By Lori Kersey | Deputy editor
“The Court’s analysis should not be taken as a comment on whether the pilot projects are a good idea or not. That is a question of policy that is not before the Court. The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store, and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals. But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.”
- US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in her ruling vacating SNAP waivers that restricted food purchases in five states, including West Virginia
A sign for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is displayed at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of USDA)
By Lori Kersey
A federal judge on Monday struck down a West Virginia pilot project that restricted recipients of the federal food assistance program SNAP from using their benefits to purchase soda.
United States District Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted plaintiffs a summary judgement on Monday in a case brought by SNAP recipients from five states, including West Virginia, where the federal Department of Agriculture has approved SNAP waivers that restrict what foods can be purchased.
NATIONAL
The U.S. Supreme Court, on April 9, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
By Kaitlin Bender-Thomas/Medill News Service
WASHINGTON — Even with a valid driver’s license, Maryse Balthazar knows she lacks protection from what she dreads most: deportation back to Haiti.
Balthazar, a nursing assistant, often hesitates to leave her home in South Florida, worried that something as simple as a broken taillight could upend the life she’s spent 16 years building in the United States.
By Ariana Figueroa
WASHINGTON — An appeals court Tuesday cleared the way for the Trump administration to use fast-track deportations within the interior of the country and not just at the Southern border, a key pillar in the president’s mass deportation campaign.
By Ashley Murray
WASHINGTON — The Republican-led U.S. Senate served up a rare public check on President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday when it voted to approve a House-passed War Powers Resolution to end hostilities in Iran.
Senate approval marked the first time both chambers have agreed in a rebuke of Trump over his war in Iran.
ICYMI
Hope Scholarship price $155M so far after 26,617 WV students apply | Amelia Ferrell Knisely
Trump ‘trampled’ voter privacy by feeding info into Homeland Security system, judge says | Jonathan Shorman
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