News from around the nation.

Senate parliamentarian disqualifies key portions of GOP megabill; Supreme Court curbs injunctions that blocked Trump's birthright citizenship plan; Alabama groups fight proposed federal cuts to food, health programs; During Pride Month, CA LGBTQ+ advocates fight proposed cuts to Medi-Cal; League of Women Voters: Proposed federal cuts threaten MI health.

Transcript

The Public News Service Friday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

The Senate Parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump's tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to the Chamber's procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow as Republicans rush to finish the package this week.

That's for the Associated Press.

And from NBC News, the Supreme Court Friday handed a major win to the Trump administration by allowing it to take steps to implement its proposal to end automatic birthright citizenship.

In a 63 vote, the court granted a request by the administration to narrow the scope of nationwide injunctions so that they apply only to states, groups and individuals that sued.

And advocates and some state lawmakers gathered at the Alabama Statehouse on Thursday to protest proposed federal budget cuts which they say would threaten food assistance and other essential services for families in need.

Carol Gunlock with Alabama Rise says the plan would shift longstanding federal responsibilities for SNAP to the state, potentially overwhelming Alabama's budget and forcing cuts that hurt families.

We think that this proposal is going to cost Alabama close to $400 million a year.

I don't know that we have the money to do that.

Gunlock says if the bill passes without new funding, state lawmakers could be forced to choose between cutting food assistance or pulling money from other critical services.

Shantia Hudson reporting.

And Pride Month is wrapping up.

People who fight for LGBTQ health care are speaking out against huge proposed cuts to Medicaid known as Medi-Cal and the Golden State.

Republican backers say they want to add more work requirements and make people reapply every six months.

Juan Carlos Guerrero with the non-profit Caring Across Generations says that will kick eligible people off the program.

This is part of a misinformation that we're trying to really address and make clear that these are cuts to Medicaid services that are going to be felt in the community around us.

May it be through people who use it in hospital services, people who use it for in-home support and services.

The bill's supporters say they want to use the Medicaid savings to fund an extension of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Meantime the nonpartisan League of Women Voters is voicing concerns about people losing their health insurance coverage under what's known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act now in the Congress.

Jackie Coolidge with the League says its position is that Medicaid should be completely protected from the proposed cuts.

We would like to see Medicaid left alone.

We would love to see it improved and enhanced.

But realistically speaking, Medicaid should not be cut.

You've got a lot of vulnerable people who are going to be suffering.

Supporters of the legislation say it would cut taxes, rein in federal spending and give states more control over Medicaid.

The League estimates more than three million Michiganders would lose health coverage and tens of millions of people in other states.

This is Public News Service.

A process sometimes known as prison gerrymandering inflates the population numbers in voting districts where prisons are located, which affects the results when states draw legislative districts after the census.

But groups say there's an easy fix for states like North Carolina.

The three most prison gerrymandered districts in North Carolina have incarcerated populations of close to 4 percent.

Mike Wessler says a U.S. Census Bureau policy means people are counted in the wrong place.

It counts them as residents of a prison cell rather than in their home communities.

When states like North Carolina then use this census data to draw new legislative districts every 10 years, they inadvertently give disproportionate political power to communities that have prisons.

Gerrymandered districts in North Carolina include District 32, where a federal correctional facility is located.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, only about 4 percent of people incarcerated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons are from North Carolina, meaning the majority of people in the facility are not even from the state.

I'm Eric Tegethoff reporting.

And neighborhoods in Virginia where they hire a proportion of people of color tend to be several degrees hotter than others during summer months, according to a new report.

Neighborhoods with individual cities exhibited stark temperature differences, sometimes by as much as 15 degrees.

Todd Lookingbill with the University of Richmond says he studied intra-urban heat islands, or temperature differences in neighborhoods, across one city.

Hotter neighborhoods commonly have fewer trees and surfaces that water can't seep through, like roads and roofs.

He explains that while heat islands have been identified in bigger cities, heat disparities also exist in smaller cities and towns.

Those hot spots were frequently found in historically segregated neighborhoods with more people of color.

We did find in four of our cities that had been historically redlined that those areas that were redlined and were denied kind of housing loans historically, those areas continue to be some of the warmest areas in those towns and cities.

Those environmental injustices seem to be persistent through time.

I'm Simone Perez.

Finally, nearly 30 percent of Gen Z college students decided where they would attend school based at least partly on political reasons, according to a new report.

The education consulting firm EAB found 14 percent of prospective students removed to school from their consideration list for being too conservative and 12 percent did so for schools they deemed too liberal.

Pam Royal with EAB says a key finding is that prospective students are looking for college choices that reflect their values.

They're eliminating certain institutions that they believe are misaligned with their political values, either because they're too conservative or they're too liberal, they're in a blue state or a red state.

These incoming students are part of what some call the anxious generation because of their increased mental health struggles.

Royal says they tend to have a greater sense of anxiety, largely because of social media and pressure to make decisions in an environment with competing messages.

I'm Kathleen Shannon.

This is Mike Clifford.

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