Politics and views in the United States.

Clean air advocates question U.S. Steel deal. Israeli fire kills more than two dozen at a Gaza aid site, and state lawmakers debate health coverage for unauthorized migrants and taxes on the wealthy.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

We think it might be a new hot strip mill.

What does that mean for the coke works, ores and blast furnaces?

New mills employ fewer people.

That's completely unaddressed.

Matthew Michalik of the Breathe Project questions what Rust Belt communities in western Pennsylvania will get from a possible $2 billion investment Nippon Steel plans when taking over U.S. Steel.

President Donald Trump celebrated what he says will be thousands of new jobs, but Mihalik says the Japanese company will use automation instead of employees and has a bad air pollution record.

An audacious Ukrainian drone attack may have crippled the third of Russia's bombers capable of carrying cruise missiles.

The attack comes as Kiev is sending its defense minister to cease-fire negotiations with Russia in Istanbul.

Aid groups say Israeli fire killed two dozen Palestinians and wounded many more at a food distribution site in Gaza.

Israel is denying responsibility.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is warning that China may be preparing for military action in the Pacific.

China calls the remarks provocative and accuses the U.S. of sowing division.

The Senate's returning to work on Trump's big budget and policy bill.

Some conservative budget hawks oppose it for ballooning the debt, and a handful of moderate Republicans don't like offsetting tax cuts for the wealthy with as much as a trillion dollars in cuts to SNAP and Medicaid.

Duke Medicine professor Nathan Boucher says cutting Medicaid could bankrupt most of America's rural hospitals.

Not just individuals will be hurt by this, but the hospitals will be hurt by this because they will have a degraded mechanism for which to bill for a lot of these patient care services.

North Carolina Republican Tom Tillis may face a tough race next year and is criticizing it for going back on promised clean energy investments.

Supporters say it will reduce fraud and waste.

Some states are considering raising taxes on the wealthy.

Inspired by the success of what's called the fair share tax in Massachusetts, Maine lawmakers are looking at a 4 percent surcharge on income over a million dollars to fund education.

In spite of Republican attacks that illegal immigrants get government benefits, a Minnesota proposal would let all adult migrants enroll in Medicaid there.

Their children already qualify.

Republican State Representative Jeff Backer said it could put the budget into deficit.

We are looking at a tremendous hurt to our system.

And this week marks 101 years since Native Americans gained U.S. citizenship.

Allison Neswood with the Native American Rights Fund says the 1924 federal law was a big step towards an as-yet unfulfilled promise.

The citizenship and the purported rights of citizenship wasn't going to be contingent on Native people cutting ties with their tribal community and tribal identity.

So that was really important.

She says some tribes weren't granted the ballot by states until the 1950s, and many still face barriers to voting.

I'm Farah Siddiqui for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.