News from around the nation.

What's behind the highly unusual move to block Minnesota officials from investigating ICE shooting; Report: WA State driver data still flows to ICE; Amazon data centers worsen nitrate pollution in eastern OR; Child development experts lament new Lego tech-filled Smart Bricks.

Transcript

The Public News Service Friday Afternoon Update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Mutual distrust between federal and state authorities derailed plans for a joint FBI and state criminal investigation into Wednesday's shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE officer, leading to a highly unusual move by the Justice Department to block state investigators from participating in the probe.

That from CNN.

The report, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Thursday that there was an initial agreement for the FBI to work with the state agency.

CNN notes behind the move to sever ties were concerns in the Trump administration that state officials couldn't be trusted with information that emerges from the probe and that ICE agent Safey could be put at risk.

Meantime, driver's license data from Washington state is still flowing to federal immigration agents despite promises to cut off that access, a new report reveals.

Researchers have confirmed that in late 2025, federal agencies used the state system to query driver data in at least nine cases that led to arrests.

Angelina Gadoy is the director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights and the principal author of the report.

She says there are legitimate reasons why law enforcement agencies might need access to Department of Licensing data, but enforcement of civil immigration policy is not one of them.

Regardless of how one slices and dices the law, it's very clearly in contradiction to the stated policies articulated by multiple state agencies and articulated very clearly in state law.

This is not what Washingtonians have been promised.

The Department of Licensing and Washington State Patrol say they have already taken steps to protect the data and deny breaking any laws.

I'm Isabel Charlay.

And the recent boom of Amazon data centers in Eastern Oregon is worsening the groundwater and failing to provide promised benefits to the community according to some residents.

Local activist rancher, Jim Doherty explains the facilities use contaminated water for cooling.

The process heats the water, concentrates the toxins and the resulting wastewater is spread on farmland, re-entering the groundwater.

They by themselves are not creating the nitrates, but where we already have an issue out here, they're exacerbating it about tenfold once they go through and concentrate it in the data centers.

Since 2011, over 30 data centers have been built in Portman, Oregon.

The town's groundwater has had a longstanding nitrate problem, largely from industrial agriculture.

This story was originally reported by Sean Patrick Cooper with the Food Environmental Research Network.

And some child development experts are lamenting the Lego company's release of a new TechVille smart brick.

The product is similar to Lego's classic building brick, but includes special sensors that the company says respond to the builder's actions with various sounds and behaviors.

Rachel Franz with the Boston-based nonprofit Fair Play says toy and technology companies have convinced parents that kids need digital products to thrive.

The need for technology, especially in early childhood, just doesn't exist.

So I think there's definitely a profit motive here.

Lego says it's simply innovating to meet the play needs of each new generation.

I'm Catherine Carley.

This is public news service.

Meantime, the US House has passed legislation that would extend Affordable Care Act tax credits for three years, a move supporters say that could prevent sharp premium increases for millions of Americans.

Since the subsidies expired in December, higher premiums have already prompted of the 477,000 Ohioans on ACA plans to drop their coverage.

The bill passed Thursday in a 230 to 196 vote, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats, including three from Ohio.

But its future is uncertain in the Senate.

For some Ohioans, the outcome could directly affect whether coverage remains affordable.

Justin Carter, who lives in Columbus and recently aged out of his parents' insurance plan, says premium increases pushed him to make a difficult decision.

In the last couple of months, my insurance jumped up.

My previous plan, I think, went up almost three times.

So then I kind of had to have this conversation with myself with, "Hey, do you want to keep paying for the same insurance, or do you kind of want to wait and see what happens?"

So I ended up actually canceling my insurance.

Republican opponents say extending the subsidies is too costly.

Farah Siddiqui reporting.

This story was produced in association with media in the public interest and funded in part by the George Gunn Foundation.

For many in Mississippi, like Americans across the country, political conflict is moving beyond policy debate to become a source of personal stress.

That's according to new research from Florida State University's Institute for Governance and Civics.

The National Report finds 63 percent of Americans now say discussing politics with those they disagree with is stressful, a significant jump from 45 percent in 2013.

Ryan Owens, director of the Institute, says the data points to a deeper problem where people increasingly view political opponents as fundamentally immoral.

They are reporting they're losing friends more as a consequence of politics.

And for me, one of the more alarming things across both sides of the political spectrum, Americans are starting to see members of the opposite party as more immoral and more dishonest than the average American.

I'm Tramiel Gomes.

Finally, there was a time in the U.S. when support for nature and conservation was as American's apple pie.

It's more partisan now, and one group wants Congress to help reduce the divisiveness.

Sixty years ago, there was almost unanimous support by lawmakers for passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act and for the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

Now, while many Democrats still support the laws, some Republicans in Congress want to weaken both.

The group Nature is Nonpartisan launched last year to address the issue.

The group's Amelia Joy says the partisan back and forth has left communities behind.

If there's anything that we can agree on, it's nature, it's stewardship, it's that our kids and our grandkids should be able to enjoy the same natural beauty that we do.

And that's a point that no one can disagree with.

I'm Roz Brown.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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