Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Trump administration blasts 'unprecedented assault' on its power in first Supreme Court appeal; MT immigrant advocates watch federal, state policies; CA towns, cities must adapt as dangers of bigger wildfires loom; NE proposal would fund housing for domestic abuse survivors.

Transcript

♪♪ -The Public News Service Daily Newscast, February the 17th, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

President Donald Trump will ask the Supreme Court to allow him to fire the head of a government ethics watchdog agency in the first appeal from his litigious second term to reach the nation's highest court.

That from CNN.

The report at the center of the appeal is Hampton Dellinger, who leads the Office of Special Counsel, and whom Trump fired this month despite protections enacted by Congress that require an administration to show cause before dismissing someone from the post before their five-year term has ended.

CNN notes a federal district court temporarily blocked Dellinger's dismissal while it considers his case, and the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit late Saturday declined to overrule that decision.

The Justice Department prepared its appeal to the Supreme Court within hours of that decision.

Meantime, according to the Immigration Policy Tracking Project, the Trump administration has taken 130 actions on immigration so far this term.

Groups in Montana are trying to both track those changes and watch state bills.

One early executive order placed a 90-day freeze on refugee arrivals to the country, halting families with flights already booked to the U.S.

Another made changes to temporary protected status and humanitarian parole, granted when a person's home country is deemed unsafe due to armed conflict, natural disaster, or other emergencies.

Mary Poole is the executive director of the nonprofit resettlement agency Soft Landing Missoula.

This rapid removal of humanitarian protections, that's one thing that's really scary for folks.

Many people came here through this new legal pathway that Biden created, and it might just be deemed null and void.

Two Montana immigration bills passed the House and were brought to the Senate last week.

One would require police to check and report someone's immigration status during a lawful stop, and the other would allow the state to criminally prosecute a person in federal detention for immigration violations.

I'm Kathleen Shannon.

And the final numbers from January's wildfires in Southern California are jaw-dropping.

At least 29 dead, 200,000 people evacuated, and more than 18,000 structures destroyed.

We get more in this proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, California News Service, collaboration.

As rebuilding begins, experts say there are steps homeowners and urban planners should take to minimize the destruction from future fires.

Nick Link with the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis says communities should see rebuilding as an opportunity to avoid past mistakes.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Rather than writing a blank check, which we're gonna have to start doing more and more often for more and more communities, what if we invested a little bit up front and created more of the space?

Link says communities should incorporate fire-smart strategies and infrastructure, require vegetation-free buffers or fire breaks, mandate fire-resistant building materials such as double-pane windows, and offer incentives to owners who rebuild using these strategies.

I'm Mark Richardson.

This is Public News Service.

Next to Nebraska, where the legislature is considering a bill that would provide nearly a million dollars to help survivors of domestic abuse and sex trafficking pay for emergency housing.

Recent research shows that 1.4 million Nebraskans have reported some form of domestic or sexual violence in their lifetimes.

Joe Baer, executive director of Encourage Advocacy Center, says lack of access to safe and affordable housing is a primary barrier for survivors of sex trafficking and intimate partner violence who are trying to escape abusive relationships.

So these survivors are having to weigh out, do I stay in a unsafe situation or do I leave and potentially become homeless, potentially have my children become homeless?

Baer adds that people who've experienced domestic violence or sex trafficking have almost always suffered financial abuse.

I'm Mark Moran.

And a new bill before Arkansas lawmakers is designed to improve maternal care for low-income families.

If passed, the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act will invest more than $45 million annually into programs for mothers and babies statewide.

Arkansas Surgeon General Dr. Kay Chandler says the legislation will make prenatal care available to everyone.

As soon as somebody knows they're pregnant, we want them to go to the doctor, make an appointment right away.

If they have a doctor at OBGYN, let's go to the doctor at OBGYN, family doctor, wherever you offer your prenatal care.

But if you don't, you can go to the health department, your local health unit, and get free prenatal care and they can help you get established.

Arkansas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation and the third highest infant mortality rate.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

Finally, the incidence of drug overdose is decreasing in Indiana.

One reason could be the efforts of an organization offering free training to anyone willing to help someone struggling with addiction.

Indianapolis-based Overdose Lifeline works to address the basic needs of families, individuals, and communities, showing them how to administer the overdose reversal drug naloxone, or Narcan.

CEO Justin Phillips explains naloxone can reverse the effects of fentanyl, currently the most prevalent synthetic opioid in the drug supply.

We want to make people understand opioids and the class and family of opioids.

Then we talk about stigma and harm reduction and we give people the signs and symptoms of an overdose and then we provide them with free overdose reversal kits.

She says with proper training, someone can be better suited to reverse an overdose than administer CPR.

The training lasts about an hour.

In the second quarter of last year, the Marion County Public Health Department reported 124 overdose deaths.

I'm Terry Dee reporting.

This is Mike Clifford.

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