Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Judge dismisses Trump administration suit against federal bench in Maryland; Lack of oversight at immigrant detention centers concerns TX advocates; Report: Georgia investments key as U.S. risks losing EV race to China; who really owns IL farmland? More corporations than ever; Wyoming's low-wage workers fall further behind bosses in pay gap.

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service Daily Newscast, August 27, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

A federal judge Tuesday threw out an extraordinary lawsuit that the Trump administration filed against the entire federal bench in Maryland, challenging a standing order intended to briefly slow down the government's ability to deport undocumented immigrants.

That from the New York Times.

The report in a scathing 39-page ruling, the Judge Thomas Cullen called the suit "novel and potentially calamitous," saying that the administration had simpler and clearly more legal ways to contest the standing order aside from bringing a suit against all 15 federal judges who sit in Maryland.

The Times notes that Judge Cullen, who was appointed by Trump, used the ruling to take Trump and some of his top aides to task for having repeatedly attacked other judges who have dared to rule against the White House in a flurry of cases challenging aspects of its political agenda.

Meantime, advocates for immigrant kids held in family detention centers are concerned about the health and safety of children inside some Texas facilities.

KFF Health News reports the Trump administration plans to eliminate the Flores settlement agreement which requires federal US immigration officials to hold migrant children in facilities that are safe and sanitary.

Attorney Daniel Hatoum with the Texas Civil Rights Project says even with the law in place, kids are being held in unsafe conditions.

Young children need very specific types of medical care.

Specialists that studies have shown these detention facilities don't have.

Terrible food, to the point where food is rotten, not sufficient amount of formula for young children who really need it.

Remember some of these children are as young as one year old.

Lack of mental health care.

The U.S. Department of Justice argues protections under the Flores agreement encourage immigration and make it difficult to establish federal immigration policy.

This story was produced with original reporting from Sandy West for KFF Health News.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

Georgia has become a national leader in electric vehicle production, attracting more than 31 billion dollars in investments and creating over 38,000 jobs since 2015.

But without stronger federal support, states like Georgia may struggle to hold on to those gains as China expands its focus in the EV and battery supply chain.

At the American Security Project, Lead Report author Catherine Yusko explains the gap.

China is the largest electric vehicle market in the world by a wide margin.

So China also produces 70 percent of the world's EVs, 80 percent of the world's lithium-ion batteries used to power EVs.

USCO notes while US cells have grown they've slowed in recent years in part because of policy rollbacks and supply chain vulnerabilities.

Shantia Hudson reporting.

This is public news service.

Corporate ownership of Illinois farmland has risen nearly a hundred seventy percent since 2005 now accounting for more than one in five acres.

Nearly one fourth of Illinois farmland is owned by business entities with out-of-state addresses, and about 3 percent is foreign held, a Chicago Tribune analysis found.

Illinois is among the only Corn Belt state that doesn't place restrictions on corporate purchases of farmland.

Local farmers like Hans Bishop, who used to grow and sell organic vegetables, face pressure from landlords to grow conventional corn and soybeans instead of organic or sustainable crops.

I don't like the fact that there's so much corn and soybeans in the Midwest, but I guess the government makes it easy to do that.

And to some degree, I was just like, why make it harder on myself?

Land rental prices, which have more than doubled since 2005, make it harder for small farmers to compete, while short-term leases discourage soil conservation practices.

Without ownership security, many tenants avoid costly methods like cover crops, which accelerate soil erosion, fertilizer runoff, and dependence on chemicals.

I'm Judith Luiz Branch reporting.

This story with original reporting by Karina Atkins with the Chicago Tribune.

And as folks in Wyoming prepare to celebrate Labor Day, a new report shows just how far workers have fallen behind bosses when it comes to their share of company earnings.

CEOs at the largest 100 low-wage corporations listed in the S&P 500, businesses like Home Depot, Starbucks, Walmart, and others, earn 632 times more than their lowest-paid workers on average.

Sarah Anderson with the Institute for Policy Studies is lead author of the report.

She says CEO pay has soared since 2019, while worker pay has lagged behind US inflation.

At a time when many American workers are struggling with high costs for things like groceries and housing, what we found is that the nation's 100 largest low-wage employers are focused on making their overpaid CEOs even richer.

I'm Eric Galatas.

Next to Indiana, where Democrats are focused on the state civil rights commission after governor Mike Braun appointed Philip Clay as the agency's new director.

Joey LaRue has our story.

Indiana Democratic Party vice chair, Alex Narendra, criticizes the decision saying Clay lacks the legal expertise and civil rights experience needed for the post.

Narendra points to Clay's career in real estate and investor relations as evidence he is unqualified to lead an agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws.

Outside was just being a party guy.

This guy has openly stepped out and talked negatively about communities and racist policing and just calling it race baiting.

The governor's office defends the choice saying Clay brings strong management experience and community involvement.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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