Sanctuary cities, Obamacare decline, intentional fires and more

Hello again. Remember Smokey Bear, the icon created by the U.S. Forest Service to spread awareness about wildfire prevention? Times have changed since he first debuted in the mid-20th century. I wonder if Smokey needs to do a PSA on fighting fire with fire.

In Washington, environmental reporter Alex Brown got certified to set prescribed burns in a bid to protect forests from devastating wildfires. The experience helped him understand how to use fire as an ally, which he wrote about in a three-part series.

In Mississippi, healthcare reporter Shalina Chatlani explored how the end of pandemic-era Affordable Care Act subsidies affected people with diabetes in a state that has dire health outcomes. An alderman told her that his medicine went from costing $15 a month with coverage to $200 without insurance.

Stateline reporters also recently examined how sanctuary city polices ward off federal immigration enforcement, a looming home caregivers shortage and Democratic efforts to mirror Republicans’ organizing strategies. It’s all below the fold.

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As more states seek ways to limit immigration enforcement, a Stateline analysis shows one tactic has had an effect: making it more difficult for local law enforcement to hand over people they are holding in city or county jails to federal immigration authorities. The analysis found that states with strict non-cooperation policies — Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Washington state — have the lowest rates of immigration arrests in jails.

As is the case with many chronic diseases, the worst consequences of diabetes — such as blindness and amputations — can be prevented with routine care. Many diabetes patients in Mississippi were getting that care over the past few years through subsidized Affordable Care Act insurance plans. But Congress allowed the so-called enhanced subsidies to expire at the end of last year. Now the number of diabetic Mississippians without insurance, and thus regular care, is once again on the rise.

Home caregivers are near the bottom of the nation’s pay scale. The low pay and the difficulty of the work have created a labor shortage, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. There are 4.3 million home care aides today, but the federal government forecasts that by 2034, the nation will need more than 5 million of them. Some states have marginally increased workers’ wages. But those small gains could be wiped out by Medicaid changes that will go into effect next year.

As wildfires torch millions of acres, some communities are fighting fire with fire. Leaders nationwide, and especially in the West, want to empower more residents to conduct prescribed burns in the private forests at risk of megablazes. To see these efforts first hand, reporter Alex Brown went through the burn manager training course in Washington state.

In this series, he examines the state's effort to certify more residents to lead their own burns, with scenes from his time in class and a training burn. He joins a burn in the small town of Roslyn, a community that has embraced prescribed burning after a wildfire nearly wiped it off the map. And he illustrates those burns in a photo essay.

A growing number of progressive groups are looking to combat the influence of conservative groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Experts say the left has years of work ahead if it wants to match the prowess of the organized right, which coalesced more readily around a few core issues. But the second Trump administration has rallied Democrats across the states seeking to oppose federal policies.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, on Wednesday agreed to pay 47 states, the District of Columbia, and a handful of U.S. territories, up to $17.1 billion in penalties over claims that its social media platforms are addictive and a danger to children.

As part of the settlement, Meta also pledged to make changes to Instagram and Facebook that are designed to reduce young people’s use of the platforms.

“Meta intentionally exploited kids for profit and then lied about it, claiming its products were safe when its own internal research confirmed the platforms were addictive and harmful,” said Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat, in a statement announcing the settlement.

“The physical, mental and emotional harms that intentionally addictive social media inflict on youth — and particularly teenage girls — are widespread across the tech industry, and this successful, coordinated multistage litigation has resulted in Meta being the first platform to come to the table and agree to such comprehensive reforms,” he said.

“It will not be the last.”