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U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, June 28, 2025. Hawley said he will vote for the budget reconciliation measure after a rural hospital fund was added. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans appeared to be poised to vote Saturday afternoon on moving ahead with the massive tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump wants on his desk in less than a week. Senate GOP leaders released new bill  text just before midnight Friday that satisfied rural state lawmakers’ concerns over financial threats to rural hospitals posed by cuts in Medicaid. The bill also addresses concerns from Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska on access to food assistance for their constituents despite new restrictions on a USDA program for low-income people. As talks continued on Capitol Hill Saturday afternoon, a handful of Senate Republicans, including Missouri’s Eric Schmitt and Lindsey Graham of South Car...

Protesters from Service Employees International Union — a large labor union whose members include health care workers — gathered outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., in near-100-degree heat on June 23 to express displeasure with congressional Republicans’ plans to make cuts to Medicaid as part of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” (Phil Galewitz/KFF Health News) This story originally appeared on KFF Health News . Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing. Stephanie Ivory counts on Medicaid to get treated for gastrointestinal conditions and a bulging disc that makes standing or sitting for long periods painful. Her disabilities keep her from working, she said. Ivory, 58, of Columbus, Ohio, believes she would be exempt from a requirement that adult Medicaid recipients work, but she worries about the reporting process. “It’s hard enough just renewing Medicaid coverage every six months with the phone calls and paperwork,” she said. In Warrenton, M...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters amid negotiations with Senate Republicans on budget reconciliation on Friday, June 27, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans appear ready to take an initial vote on their “big, beautiful bill” as soon as Saturday, which would set up final passage within a couple of days — though Majority Leader John Thune called the timeline “aspirational.” GOP senators have been negotiating the sweeping tax and spending cuts package for weeks, trying to ensure the dozens of provisions meet the complex rules for writing a reconciliation bill and can garner the support needed to actually become law. “We are continuing to explore options on all the outstanding issues,” Thune said Friday afternoon. But several Republican senators leaving a closed-door working lunch that lasted more than two hours told reporters they expect to see the final bill text possibly by Friday night before taking their first proc...

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee's Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., talks with ranking Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on June 3, 2025 before Education Secretary Linda McMahon testified to the panel about President Donald Trump's budget request for the Education Department.  The proposal includes a reduction in the maximum Pell Grant award. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants to cut nearly $1,700 from the maximum Pell Grant award as part of his fiscal 2026 budget request — a move that would leave the subsidy for low-income students at its lowest level in more than a decade. The proposal would have a devastating effect on college affordability and drive up costs for states because they’d have to fill in the missing federal dollars, education advocates and experts say. The request — part of the president’s wish list for appropriations in fiscal 2026 ...

David Lee Roberts, 59, was convicted of the 1992 murder of Aneetra Jones in 1992 and sentenced to death. (Alabama Department of Corrections) Gov. Kay Ivey set an August execution date for David Lee Roberts, who was convicted of the murder of Annetra Jones in Marion County in April 1992. Roberts, 59, is scheduled to be put to death Aug. 21 by nitrogen gas. He is the fourth person the state will put to death this year and the third using that method of execution. A Marion County jury convicted Roberts of two counts of capital murder in December 1992. According to court documents, Jones was sleeping at her boyfriend’s den, Wendell Satterfield, where Roberts was also staying. Roberts left his job and went to the Setterfield residence. He packed his belongings, stole money from Jones and shot her three times in the head using a rifle, then set the residence on fire. The jury voted 7-5 to recommend Roberts be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge over...

Tennessee resident George Raines works on mobility issues with physical therapist Brad Ellis, standing, in Chattanooga, Tenn., in March 2024. A growing number of states have more older adults than children, making it likely there will be fewer young residents to care for their elders as their ranks continue to grow. (Anna Claire Vollers/Stateline) This story originally appeared on Stateline . Montana, Oregon and Pennsylvania have joined the ranks of states where older people outnumber children, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates to be released Thursday morning. The ratio of people older than 65 to children younger than 18 grew in every state, according to a Stateline analysis of the estimates, which measure age changes in mid-2024 compared with earlier years. Other states where older people already outnumbered children in 2023: Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia. That grew from just four in 2020: Florida, Maine, Vermont...

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., right, meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to El Salvador by ICE agents. (Photo courtesy Van Hollen's office) WASHINGTON — Attorneys for the unlawfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia Thursday made an emergency request to a federal judge to bring him back to Maryland while his case continues, following public statements from Trump administration officials that they would deport him to El Salvador upon his release from a Tennessee federal court. District of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt scheduled an emergency hearing Thursday afternoon on the request. “The Government’s public statements leave little doubt about its plan: remove Abrego Garcia to El Salvador once more,” according to the complaint . “If this Court does not act swiftly, then the Government is likely to whisk Abrego Garcia away to some place far from Maryland,” it says. Federal prosecutors in Tennessee court  have said that should...