Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Judge rules Trump administration illegally canceled Harvard funding; Lawsuits filed to stop Texas' new congressional map; Georgia farmers weigh effects of national ag policy shifts; Infant mortality awareness month highlights tragic issue in NC.

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service daily newscast, September the 4th, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Harvard University won a crucial legal victory in its clash with the Trump administration Wednesday, when a federal judge said the government had broken the law by freezing billions of dollars in research funds in the name of stamping out anti-Semitism.

That's from the New York Times.

They report the ruling may not be the final word of the matter, the decision by Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S.

District Court in Boston was an interim rebuff on the Trump administration's campaign to remake elite higher education by force.

The Times notes Harvard's case centered on its research funding and the university contended the administration had compromised its First Amendment and due process rights.

Meantime, two lawsuits have been filed against the newly drawn redistricting maps in Texas.

Opponents of the gerrymandered map that creates more Republican districts say it's racially discriminatory and that redrawing maps mid-decade is unconstitutional.

Stephanie Gomez with Move Texas says under the current system, Texas maps will always favor the majority party.

Ultimately, the issue that we need to be talking about as a state and a country, what does it look like to have an independent, actually community-led redistricting process?

And we know that this type of stuff exists in other states, but in Texas, they have made it so we can't have that.

The map was redrawn at the urging of President Donald Trump to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress.

Lawsuits have been filed by LULAC, the NAACP, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus.

A hearing on the map is scheduled for October.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

The new map moves more Democratic voters in Dallas and Houston into districts that the minority party already controls and puts Democratic voters in largely Republican districts.

And across the country, farmers are debating what role regenerative agriculture should play in the nation's food system, and if they can pin hopes on Make America Healthy Again policies.

At White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, farmer Will Harris has spent decades moving away from industrial methods.

He raises livestock on pasture, invest in healthy soil and built his own processing facilities.

Harris says his kind of regenerative farming supports rural economies and gives families better access to fresh, healthy food.

He adds that recognition from leaders in Washington has given him a new sense of hope for the future.

Increasingly, I thought of myself as a niche producer and less frequently I thought of myself as an innovator.

It wasn't until this Maha discussion that I started feeling like maybe the likelihood is greater than I will be an early innovator.

Shantia Hudson reporting.

This story was produced with original reporting from Lisa Held with Civil Eats.

This is public news service.

September is National Infant Mortality Awareness Month shining a light on a difficult and persistent issue.

The infant mortality rate in North Carolina was 6.9 deaths per thousand births in 2023, which was the tenth highest rate the nation.

There are also large disparities along racial lines, with black infants dying at three times the rate of white infants.

Kaitlin Richards with the organization NC Child says the top two causes of infant mortality in North Carolina are low birth weight and birth defects.

That can be tied directly back to access to early prenatal care within the first trimester of a pregnancy, which black mothers typically have less access to that prenatal care in their first trimester compared to white mothers and those of other race and ethnicities.

State policy makers are looking into ways to reduce the infant mortality rate.

Each year, the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force sends a report to the governor and General Assembly, which includes recommendations for reducing child deaths.

I'm Eric Tegethoff reporting.

And New York advocates are sounding the alarm over looming threats to disability access on multiple fronts.

With more than 4 million New Yorkers living with a documented disability, federal policy changes include cuts to Medicaid and staff reductions and reorganizations at enforcement agencies.

Shifting costs on the states is likely to reduce accessibility accommodations in education and elsewhere.

Sharon McLennan Weir with the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York says these impacts will be widely felt.

It doesn't matter if you're Republican, Democrat, or Independent, you're Black, White, you're rich or poor, anyone can have a disability from an to an accident, to a disease.

It can happen to anyone at any time and it would be so much better if we have an environment that is accessible for everyone.

While the Americans with Disabilities Act celebrated its 35th anniversary this summer, the Older Rehabilitation Act of 1973 faces a potential threat in federal court. 17 states are challenging regulations that reinforce community-based care, raising concerns that states could shift resources back towards institutional settings.

Brett Pivito reporting.

Finally are roiling Arizona conservation groups to demand that their representatives in Washington, D.C. stop rubber-stamping cuts to environmental regulations and agency funding.

Groups such as Chispa, Arizona, say rising energy costs are hurting working people and providing corporate interests with unwarranted record profits.

V&A Oliverio at Chispa, part of the League of Conservation Voters, fears that decades of work toward renewable energy goals will be erased.

Utilities just rolled back their promises to transition to clean energy by 2030.

They just said we're not going to do that anymore and it's really alarming because renewable energy, clean renewable energy, is the only way that we can move forward in Arizona.

Mark Richardson reporting.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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