Center Square

Legal experts anticipate the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down a law barring unlawful drug users from possessing firearms.
On Monday, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. v. Hemani, a case challenging a law that prohibits a person who “is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from possessing a firearm.
Lawyers for Ali Hemani, a Texas man who was found possessing a gun, marijuana and cocaine, argued the law violated his Second Amendment rights. The Trump administration filed a petition to the Supreme Court to hear the case last year.
During the arguments, a majority of justices appeared skeptical of the law and the U.S. government’s petition to challenge it. The case came out of a standard developed from New York Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, that required modern gun laws be consistent with the historical tradition of firearm regulation.
The U.S. government argued this tradition applied in U.S. v. Hemani, based on founding era restrictions on “drunkards” participation in civil life. However, a majority of justices did not appear to be convinced of this argument.
Hayley Proctor, a professor of law at Notre Dame University, said many legal experts expected the majority of justices to be on the side of the government.
“The argument really dispelled that impression,” Proctor told The Center Square. “The court was asking very difficult questions of the government.”
The justices posed several hypotheticals of when an individual uses drugs unlawfully. Justice Amy Coney Barrett mentioned an example of a woman who uses her husband’s prescription Ambien to sleep.
“There can’t be a judgment there that simply using Ambien makes you dangerous,” Proctor said. “Unlawfulness is not the same thing as dangerousness.”
Lawyers for the U.S. government also argued the law could shift to only disarm individuals who possess Schedule I or Schedule II drugs. This would include marijuana, heroin, fentanyl and morphine. Proctor said relying on a federal scheduling to determine the law could be difficult because marijuana is being considered for rescheduling.
“The federal government has not fully enforced federal law on marijuana,” Proctor said. “So that plays into it.”
Lawyers for the Trump administration also argued that unlawful drug users pose a similar public safety threat as drunkards as the founding era did. However, legal experts said the justices were not convinced of this argument either.
“I don’t know that the reliance on the commitment laws, the vagrancy laws and the surety laws that the government seems to rely on here really captures the facts of this case and I think that’s why they struggled a lot with the questioning,” said F. Lee Francis, professor of law at the Widener Law Commonwealth.
The administration also pointed to founding era laws that disarmed British loyalists for rebellion against the colonies. Marc Levin, chief policy counsel at Right on Crime, said those arguments did not apply either, even though national security could be a concern in these kinds of cases.
“I kind of empathize to some degree with [the government’s] situation because it is really difficult to meet the standard that was set in Bruen, but I think it was designed that way,” Levin said.
Francis and Levin both pointed out that Justice Samuel Alito appeared to be in favor of the government’s argument in the case but said he appeared to be in the minority. Levin predicted the court would rule 8-1 to strike down the law and Francis guessed it would come out to 7-2, with Chief Justice John Roberts possibly joining Alito.
“I agree that the chief is on Alito’s side,” Levin said. “He likes to be part of the majority, so he might be able to find his way.”
The court is expected to release a decision in the consequential Second Amendment case by July.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Mirabelli v. Olson deciding against California’s law that allowed for gender transitions of school children without parental knowledge has met with commendation from advocacy groups and law firms, with a legal counsel calling the decision one of the “biggest parental rights wins” in a generation.
Chief legal affairs officer at think tank America First Policy Institute Leigh Ann O’Neill told The Center Square that she hopes “to see these policies where they belong – in the waste bin of history.”
“Secrecy policies like the ones used by California schools drive a wedge between parents and their children,” O’Neill said.
“Teachers and administrators are undermining parents’ right to be the primary decision makers for their children,” O’Neill said. “The Supreme Court has signaled its clear understanding of the urgency of this case.”
President of advocacy group the American Principles Project Terry Schilling told The Center Square that “the Supreme Court recognizes what every parent knows in their heart: gender ideology violates the rights of children and their families.”
“Gavin Newsom Democrats waged a war against common sense and parents, and they lost,” Schilling said.
Schilling emphasized that “lawmakers cannot merely rely on the courts to protect families. Parents need lawmakers to step up and pass nationwide bans on the poison of child sex changes and gender ideology running rampant in our education and medical establishment.”
Vice president and legal fellow at education restoration group Defending Education stressed to The Center Square the importance of parental rights as it pertains to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“The parental right, rooted in biology and recognized for millennia, is the cornerstone of any society,” Perry said. “We sacrifice or neglect that right at our peril.”
“Parental rights are both natural and pre-political,” Perry said. “They predate the Constitution and government itself, and when state agencies appoint themselves the arbiters of the future of our minor children, our society suffers greatly for it.”
Perry stated that “in Mirabelli v. Olson, the Court reinstated a victory for the parents from the trial court which prohibited ‘misleading parents about their children’s gender presentation’ and required schools to follow parents’ instructions regarding the names and pronouns that children use.”
Perry said however that “because this was an emergency docket disposition that related only to one case out of California – the ruling will have limited practical effect.”
“This was a victory for the California parents – but a procedural one, only,” Perry said. “The parents will now return to the lower court and continue to litigate on the policy itself, while its operation is halted for the time being.”
“It is, however, a positive sign of the Court’s desire to wade in to the increasing conflict between parents and schools on gender secrecy policies,” Perry said.
Senior Council at nonprofit law firm Becket Adele Keim called the Supreme Court case “one of the biggest parental rights wins in a generation.”
“The Supreme Court reaffirmed that parents – not the state – have primary authority over their kids’ upbringing and education,” Keim told The Center Square.
“This means that parents have the right not to be shut out of decisions relating to their kids’ mental health, which is what California’s gender transition secrecy policies did here,” Keim said.
“The Supreme Court held that parents don’t forfeit that right when they send their kids to public school,” Keim said.
Keim told The Center Square that “a liberal society like ours recognizes that kids don’t belong to the state,” but to parents.
“A healthy society flourishes when schools and governments work with parents, not against them,” Keim said. “At a minimum, that means not keeping parents in the dark about their kids’ mental health, like California did here.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled “in favor of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a California law that allowed public schools to conceal a student’s ‘gender transitions’ from their parents,” The Center Square reported.
As Adele Keim told The Center Square, the case – Mirabelli v. Olson – “builds on Becket’s win in Mahmoud v. Taylor last year, where the Court held that parents in Maryland had the right to opt their children out of storybooks that pushed one-sided ideology on gender and sexuality and conflicted with the families’ religious beliefs.”
“These rulings make it clear that American parents don’t forfeit their rights when they send their kids to public school,” Keim said.

Veterans die by suicide at roughly twice the civilian rate, despite the Department of Veterans Affairs spending more than $500 million a year to address the problem.
In 2023, the rate of suicide for veterans was 35.2 per 100,000, up from 34.7 per 100,000 in 2022, according to the most recent figures from the VA. By comparison, the national suicide rate was 14.1 per 100,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jim Whaley, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and CEO of Mission Roll Call, told The Center Square that official government figures may not fully capture the problem, suggesting the data undercounts the true scope. He also said the government has spent a millions on prevention with lackluster results.
“A lot of money has gone into suicide prevention, and it really hasn’t worked,” he said.
Whaley called for a national summit of veterans groups to address the issue. He said that in addition to the big, national organizations, small local groups need to be a part of the solution.
He also said the goal should be zero veteran suicides.
“Let’s not just try to reduce it,” he told The Center Square. “Let’s have a bold goal.”
Younger veterans, men, those with mental health problems and substance abuse problems are among those with the highest risks. Whaley said another difficult time can be during the transition from the military to civilian life.
Homelessness is another factor, Whaley said. While the two issues may seem separate, they are often linked. Homelessness, Whaley said, can be a path to suicide.
VA Secretary Doug Collins noted that his department is focused on solutions.
“Veteran suicide has been a scourge on our nation for far too long,” he said. “Most Veterans who die by suicide were not in recent VA care, so making it easier for those who have worn the uniform to access the VA benefits they have earned is key.
Collins also said the department will, for the first time, take a look at how well the programs it already has are working.
He said it was “a serious effort to track the efficacy of the hundreds of millions the department spends per year in this area to ensure we have real solutions, not just rhetoric.”

A coalition of government officials, corporate executives, and labor leaders is gathering in Washington next week to address what many see as the biggest obstacle to a new wave of U.S. infrastructure investment: finding enough skilled workers to build it.
BlackRock and Global Infrastructure Partners will host a U.S. Infrastructure Summit in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, March 11. The one-day event will bring together policymakers, business leaders, and labor representatives to discuss how the country can deliver major infrastructure projects while also expanding the skilled trades workforce needed to support them.
The issue has grown more urgent as billions of dollars in private investment flow into sectors such as semiconductors, energy, and artificial intelligence.
The Trump administration has attracted trillions of dollars in private investment commitments tied to infrastructure development and advanced manufacturing. However, those projects require a large workforce of electricians, construction workers, technicians, and other skilled trades.
BlackRock research estimates that infrastructure development alone could create hundreds of thousands of new skilled trade jobs over the next decade.
The summit’s speaker list reflects a broad coalition forming around the workforce challenge.
Participants include U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators also are scheduled to attend, including Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., and former Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., President Donald Trump’s pick to succeed Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary.
Corporate leaders scheduled to appear include Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, UPS CEO Carol Tomé, and NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum. Labor leaders such as Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien and North America’s Building Trades Unions President Sean McGarvey will participate as well.
Policy experts from across the political spectrum will also speak. That includes American Compass founder Oren Cass and Progressive Policy Institute senior advisor Bruno Manno.
The Trump administration has pursued several workforce initiatives in recent months to address the labor shortage.
In April 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to prepare Americans for skilled trade jobs. Congress later approved Workforce Pell Grants, which extend federal financial aid to short-term job training programs. The administration released “America’s Talent Strategy,” a plan to better align education programs with workforce needs.
Officials have also set a goal of surpassing one million active registered apprentices nationwide.
Private companies have begun experimenting with workforce agreements to attract workers to expanding industries.
Last year, in the rail sector, Union Pacific and the SMART-TD union announced a “Jobs for Life” agreement guaranteeing lifetime employment for certain union workers following a proposed merger involving Norfolk Southern.
Supporters say the agreement demonstrates how companies and labor groups may find common ground when industries are growing and skilled workers are in high demand.
Summit organizers say the goal of the Washington gathering is to bring together leaders from across government, business, and labor to determine how the country can translate investment commitments into real projects and long-term economic growth.
Whether that coalition can turn shared concerns into coordinated action remains unclear.

Many states are considering new policies affecting teachers’ ability to strike or participate in protests, and education officials and labor advocates continue to debate the legality of teacher strikes.
The strikes are banned or heavily restricted in roughly 38 states and Washington, D.C. In states such as Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, legislation explicitly prevents teachers from striking.
Twelve states explicitly allow teacher strikes, including Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Vermont. In a few states, such as South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming, the legality of strikes is not clearly defined in statutes or case law.
In Arizona, the proposed House Bill 2313 would prohibit public school teachers from striking or participating in organized work stoppages. It has drawn criticism from union officials.
Geneva Fuentes, communications director for the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, warned that the bill could have unintended consequences for school districts.
“HB 2313 is a badly drafted bill that would withhold funding from school districts if educators speak to each other about illness and other legitimate absences from work,” Fuentes told The Center Square in an email. “In reality, the broader effect of this bill would be to strip much-needed funding from our students and prevent educators from communicating with each other about basic issues that affect student learning.”
Fuentes added that the bill does nothing to address Arizona’s teacher recruitment and retention challenges.
“Proposals like HB 2313 only add to existing pressures and do nothing to address the real challenges facing Arizona schools,” Fuentes said. “Strong public schools require collaboration between policymakers and educators. Protecting students means protecting stable funding for their schools, and retaining educators starts with respecting their profession.”
Because taxpayer dollars fund schools and teacher salaries, education officials argue that strikes could disrupt classroom instruction.
In an exclusive interview with The Center Square, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said teachers have the right to protest but should not do so during school hours.
“They have a First Amendment right to protest, but they can do it after school,” Horne said. “They don’t have to use it as a reason not to do the work that the taxpayers are paying them for.”
Horne said he supports HB 2313, arguing that schools exist to educate students using taxpayer funds.
“The taxpayers are paying money, and the money goes into salaries for these teachers to teach the kids,” he added. “So if they walk out during school hours to protest, they’re stealing from the taxpayers. They’re getting money without doing the work.”
The debate comes as educators’ political activity has raised concerns in other states.
The Texas Education Agency issued guidance after hundreds of students in several major cities joined national walkouts protesting federal immigration enforcement earlier this year.
The TEA warned that teachers who aid or encourage students to leave class for such protests could face investigation or potential sanctions, including licensure revocation.
The Center Square reached out to the TEA for a comment but has not received a response.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton later opened investigations into several school districts for facilitating and failing to keep students safe and accountable during various student protests against lawful immigration enforcement.
“I will not allow Texas schools to become breeding grounds for the radical Left’s open borders agenda,” the Republican attorney general said in a statement. “Let this serve as a warning to any public school official or employee who unlawfully facilitates student participation in protests targeting our heroic law enforcement officers: my office will use every legal tool available to hold you accountable.”
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Maryland are considering legislation that would expand teachers’ labor rights. House Bill 1492, introduced by more than 20 Democratic lawmakers, would repeal the state’s ban on teachers’ union strikes and allow public school employees, such as teachers and librarians, to strike without retaliation.
Teacher strikes are illegal in Washington state, but the law does not specify penalties, and strikes continue to occur across the state, The Center Square reported.
In 2025, state Democrats approved Senate Bill 5041, allowing striking workers to receive unemployment benefits for up to six weeks.
However, a 2006 formal opinion by then Attorney General Rob McKenna stated that “state and local public employees, including teachers, have no legally protected right to strike.”
The Center Square reported in January that federal officials recently arrested three people in connection with a protest that disrupted a Sunday church service in St. Paul, Minnesota. One of those arrested, Chauntyll Louisa Allen, serves as clerk of the St. Paul Board of Education.

American gasoline prices continued to rise on Friday and are up the most of any week since 2022.
Iran widened attacks on energy-producing countries near its borders and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipping, dashing hopes for a quick resolution to a crisis sending shockwaves through global markets. The United States last Saturday began a military campaign in Iran, one that has continued throughout the week with aggression.
As of 1 p.m. Eastern Saturday, the U.S. national average price for regular gasoline had jumped approximately 43.1 cents per gallon from the same time in the previous week, reaching approximately $3.41 per gallon, according to AAA. The 14% rise from the previous Saturday was the largest weekly increase since March 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine roiled global energy markets.
Gasoline prices in Indiana rose 44.3 cents during the week while drivers in Florida, Louisiana and Oklahoma had seven-day increases of 43.9 cents, 42.3 cents, and 40.9 cents per gallon, respectively.
Meanwhile, benchmark prices for other key fuels in overseas markets rose even more during the week. In Europe, the price of liquified natural gas – LNG – at the TTF Hub was up about 52% in the week, reaching $15.61 per million British thermal units. In Asia, the Japan-Korea Marker was up 91% in the week $31.65 per million BTU, which compared with $3.20 per million BTU at the Henry Hub in Louisiana, up a modest 6.8% on the week.
Second-term Republican President Donald Trump said in an interview with Reuters late Thursday that the U.S. military operation was his top priority, not higher gasoline prices.
“They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit,” the president said.
The president reiterated on Friday that a deal with Iran will require “unconditional surrender.” On Thursday, the president said he would be “all for” a ground offensive inside Iran by the region’s Kurdish forces.
GasBuddy head of Petroleum Analysis Patrick De Haan said in an interview Thursday afternoon that prices were surging across a range of fuels that include U.S. gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as markets realized U.S. naval escorts of oil and gas tankers would not occur immediately.
“Nothing’s moving, and I think that’s why the market suddenly ramped up today,” said De Haan. “In addition, we saw Iran escalate today by launching new missile attacks on Azerbaijan.”
U.S. wholesale jet fuel prices were up by 72% at one point of the day on Thursday, noted De Haan.
“The U.S. Navy will escort ships ‌as soon as reasonable,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said ⁠Friday in an interview on Fox News.
On Tuesday, the president ordered the U.S. Development Finance Corporation to offer political risk insurance and naval convoys for ships transporting energy and other commodities through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.
About 20% of the world’s crude oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday on CNBC that U.S. officials will make a “series of announcements” aimed at facilitating shipments of oil, LNG, and other commodities out of the Persian Gulf.
Early Friday afternoon, New York Mercantile Exchange West Intermediate Texas crude oil futures for delivery in April traded at $90.49 per barrel, up $25.28 or 38.8% in the week since the conflict began. This was the largest increase in percentage terms over a seven-day period since oil demand collapsed during the COVID-19 era in 2020.
“There is a lot of volatility in the markets,” said Mike Moncla, president of the Louisianan Oil and gas association. “In general, higher prices are better for the oil and gas industry in Louisiana and elsewhere, but we also need stability and clarity – a year from now this whole thing might be over and a barrel of oil might be back at $60.”
Still, gasoline prices remain relatively inexpensive. In 2022, the year Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed global energy prices sharply higher, a gallon of regular grade gasoline averaged $3.88 per gallon and in June peaked at a monthly average of $4.92 per gallon.
“There’s no cheaper liquid in the world than gasoline,” said Moncla. “If you had to fill your tank with milk or Windex or any other liquid out there, I think you’d spent a whole lot more than you do filling your tank with gasoline.”

As U.S. military operations in Iran continue with no end in sight, lawmakers are debating whether to authorize billions in taxpayer money for the Pentagon.
Though the Trump administration has not yet formally requested supplemental funding, it is expected to do so soon, and the number will likely be in the tens of billions of dollars.
The Department of Defense received over $900 billion in December through the National Defense Authorization Act.
While not all Democratic lawmakers have ruled out providing extra money, many are staunchly against supporting hostilities that Congress did not authorize.
House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., has requested the Congressional Budget Office provide official estimates of how much a war in Iran could cost under different scenarios.
“The Constitution grants Congress both the power of the purse and the responsibility of declaring war,” Boyle wrote in a letter to CBO. “Congress should ensure we are spending taxpayer dollars to improve the quality of life for the American people, not paying for another endless war in the Middle East.”
Trump said the conflict – which the administration originally touted as a short-term operation – may last more than five weeks.
The DOD has neither confirmed nor denied whether it plans to deploy U.S. troops on the ground in Iran, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth telling reporters that the Pentagon will “go as far as we need to go to advance American interests.”
For American taxpayers, that could cost them tens of billions of dollars, according to some estimates.
While the Institute for Policy Studies estimates the U.S. is currently spending roughly $60 million per day on Iran operations, other organizations project much higher numbers. According to calculations by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the conflict has already cost taxpayers up to $3.7 billion, or roughly $891 million per day.
The federal government racked up record-breaking deficits in fiscal year 2025 and is set to do so again at current spending levels under the second Trump administration.
From November 2025 to February 2026 alone, the U.S. added nearly $700 billion to the national debt, The Center Square reported.

The area along the Arizona and Utah border is continuing to see the measles outbreak that started in August, and California and Colorado have seen a number of cases.
Nevada hasn’t seen any, but is monitoring the national trend.
Meanwhile, the Arizona Department of Health Services is concerned about the outbreak and is closely monitoring it, said Dr. Joel Terriquez, the department’s medical director of the bureau of infectious diseases services. He urges people to get vaccinated.
Terriquez told The Center Square that Mojave County is the state’s most affected county.
“The number of measles cases in that area has been significantly higher than any other area of the state,” he noted.
Measles cases that have not been in Mohave County are not associated with an outbreak, but rather “independent clusters of cases,” Terriquez said.
Since the outbreak that started in August, Arizona has a total of 261 cases, he noted, including 56 cases so far this year.
He told The Center Square that 67% of people who have gotten measles have been younger than 18.
On top of this, Terriquez said 97% of people who have gotten measles have been unvaccinated.
He added that despite the concerns of some people, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is “very safe and effective.” He said that conclusion is based on decades of research.
“It only takes one vaccine to potentially prevent an outbreak. It takes one vaccine to protect a kid from getting measles and potentially protecting them from complications,” Terriquez said.
Measles among an unvaccinated population is “gonna spread like wildfire,” Terriquez said, noting the disease is “extremely contagious.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nearly 89% of people in Arizona are vaccinated against measles.
One dose of the MMR vaccine protects a person against 93% of potential measles cases, while two doses can protect a person up to 97% of potential measles cases, according to Terriquez.
Terriquez noted no one in Arizona who has contracted measles has died from it.
CDC data, which was updated Thursday, shows 1,281 people have contracted measles in 2026. Last year, 2,281 people contracted measles.
In total, 300 people have been hospitalized due to measles. This means that 9% of all measles cases in America in 2025 and in 2026 have resulted in hospitalization.
Terriquez said America last year experienced three measles-related deaths, which is 0.09% of all cases.
According to the CDC, no one has died from measles this year.
Terriquez said the “vast majority of individuals” who get measles “will not develop any complications.” However, if people do develop complications from measles, Terriquez pointed out, it “can be very severe.”
Complications from measles, such as pneumonia, measles encephalitis and meningitis, could potentially kill someone, he explained.
“Long-term complications can come years after the initial measles infection,” with them being “very unpredictable with high mortality,” Terriquez said.
In Arizona’s neighboring state, Utah, there is a measles outbreak.
Dr. Leisha Nolen held a press conference on Thursday to address the spread of measles throughout Utah.
The state has had 358 people diagnosed with measles since June 2025, Nolen told reporters.
According to Nolen, 120 people have gone to the emergency room, with 31 requiring hospitalization overnight. She added that three people have gone to the intensive care unit.
No one in Utah has died from measles, she said.
Nolen said measles is spreading across Utah. She noted the measles cases were initially limited to the southern part of Utah, but have now expanded to every part of the state, largely through school events.
She encouraged people to get vaccinated against measles. The CDC said 89% of people in Utah are vaccinated against measles.
Colorado, meanwhile, has seen fewer measles cases than Arizona and Utah.
Colorado has had eight measles cases in 2026, compared with 36 last year.
Hope Shuler, interim communications director for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s division of disease control and public health response, said the state has collaborated closely with its local partners.
She told The Center Square this collaboration is meant to “ensure rapid response to any potential transmission.”
Shuler added that they have “conducted thorough case investigations in order to alert the public to potential exposures and provide the steps they can take to protect themselves from further spread.”
Due to the state’s media campaign, website updates and provider webinars, Shuler said Colorado and its partners “successfully drove a 30.55% increase in MMR vaccine doses given compared to 2024.”
“We have also performed direct outreach to families whose children are overdue for their MMR vaccines. In 2025 and 2026, six rounds of outreach to families of children overdue for their MMR vaccines led to 48% of those contacted becoming up-to-date,” she explained.
Colorado’s measles vaccination rate is 88%, the CDC said.
Another state with some measles cases is California. The Golden State has seen 26 confirmed cases in 2026. This amount exceeds the total for all of 2025, which reported 25 measles cases.
Sacramento and Placer counties have reported recent measles incidents. The California Department of Public Health said it was working with those counties to alert people who may have been exposed to measles.
Dr. Erica Pan, CDPH director, urged people to get the MMR vaccine.
“Measles, one of the most contagious infections, can lead to severe life-long consequences including permanent brain damage and can also be fatal, especially for children,” he said.
The CDC noted California’s measles vaccination rate is 96%.
Unlike all these other states, Nevada has not had any measles cases so far this year.
The state actively monitors the nationwide measles situation, said Daniel Vezmar, public information officer for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services’ division of public and behavioral health.
Nevada does this by reviewing regular updates from the CDC and “by working with other states to understand the risks of travel-associated cases coming to Nevada,” Vezmar told The Center Square.
“In 2025, there were more measles cases nationally than in any one year since 1992, and so far in 2026 there have been 10 outbreaks in the United States,” he said.
“As transmission continues throughout the country, there is a risk of measles cases occurring in Nevada, highlighting the importance of vaccination and staying away from others during illness to prevent the spread,” Vezmar noted.
Even with no confirmed cases of the measles, Nevada “continuously reviews case data and wastewater testing results to identify potential cases and initiate early response measures,” he said.
Nevada has a vaccination rate of 91%, the CDC said.

In Fayette Township in southwest Michigan, a series of utility-scale solar projects has drawn hundreds of residents to local meetings and sparked a grassroots campaign opposing the development.
Ranger Power, which currently runs Heartwood Solar I, is hoping Heartwood Solar II and Heartwood Solar III will expand solar development onto hundreds more acres of farmland across Hillsdale County.
The controversy highlights the growing tension between Michigan’s statewide clean energy mandates and the communities expected to host the projects that advocates say are needed to meet them. (Read the first installment of this series HERE.)
When Solar Comes Knocking
A knock on the door changed everything, Stephen Oleszkowicz told The Center Square in an exclusive interview. That was when a Ranger Power representative handed his in-laws a flyer about a solar project planned to border their land.
“We were not notified at all about this project from the township,” Oleszkowicz said. “We found out when Ranger Power knocked on my in-laws’ door and handed them a flyer talking about solar being on the property right next to them.”
With the news delivered the week before Thanksgiving, Oleszkowicz and his wife, along with neighbors, began organizing immediately.
“We all pitched our money in together to do a mailing. And we mailed out Christmas card-looking flyers that have a melting snowman on the front with a field of solar panels in the background,” Oleszkowicz said. “We sent it out to try to get people to come to the December meeting, which was in two weeks at that time.”
That first meeting, there were just a handful of residents, but interest grew quickly.
Oleszkowicz built a website over the Thanksgiving weekend to share information and coordinate efforts against the project. By January, more than 200 residents showed up at a rescheduled township meeting, forcing officials to move the gathering to a larger venue.
“We were hammering the internet, calling neighbors, doing whatever we could to let people know what was going on,” Oleszkowicz said.
An Uphill Battle
Oleszkowicz described township meetings regarding the solar development’s expansion as chaotic and confusing, leaving residents scrambling to make their voices heard.
“When we went to the December meeting . . . the township supervisor argued his point that there’s nothing we can do; it’s going to happen anyways,” Oleszkowicz said. “I tried to explain to them from my research, that’s not the case. There’s a way to fight this.”
He said residents quickly realized that even basic information about the project was often being withheld.
“We asked them specifically during public comment if anything had been submitted, and they said no,” Oleszkowicz said. “And then I found out from the minutes three weeks later that it [the map of the planned solar project] had been submitted in October to the planning commission.”
Oleszkowicz said this situation has made him realize that Fayette Township is not the only community experiencing this. Once he started taking steps to organize the community, Oleszkowicz began hearing from Michiganders all over the state in similar positions.
“It has been overwhelming the sheer number of people reaching out and places where this same stuff is going on,” he explained. “Rangers is not the only company out there doing it, but they are doing it all over.”
Oleszkowicz remains hopeful though, especially seeing how his community has come together over this issue.
“I’ve made a lot of new friends in this, as well as a lot of strange bedfellows,” he explained. “We have people from all ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between, from judges to lawyers to college professors to business owners to retirees.”
The Downsides to Solar
For Oleszkowicz, this project isn’t just a policy debate – it has a direct impact on his family and their future. Though Heartwood Solar found “no impact on adjacent residential property values,” property owners near these projects disagree.
“My property value alone is going to take close to a $100,000 hit,” Oleszkowicz said. “The buyer markets shrivel up, and the property values go down if I ever need to sell. So that’s stealing equity from my family in order to give a small payout to seven families for Heartwood.”
Reflecting on the stakes involved, he said simply:
“I don’t have a choice. They’re stealing my future from my kids.”
He emphasized that he has never been anti-solar, but drew a firm line when it comes to farmland.
“I’ve actually had a hobbyist interest in solar,” he explained. “It has its place, and that’s on a rooftop. It doesn’t have its place in our farm fields.”
Oleszkowicz warned that these industrial-scale projects can have a cascading effect.
“It’s far beyond just a little localized thing. When they bring in solar like this, and they stabilize and enhance the grid to this effect, what surely follows is . . . battery storage . . . then data centers,” Oleszkowicz said. “It’s all a cascading effect.”
He explained how these ever-expanding projects can have a massive impact on small, rural communities.
“When you look at a township the size of Fayette, we have roughly 13,000 acres in the township. There’s roughly 1,300 acres enrolled in the entire project on Heartwood I,” Oleszkowicz explained. “Now, they are asking for another 1,350. That’s 20% of our township right there.”
A Wider Debate Over Solar
While Fayette residents wrestle with local implications, Michigan is pushing ambitious statewide renewable energy goals. In 2023, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democratic lawmakers passed legislation requiring utilities to generate 80% of electricity from clean sources by 2035 and 100% by 2040.
Rep. Jennifer Wortz, R-Quincy, represents Fayette Township as part of her district in the state House. She spoke with The Center Square in an exclusive interview. Wortz warned that subsidies and incentives, while intended to promote renewable energy, lead to companies disproportionately targeting rural communities with these projects.
“These are large corporations coming in because they’ve gotten large federal kickbacks and state tax incentives to do so,” Wortz said. “We are more of a target because we’re labeled a poor, economically-depressed community.”
Additionally, local governments are also receiving massive incentives to bring in these projects. According to a June 2025 press release from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Fayette Township received $675,000 for the Heartwood Solar project as part of the Renewables Ready Communities Award program.
First funded in 2024, the program has paid out $26.1 million to 48 local governments for community improvements to incentivize “communities to host large-scale renewable energy projects.”
Wortz is continuing to work with townships in her district to inform them of their options, though limited, to address these large-scale projects.
Supporters of solar energy argue that projects like Heartwood Solar can provide economic opportunities while helping Michigan meet clean energy targets. In the case of Heartwood Solar, it is a $150 million investment that is projected to generate over $2 million in tax revenue in the first year alone. It is also expected to create between two and four permanent solar operations jobs in Fayette Township.
State Rep. Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton, told The Center Square that Michigan utilities are transitioning toward renewable energy for many different reasons.
“Solar energy is an important piece to our clean energy future. We’re seeing more and more energy companies in Michigan and even around the country transitioning and expanding their renewable energy portfolios,” Puri said. “I don’t think they’re doing it just because . . . it’s the right thing to do, or even because of these mandates. I think it’s because it has shown to be an economically viable option that is going to help them improve their bottom line.”
Puri also highlighted benefits such as local construction jobs and state programs offering financial incentives to municipalities hosting renewable energy projects.
“In Michigan here we can make sure that our energy is going to be Michigan made, and that will ultimately lead to more reliability and lower costs and an improved grid,” he said.
Puri said he believes that many community fears about solar projects often stem from misinformation.
“I had a chance to see a lot of the misinformation campaigns,” Puri said. “You would see these pictures of solar arrays right up to the property line . . . and that’s just not the reality.”
According to Heartwood Solar, it is maintaining a minimum distance of 150 feet between all residences and solar arrays.
Looking Ahead
For Oleszkowicz and other Fayette residents, the fight is far from over. Even if the township board decides against the solar project’s expansion, Ranger Power is already preparing to take it to the Michigan Public Service Commission for their overriding approval.
For Oleszkowicz, staying involved isn’t optional. He stressed that vigilance and community engagement are key, especially as similar battles are unfolding across the state.
“Just get the word out there to as many people as you can,” he said. “It’s going on everywhere. We’re not the only ones. We’re not the first nor near the last.”
Check back for next week’s installment in this series, which will look at clean energy reliability, affordability, and the relationship between the Michigan Public Service Commission and local communities.

President Donald Trump has said he will accept nothing less from Iran than unconditional surrender, according to a social media post on Friday morning.
“There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
He also wrote about the selection of a new leader for the country – potentially indicating there may be an expanded U.S. presence in Iran until that is complete – in the same post.
“After [unconditional surrender], and the selection of a great and acceptable leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before,” the president wrote.
“Iran will have a great future. Make Iran Great Again (MIGA!),” Trump concluded in his notorious all-caps style.
The administration has been asked many times since the start of the conflict whether regime change was one of its conditions for a successful military campaign in Iran. At a press briefing Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that it was not one of the goals of Operation Epic Fury, but the administration wants broader political rights for Iranians.
“As for what comes next for Iran, the president has said of course, it’s a good thing for the United States to want freedom for the Iranian people, and ultimately, we hope that freedom rests in their hands,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt also responded to questions about America’s “post-conflict” role in Iran, saying the president was “actively considering and discussing with his advisors and his national security team.”
Some of the supporters of the late Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel’s initial airstrikes on Saturday, reportedly favor his son, Mojtaba Khameini, to replace him.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last Shah and the country’s exiled crown prince, has long advocated for regime change. He has lived in the U.S. since 1978, and has spoken about leading the country now that the ayatollah is dead.