider of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Team USA. From pioneering vehicle-to-grid technology to managing some of the nation’s largest electric school bus fleets, Highland delivers reliable, cost-effective solutions that support local communities and drive the future of transportation. Learn more at www.highlandfleets.com.

The post Redford Union School District to Deploy Five Electric School Buses appeared first on School Transportation News.

A 2019 football game between the University of South Carolina and the University of Alabama at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House GOP leadership pulled a bill from the House floor Wednesday that would set a national framework for college-athletes’ compensation. 

The Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements, or ‘‘SCORE” Act, would bar student-athletes from being recognized as employees and provide broad antitrust immunity to the NCAA and college sports conferences. 

The measure was on the House schedule for Wednesday, before the office of Majority Whip Tom Emmer announced Wednesday afternoon its consideration would be postponed. The notice did not provide a reason for the cancellation, as is typical. 

The bill’s lead sponsors are GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida and Democratic Reps. Janelle Bynum of Oregon and Shomari Figures of Alabama.

The other original co-sponsors are all Republicans: House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, Education and Workforce Committee Chair Tim Walberg of Michigan, and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Lisa McClain of Michigan, Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin and Russell Fry of South Carolina.

Bipartisan opposition

The bill has faced widespread Democratic opposition over concerns it would roll back student-athletes’ rights and give “unchecked authority” to the NCAA while failing to protect student-athletes. 

Though the bill has garnered broad GOP support, some in the party have pushed back against it. House GOP critics include Texas’ Chip Roy, who dubbed the bill a “Band-Aid on a gunshot wound” during a House Rules Committee hearing Monday. 

Roy, along with fellow House Freedom Caucus members, Byron Donalds of Florida and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, joined Democrats in voting against the rule governing floor debate alongside several other measures Tuesday. The rule was still adopted, 210-209. 

The bill advanced in July out of the House Energy and Commerce and Education and Workforce committees, which have jurisdiction over elements of the bill.

The college sports world has grappled with the fallout from the NCAA’s 2021 guidelines, which let student-athletes profit from their name, image and likeness, or NIL. A patchwork of NIL laws exists across states, with no federal NIL law in place. 

In June, a federal judge approved the terms of a nearly $2.8 billion antitrust settlement that paved the way for schools to directly pay athletes. 

Senate Dems’ competing bill

Meanwhile, the bill would face a tough path in the Senate, where Democrats have expressed opposition. 

Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut introduced competing NIL-related legislation in September. 

Known as the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement Act, or “SAFE Act,” the bill “gives all athletes Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) rights, establishes uniform health and safety standards, protects scholarships and requires agents to register with a state and abide by clear contract requirements, including a 5 percent cap on fees,” according to Democrats on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, where Cantwell serves as ranking member. 

People are sworn in as new U.S. citizens during a special U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization ceremony on the Hollywood Sign Terrace at historic Griffith Observatory on Oct. 21, 2024 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration late Tuesday paused all immigration applications from 19 countries the president earlier had listed for restricted travel into the United States, a move that freezes processing for green card holders and citizenship applications.

After two West Virginia National Guard members were shot in the District of Columbia by an Afghan national who was granted asylum, the Trump administration has moved to halt and reexamine all forms of legal immigration, which is handled by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

One guard member, U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains critically wounded, although his condition is said to be stable. The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, pleaded not guilty to several charges on Tuesday. 

The memo says that USCIS will place a hold on processing benefits requests — including citizenship processing — from immigrants hailing from the 19 “high-risk” countries and the agency will re-review any of those approved requests for immigrants who entered the U.S. after Jan, 21, 2021, or under the Biden administration. 

The 19 countries with travel restrictions into the U.S. are: Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Chad, Cuba, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen. In June the president issued a travel ban on those 19 countries. 

The hold will remain in place until otherwise directed by USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, according to the memo.

The memo also states that USCIS will delay action on all applications for asylum and withholdings for removal, regardless of country of origin, “pending a comprehensive review.” A withholding of removal is granted by an immigration judge when a country is deemed too dangerous for an immigrant for deportation, so a third, safer country must be chosen.

“USCIS has considered that this direction may result in delay to the adjudication of some pending applications and has weighed that consequence against the urgent need for the agency to ensure that applicants are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible,” according to the memo. “Ultimately, USCIS has determined that the burden of processing delays that will fall on some applicants is necessary and appropriate in this instance, when weighed against the agency’s obligation to protect and preserve national security.”

President Donald Trump and his administration have often criticized immigrants who were granted temporary legal protections under the Biden administration, arguing they were not properly vetted. 

That has included a special program created for Afghan allies fleeing the Taliban takeover after the chaotic withdrawal by the U.S. in 2021, as well as Latin Americans granted humanitarian parole from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

Rob-n-Cin farms has expanded to become a concentrated animal feeding operation. Environmental groups and local residents have filed a petition against the DNR's decision to grant the farm a wastewater discharge permit. (Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images)

Two environmental groups filed a petition late last month challenging the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ decision to grant a permit allowing a West Bend dairy farm to operate as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO). 

The dairy, Rob-n-Cin Farms, has been operating as a CAFO for several years without a permit. Under state law, CAFOs are required to obtain Wisconsin Pollution Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permits, which regulate the pollution industrial activities such as factory farms are allowed to discharge into local waterways. 

CAFOs are industrial farming facilities with more than 1,000 animal units — one animal unit is equivalent to a 1,000-pound cow. Rob-n-Cin plans to expand its herd from 1,300 cows to 2,000. After expanding, the herd will produce more than 18 million gallons of manure every year which the farm plans to  spread on fields in Ozaukee and Washington counties. 

In 2023, the DNR investigated the farm for operating as an unpermitted CAFO and issued a notice of noncompliance against the farm. 

Since then, Rob-n-Cin has been going through the process to obtain a permit, drawing complaints from local residents and community groups. Those complaints include the farm’s failure to list two satellite locations where it plans to spread manure in its permit application, the lack of sanctions on the farm for operating unpermitted and the effect on local groundwater. 

Residents are worried about the farm’s effects on the Milwaukee River watershed and the Cedarburg Bog, which is protected as a state natural area and national natural landmark. 

On Nov. 26, the environmental-focused law firm Midwest Environmental Advocates filed a petition for a contested case review of the DNR’s permit approval on behalf of Milwaukee Riverkeeper and area residents. The residents include a nearby organic farm and neighbors of Rob-n-Cin. 

The petition alleges that the DNR has not proven the expansion will comply with the state’s groundwater quality standards, particularly the limits for phosphorus and nitrates. The permit includes statements that the farm will follow statewide best practices for manure spreading but the petition argues that’s not enough and the DNR should have done more to prove the groundwater will be protected.

“DNR’s issuance of a permit relying solely on standard practices that are not intended to ensure compliance with groundwater quality standards is unreasonable,” the petition states. “This is particularly true in an area of high susceptibility where many members of the public raised credible concerns of groundwater contamination and examples of excessive nitrate levels. Rob-n-Cin needed to demonstrate, and DNR needed to find, that issuance of a permit would not lead to continued or widespread groundwater contamination in excess of established standards. Simply relying on default nutrient management practices without performing analysis or investigation was unreasonable.” 

The petition also argues the DNR should require monitoring of the local groundwater after the expansion is complete, stating that state regulators can’t know if the farm is violating its standards if it isn’t tracking how the expansion affects the groundwater. 

And the petition states that the DNR did not complete a sufficient environmental review before approving the permit. 

“DNR conducted no substantive evaluation of environmental or socioeconomic impacts of the WPDES permit, including effects on groundwater, Cedar Creek, Mole Creek (a Class II trout stream), the Milwaukee River watershed, which is subject to an EPA-approved [Total Maximum Daily Load] for nutrients and sediment, or the Cedarburg Bog,” the petition states. 

In a news release, MEA attorney Adam Voskuil said the DNR’s authority requires it to prove that the expansion won’t violate state water standards and it has failed to do so. 

“State law is clear that the DNR is required to affirmatively determine — not merely assume — that Rob-n-Cin’s manure-spreading plan will not violate groundwater quality standards. Without off-site groundwater monitoring, there’s simply no way to obtain the data necessary to make that determination,” Voskuil said.

If the petition for a contested case hearing is granted, a hearing on the permit approval will be held by an administrative law judge. That decision would be appealable to the state circuit court system.

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Cast your mind back to September and you might recall Rivian’s designers having a bit of fun with an R1S to celebrate the opening of a new store in South Florida. The automaker created a one-off concept SUV with a 1980s Miami-inspired paint scheme that made it look like the EV had jumped right out of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Also: Insurance Offered $1,700 For This R1T Mishap, Rivian Wanted A Fortune

But that tropical fantasy is no longer a one-off. Rivian has confirmed it will build a limited run of purchasable replicas. Naturally, there’s a cost attached to owning one of these beach-party specials.

What Makes it Special?

Called the R1S Quad Miami Edition, the colorful SUV is, as the name suggests, based on the top-spec, Corvette-scaring quad motor R1S, whereas the original concept was built around a three Motor R1S Tri model. But there are no changes to the life’s-a-beach visuals that you’ll either love or hate.

Only 10 examples will be built, each featuring the same Glacier White body accented by splashes of aqua and pink on the doors, 22-inch Miami Edition wheels and front bumper. While the doors stick to aqua blue stripes, the wheels get both colors, as does the nose, where a pink towing eye pokes from a blue bumper.

Even the interior doesn’t escape the Miami makeover, though if we’re honest we think Rivian seemed to lose interest once it got to the cabin. The sole flourishes appear to be a stripe of pink on the headrest and some floormats that look like they’re made from the same material as straw beach mats (hopefully they’re more substantial).

Having four electric motors rather than three means the Miami Edition gets 1,025 hp (1,039 PS / 764 kW) instead of 850 hp (862 PS / 634 kW), dropping the zero to 60 mph (97 kmh) time from 2.9 to 2.6 seconds. Not that you’d get much opportunity to feel the difference when you’re cruising South Beach.

The Price of Standing Out

But the fun graphics will definitely turn more heads than any stock R1S Tri or Quad, and you’d hope they do given the pricing markup.

Rivian is asking $134,990 for the Miami Edition, which is $13,000 more than you’d pay for a regular R1S Quad. It’s only building 10, so it’ll probably have no trouble selling them, but do you think it’s a good deal?

The shore of Lake Superior near Ashland. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

A rule to protect Wisconsin’s cleanest waterways from being harmed was finalized last week over the objections of Republican legislators and allied lobbying groups. 

The rule highlights the ongoing dispute between the Legislature and the administration of Gov. Tony Evers over the level of oversight legislators are allowed to have over the administrative rulemaking process. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling that curtailed the ability of the Legislature to kill administrative rules. 

The new rule, which was published in the state’s administrative register Nov. 24 and is set to go into effect July 1, is the result of a decade of wrangling. 

In 2015, the U.S. EPA updated the Clean Water Act’s antidegradation regulations — which guide how states are required to protect high quality lakes and rivers from pollution. 

Dozens of creeks, rivers and lakes are classified as outstanding resource waters and exceptional resource waters under Wisconsin’s administrative code and will be protected as “high quality waters” under the new rule. Additionally, a body of water can be considered a high quality water if it has contaminant levels that are better than an established statewide standard. 

“This means that a waterbody can be high quality for one or more parameters, even if it is impaired for a different parameter,” Laura Dietrich, manager of the Department of Natural Resources’ water evaluation section, said in an email. “For example, a waterbody may be impaired for phosphorus, but chloride levels are better than the chloride water quality criterion. The waterbody would be considered high quality for the purposes of considering new or increased discharges of chloride, but would not be high quality for phosphorus.” 

Under the new rule, the DNR will be required to conduct a review before regulated entities are allowed to discharge new or increased levels of contaminants into the water body. Discharges may be allowed if found to be necessary through a “social or economic analysis.”

The rule’s finalization is the end of a process that began in 2023 and has included multiple public hearings and the input of several legislative committees. 

Last month, the Assembly committee on the environment voted 4-2 to request modifications to the rule, but the DNR and the Evers administration moved forward with finalizing the rule anyway. 

That action has angered Republicans who want more say in the process. 

“Representative government has been taken away and we now have rule by king,” Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said in a statement. “We don’t want a king and the current path forward is dangerous.”

Lobbying groups have also complained about the rule’s finalization. 

Scott Manley, a lobbyist for Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business group, told Wisconsin Public Radio that the rule going into effect is “terrible from a representative government standpoint.” 

Erik Kanter, government relations director with Clean Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner that he thinks the rule represents the DNR finding a solid compromise between environmental and business concerns and that WMC was involved in the entire process through an advisory committee. 

“DNR engaged the stakeholder group regularly over the 30-month process it took to put the rule together at the DNR, and so WMC, along the way, had all the opportunity, and certainly took the opportunity, to make their thoughts [known] on how to put this rule together,” Kanter said. “It almost feels like it was never going to be enough for WMC.” 

Kanter also said that because the rule aligns the state with the EPA regulations, the state doesn’t have a choice if it wants to retain regulatory authority over its own water. 

“Wisconsin has to do this. We have to update our own rules to comply with federal changes to the Clean Water Act,” he said. “There’s no two ways about it if we want to maintain our delegation authority and have state regulators in charge of administering the Clean Water Act. It’s something we have to do.”

The alternative would be for the federal EPA to administer the act in Wisconsin, he said. 

“I think a lot of folks in the business community wouldn’t want EPA and the federal government breathing down their neck,” Kanter said. “And so this delegated authority situation is, I think, better for everybody.”

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Children are pictured at an Autism Speaks Light it Up Blue Autism Awareness Celebration at Chicago Children's Museum in April 2017. State Medicaid agencies are struggling to pay for applied behavior analysis, an intensive therapy for children with autism. (Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Autism Speaks)

State Medicaid agencies are struggling to pay for an intensive therapy for children with autism — and looming federal Medicaid cuts are likely to make the problem worse.

Parents of children and young adults who receive applied behavior analysis, or ABA, worry states’ cost-saving measures will make it harder for them to get vital services. About 5% of children ages 3 to 17 on public insurance have autism spectrum disorder, compared with 2% who have private insurance, according to a CDC survey.

Many families and autism therapists say ABA can help improve communication and social skills, sharpen memory and focus, and replace challenging behaviors with positive ones. ABA therapy can range from 10 to 40 hours per week in different settings, including home and school. That makes it expensive.

In 2014, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services mandated that all state Medicaid programs cover comprehensive autism services for children. It did not explicitly require coverage of ABA, but by 2022, every state Medicaid program covered ABA.

In addition, more kids are getting diagnosed with autism as screenings increase. As a result, state spending on the service has skyrocketed. In Indiana, for example, Medicaid spending on ABA therapy grew from $21 million in 2017 to $611 million in 2023. The sharp increase has prompted Indiana, and other states, to take steps to control costs.

Meanwhile, federal auditors have begun examining states’ coverage of ABA services to ferret out fraud and abuse.

Mariel Fernandez, vice president of government affairs at the Council of Autism Service Providers, a nonprofit trade association, acknowledged that states are facing difficult choices.

“For such a costly and intensive service, the states need to explore how to best reimburse this benefit so that it’s sustainable and promotes quality,” said Fernandez, who is also a board-certified behavioral analyst. “Is [the rate] going to bankrupt Medicaid? Is it going to ensure that people are actually receiving the service?”

The Medicaid changes included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed in July will increase the pressure: The law includes more than $900 billion in federal spending cuts over the next decade. Medicaid is funded jointly by the federal government and the states.

Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described autism as a rapidly growing “epidemic” in the U.S. and has made it a major focus of his tenure. Kennedy has promoted the debunked theory that there’s a link between childhood vaccines and autism.

Curbing costs

Several states this year have considered curbing ABA costs by capping therapy hours, tightening provider enrollment rules, reducing reimbursement rates or changing patient eligibility rules. A bill in New York, for example, would establish a 680-hour annual cap on ABA services.

But nowhere has the issue been more prominent than in Indiana, where Medicaid has covered ABA therapy since 2016.

Governor’s group recommends ABA usage cap, rate changes as Medicaid costs rise

Historically, Indiana Medicaid has reimbursed ABA providers for most services at a rate of 40%, regardless of what they charged.

That “created some very strange incentives for a small portion of the provider network,” said Jason McManus, president of Indiana Providers of Effective Autism Treatment (InPEAT), which represents smaller ABA providers in Indiana and larger providers that operate in Indiana and elsewhere. “You had folks who were charging exorbitant amounts for the service.”

Beginning in 2024, Indiana lowered its reimbursement rate to about $68 per hour — and received plenty of pushback.

“That did have an impact on the provider community,” McManus said. “You had a lot of folks, smaller shops, who ended up closing their doors or consolidating with other organizations. So that was disruptive.”

And that year, the HHS inspector general issued a report which found that Indiana’s Medicaid program made at least $56 million in “improper” payments to ABA therapy providers in 2019 and 2020.

The state’s rapidly rising ABA costs and the federal audit prompted Republican Gov. Mike Braun to issue an executive order earlier this year creating a working group to examine ways to cut costs without compromising quality.

The group crafted recommendations to correct the problems identified in the federal audit and put ABA coverage on a financially sustainable path. Without changes in the state’s reimbursement policies, the group concluded, Indiana’s Medicaid spending on ABA therapy would reach a projected $825 million by 2029.

This month, Braun unveiled the group’s recommendations, which include the creation of a new ABA office to increase oversight and lower reimbursement rates, which the state has not yet detailed.

ABA allows people with autism “to obtain the highest level of independence that’s possible for them,” said McManus, who served on the working group.

“But from a state perspective, I can see how, if you’re purely just looking at the cost, you would say, ‘Wow, this is a cost that has grown over time, and if absent all other contexts, this is something we need to pay attention to, because it’s unsustainable.’”

Nebraska rate cut

In Nebraska, state officials also have been looking for ways to control spiraling ABA costs: Last year, Nebraska Medicaid paid out more than $85 million for ABA therapy, a surge from $4.6 million in 2020.

In July, the state announced that it would cut its Medicaid reimbursement rates for ABA, including a 48% cut to reimbursement for direct therapy provided by a behavior technician. That brought the rate to $74.80 per hour, down from about $144 per hour. Rates for therapy by physicians or other board-certified professionals also were reduced by about 37%.

Many providers saw the cuts coming, as the state has had the highest hourly reimbursement rate in the nation.

“It would be fiscally irresponsible of the state to maintain that,” said Leila Allen, vice president of external affairs at Lighthouse Autism Center, which has ABA therapy centers in Nebraska as well as in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and North Carolina.

Sam Wallach, president of Attain, an ABA therapy provider that operates in Nebraska and a dozen other states and Washington, D.C., said the service is “life-changing for children and families.” He views the ABA reduction as a “correction” that will make it feasible for Nebraska Medicaid to continue to cover it.

“The previous rates were well above what most Medicaid programs pay nationally, and while that created short-term benefits, it wasn’t realistic or sustainable,” Wallach said.

But some providers are taking issue with the way Nebraska went about those cuts.

For example, the state provided only 30 days’ notice before making the change. “There were providers that within 30 days had to tell their staff, ‘We’re so sorry. We have to cut your salary by ‘x’ percent in 30 days,’” Allen said.

Nebraska also didn’t examine how much it costs to provide ABA in the state, she said. The new rate is closer to what neighboring states, such as Iowa, pay. But therapists are few and far between in sparsely populated Nebraska, and families there often have to travel long distances to reach ABA providers.

“There was no cost survey to determine what the cost should be,” said Allen. “They didn’t take into account that you do have to pay people a little bit more to be able to work as behavior analysts in Nebraska.”

Finding ABA therapists in Nebraska is particularly difficult for families with older kids. Angela Gleason, executive secretary on the board of autism advocacy organization Arc of Nebraska, has a 13-year-old son with autism. She said many companies only serve very young children, up to age 6.

“So for families like mine, it’s then hard to even find a company that will serve his age and will provide that kind of support,” she said. To be able to afford therapy, her son Teddy has Medicaid coverage as his secondary insurance. ABA therapy helps him with socializing and speaking with his speech delay.

“He needs a lot more help throughout his day than a normal 13-year-old without autism might need,” Gleason said.

North Carolina court case

In North Carolina, the cost of covering autism services, including ABA, will total an estimated $639 million in fiscal 2026, up 425% from 2022, according to the state’s Medicaid agency. About five autism providers made up roughly 41% of the state’s increase in spending in fiscal year 2023-2024, according to the state.

Effective on Oct. 1, North Carolina Medicaid cut reimbursement rates for all kinds of health care services, arguing that state legislators had not budgeted enough money to keep up with rising costs. The reductions, which ranged from 3% to 10%, included a 10% cut to the reimbursement rate for autism services, including ABA therapy.

But the families of 21 children immediately sued the state Department of Health and Human Services to halt the move, arguing that it was discriminatory because it targeted children with disabilities.

Earlier this month, the families won a preliminary injunction temporarily halting the rate cut.

But families across the state are on edge as children with autism often see multiple providers — psychologists and speech language pathologists, for example — whose rate cuts were not paused, according to Allen, of Lighthouse Autism Center.

David Laxton, director of communications for the Autism Society of North Carolina, which is also a provider, said many providers won’t be able to absorb the rate reductions and continue operating.

“At some point, the math is not going to math,” Laxton said.

“It’s very stressful for families, because right now, there’s not an end in sight,” Laxton said. “There’s agreement that this [service] is very important, but there’s not been action to bring an end to the cuts.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.