WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s promises on affordability in 2024 helped propel him to a second term in the White House.

Since then, Trump says, the problem has been solved: He now calls affordability a hoax perpetrated by Democrats. Yet the high cost of living, especially housing, continues to weigh heavily on voters, and has dragged down the president’s approval ratings.

In a poll conducted this month by the New York Times and Siena University, 58% of respondents said they disapprove of the way the president is handling the economy.

How the economy fares in the coming months will play an outsize role in determining whether the Democrats can build on their electoral success in 2025 and seize control of one or both chambers of Congress.

With housing costs so central to voters’ perceptions about the economy, both parties have put forward proposals in recent weeks targeting affordability. Here is a closer look at their competing plans for expanding housing and reining in costs:

How bad is the affordability crisis?

Nationwide, wages have barely crept up over the last decade — rising by 21.24% between 2014 and 2024, according to the Federal Reserve. Over the same period, rent and home sale prices more than doubled, and healthcare and grocery costs rose 71.5% and 37.35%, respectively, according to the Fed.

National home price-to-income ratios are at an all-time high, and coastal states like California and Hawaii are the most extreme examples.

Housing costs in California are about twice the national average, according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, which said prices have increased at “historically rapid rates” in recent years. The median California home sold for $877,285 in 2024, according to the California Assn. of Realtors, compared with about $420,000 nationwide, per Federal Reserve economic data.

California needs to add 180,000 housing units annually to keep up with demand, according to the state Department of Housing. So far, California has fallen short of those goals and has just begun to see success in reducing its homeless population, which sat at 116,000 unsheltered people in 2025.

What do the polls say?

More than two-thirds of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll last month said they felt the economy was getting worse, and 36% expressed approval for the president — the lowest total since his second term began.

The poll found that 47% of U.S. adults now describe current economic conditions as “poor,” up from 40% just a month prior and the highest since Trump took office. Just 21% said economic conditions were either “excellent” or “good,” while 31% described them as “only fair.”

An Associated Press poll found that only 16% of Republicans think Trump has helped “a lot” in fixing cost of living problems.

What have the Democrats proposed?

The party is pushing measures to expand the supply of housing, and cut down on what they call “restrictive” single-family zoning in favor of denser development.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Democrats plan to “supercharge” construction through bills like California Sen. Adam Schiff’s Housing BOOM Act, which he introduced in December.

Schiff said the bill would lower prices by stimulating the development of “millions of affordable homes.” The proposal would expand low-income housing tax credits, set aside funds for rental assistance and homelessness, and provide $10 billion in housing subsidies for “middle-income” workers such as teachers, police officers and firefighters.

The measure has not been heard in committee, and faces long odds in the Republican-controlled body, though Schiff said inaction on the proposal could be used against opponents.

And the Republicans?

A group of 190 House Republicans this month unveiled a successor proposal to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the sprawling tax and spending plan approved and signed into law by Trump in July.

The Republican Study Committee described the proposal as an affordability package aimed at lowering down payments, enacting mortgage reforms and creating more tax breaks.

Leaders of the group said it would reduce the budget deficit by $1 trillion and could pass with a simple majority.

“This blueprint … locks in President Trump’s deregulatory agenda through the only process Democrats can’t block: reconciliation,” said Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, who chairs the group. “We have 11 months of guaranteed majorities. We’re not wasting a single day.”

Though the proposal has not yet been introduced as legislation, Republicans said it would include a mechanism to revoke funding from blue states over rent control and immigration policy, which they calculated would save $48 billion.

President Trump has endorsed a $200-billion mortgage bond stimulus, which he said would drive down mortgage rates and monthly payments. And the White House, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the two enterprises that back most U.S. mortgages — continues to push the idea of portable and assumable mortgages.

Trump said the move would allow buyers to keep their existing mortgage rate or enable new homeowners to assume a previous owner’s mortgage.

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, has launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the Fed’s renovation costs, as Trump bashed him over “his never ending quest to keep interest rates high.”

The president also vowed to revoke federal funding to states over a wealth of issues such as child care and immigration policy.

“This is not about any particular policy that they think is harmful,” California Democratic Rep. Laura Friedman said. “This is about Trump’s always trying to find a way to punish blue states.”

Is there any alignment?

The two parties are cooperating on companion measures in the House and Senate.

The bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act seeks to expand housing supply by easing regulatory barriers. It passed the Senate unanimously and has support from the White House, but House Republicans have balked, and it has yet to receive a floor vote.

A bipartisan proposal — the Housing in the 21st Century Act — was approved by the House Financial Services Committee by a 50-1 vote in December. It also has yet to receive a floor vote.

The bill is similar to its twin in the Senate, with Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) working across the aisle with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). If approved, it would cut permitting times, support manufactured-housing development and expand financing tools for low-income housing developers.

There was also a recent moment of unusual alignment between the president and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who both promised to crack down on corporate home buying.

What do the experts say?

Housing experts recoiled at GOP proposals to bar housing dollars from sanctuary jurisdictions and cities that impose rent control.

“Any conditioning on HUD funding that sets up rules that explicitly carve out blue cities is going to be really catastrophic for California’s larger urban areas,” said David Garcia, deputy director of policy at UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

More than 35 cities in California have rent control policies, according to the California Apartment Assn. The state passed its own rent stabilization law in 2019, and lawmakers approved a California sanctuary law in 2017 that prohibits state resources from aiding federal immigration enforcement.

The agenda comes on the heels of a series of HUD spending cuts, including a 30% cap on permanent housing investments and the end of a federal emergency housing voucher program that local homelessness officials estimate would put 14,500 people on the streets.

In Los Angeles County, HUD dollars make up about 28% of homelessness funding.

“It would undermine a lot of the bipartisan efforts that are happening in the House and the Senate to move evidence-backed policy to increase housing supply and stabilize rents and home prices,” Garcia said.

The president’s mortgage directives also prompted skepticism from some experts.

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were pressed to get into the riskier parts of the mortgage market back in the housing bubble and that was a part of the problem,” said Eric McGhee, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California.

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In 2019, after a routine vaccination, 11-year-old Keithron Thomas felt a sharp pain in his shoulder and down his arm. His mother, Melanie Bostic, thought it would go away after a few days. But days turned to weeks, then months, and years.

Bostic learned of a federal program designed to help people who suffer rare vaccine reactions.

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was created in 1986 after a flood of vaccine injury lawsuits drove drugmakers from the market. Congress aimed to offer a faster and more generous path to compensation for people injured by vaccines, while shielding manufacturers from liability. The VICP, commonly known as vaccine court, is taxpayer-funded. The government pays any award to claimants as well as attorneys fees.

Bostic filed a claim in 2022 for compensation to cover her son’s spiraling medical bills. She then contacted the Carlson Law Firm, which referred her to Arizona-based attorney Andrew Downing — who now serves as a senior adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Downing declined to comment and HHS did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Downing, who has represented hundreds of plaintiffs in vaccine court in Washington, D.C., signed on to take their case, according to a contract reviewed by KFF Health News. They agreed Downing would pursue the claim before the VICP.

Bostic shared documents and medical records as he requested them. Months passed as she waited for news on her son’s case.

After several months of making court filings, Downing told her it was time to opt out of the vaccine program and sue the drugmaker. When she refused to opt out, he withdrew from the case.

The government paid Downing $445 an hour for representing Bostic, which is typical for program attorneys with his experience, according to court records.

Three years later, Bostic said, she hasn’t received a dime for her son’s injury. Thomas, now 18, endures debilitating pain that doctors say may never go away.

Rather than help them work through the program, Bostic feels that Downing steered them away from it and toward a lawsuit against the manufacturer. The VICP ultimately dismissed her case.

Bostic was furious that the court paid Downing anything.

“Y’all could’ve gave that to me for my son,” she said. “How dare y’all.”

In Business With Washington

In June, Kennedy’s HHS also awarded Downing’s law firm, Brueckner Spitler Shelts, a sole-source federal contract to consult on an overhaul of the VICP. The contract has grown to $410,000. Downing is the only attorney listed on the firm’s website who has practiced in vaccine court.

Kennedy has routinely questioned vaccine safety and called the VICP “broken,” saying it shields drug companies from some liability “no matter how negligent they are.” As a personal injury lawyer, Kennedy previously spearheaded civil litigation against vaccine maker Merck.

Downing and about a dozen other lawyers have transferred hundreds of clients from the vaccine program to civil suits, where the financial rewards — for patients and their lawyers — could run far higher, according to a KFF Health News analysis of court records and program data. They’ve collected millions of taxpayer dollars in attorneys fees from vaccine court while launching precisely what it was designed to avoid: lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

This shift in legal strategy has fueled Kennedy’s crusade against Merck, and it could end up hurting some vaccine-injured clients, several experts said.

University of California Law-San Francisco professor Dorit Reiss has studied vaccine court for over a decade and has tracked the rise of anti-vaccine forces in American politics. She said VICP attorneys who are also suing vaccine makers have “incentives to direct more people” to lawsuits, “when it might not be in their best interest.”

A Delicate Balance

Kennedy has criticized the VICP as a barrier to accountability. But for Bostic, vaccine court offered an opportunity to hold the government to its promise of caring for casualties of widespread immunization.

Like any medication, vaccines can have side effects. Serious reactions to routine shots are rare, but for the unlucky few who bear this burden, the government promises recourse through its administrative program.

Vaccine court aims to strike a balance between protecting public health and helping individuals who may pay its price. The no-fault program allows claimants with vaccine-related injuries to get help without showing that the vaccine maker did anything wrong, even when the evidence doesn’t meet courtroom standards.

The program has made more than 12,500 awards, totaling roughly $5 billion in compensation. Historically, nearly half of claims have been resolved with some kind of award.

If patients aren’t satisfied with the outcome or don’t get a ruling within 240 days, they may leave the administrative program and sue the vaccine maker in civil court. Plaintiffs could potentially win larger awards. Lawyers could obtain higher fees, which they can’t in vaccine court.

But winning a civil suit is far more difficult, in part because plaintiffs have a greater burden of showing the vaccine caused their injury and that the maker was at fault. Since the VICP was created, no vaccine injury lawsuit has won a judgment in regular court, records show.

That hasn’t stopped some lawyers from trying. After the requisite 240 days, they have transferred hundreds of VICP claims into civil litigation against HPV vaccine manufacturer Merck, the KFF Health News analysis found.

The lawyers who represented those claims include Downing and other VICP attorneys with ties to Kennedy, court records show. Those include Kennedy advisers and people who work in the law office of his longtime personal lawyer Aaron Siri or with Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine outfit Kennedy founded, as well as a former Kennedy co-counsel in suits against Merck over its HPV vaccine, Gardasil.

Downing, whose law firm biography describes him as “one of the preeminent litigation attorneys in the Court of Federal Claims,” has not won an HPV vaccine injury claim in the past five years, records show. Vaccine court did compensate dozens of HPV vaccine claims in that time, but most — including nearly all of Downing’s — were withdrawn upon reaching the opt-out period.

VICP data and court records show that over the past five years, Downing and other lawyers withdrew roughly 400 Gardasil claims from vaccine court before a ruling was issued. The plaintiffs received nothing from the program. Hundreds of these cases joined the litigation against Merck, according to court records.

Once the opt-out period arrived in Bostic’s case, Downing informed her that he was preparing to withdraw her son’s claim and move the case back to the original law firm for a lawsuit against Merck.

“That,” he wrote in an email, “was the plan all along.”

Fighting for Compensation

Thomas, who hopes to enroll in community college and become a computer programmer, has intermittent numbness in his fingers and stabbing sensations in his arm nearly every day. The pain often radiates across his back or up his neck, and he’s developed migraines. Once an active kid who dreamed of playing basketball professionally, he now spends his time playing video games and trying to sleep during lulls in his pain.

Bostic’s claim on behalf of her son made him one of about 1,000 people who have filed with vaccine court for HPV vaccine injuries. More than 200 have received compensation — just over one for every million shots given. Court records show program awards were typically $50,000 to $100,000, with some also covering past medical bills or future health care expenses.

Richard Hughes IV, a health care attorney and former pharmaceutical executive who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University Law School, reviewed Thomas’ records and said cases like his were exactly what the vaccine program was designed to address.

“That just seems straightforward,” Hughes said of Thomas’ claim. “That should have gotten compensated.”

Bostic wanted the federal agencies that had approved and recommended Gardasil to answer for her son’s injuries. The single mother hoped compensation from the program would allow Thomas to see specialists including neurologists, afford natural treatments, and enroll in physical therapy.

“He would have had the best of the best health care,” she said.

When Downing took their case, Bostic said, he told her during a phone call that vaccine court’s $250,000 limit on pain and suffering was too low for her son’s injury. Bostic said Downing advised she could get more money by suing Merck, though that could take longer.

“I said, ‘No, that will take years. My son needs help now,’” Bostic recalled.

Bostic said she told Downing she wanted a fund set up for Thomas’ health care as soon as possible.

In the following weeks, Bostic sent paperwork to Downing’s office but had difficulty getting in touch with him, email and text messages show. Downing’s billing records show a gap in his work on the case from late September until mid-November.

In November 2022, Downing emailed Bostic, “The opt out date for K.T.’s case is set for April 23, 2023. At that point, we will be in a position to opt K.T.’s case out of the Vaccine Program and move the case back over to the Carlson Law Firm for handling in the Merck litigation.”

Bostic said she was confused at the time by that language. But she remembers being emphatic in a follow-up phone call with Downing, repeatedly telling him she would not opt out.

After that, Bostic said, she didn’t hear from Downing for months despite calling his office and leaving messages with secretaries.

Downing’s billing records show that he and his paralegals spent fewer than nine hours on Bostic’s case in that stretch. This included time spent requesting, reviewing, and filing medical records, as well as drafting and filing extension requests. The billing records did not include any communication with Bostic during that time.

The court granted each of Downing’s extension requests, pushing back the deadline a month at a time.

In April 2023, Downing sent Bostic an email noting that 240 days had passed, so he could drop their government claim and they could sue Merck.

“Gardasil cases do not receive very fair treatment in the Vaccine Program,” Downing wrote, adding that he would withdraw as her attorney if Bostic stayed in the program.

Bostic chose to stick with vaccine court, later telling the vaccine court judge by email that she’d advised her attorney “I was not trying to become a millionaire.”

That exchange of emails in April is when Bostic said she learned Downing was already representing plaintiffs in lawsuits over Gardasil. The litigation encompassed hundreds of other patients who — most of them under Downing’s counsel — had filed VICP claims in recent years.

Running out the 240-day clock, critics say, is allowed but subverts the program’s intent.

Some legal experts criticize the way Downing handled Bostic’s case.

“They trusted him to file the VICP case,” Reiss said. “It’s his job to zealously advocate for his clients. In this case, his clients want to go through VICP. It’s his job to fight for them in VICP, not to wait for 240 days.”

When Downing joined HHS as a senior adviser to Kennedy, court records show, he handed off his remaining vaccine court cases to other attorneys in firms involved in the litigation against Merck.

A New Approach

The vaccine program has long faced criticism for giving claimants too little, too late. Even VICP advocates see the need for reform, with eight officials deciding a growing backlog of claims, driving up wait times. The cap on pain and suffering payments has not changed since 1986. But the court can award further compensation like a fund for lifetime medical care that can reach millions.

Most vaccine-injured individuals are better off in the administrative program than in civil litigation, legal experts said.

Renée Gentry, director of GWU’s Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic and a founding member of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association, has represented hundreds of families alleging vaccine injuries. Most of them, she said, aren’t focused on big payouts; rather, they “want their kid taken care of or they want to be taken care of.”

For claims that often fail in vaccine court, however, Gentry said a lawsuit may be the best option. According to Gentry, HPV vaccine claims like Thomas’ are particularly challenging to win in the VICP.

“If you’re not going to win, then you want those clients to have at least an opportunity at something,” she said.

For Mark Sadaka, a prominent vaccine court lawyer representing some claims in Merck litigation, sending clients to regular court is a last resort.

Sadaka said certain Gardasil injury claimants, such as those alleging mental rather than physical harm, might be better off in litigation. But by sticking it out in the VICP, Sadaka has won HPV vaccine injury claims that were the first of their kind, including for narcolepsy, alopecia, and even a deadly arrhythmia.

“He’s going to get taken care of for the rest of his life,” Sadaka said of his client who won compensation for narcolepsy in 2023. “And he doesn’t have to pay me anything.”

Sadaka, like all program lawyers, gets an hourly rate from the VICP. He said that he could make much more money representing the same claims in traditional litigation, since he could get a cut of any awards.

“It’s a better thing for me to file in regular court and get a higher fee, but for the client, sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t,” Sadaka said. “My role is to explain both sides in gross detail for them and give them as much information as possible so they can make an informed decision.”

According to Sadaka, some lawyers in the VICP automatically advise their clients to leave vaccine court and file a lawsuit.

“If they can extract settlements, they’re going to be very happy to put that money in their pockets,” Hughes noted.

Winning a lawsuit or reaching a major settlement could also spell trouble for nationwide vaccine access, replaying the events that gave rise to vaccine court in the 1980s.

Some vaccine lawyers and policymakers believe Kennedy and his colleagues might welcome a return to those days.

“If they can bring down the system, that’s a feather in their cap,” Hughes said.

Lawyers cannot win contingency fees in vaccine court. They get paid for time spent on reasonable claims whether they win or lose. Downing made more than $1 million representing clients before the VICP in recent years, according to court records.

A January VICP report shows that since fiscal year 2020, the program has paid scores of attorneys about $280 million — including over $43 million for cases they did not win.

In each of the last two fiscal years, lawyers got roughly $9 million for VICP claims in which their clients got nothing. That was more than the program had ever previously paid to attorneys for unsuccessful claims, according to vaccine court data.

‘Learning How To Cope’

After discovering her attorney would not pursue VICP compensation for her son, Bostic decided to advocate for Thomas herself.

“Please help me,” she wrote in a letter to the court.

VICP staff gave Bostic extra time to find a new lawyer and gather records.

The following months proved difficult for the family. Bostic was hospitalized with a life-threatening condition. Her mother’s health declined. She was laid off and lost her family’s health insurance.

By the time Bostic could take Thomas to a pediatric neurologist to get medical records for his VICP case, she said, the doctor had moved hours away to Orlando.

Bostic repeatedly missed deadlines and failed to communicate with program staff as required, court records show. Emails, docket entries, and letters suggest she may have misunderstood some court orders and not received others.

When Thomas’ medical records remained incomplete for another year, the presiding official dismissed Bostic’s claim, writing that while he had sympathy for what she and her son had endured, “the case cannot be allowed to remain pending indefinitely.”

Thomas said he can no longer play basketball with friends. He can’t even help his mother carry groceries into the house.

“I got to live with this, and there’s pain,” he said.

Bostic now works from home as a bank fraud analyst. With an income just above the cutoff for government assistance, she puts in overtime in hopes of affording health insurance for Thomas and her six other children.

“People are asking, ‘How’s your son doing?’” Bostic said. “I normally say, ‘Still the same. We just learning how to cope with it.’”

Methodology

The KFF Health News analysis began with court records for cases in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which includes vaccine court. We first identified all cases since 2006 (when the HPV vaccine was introduced) in which the “nature of suit” field explicitly mentioned human papillomavirus, or in which “nature of suit” was categorized as “other” vaccine injury/death and the case text included the word “papillomavirus.” The latter made up about 10% of identified cases, mostly claims filed before the HPV vaccine was added to the program or claims involving multiple vaccines. We cross-referenced the number of cases with data from VICP reports to verify completeness.

After identifying the relevant vaccine court cases, we pulled these claims’ filing and closing dates and took the difference to find the number of days that each case spent in vaccine court. To estimate total attorneys fees awarded for these claims, we added the fee amounts recorded in dozens of the VICP rulings and derived a minimum estimate based on the number of such cases.

We then searched federal court records for litigation over Merck’s HPV vaccine, Gardasil, and pulled the names of the plaintiffs and attorneys involved. To gauge the scale of claims diverted from the VICP to litigation, we searched for each attorney in the Gardasil-related vaccine court cases and searched for the last name of each plaintiff in the titles of those cases.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Possible risk of autism in children. Dormant cancer cells awakening. Accelerating aging of the brain.

Federal officials in May 2023 declared an end to the national COVID pandemic. But more than two years later, a growing body of research continues to reveal information about the virus and its ability to cause harm long after initial infections resolve, even in some cases when symptoms were mild.

The discoveries raise fresh concerns about the Trump administration’s COVID policies, researchers say. While some studies show COVID vaccines offer protective benefits against longer-term health effects, the Department of Health and Human Services has drastically limited recommendations about who should get the shot. The administration also halted Biden-era contracts aimed at developing more protective COVID vaccines.

The federal government is curtailing such efforts just as researchers call for more funding and, in some cases, long-term monitoring of people previously infected.

“People forget, but the legacy of COVID is going to be long, and we are going to be learning about the chronic effects of the virus for some time to come,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who directs the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

The Trump administration said that the COVID vaccine remains available and that individuals are encouraged to talk with their health providers about what is best for them. The COVID vaccine and others on the schedule of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remain covered by insurance so that individuals don’t need to pay out-of-pocket, officials said.

“Updating CDC guidance and expanding shared clinical decision-making restores informed consent, centers parents and clinicians, and discourages ‘one size fits all’ policies,” said HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard.

Although COVID has become less deadly, because of population immunization and mutations making the virus less severe, researchers say the politicization around the infection is obscuring what science is increasingly confirming: COVID’s potential to cause unexpected, possibly chronic health issues. That in turn, these scientists say, drives the need for more, rather than less, research, because over the long term, COVID could have significant economic and societal implications, such as higher health care costs and more demands on social programs and caregivers.

The annual average burden of the disease’s long-term health effects is estimated at $1 trillion globally and $9,000 per patient in the U.S., according to a report published in November in the journal NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine. In this country, the annual lost earnings are estimated to be about $170 billion.

One study estimates that the flu resulted in $16 billion in direct health costs and $13 billion in productivity losses in the 2023-2024 season, according to a Dec. 30 report in medRxiv, an online platform that publishes work not yet certified by peer review.

COVID’s Growing Reach

Much has been learned about COVID since the virus emerged in 2019, unleashing a pandemic that the World Health Organization reports has killed more than 7 million people. By the spring of 2020, the term “long COVID” had been coined to describe chronic health problems that can persist post-infection.

More recent studies show that infection by the virus that causes COVID, SARS-CoV-2, can result in heightened health risks months to more than a year later.

For example, researchers following children born to mothers who contracted the virus while pregnant have discovered they may have an increased risk for autism, delayed speech and motor development, or other neurodevelopmental challenges.

Another study found babies exposed to COVID in utero experienced accelerated weight gain in their first year, a possible harbinger of metabolic issues that could later carry an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

These studies suggest avoiding severe COVID in pregnancy may reduce risk not just during pregnancy but for future generations. That may be another good reason to get vaccinated when pregnant.

“There are other body symptoms apart from the developing fetal brain that also may be impacted,” said Andrea Edlow, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School who was involved in both studies. “We definitely need more research.”

Epidemiologists point to some specific, emerging challenges.

A U.K. study in the New England Journal of Medicine found people who fully recovered from mild COVID infections experienced a cognitive deficit equal to a three-point drop in IQ. Among the more than 100,000 participants, deficits were greater in people who had persistent symptoms and reached the equivalent of a nine-point IQ drop for individuals admitted to intensive care.

Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist who has studied longer-term health effects from COVID, did the math. He estimated COVID may have increased the number of adults in the U.S. with an IQ of less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million — a jump of 2.8 million adults dealing with “a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support,” he wrote.

“People get COVID-19, some people do fine and bounce back, but there are people who start experiencing problems with memory, cognition, and fuzzy brain,” he said. “Even people with mild symptoms. They might not even be aware.”

Diane Yormark, 67, of Boca Raton, Florida, can relate. She got COVID in 2022 and 2023. The second infection left her with brain fog and fatigue.

“I felt like if you had a little bit too much wine the night before and you’re out of it,” said Yormark, a retired copywriter, who said the worst of her symptoms lasted for about three months after the infection. “Some of the fog has lifted. But do I feel like myself? Not like I was.”

Data from more than a dozen studies suggests COVID vaccines can help reduce risk of severe infection as well as longer-lasting health effects, although researchers say more study is needed.

But vaccination rates remain low in the U.S., with only about 17% of the adult population reporting that they got the updated 2025-2026 shot as of Jan. 16, based on CDC data.

Trump administration officials led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have reduced access to COVID vaccines despite the lack of any new, substantiated evidence of harm. Though the shots were a hallmark achievement of the first Trump administration, which led the effort for their development, Kennedy has said without evidence that they are “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”

In May he said on X that the CDC would stop recommending COVID shots for healthy children and pregnant women, citing a lack of clinical data. The Food and Drug Administration has since issued new guidelines limiting the vaccine to people 65 or older and individuals 6 months or older with at least one risk factor, though many states continue to make them more widely available.

The Trump administration also halted almost $500 million in funding for mRNA-based vaccines. Administration officials and a number of Republicans question the safety of the Nobel Prize-winning technology — heralded for the potential to treat many diseases beyond COVID — even though clinical trials with tens of thousands of volunteers were performed before the COVID mRNA vaccines were made available to the public.

And numerous studies, including new research in 2025, show COVID vaccine benefits include a reduction in the severity of disease, although the protective effects wane over time.

Following the Findings

Researchers say more and broader support is important because much remains unknown about COVID and its impact on the body.

The growing awareness that, even in mild COVID cases, the possibility exists for longer-term, often undetected organ damage also warrants more examination, researchers say. A study published this month in eBioMedicine found people with neurocognitive issues such as changes in smell or headaches after infection had significant levels of a protein linked to Alzheimer’s in their blood plasma. EBioMedicine is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by The Lancet.

In the brain, the virus leads to an immune response that triggers inflammation, can damage brain cells, and can even shrink brain volume, according to research on imaging studies that was published in March 2022 in the journal Nature.

An Australian study of advanced brain images found significant alterations even among people who had already recovered from mild infections — a possible explanation for cognitive deficits that may persist for years. Lead study author Kiran Thapaliya said the research suggests the virus “may leave a silent, lasting effect on brain health.”

Al-Alay agreed.

“We don’t know what will happen to people 10 years down the road,” he said. “Inflammation of the brain is not a good thing. It’s absolutely not a good thing.”

That inflammatory response has also been linked to blood clots, arrhythmias, and higher risk of cardiovascular issues, even following a mild infection.

A University of Southern California study published in October 2024 in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology found the risk for a major cardiac event remains elevated nearly three years after COVID infection. The findings held even for people who were not hospitalized.

“We were surprised to see the effects that far out” regardless of individual heart disease history, said James R. Hilser, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

COVID can also reactivate cancer cells and trigger a relapse, according to research published in July in the journal Nature. Researchers found that the chance of dying from cancer among cancer survivors was higher among people who’d had COVID, especially in the year after being infected. There was nearly a twofold increase in cancer mortality in those who tested positive compared with those who tested negative.

The potential of the COVID virus to affect future generations is yielding new findings as well. Australian researchers looked at male mice and found that those who had been infected with and then recovered from COVID experienced changes to their sperm that altered their offspring’s behavior, causing them to exhibit more anxiety.

Meanwhile, many people are now living — and struggling — with the virus’ after-effects.

Dee Farrand, 57, of Marana, Arizona, could once run five miles and was excelling at her job in sales. She recovered from a COVID infection in May 2021.

Two months later, her heart began to beat irregularly. Farrand underwent a battery of tests at a hospital. Ultimately, the condition became so severe she had to go on supplemental oxygen for two years.

Her cognitive abilities declined so severely she couldn’t read, because she’d forget the first sentence after reading the second. She also had to leave herself reminders that she is allergic to shrimp or that she likes avocados. She said she lost her job and returned to her previous occupation as a social worker.

“I was the person who is like the Energizer bunny and all of a sudden I’d get so tired getting dressed that I had to go back to bed,” Farrand said.

While she is better, COVID has left a mark. She said she’s not yet able to run the five miles she used to do without any problems.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Looking to add more flavor and keep salmon fillets moist, I sautéed them on a bed of creamy spinach and seasoned them with garlic and dill. The result was tender, flavorful salmon with a touch of freshness from the herbs.

For a colorful and easy side, I mixed quick-cooking couscous with roasted red peppers. The couscous takes just five minutes in the microwave—no pot to wash and dinner’s ready in a flash. It’s a quick, vibrant meal that’s as delicious as it is simple.

HELPFUL HINTS:

Minced garlic can be found in the produce section of the market. Six crushed garlic cloves can be used instead.

Pearl couscous is also called Israeli couscous.

A quick way to chop dill is to cut the leaves with a scissors.

COUNTDOWN:

Assemble ingredients.

Microwave couscous.

Make salmon.

SHOPPING LIST:

To buy: 2 6-ouncre salmon fillets, 1 bag washed, ready to eat spinach, 1 container reduced fat sour cream, 1 bottle ground nutmeg, 1 container minced garlic, 1 bunch fresh dill, 1 lemon, 1 container quick cooking pearl couscous, 1 can roasted red pepper.

Staples: olive oil, salt and black peppercorns.

Garlic and Herb Salmon and Creamy Spinach

Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer

• 6 ounces fresh washed-ready-to-eat spinach (about 6 packed cups)
• 2 tablespoons reduced fat sour cream
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• pinch black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 6-ounce salmon fillets

Remove large stems from spinach. Mix sour cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg together in a small bowl. In another small bowl combine garlic, olive oil and dill. Add spinach to a large skillet and sauté 2 minutes or until spinach starts to wilt. Spoon out any liquid. Pour the sour cream mixture over the spinach and mix it in to the spinach. Spread the spinach mixture over the skillet. Arrange the salmon on top of the spinach. Spread the garlic mixture on top of each filet. Cover the skillet with a lid and cook 5 minutes, a meat thermometer should read 125 degrees. Squeeze lemon juice over fish. Lift spinach and fish to two plates spooning any left sauce over fish.

Yield 2 servings.

Per serving: 358 calories (47 percent from fat), 18.6 g fat (4.2 g saturated, 7.9 g monounsaturated), 87 mg cholesterol, 39.7 g protein, 8.2 g carbohydrates, 2.9 g fiber, 451 mg sodium.

Pimento Couscous

Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer

• 1/2 cup quick cooking pearl couscous
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 cup sliced canned roasted red pepper
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Add couscous to a large microwave safe bowl. Add water. Cover bowl with a plate or plastic wrap. Microwave on high 5 minutes. Remove and stir couscous. Most of water should be gone and couscous should be soft. If needed microwave, covered, for another minute. Add roasted red pepper, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Return cover to bowl and let sit while making the salmon dish.

Yield 2 servings.

Per serving: 169 calories (29 percent from fat), 5.4 g fat (0.8 g saturated, 2.3 g monounsaturated), no cholesterol, 5.0 g protein, 25.9 g carbohydrates, 3.0 g fiber, 14 mg sodium.

©2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

“Don’t give me narcotics.”

Emmalee Hortin, a doula, recalled one of her clients delivering that message to hospital staff. Doctors were operating on the woman to clear tissue after a miscarriage.

But despite her patient’s pleas, clinicians still administered fentanyl via IV to manage pain, Hortin said. Her client had substance use disorder and had been working toward recovery.

“She was really, really upset,” Hortin said. “She actually was really worried about returning to use, and so was her husband.”

Hortin is a doula trained in supporting pregnant and postpartum moms with substance use disorder — a role in increasing demand amid the nation’s concurrent crises of maternal mortality and addiction.

In recent years, more states, including Colorado and Utah, have passed laws to include Medicaid coverage for doula care. Some clinics are incorporating peer recovery doulas and other providers are offering training to bolster the workforce.

Many doulas who specialize in helping moms with substance use disorder are recovering from addiction themselves, or have helped loved ones with addiction. Hortin, a mother of three and stepmom to three others, is nine years into her recovery. Drawing on her own experience of isolation and addiction, she’s able to relate to struggling moms. She works at One Health, a Montana community health center that trains doulas from across the state in peer recovery.

In the case of the woman who asked not to be given fentanyl, Hortin recalled, hospital staff asked for her help to “defuse” her client’s emotions. “I was like, ‘Well, my job is not to defuse emotions, if you weren’t listening to my patient,’” she said. “When a patient in recovery, or that is working towards recovery, asks specifically for no fentanyl — that’s one of her triggers — you need to respect that.

“We had to do a lot of breakdown work and debriefing through the emotions,” Hortin said. “She felt like she couldn’t trust the hospital.”

Mental health conditions and substance use are leading underlying causes of maternal death, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those conditions can arise, or worsen, during pregnancy. Without treatment, it can be an especially vulnerable time for people with addiction and those who are trying to get sober, said recovery doula Britt Westmoreland, program coordinator for the University of Colorado’s recovery coach doula program.

Peer recovery doulas can advocate for patients in labor settings as well as support them when they face stressors or crave illicit substances during pregnancy or postpartum. Being in recovery themselves also helps foster trust and more open communication.

“It’s a lot easier for us to build rapport with people because there’s not a power differential or that systemic mistrust,” said Westmoreland, who is in long-term recovery and, like Hortin, knows the stigma and difficulties firsthand.

Stigma and bias

Stigma and bias around substance use disorder, mental health conditions and pregnancy can cause shame that prevents moms from reaching out for help or opening up about their struggle, doulas and doctors say. Those issues are exacerbated for Black and Indigenous women, who are disproportionately drug tested in hospitals during labor and disproportionately likely to be investigated by child welfare agencies, research has shown.

Native women can feel they’re treated differently in hospitals, said Julianne Denny, who is Cree, Ojibway and Mikmaq. Denny refers to her role as an Indigenous “birth worker,” as she supports women through cultural practices as well as through doula care. She trained at One Health and earned an addiction studies degree at Stone Child College.

It’s her job “to remind [moms] of their humanity and that they can gain control over their addictions and they can keep their babies,” she said. “That’s the endgame — is that their baby is safe and they’re safe, and we want our moms to grow with our babies, and our babies to grow with our moms.

“A big part of our work is working through the tough parts with moms to get them through to a successful pregnancy where they’re proud of themselves and they feel empowered.”

Hortin helps recovering moms up to three years postpartum. Working with clinicians, she helps create a personalized care plan for each family.

“No matter what these parents are struggling or facing, that’s not all they are,” said Hortin. “When we keep people held to our stigma and our bias, why would they want to change when no one’s willing to trust that they can?”

Policies to expand coverage

One day last week, 34 pregnant and postpartum patients with substance use disorder were on the schedule at the University of Utah’s Substance Use & Pregnancy—Recovery, Addiction, and Dependence (SUPeRAD) Clinic, where Dr. Marcela Smid is the medical director.

This week, more than 50 patients are on the schedule in a three-day period. Smid said her clinic gets patients from rural areas in Wyoming, Idaho and eastern Nevada.

States are slowly expanding coverage for doulas. Utah passed a law last year to start the process toward Medicaid coverage of doula care. Federal officials approved Utah’s plan, effective April 1, to allow certified doulas to be reimbursed via Medicaid.

“Now that we will be able to be paid through Medicaid, a lot of doulas will be able to feel this work is sustainable for them,” said Aleece Weaver, founder of the Utah Doula Access Project. She currently does doula work pro bono with Smid’s clinic.

Smid said the majority of the clinic’s patients are on Medicaid, which is the largest payer for behavioral health care nationwide. Most of her patients can’t afford to pay for doula care out of pocket, and because the state policy hasn’t gone into effect yet, doulas care for her patients pro bono.

Colorado also recently expanded its Medicaid coverage to include doulas, and Montana passed a law last year establishing doula licensures, a first step toward coverage.

Beyond coverage, access is also an issue — especially in rural communities where health care providers, including mental and maternal health clinicians, are scarce. Smid travels monthly to Wyoming, where most residents don’t have easy access to maternal-fetal medicine specialists, she said.

States included goals of expanding behavioral and maternal health care access in their bids for federal dollars under the new five-year Rural Health Transformation Program.

For example, in its application, Montana said it would use the money to train a variety of health care providers and community-based professionals, including peer support specialists, in maternal health and crisis intervention.

Mental health conditions contributed to about 70% of Montana’s maternal deaths between 2020 and 2022 — with substance use contributing to more than 40% of those women’s deaths.

“It’s really just providing support to people that are already feeling hopeless. It’s about giving them the tiniest bit of hope and walking through it,” said One Health recovery doula Lanita Hoskinson. “All these families, they need somebody, especially in these frontier rural areas — they have nobody.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The thought of saving money may feel overwhelming, especially if you have nothing saved and struggle to afford necessities like rent and groceries.

If you don’t have a healthy emergency fund, you’re not alone. In fact, only 30% of Americans would pay a $1,000 emergency expense from savings, a recent Bankrate survey found. Other survey respondents said they’d go into debt to afford such an expense through credit cards or personal loans.

Saving certainly isn’t easy and we won’t pretend it is — but here are some practical steps you can take to get started.

1. Set clear savings goals

The key to successful saving is knowing what you’re saving for. Whether it’s an emergency fund, a down payment on a house or a dream vacation, having specific goals can keep you motivated and on track.

Start by deciding upon your savings goals, giving them names (like “new car” or “wedding”), and setting deadlines for when you want to achieve them. Then, calculate how much you need to save each month to reach your target amount by your deadline.

Your first goal should probably be to save for emergencies

Whether you’re hit with a curveball in the form of a car repair, medical bill or a job loss, having an emergency fund — with three to six months of living expenses — can help you weather financial storms without going into costly debt.

2. Create a budget that works for you

At its core, a budget is simply a plan for making sure you’re spending less than you earn. In addition to helping you pay your bills on time and cover essential expenses, a budget can help you accomplish things like saving money and paying down debt. The key is finding a budgeting method that works for your lifestyle and personality.

Popular budget methods include:

• 50/30/20 budget: To make this budget, you set aside 50% of your income to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings.
• Zero-based budget: This budget method assigns a purpose to every dollar of your take-home pay — which can include a category for savings.

Whatever budgeting strategy you choose to follow, it’ll involve tracking where your money goes each month. This gives you the chance to find areas to cut spending. A digital budgeting app — such as YNAB or Rocket Money — can come in handy by tracking your spending and saving automatically.

3. Tackle high-interest debt

While it might not feel like paying off debt is helping you save, eliminating costly interest charges from carrying a balance can free up money to put toward your goals.

According to a recent Bankrate survey, nearly half of American credit cardholders carry a balance from month to month, with the average APR just under 20%.

Let’s say you have a $5,000 credit card balance with a 20% APR. Even if you pay $300 per month, you’ll end up paying an extra $906 in interest before reaching a zero balance. That’s money that could be going into your savings instead.

4. Automate your savings

One of the easiest ways to save more consistently? Make it automatic. Set up recurring transfers from your checking account to your savings account each payday, so you’re saving without even thinking about it.

Many banks also offer tools like round-up programs, which automatically round your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and transfer the spare change to your savings. Over time, those small amounts can really add up.

You can also take advantage of money-saving apps like Oportun or Qapital, which can analyze your spending habits and automatically move small amounts of money into your savings when you can afford it.

Pro tip: Use multiple savings accounts

“Opening separate savings accounts for each of your goals can help you track your progress and stay organized. Plus, you can easily shift your money to the account with the higher interest rate to maximize your earnings,” says Hanna Horvath, CFP and Bankrate Managing Editor. You can also find a savings account that lets you divvy up your savings into goals or buckets, so you can keep one savings account but track your savings goal separately. Ally Bank and SoFi Bank are two online banks that offer this feature.

5. Separate your spending and saving

If you’re just getting started with saving money, consider opening up a savings account at a different bank from where you keep your checking account. This may help to create a psychological barrier between the money you have set aside for spending versus savings, making it less likely you’ll raid your savings on a whim.

“When you open your bank account app and your checking and savings numbers are in there, you kind of add those numbers together, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s how much money I have to spend,’” says Pamela Capalad, a certified financial planner and owner of Get Shameless Inc. “But if your bank accounts are at separate institutions — and better yet if your savings account is a high yield savings account — it’s out of sight, out of mind and your savings will grow.”

The bottom line

Starting to save can feel daunting, but the most important thing is to just start. No amount is too small, and no goal is too insignificant. Ways to begin include setting clear goals, creating a budget, tackling debt and automating your savings. Keeping your checking and savings accounts at different banks can also help eliminate the temptation to dip into savings for nonessentials.

Everyone’s financial journey is different. Stay open to trying new savings strategies and tools until you find the ones that work best for your situation and personality.

Key takeaways

• The first step to saving is setting specific, achievable goals and tracking your progress using a digital budgeting tool, spreadsheet or pen and paper.
• Following a budget can help you identify ways you can add to savings as well as pay down debt.
• Ways to help you save more consistently include keeping your spending money separate from your savings, as well as automatically transferring money to savings each paycheck.

©2026 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

When Rachel Marshall was growing up in Virginia, her parents kept a magnet on the refrigerator from a national homeschooling advocacy group, with a phone number to call if local school officials tried to interfere with their decision to educate their children at home.

“You tell [the organization] the state’s after you, and they will come in with their lawyers and defend your right to homeschool and do what you want with your kids,” said Marshall, now a licensed counselor in Utah. “The state should be hands-off, that was their goal.”

Marshall wishes the state had been more hands-on. When she was a child, she said, her education and her safety were at the mercy of her parents, who struggled with mental illness and addiction.

“It was an ugly situation,” Marshall told Stateline. “But I think had there been some sort of regulation, some expectations from the state, I would not have been exposed to that as much.”

As homeschool enrollment has risen in recent years, so have concerns about oversight.

Recent high-profile child abuse deaths in several states have led to renewed calls from lawmakers for stronger regulations. They warn that some abusers claim they are homeschooling their kids when they pull them out of school, but really want to hide their crimes from teachers and other so-called mandatory reporters in public schools. Mandatory reporters are legally obligated to speak up about abuse if they suspect it.

But the push has inflamed a broader debate over parental rights and galvanized hundreds of homeschool groups to rally at statehouses around the country.

In every state, parents or guardians can withdraw their children from public or private school to be homeschooled. States allow this even if the caregiver has been the subject of a substantiated child welfare investigation, according to the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an advocacy group. Nearly every state allows parents to withdraw children in the middle of an active investigation, and most states don’t prevent people convicted of crimes against children from homeschooling their kids.

Lawmakers in states such as Connecticut, Illinois and West Virginia have attempted to pass additional reporting requirements to guard against child abuse in homeschool settings.

They’re running up against parents’ rights groups and homeschooling advocates who argue that such regulations treat all homeschooling parents as potential criminals and aren’t necessary because many children in such situations are already on the radar of social service agencies. They say the additional requirements don’t address problems inside child protection agencies that allow such abuse to go unaddressed.

“When bad things happen, people feel compelled to do something, whether it makes a difference or not,” said Connecticut state Rep. Anne Dauphinais, a Republican who opposes homeschool regulation. “It’s often overreach of government, just because [lawmakers] want to feel good about doing something.”

In West Virginia, Democratic state Del. Shawn Fluharty said in an interview that he’d lost track of how many times he’s tried to get a bill passed that would prevent a parent from pulling a child out of public school to homeschool if social services is investigating the parent for possible child abuse or neglect. According to Stateline’s sister publication, West Virginia Watch, this year will mark the seventh year he’s tried.

Fluharty calls his bill “Raylee’s Law,” after an 8-year-old girl who died from severe abuse and neglect in 2018. Before her death, her abusers had pulled her out of public school after teachers and school administrators began noticing signs of abuse.

“At this point, I’m just pissed off,” Fluharty told Stateline. “We’ve had at least two other circumstances very similar to Raylee’s situation since I’ve been pushing this legislation.”

Fluharty said he’s considering revising the law’s name to also memorialize Kyneddi Miller, a West Virginia 14-year-old who starved to death in 2024. Her mother had pulled her from public school in 2021 to homeschool her.

The bill passed the House twice in recent years, with bipartisan support, but died in a Senate committee each time. It faces opposition from homeschooling advocates in the legislature, he said, as well as lobbying efforts from national homeschool groups.

“It’s not a complex situation,” said Fluharty. “It’s a glaring loophole that needs to be closed. The longer it stays open, the more vulnerable children are in West Virginia.”

Homeschool explosion

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, homeschool participation hovered around 2-3% of K-12 students. It exploded during the pandemic to a high of 11% of families, as learning outside of traditional schools became normalized. Now about 6% of school-age children in the United States are homeschooled, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

But interest is on the rise. In recent years, the 30 states that publicly report homeschool participation have seen those numbers grow. More than a third of those states recorded their highest homeschool enrollment ever in the 2024-2025 school year, even exceeding pandemic-era peaks, according to a study published in November.

Homeschooling has increasingly been framed as a political and cultural choice, particularly in conservative circles where it’s promoted as a way to exercise control over children’s education amid anger over how schools address racial equity, gender identity and sexuality, school violence and vaccine requirements. Homeschool supporters praise its flexibility and safety. Others warn that minimal regulation can leave some children isolated from the visibility and protections built into public school systems.

The issue doesn’t always fall neatly along party lines. In Georgia, the 2018 deaths of two siblings prompted a Republican-sponsored bill that prohibits caregivers from withdrawing a child from school for the purpose of evading detection of child abuse and neglect. It became law in 2019.

In Hawaii, Republican state Sen. Kurt Fevella filed a resolution in 2024 calling for the state to conduct a wellness visit for any child removed from school to be homeschooled. He was motivated by the deaths of two unrelated children in Hawaii who had been taken out of school for homeschooling. It died in committee.

Last year, Rachel Marshall gave testimony before Utah legislators who were considering a controversial bill that would remove part of a 2023 law requiring parents to attest they’ve never been convicted of child abuse before they’re allowed to homeschool their children.

Marshall opposed the bill, worried the state was erasing one more safeguard protecting the small subset of homeschooled children who are at risk of abuse or neglect. But as she sat listening to the homeschooling parents speaking in favor of it, their words sounded familiar.

“I could hear the fear and rage that someone would take away your rights,” she said. “But I think if you are being investigated by [child protective services], you should not be allowed to withdraw your children from daily mandated reporters like schoolteachers.”

The bill’s chief sponsor, Republican state Rep. Nicholeen Peck, said her goal was to remove a portion of state homeschooling law that was ineffective, had created confusion for school districts, and unfairly stigmatized homeschooling families.

The Utah legislature passed the bill and it was signed into law last spring.

Statehouse rallies

Studies are mixed on whether children who are homeschooled are more likely to be victims of abuse.

A 2022 survey of homeschooled and conventionally schooled adults found homeschooled children aren’t necessarily more likely to report experiencing abuse or neglect.

But among abuse victims, isolation from mandated reporters — like school teachers — is a common thread. A 2014 study found that nearly half of child torture victims had been pulled from school to be homeschooled to evade suspicions of abuse. Withdrawal from school to homeschool under suspicious circumstances is a red flag for abuse and is associated with higher risk factors for abuse, according to a report from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

More than 1 in 5 children withdrawn from school for homeschooling in Connecticut lived in families with at least one substantiated report from the state’s child services agency, according to a report released last year from Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate. The office based its findings on a sample of more than 700 children aged 7-11 who were withdrawn from school for homeschooling between July 2021 and June 2024.

For homeschooling families who’ve been providing their children with a high-quality education without oversight, “I can understand why they might feel they don’t need to be regulated,” said Christina Ghio, Connecticut’s child advocate.

“But as a state, we have an obligation to all children,” she told Stateline. “We know there are children whose parents say they’re homeschooling who are not. The challenge is, there’s one set of rules that has to apply to everybody.”

Her office’s report recommended state lawmakers create requirements for annual assessments of homeschoolers.

The report was issued in the wake of a high-profile abuse case: A Connecticut man was rescued in February 2025 after authorities say he’d been held captive and abused for two decades. His stepmother had pulled him from public school in fourth grade after school officials contacted authorities with concerns he was being abused.

But when lawmakers gathered for hearings on homeschooling regulation last May, after Ghio’s report, more than 2,000 people, most of them homeschool families, flooded the state’s Legislative Office Building to protest, according to the CT Mirror.

In Illinois, Democratic lawmakers introduced a sweeping homeschool regulation bill last year that, among other things, would have banned those convicted of sexual abuse crimes from homeschooling. It was prompted by an investigation from Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica into the state’s nearly nonexistent homeschool regulation.

But while the bill cleared its committee, hundreds of homeschool families and supporters packed the Illinois State Capitol to oppose it. It never made it to a full vote in the House.

Despite pushback, Connecticut House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Democrat, has signaled his interest in revisiting some kind of oversight during this legislative session.

“I don’t think this is a fight about homeschooling,” he said during a public Q&A in January, citing cases like the highly publicized death of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia.

In October, the girl’s remains were found on an abandoned property in Connecticut. The family had prior history with the state’s social services, but her mother emailed school officials in July 2024 to tell them she planned to homeschool her daughter. Authorities say that less than two months later, the girl was dead. An autopsy confirmed her death was caused by abuse and starvation.

Dauphinais, the Connecticut Republican, told Stateline she doesn’t believe any of the proposed homeschool requirements she’s heard from her Democratic colleagues would have saved children like Mimi Torres-Garcia.

“If you want to abuse your child, you’re going to abuse your child and you are never going to show up for any kind of annual evaluation,” she said. “They will game the system. We’re not talking about the 99.9% of homeschoolers doing it genuinely. We’re talking about people doing evil things.”

Ritter said families that have been investigated by child protective services or law enforcement need more follow-up. But he was candid about the long road that regulation might face: “That might get really ugly, Republican versus Democrat. I think it depends on how it gets drafted.”

National advocacy

In Utah, some of the speakers supporting removing reporting requirements from state law included representatives from the same organization that was on Marshall’s family’s refrigerator magnet: the Home School Legal Defense Association.

It’s one of the most visible homeschooling organizations in statehouses around the nation, fighting homeschool regulation of all kinds.

The group argues that the intent behind such regulation is good, but misplaced, and that such regulations unfairly burden homeschooling families without meaningfully overhauling the systems — like social services agencies — that are tasked with protecting kids from abuse.

Homeschool families struggle with “being treated as though they were being lumped in with felons, being lumped in with kidnappers, being lumped in with people who had harmed their children,” said Peter Kamakawiwoole, an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, during a Utah House committee hearing last January.

Also tracking such legislation are groups like the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, which was founded by former homeschoolers and advocates for oversight and accountability in homeschooling. The group drafted a model bill it calls the Make Homeschool Safe Act that proposes certain state reporting requirements for homeschooling families. The Home School Legal Defense Association opposes it.

Fluharty, the West Virginia lawmaker, said that when he’s accused of “going after homeschoolers,” he encourages them to read the bill. He believes the national homeschooling lobbyists are lying to families about what his legislation really does.

The goal of such regulation isn’t to take away homeschoolers’ rights, said Marshall. It’s not even necessarily for the kids whose cases wind up in front of child protective services. Instead, she said, it’s for the kids that no one can see.

“These kids are invisible,” she said. “Homeschooling is inherently isolating. Other kids are going to school and have teachers in their lives, a bus driver in their life.”

But for homeschooled kids, “If you are being abused or your education is being neglected, your parents aren’t telling others that. Nobody knows. It feels like the state doesn’t care.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The officers who shot and killed Thomas Sanford after he opened fire at a Grand Blanc Township church before setting it ablaze will not face prosecution.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton issued a memorandum declining prosecution after reviewing the events that led up to the Sept. 28 shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The investigation found that both officers were “legally entitled to use deadly force in lawful self-defense or defense of others,” according to the memorandum signed by the prosecutor.

The fire and shooting left four victims dead, and eight others injured. Victims’ ages ranged from six to 78 years old.

Sanford allegedly first filled a five-gallon gas can at a local station before calling in bomb threats from his cell phone to a number of locations in the morning of the attack.

He then proceeded to the church, located at 4285 McCandlish Road, and began the attack.

Sanford drove into the south side of the building and opened fire with an AK47 assault rifle.

He was equipped with that rifle, an SKS assault rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun, according to the memorandum.

Sanford shot several victims while approaching the church entrance and then inside the building, before returning to his vehicle to retrieve the gas can and set the building on fire.

Two police officers each responded to the scene independently.

One person attending the church service fired back at Sanford with a .38 caliber revolver, according to the memorandum. Sanford fired back and struck the person three times in the torso.

The first police officer who responded was on patrol in Grand Blanc Township. He identified Sanford, who wore all green and carried a long gun in one hand and a gas can in the other, and ordered him to stop.

The officer reencountered Sanford in the parking lot to the north of the church, where he commanded the man drop his gun and get on the ground.

Sanford eventually walked toward the officer with his gun up, yelling “shoot me,” according to the memorandum.

At that time, Sanford was flanked by a second officer and an armed civilian from the congregation from the west.

Sanford lowered his assault rifle to a 45-degree angle as he continued to walk toward the men. The officers fired at Sanford, dropping him to the ground.

The exchange was shown in a video of the shooting, which was displayed by the Grand Blanc Township Police Department in the aftermath.

Both officers indicated they were in fear that Sanford was going to fire his rifle at them, according to the memorandum.

The shooting was not clearly caught on video, but it was corroborated by eyewitness testimony, audio from the body-worn camera video and a surveillance video from the building next door.

The first officer who arrived put on a “plate carrier” ballistic vest that obstructed the body-worn camera, according to the memorandum.

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday, Feb. 4, unveiled a new “Federal Agents Tracker,” urging residents to report encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol while warning that aggressive federal immigration actions could endanger Michigan residents and violate state law.

“In Michigan, we do not and we will not tolerate illegal actions against our state residents,” Nessel said. “I will not hesitate to uphold the law, and that includes prosecuting unlawful actions perpetrated by federal officers.”

Nessel made the remarks during a two-hour roundtable discussion Feb. 4 at Cadillac Place in Detroit’s New Center area, where elected officials, law enforcement leaders, clergy and immigrant advocates described fear, confusion and legal risk stemming from stepped-up deportation efforts under President Donald Trump.

Among those addressing the group was Maria Klosowski, a Detroit resident and Sister of Mercy who volunteers with an interfaith group that visits immigration detainees at the Monroe County jail.

Klosowski said conditions inside the jail and access to detainees have changed as detention numbers have increased.

“These are people who have been here 30, 35 years,” she said. “They’re business owners, parents of U.S. citizens. They feel powerless.”

Klosowski said detainees are harder to reach, religious materials are now limited or require payment, and many of the men she meets are longtime Michigan residents caught up in the immigration system after routine check-ins or paperwork issues.

Nessel said escalated immigration enforcement is making communities “fundamentally less safe” by discouraging people from reporting crimes, seeking medical care or cooperating with police. She reiterated that residents have a legal right to document ICE activity from a safe distance, but not to interfere.

Several law enforcement leaders at the roundtable said their agencies do not enforce federal immigration law and are focused on maintaining public trust.

Chris Swanson, the Genesee County sheriff, said immigration detainers are not judicial orders and his office does not hold people solely on that basis.

“I don’t enforce federal law. A detainer is not an order signed by a judge,” Swanson said, who is also running for Michigan Governor as a Democrat. “If there’s a state charge, we deal with that. If ICE doesn’t pick them up, they’re released.”

Swanson added that law enforcement must play a central role in restoring trust.

“The profession that caused this is the profession that can fix it,” he said. “It’s up to law enforcement.”

Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia Dyer said her department does not ask about immigration status during traffic stops and does not cooperate with ICE operations.

“Our job is to protect people,” Dyer said. “We are not immigration enforcement.”

Michigan State Police Lt. Col. David Sosinski said troopers do not enforce civil immigration law and have a duty to intervene if excessive force occurs in their presence.

Detroit City Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero said residents in southwest Detroit are afraid to leave their homes because of deportation efforts, describing widespread fear tied to federal actions.

She referred to the president using inflammatory language during the discussion, comments that underscored the emotional intensity of the debate.

The roundtable took place as a group of Michigan religious leaders publicly condemned ICE for the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

For Klosowski, the policy debate ultimately comes back to the people she meets inside the jail.

“They embrace us,” she said. “They tell us their stories. They pray. They sing. Sometimes just being listened to is the only hope they have.”

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a drier-than-normal spring throughout Michigan with some areas being warm and others being cool.

The spring outlook is a long-range forecast that uses solar science, climatology and meteorology to give a broad picture of the season’s temperatures and rainfall. It can be useful to farmers, gardeners, landscapers, homeowners, travelers, event organizers, and many others as they plan their spring activities.

This April and May, much of the U.S., including all of Michigan, is expected to have drier-than-normal conditions.

Michigan is currently working its way out of a drought with a few big storm systems expected in February and March that will continue to help, said MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa.

“I’m feeling like our drought is getting much better,” he said. “Nothing points right now to very dry conditions.”

Still, the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s spring outlook takes a different view.

In most of the L.P. where warm conditions are predicted, spring may arrive earlier, according to the almanac. Gardeners should look for soil drying quickly, early growth and stress on plants during warm spells. Helpful strategies include watering deeply when needed, applying mulch to retain moisture and shading plants during early heat waves.

In the Upper Peninsula and the northern-most parts of the Lower Peninsula, this spring will be cooler and drier than normal, according to the almanac.

While this outlook doesn’t replace daily weather forecasts, seasonal trends can help gardeners as they think about what to plant, when to plant, and how much watering and moisture management they’ll need to do, according to the almanac.

Throughout Michigan, gardeners should watch out for dried out soil early in the season, the almanac says. The Old Farmer’s Almanac suggests using soaker hoses or drip lines to keep plants happy, adding mulch or compost to retain moisture and choosing drought-tolerant plants when possible.

In the U.P. and northern L.P., where the almanac predicts cool conditions, gardeners might see slower growth early in the season, later planting windows, and cold, damp soil. Raised beds and mounded rows can help, along with waiting for soil to warm before planting.

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.