So much excitement for 2026's first News You Can Use. Trump finally has an "Osama bin Laden moment" to top Obama's (and distract from Epstein stuff) although Mar-a-Lago doesn't really have a Situation Room We bet he's building one there now as we speak. States, we see below, are trying to find work-arounds for all the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies now last year's news; many states (like Maryland) are about to begin legislative sessions and find out how many other things they/we really have to worry about.
But News You Can Use has made it to 2026 and promises to keep you up on outrages and attafolkses at the global/federal, state and local level.
HERE IN MARYLAND
Shutdown, Shakeups, Budget Fights, Chromite: A Look Back At 2025: State lawmakers closed a more than $3 billion budget gap with program cuts and tax increases, only to be presented with another $1 billion-plus budget hole in 2026 — when taxes are likely off the table because it’s an election year. Turnover in Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) Cabinet picked up and 2026 races started to take shape, with lots of blanks still to be filled in. Maryland Matters
Most Maryland Congress Members Oppose Venezuela Action: Hours after the dead-of-night military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Maryland’s congressional leaders have split along party lines in response to the mission. Baltimore Banner. >> Republican Rep. Andy Harris praised the military action and the Trump administration’s plan to try Maduro for drug trafficking in a statement Saturday. Some Democratic members of Maryland’s delegation questioned the decision by President Donald Trump, a Republican, to authorize the strikes without congressional approval. Baltimore Sun. >> Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote, “Amazingly, the president wants the people to think his unconstitutional war reflects his concern about illegal drug trafficking just one month after he pardoned the drug-dealing ex-president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, commuting his 45-year sentence after one year Hernández brought in 400 tons of cocaine to America or 800,000 pounds, saying he was going to ‘stick it up the nostrils of the gringos.’” Baltimore Sun.
In 2026, Affordable Housing Is Needed Now More Than Ever: As housing prices and monthly rents soar, advocates, lawmakers and the Moore administration say they share a goal of protecting Maryland families in an unstable housing market, even as the state faces its own financial woes. Maryland Matters.
After Minnesota Allegations, States To Justify Childcare Spending: Maryland received $189.4 million in fiscal 2025 from the federal grants that would be subject to the new "justification" requirement being imposed by the Trump administration, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child Care. Maryland Matters.
Vogel Bill Aims To End Lobbying Perk Of Lavish Dinners For Lawmakers: Del. Joe Vogel, a Democrat from Montgomery County who joined the General Assembly in 2023, is taking aim at the longtime legislative perk of free lavish dinners with a bill that would bar lobbyists, corporations and special interest groups from taking lawmakers out on the town, except in a few limited circumstances. Washington Post.
New Laws Reshaping Housing, Labor And Health: A broad slate of new laws, reshaping everything from property tax sales and workforce protections to prescription drugs and health insurance coverage. Baltimore Sun. >>Aimed at improving health care in Maryland, the new laws will govern no-cost cancer screenings for firefighters, improved access to hearing aids and health insurance coverage. WBAL radio
With Data Centers On the Horizon, Maryland Has No Overall Policy: A vacant Social Security building in Baltimore County. A former power plant in Montgomery. An old mall site in Prince George’s. And that’s on top of a data center campus that has long been under development on a former industrial site in Frederick County. Yet, there isn’t a cohesive statewide policy regulating the arrival of data center facilities, which demand immense amounts of energy. Instead, local jurisdictions wield much of the power to approve or deny projects through zoning rules. Maryland Matters.>> For more than two decades, the site of the demolished Landover Mall in Prince George's County has sat idle, leaving residents in the now-predominantly Black county with the desire to have something in its place as shrubbery and other greenery push through the rubble of what was once a major weekend draw. Residents near the former mall are now facing something unfamiliar that, though local officials say it would generate millions of dollars in much-needed tax revenue, has stirred controversy: a proposal for a massive data center. Washington Post. >> Federal regulators directed the operator of the nation’s largest electricity grid to establish transparent rules for AI data centers to connect directly to power plants. Maryland Matters. >>An informal committee that opposes a Dec. 23 Frederick County Council decision to create a 2,615-acre zone for possible data center construction near Adamstown is in the early stages of an effort seeking to put a referendum on the November ballot that would allow voters to void the council decision. Frederick News Post.
Justice Dept. Leaders Pushed to Charge Abrego Garcia, Emails Say: Federal prosecutors in Nashville have insisted in the past few months that senior Justice Department officials had no involvement in their decision to file charges against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. But on Tuesday, excerpts from several emails released by a federal judge overseeing Mr. Abrego Garcia’s criminal case appeared to directly contradict those assertions. New York Times. Also from NOTUS
Closing Nasa Library In Greenbelt Just One Part Of Shuttering Plan: NASA’s largest library, located at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, that the Trump administration permanently closed last Friday after more than six decades as a central research hub for the agency and the global space science community, has 100,000 volumes. Also under the shuttering plan, 13 buildings and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories on Goddard’s 1,270-acre campus are slated to be shut down by March. Southern Maryland News Net.
Severn Osprey Study Finds Grim Results, An Omen for The Bay: For the first time in decades, researchers on the Severn River in Anne Arundel County systematically documented the reproduction of the Chesapeake Bay tributary’s osprey. Their findings were grim. Across 63 nests tracked last spring by Annapolis-based Operation Osprey, just 15 chicks survived. The fish hawk’s low reproduction on the Severn is part of a distressing trend that’s played out across the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore Banner.
THE REGION AND THE OTHER 49
Minnesota Shakeup: Gov. Walz ends reelection race and Sen. Klobuchar may run instead. See more in Megan’s national roundup below.
In culture war backlash, Democrats sweep school boards: The party recruited and invested in school board races to oust Republicans. It worked. POLITICO
HEALTH CARE: New legislative sessions will kick off beginning this week under the shadow of expiring ObamaCare subsidies and Medicaid cuts, squeezing state budgets and forcing lawmakers to make cuts. Idaho lawmakers are preparing to debate a repeal of Medicaid expansion altogether. Other states are considering cuts to provider reimbursement rates and limits on services. This year will also mark a pivotal year for rural hospitals and providers, which have struggled financially for years. The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program will help offset some losses. The Trump administration is touting the program as the largest investment in rural health care in decades. (Pluribus News) [paywalled]
NATIONAL GUARD: President Trump is dropping his push to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland. Troops were never deployed in Chicago and Portland amid legal challenges, and the Guard had already left Los Angeles. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) called the return of Guard troops to state command a “major litigation victory.” (Associated Press) VIA PLURIBUS
VA: Push to rein in Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) costs heads back to legislature | Virginia Mercury via Stateline Daily
INFO CASCADE -- $7.6 million: The amount Connecticut lawmakers spent sending newsletters to voters over the last five years. Democrats spent about two-thirds of that money. (CT Insider) Democrats hold a 101-49 majority in the House and a 25-11 majority in the Senate. (CT Insider) via Pluribus
SECTION 8: A new law requires landlords in Delaware to consider rental applications from people who pay rent using Section 8 vouchers, a government rental assistance program for those with low incomes. The law does not require landlords to accept potential tenants with vouchers, but they must have a reason for denying the application that is unrelated to the Section 8 qualification, according to Spotlight Delaware. Stateline Daily
CLIMATE: Washington State is expected to launch a Zero-Emission Incentive Program in the spring, a $126 million initiative to push commercial fleet operators to transition their fleets to electric or hydrogen power. Already, nearly one in five new medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold in the state run on zero emission technology. (Washington State Standard) via Pluribus
GLOBAL, NATIONAL AND THE FEDS
Congress is back! Trump never left! (As long as you count Mar-a-Lago as a workplace). Here is Megan E’s roundup of the latest. She is federal affairs director for Progressive Maryland’s nation affiliate, People’s Action.
Hello People's Action!
Happy New Year!
Over the weekend, Trump directed U.S. troops to invade Venezuela and arrest President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. They are being held in the U.S. and will be prosecuted under an indictment in federal court in N.Y. Maduro held on to power in Venezuela after losing reelection in 2024. There is a significant population of Venezuelan elites in exile in Florida and toppling Maduro’s government has been a priority for Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Then of course, there is the oil. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, kicked out American oil companies in the early 2000’s and Trump is promising to get them back in. Trump has also been jealous of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, which Trump covets.
[The WaPo reports: “Two people close to the White House said the president’s lack of interest in boosting Machado, despite her recent efforts to flatter Trump, stemmed from her decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award the president has openly coveted.
“Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people.
“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.”]
Trump has said that Machado will not run the country, rather the U.S. will -- statements that Rubio has walked back. He says the U.S. will only enforce an oil embargo of Venezuelan exports, including to Cuba. Trump and Rubio think that Cuba will fall because it was being propped up by Venezuela money.
Feeling emboldened by his actions in Venezuela, Trump threatened several countries last night from Columbia and Iran to Mexico and Greenland (owned by Denmark, a close ally).
When authoritarians are unpopular, they often go to war to try to distract from poor domestic conditions (poor economy, unaffordable living conditions, health care cuts). At the end of 2025, Trump had record low approval ratings, he lost the fight over the Epstein files and harmful information has been revealed about his relationship to Epstein. A judge found he couldn’t deploy the national guard in Chicago so he withdrew troops from the other states, he failed to extend the affordable care act tax credits kicking millions of people off of their health care, and he ranted that there is no affordability crisis.
In better news, Mayor Mamdani was sworn in last week as the NYC’s first democratic socialist Mayor, first South Asian and first Muslim mayor, the youngest-ever Mayor, the first to use a Quran at his swearing in -- and he had the largest inauguration turnout in the City’s history. He signed executive orders protecting renters, building housing and undoing executive orders signed by Mayor Adams that prohibited city workers from engaging in boycotting or divesting from Israel and one that adopted a contentious definition of anti-semitism.
Tim Walz is dropping out of the Minnesota Governor’s race and Senator Amy Klobuchar may run instead. From the NYTimes: “Mr. Walz said a widening scandal over fraud in social services programs in Minnesota had persuaded him to drop out of the race. Mr. Walz had been criticized for his administration’s oversight of the programs, and its failure to prevent widespread fraud.
‘I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all,’ Mr. Walz said in a statement. ‘Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences.’”
ISSUE UPDATE: HEALTHCARE
From KFF:
“Home care staffing shortages could worsen in the coming months and years as states struggle to absorb federal Medicaid cuts and respond to the loss of immigrant labor, as shown by KFF’s latest survey of Medicaid home care programs, in which all responding states (49 plus DC) reported shortages of home care workers and most states (41) reported permanent closures of home care providers within the last year.
Tighter state budgets could lead to cuts in pay for home care workers and family caregivers; and spur other reductions in the availability of home care services. Nearly all such services are optional and most states have managed costs through spending or enrollment limits. At least half a million people have sat on waiting or interest lists each year since 2016, with over 600,000 in 2025.
To learn more about Medicaid home care, read about it in KFF’s explainer on home- and community-based services (HCBS).
In solidarity,
Megan