News from around the nation.

Epstein victims' lawyers ask court to order DOJ to take down Epstein files website; New congressional maps debated to 'protect' MD federal workers; Social Security data breach puts New England retirees at financial risk; Standard Wage Bill aims to boost UT economy, worker training.

Transcript

The Public News Service Monday afternoon update on Mike Clifford.

The lawyers are contending widespread failures by the DOJ to redact the names and identifying information of Epstein victims, according to a copy of a letter obtained Sunday by ABC News.

"For the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, every hour matters.

The harm is ongoing and irreversible," Attorney Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards wrote in the letter addressed to U.S. Judge Richard Berman and Paul Engelmeyer.

ABC notes the attorneys write that since the DOJ started posting material to the website last month, they have been in near constant communication with the department to correct redaction errors, and they had an expectation such failures would not recur.

Meantime, Maryland is one of the last states to decide whether it will be part of the national redistricting battle.

Advocates for redistricting say it would help protect the state's federal workers from persistent layoffs.

Maryland has borne the brunt of President Donald Trump's efforts to root out what he he describes as waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

In Maryland, nearly 25,000 federal workers lost their jobs in Trump's first year in office, more than any other state.

Isola Shaw is on the Rockville City Council and a former federal employee.

She says adding another Democratic seat would help bolster efforts in Congress to protect federal workers.

We wanna make sure that we can use redistricting as a tool to protect our workforce and protect our communities and protect our families from the job losses from the Trump administration.

But not all Democrats agree, including Maryland State Senate President Bill Ferguson.

He argues that Democrats can win without partisan redistricting, and points out that any effort to change the map could lead to legal challenges that could end up creating even less favorable maps.

I'm Zamone Perez.

And advocates for New England retirees warn a massive data breach at the Social Security Administration poses significant risks to their personal and financial health.

A recent Department of Justice court filing revealed that DOJ, Department of Government efficiency employees improperly shared the data through an unsecured third party server.

Roger Boudreaux with the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, retirees, says the federal government has broken the public's trust.

If the most trusted agency in the United States government is now called into question, what does that mean for the rest of the agencies?

Federal officials say it's still unclear what types of data were exposed, but they confirm an unnamed political advocacy group analyzing state voter rolls, signed an agreement with a DOJ employee.

I'm Catherine Carley.

And both workers and companies are endorsing a bill in Utah that would establish an area standard wage for publicly funded construction projects.

Nicole Navarro, vice president of the Utah Women in Trade says the bill would resolve issues for both workers and contractors.

It acknowledges that workforce shortages are structural and not motivational.

It connects training, access to economic outcomes, and it reinforces the idea that public investment produce public benefit.

Hospital 245 aims to standardize the public bidding process for infrastructure projects while strengthening support for Utah workers.

This is public news service.

Doctors in private practice, especially those who perform procedures in their offices, are asking the Congress to revamp the Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rules so they can afford to keep their doors open.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did recently boost reimbursement rates for office-based services, But federal data show that in 2025, doctors weren't getting enough to cover the cost of medical equipment and supplies.

Jason McKittrick heads the Office-Based Facility Association and is a principal with Liberty Partners Group, a DC lobbying firm.

He says many private practices have shut down over the last decade, forcing patients to travel farther for more expensive hospital-based care.

The office-based setting is just as safe, but often a fraction of the costs in a hospital.

So patients are paying more, they're driving farther and their outcomes are worse because if you're missing a treatment because you just can't make it to the place to get treated, your outcomes are gonna be worse.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

And this season, the Seattle Seahawks are sending shock waves through the state.

Literally, scientists set up seismographs at Lumen Field during recent playoff games to measure how hard fans shake the stadium during big plays.

Harold Tobin of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network or PNSN says the crowds did not disappoint.

For comparison, he says during one of the games, there was a simultaneous earthquake about 11 miles away that was measured at magnitude 2.6.

And when we directly compare the shaking of that to the stadium shaking from the fans, there's no comparison actually.

The earthquake is much, much smaller shaking.

So stadium shook harder than a local nearby 2.6 earthquake.

PNSN says the experiments help give scientists practice using their equipment and analyzing the data as fan enthusiasm is much more predictable than actual earthquakes.

Tobin adds the experiments also help engage the public around their work as seismologists.

I'm Isabel Charlay.

Finally, climate change isn't going away and New Mexico conservation groups say goals to address the issue need to be written into law.

Senator Mimi Stewart has reintroduced the Clear Horizons Act stalled last year over affordability.

The bill would codify the state's climate targets by requiring state regulators to craft new rules for meeting a 2030 target of cutting emissions 45 percent below 2005 levels.

Camilla Feibelman with the Sierra Club Rio Grande chapter believes the legislation responds to the growing cost New Mexicans already pay for climate change.

We are paying for fire damages, fires that put lives and livelihoods at risk.

We're seeing extreme drought, failed snowpack, curtailment of irrigation, new mosquito species.

I'm Roz Brown.

This is Mike Clifford.

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