News from around the nation.

2 dead, 6 wounded in shooting outside LDS church in Salt Lake City; Woman killed by ICE agent in Minneapolis was a mother of 3, poet and new to the city; Texas AFT files federal lawsuit to protect free speech; New bill would shield WA immigrant workers from surprise raids; Colorado food pantries face rising demand amid federal disruptions.

Transcript

The Public News Service Wednesday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Two people were killed and six injured in a shooting in Salt Lake City's Rose Park neighborhood Wednesday evening when a fight broke out in a church parking lot outside a funeral.

That from KSL.com.

They quote a Salt Lake City police spokesperson as saying, "At this point, we know there are at least eight victims.

I can confirm that two of them have died.

Three of them are in critical condition.

The shooter or shooters remained at large."

ICE officer Minneapolis Wednesday was Renee Nicole Macklin-Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had recently moved to Minnesota.

ABC reports she was a U.S. citizen born in Colorado and appears to have never been charged with anything involving law enforcement beyond a traffic ticket.

Next, the Texas Teachers Union is fighting back against what it calls threats to free speech.

The Texas American Federation of Teachers has filed a federal lawsuit against the Teacher Education Agency and Commissioner Mike Morath for investigating Teachers' social media post made about the slain conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk.

Union President Zev Capo says the lawsuit was filed to protect the rights of educators.

Just because someone is a teacher in the state of Texas doesn't mean that they check their free speech rights at the door.

The decision made by the Commissioner of Education was overly vague as well as put state in direct opposition to the individual constitutional rights of our members.

In a letter to superintendents, Morath said the post could constitute a violation of the Educators Code of Ethics.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

And in response to increased immigration detentions across the state, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown and other state lawmakers have introduced the Immigrant Worker Protection Act for the 2026 session.

The law would require employers to notify employees within 72 hours when the federal government requests their employment eligibility information, including immigration status.

Senator Rebecca Saldana of Seattle says the act would provide necessary information to workers and employers giving them time to gather documents and make sure they're prepared before immigration officers come knocking.

It is creating havoc in our economy.

These workers are human beings.

They deserve to have dignity and respect regardless of their immigration status.

Over a thousand immigrant arrests were made in Washington in 2025.

Mark Richardson reporting.

The food pantries that help families across Colorado are finding innovative ways to meet rising demand.

According to a new Prevecho Collective report, Senior Impact and Evaluation Manager Casey Neese says six in ten food pantries saw spikes in demand even before the government shutdown temporarily blocked SNAP benefits.

The federal government shutdown affected federal food benefits, but even prior to that loss of benefits, we saw a significant increase in demand for food pantries. five food pantries said they were impacted by federal funding cuts or grant freezes before the shutdown.

This is public news service.

And as New York's 2026 legislative session begins, a bill mandating kids statewide be taught about the January 6th insurrection is being reintroduced.

This comes as public views on it have softened and a new investigation into the attacks begins this year.

The legislation was initially introduced in 2025 with some positive feedback.

Assemblymember Charles Levine, the bill's sponsor, says there is an obligation to teach kids the truth amid an attempted whitewashing of events.

Without it, our struggle to establish a more perfect union, which is what the founders wanted us to do, and our ability to remain, as Lincoln put it, "Earth's last best hope is in mortal peril."

He adds the bill's overall goal isn't only to present accurate versions of history, but to ensure kids learn about the good and bad parts.

It also calls for kids to learn about broader concepts like civic education and values, America's history with diversity and religious tolerance.

The bill failed to pass out of the Assembly and Senate Education Committees during the 2025 session, but Levine hopes it will gain traction as the session continues.

I'm Edwin J. Viera.

Next, Louisiana officials have been using funds from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement to protect coastal areas, but stakeholders are now pushing to fund the restoration of the state's fragile shoreline wetlands.

Officials with the state's coastal protection and restoration authority are currently developing plans for fiscal 2027 that will include barrier island restorations.

General Sutcliffe is a resilience advisor for the National Wildlife Federation.

He says wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate.

We'll never have as much coastline as we do today.

The statistics change here and there but the overall trajectory of loss and increasing storm risk remains the same.

Sutcliffe says the state is moving away from sediment diversion projects as outlined in the state's 50-year coastal master plan and is shifting funds toward restoring land bridges in coastal barrier islands.

The authority is sponsoring a series of public meetings and will accept public comments on the plan through February 17th at postal.la.gov.

Mark Richardson reporting.

And finally a new U.S. Postal Service rule on post Postmarks could impact rural voters in Montana and across the country.

Advocates for Native communities are particularly concerned.

Instead of postmarking mail the day it's received by local post offices, the postmark will now reflect the date it reaches a regional processing facility.

Keaton's son child is with Western Native Voice, a Montana non-profit that addresses issues affecting Indigenous people.

He says it could now take another day or two to process mail-in ballots. vote counts and if we are all of a sudden changing the rules and changing the goalposts mid go that just leads to a little bit of confusion and potentially a lot of misvotes.

USPS says it's doing this to cut costs and improve efficiency.

I'm Laura Hatch reporting.

This is Mike Clifford from Public News Service.

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