Six minutes of news from around the nation.

VA federal workers fight Trump's repeal of collective bargaining; DOGE cuts to National Parks impact NM; a federal judge begins contempt proceedings against Trump administration for using the Alien Enemies Act; and manure runoff affects all states, including NC.

Transcript

The Public News Service Daily Newscast for Thursday, April 17, 2025.

I'm Edwin J. Vieira.

Meanwhile, federal workers in Virginia are part of a national labor union lawsuit filed against President Donald Trump's executive order to strip collective bargaining rights from nearly one million federal employees.

Zimone Perez reports.

The Trump administration had already ended collective bargaining agreements with Transportation Security Administration employees.

Scott Robinson, the president of his local TSA union in Virginia, says federal workers like himself are not the enemy.

He adds that these actions throw out protections from unfair disciplinary actions or firings without cause.

There's a huge effort to portray federal employees as guys in gray suits who make hundreds of thousands of dollars and work in a fancy office in DC.

That's not the case.

The federal employees that you interact with are park rangers, they're TSA officers, they're They're the FSA clerks, they're the VA nurses."

The Trump administration says the order is needed to protect America's national security interests and defend the president's agenda.

The order revokes the collective bargaining rights of federal workers involved in national security issues.

That spans federal employees at nearly two dozen agencies, including the Defense Department and Justice Department.

New Mexico's national parks generally operate year-round, but they might not operate at 100 percent efficiency this year due to employee firings, layoffs and buyouts.

Roz Brown has more on that story.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration told some 2,500 National Park Service workers to resign or retire and promised still more cuts to the agency.

Responding to criticism about the move, the US Interior Secretary ordered national parks and historic sites to remain open and accessible.

Kate Grotzinger with the Center for National Western Priorities believes that's a dilemma for park goers.

Visitors could be put at risk by not having adequate search and rescue staff available.

So ordering the parks to reopen without adequate staff is a bad idea, it doesn't serve anyone.

According to state data, as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, face cuts, Michigan's most vulnerable stand to lose the most.

Crystal Blair has more.

In the Great Lakes state, more than two million people count on Medicaid, and more than a million of them are kids.

When it comes to putting food on the table, more than one million Michiganders rely on SNAP benefits, which include one in four children.

Amber Bellazer, with the Michigan League for Public Policy, or MLPP, emphasizes how the ripple effects of these proposed cuts could create widespread challenges even for those not directly enrolled in Medicaid or SNAP.

If a rural hospital closes because they're operating on razor-thin margins and have lost a significant amount of their funding because of Medicaid cuts, that hospital closes not just for Medicaid enrollees, but for all folks in that community.

Supporters of the cuts contend that these programs place a heavy burden on the federal budget, discourage work and self-reliance, and are susceptible to fraud and abuse.

This is Public News Service.

Federal Judge James Boasberg is beginning contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for defying his order to remove migrants through the Alien Enemies Act.

This 18th century wartime law has only been used three times before, but Trump says the nation is at war, calling the influx of migrants an invasion.

This comes as the administration and the El Salvadorian government are refusing to return people like Quilmar Abrego Garcia and Merwell Gutierrez back to the US after falsely detaining and deporting them.

The treatment of manure runoff in drinking water sources is a health threat across the country, including in North Carolina, according to a new report.

Eric Tegedorf has more.

A disinfectant byproduct from treating water is trihalomethane, which can be toxic at high levels.

The Environmental Working Group's report on the chemical ranked North Carolina seventh for most water systems testing at or above the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency's maximum standard.

And Schechinger with Environmental Working Group says manure applied to hog and poultry farm fields in North Carolina runs off to bodies of water used for drinking water, which utilities clean.

Then the chlorine or other disinfectants react with the organic matter that's in the manure that washed off farm fields.

And so then this can trigger the production of the disinfection byproduct chemicals.

Four percent of North Carolina's water systems serving more than 4.2 million people tested at or above the trihalomethane limit between 2019 and 2023, according to the report.

The Environmental Working Group found more than 122 million people across the U.S. are affected by this issue.

Today marks the last day of Black Maternal Health Week, a nationally and internationally recognized observance that serves to build community collaboration around addressing the maternal health statistics for Black women.

Judith Ruiz Branch reports.

Black women in the US are more than three times more likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause than white women and are more than two times more likely to experience complications that negatively impact their health.

The majority of them are preventable.

The week-long campaign that serves to highlight these disparities was founded in 2018 by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance.

Executive Director Angela Aina says, while there have been great strides since the launch, More attention needs to be paid to the root causes of maternal morbidity and mortality.

It really does point to how pervasive and how systemic and structural gendered racism and obstetric violence is very, very much seeped in our systems.

The rate of adverse outcomes for Black women in Wisconsin have increased significantly in the past decade, with Black women across the state more than 1 1/2 times more likely to experience them and more than two times more likely to experience a pregnancy-related death.

The Trump administration is halting construction on a New York offshore wind farm.

The Empire Wind Farm is designed to power more than 500,000 homes across the state and was part of developing its green economy.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum paused the project, citing it needs further review of information, suggesting the Biden administration rushed the project's approval without sufficient analysis.

I'm Edwin J. Viera for Public News Service, member and listener supported.

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