JUST IN: Judge Shah in Illinois has blocked the Trump admin from yanking $600m in public health funds from four blue states, saying it appeared to be a “contrived” and illegal effort to punish them for sanctuary immigration policies https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.494863/gov.uscourts.ilnd.494863.63.0.pdf

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A new statewide poll shows a close U.S. Senate race in Ohio, with Democrat Sherrod Brown narrowly leading Republican Jon Husted and voters citing insurance costs as their top healthcare concern.

The survey of 600 likely voters, conducted March 3-8 by OnMessage Public Strategies for the Insurance Watchdog Coalition, found Brown with 47% support to Husted’s 45%, with 8% undecided. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. The race will determine who completes the remainder of the term vacated by Vice President J.D. Vance.

Brown, seeking a political comeback after losing reelection in 2024, reported raising more than $7.3 million in the final three months of 2025 and had nearly $9.9 million on hand at the end of December. Husted, who was appointed to the Senate in January 2025, reported raising about $1.5 million during the same period and had roughly $6 million on hand at the end of the year.

A separate poll released last year by the Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research Network also showed a narrow race, with Brown leading Husted 49% to 48%, within the margin of error. Watch a previous NBC4 report on Ohio’s 2026 U.S. Senate race in the video player above.

The OnMessage Public Strategies poll also asked voters about healthcare affordability and found insurance-related costs topping the list of concerns. About 72% of Ohio voters said their biggest healthcare cost worries involve health insurance prices, deductibles or coverage denials.

The Justice Department attorney who made headlines for telling a federal judge “this job sucks” at a hearing on President Donald Trump’s immigration arrests in Minnesota says she is planning to run for Congress in November.

In her now-famous outburst, Julie T. Le told U.S. District Judge Jerry W. Blackwell that she felt powerless to compel U.S. immigration officers to follow judicial orders to grant immigrants bond hearings or release them from detention. Blackwell had summoned her and a colleague to court to demand an explanation, or face contempt.

As Le stalked out of the courtroom, she said it flashed across her mind that only legislators had the power to fix the enforcement system that had ignited fear and violence throughout the Twin Cities.

“I was like, ‘Okay, I’m an attorney. I can’t do much at all,’” Le, 47, said in an interview. “Legislators are the only ones that can change the law, or update the laws, or do something, so that we can have this under control.”

Le was fired by the Trump administration within hours of her outburst. Now she is preparing to launch a campaign to run for Congress as a Democrat, challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota).

WASHINGTON (CN) — Missouri Senator Josh Hawley rolled out new legislation Wednesday to immediately withdraw federal safety approvals for the medication abortion drug mifepristone.

It’s a measure that comes months after the Trump administration said it’s taking another look at the medicine’s safety — and years after the Supreme Court threw out a challenge to mifepristone’s longstanding status as an approved abortion medication by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Hawley argued it’s time for Congress to step in and address medication abortions, claiming pharmaceutical companies had pushed mifepristone despite what he claimed were the medicine’s “devastating health effects.”

“We’ve known for years that mifepristone is risky, but it’s really just in the last few years that we’ve learned this drug is inherently dangerous and it’s inherently prone to abuse,” Hawley said during a news conference.

Mifepristone, which has been permitted for use in certain abortions for more than two decades, has become the primary vehicle for the procedure in the years since the high court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to have an abortion. More than 60% of abortions took place in 2023 using abortion pills.

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to Tampa Mayor Jane Castor on Wednesday saying the state will take action if she does not stop “forcing sanctuary policies” on the Tampa Police Department.

“TPD’s policies prohibiting its officers from sharing certain information with federal immigration authorities and limiting the immigration enforcement activities in which it participates effectively establishes a sanctuary policy,” Uthmeier wrote in the letter.

Uthmeier took issue with TPD withholding information from federal immigration authorities about victims and witnesses of crimes, specifically concerning their legal status. This policy aims to reassure people who are in the country illegally that they will not face possible detention and deportation for coming forward to report a crime.

“But we want illegal aliens to fear immigration consequences to the extent they are here unlawfully,” Uthmeier wrote.

Protections exist for victims of certain crimes who could face removal from the country if investigated by federal immigration officials, as required by state law. The Department of Homeland Security website, cited in the letter, highlights pathways to temporary legal immigration status for victims of human trafficking and domestic violence, as well as over two dozen other crimes.

The Florida House has approved legislation that would ban local governments from funding, promoting, or taking official actions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

The House voted mostly along party lines, 77-37, to approve SB 1134. Republican Reps. Chip LaMarca, Hillary Cassel, Will Robinson, Paula Stark, and Jim Mooney joined all of the Democrats in opposing the measure.

The Senate approved the bill last week, and it will now be sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis for consideration.

The measure is sponsored by Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville. He said that, over the past decade, DEI has divided society into competing factions.

“Not only have millions and millions of taxpayer dollars been wasted in the name of DEI, this philosophy has fostered resentment instead of good will; mediocrity instead of merit; and it has divided our society against itself,” Black told House members in introducing the bill.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades.

The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of “lethality,” including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Around 200 employees who worked on the issue, including at that office, have been reduced by about 90 percent, according to two current and former officials and a person familiar with the effort. The team that handles civilian casualties at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has dropped from 10 to one.

Hegseth can’t close the offices because they are approved by Congress. But he has managed to make them nearly inoperable, according to the people, as the Pentagon investigates its responsibility in what could be the worst U.S.-led killing of civilians since 2003. Iranian state media said the strike killed about 170 children and 14 teachers.

“The fact that our secretary of Defense, that our Central Command commander, cannot actually tell us whether or not they dropped a bomb in this location, that is so unbelievably unacceptable,” said Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments until last year. “It just points even more to recklessness in this, in the entire planning and execution of this campaign, the fact that they don’t have any idea.”

Hegseth has said no other country takes as many precautions to ensure the U.S. is not targeting civilians. But the Pentagon chief, who has long derided the use of laws in war, this week called military rules of engagement “stupid.”

The Pentagon spent millions of dollars on luxury crabs and other food items in a single month as part of a frantic end-of-year spending spree to maintain its immense funding.

An analysis by the government watchdog Open the Books found that the department led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent more than $93 billion in September 2025, the end of the fiscal year, on various grants and contracts, the highest total since at least 2008.

Included in this spending was $2 million on Alaskan king crab last September alone, as well as $6.9 million on lobster tail and $1 million on salmon. The Defense Department also spent nearly $140,000 on doughnuts, $124,000 on ice cream machines, $26,000 on sushi preparation tables, and a whopping $15.1 million on ribeye steak.

As Open the Books explained, the Pentagon tries to spend as much of its congressionally allocated budget as possible at the end of every fiscal year because of federal “use-it-or-lose-it” rules. If the department ends the year with leftover funds, it risks having its budget reduced the following year.

On top of the billions of dollars spent on technologies, contracts, and purchases from foreign governments and businesses, the department also found inventive ways to ensure it used as much of its budget as possible in the final month.

Recovering Iran’s remaining highly enriched uranium stockpile believed to be sitting in a storage facility deep underground, an objective the Trump administration has been discussing, would require a significant number of US ground troops beyond a small special operations footprint, seven current and former officials familiar with the military planning told CNN.

The US bombing campaign that struck three Iranian nuclear facilities last June did not destroy all of that country’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, the material needed to create a nuclear weapon. Much of it is believed to be at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site, said three of the sources. President Donald Trump has made complete elimination of Iran’s nuclear capability one of his stated aims of the war.

If the Trump administration went ahead with an operation to retrieve the uranium, it could mark the first major commitment of US ground forces as part of the campaign, an escalation that would put a large number of troops in harm’s way as part of a complex mission to move or render safe tons of highly radioactive material.

The uranium at Isfahan is accessible to the Iranians, who had been working for months after the US military strikes last year to clear the rubble of the facility’s aboveground structures and access the underground tunnels where the uranium was hidden, two of the sources said. UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday that around 200 kilograms of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is probably still at Isfahan, with some also at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.