An effective currency needs to be widely accepted, easy to use, and stable in value. By now most of us have recognized that cryptocurrencies fail at all three things, despite lofty ideals revolving around decentralization, transparency, and trust. But that doesn’t mean that all digital currencies or payment systems are doomed to failure. [Roni] has been working on an off-grid digital payment node called Meshtbank, which works on a much smaller scale and could be a way to let a much smaller community set up a basic banking system.

The node uses Meshtastic as its backbone, letting the payment system use the same long-range low-power system that has gotten popular in recent years for enabling simple but reliable off-grid communications for a local area. With Meshtbank running on one of the nodes in the network, accounts can be created, balances reported, and digital currency exchanged using the Meshtastic messaging protocols. The ledger is also recorded, allowing transaction histories to be viewed as well.

A system like this could have great value anywhere barter-style systems exist, or could be used for community credits, festival credits, or any place that needs to track off-grid local transactions. As a thought experiment or proof of concept it shows that this is at least possible. It does have a few weaknesses though — Meshtastic isn’t as secure as modern banking might require, and the system also requires trust in an administrator. But it is one of the more unique uses we’ve seen for this communications protocol, right up there with a Meshtastic-enabled possum trap.

As food prices remain high, the Trump administration has made it easier for farmers to hire foreign guest workers and to pay them less. Now, other industries with large immigrant workforces also are asking for relief as they combat labor shortages and raids.

Visas for temporary foreign workers are a quick fix with bipartisan support in Congress. And Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ office told Stateline that “streamlining” visas for both agricultural and other jobs is a priority for the Trump administration.

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In recent days, five U.S. senators and two representatives requested documents from the Department of Homeland Security and a formal investigation into how a firm closely tied to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ended up receiving money from a $220 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign.

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When it rains here, West Texans brace for the worst. With nowhere to go, water collects across sidewalks, roads and highways — the flat, desert landscape becomes a wetland in the blink of an eye.

Local officials in Ector County, which includes Odessa, said the region’s drainage system is out of date. But paying for upgrades will be a tremendous challenge.

Population, housing and commercial development have spiked, and the infrastructure has not kept up. Its drainage system, installed in the 1970s, is not equipped to handle the growth, county officials said.

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Ralph Abraham, MD, the former Louisiana surgeon general, has been quietly named the deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a controversial pick to help lead the nation’s top infectious disease organization as the second highest-ranking CDC official. 

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As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of the beleaguered acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. In January, President Donald Trump took office and vowed to abolish the department.

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Near the back corner of the local library’s parking lot, largely out of view from the main road, the South Carolina Department of Public Health opened a pop-up clinic in early November, offering free measles vaccines to adults and children.

Spartanburg County, in South Carolina’s Upstate region, has been fighting a measles outbreak since early October, with more than 50 cases identified. Health officials have encouraged people who are unvaccinated to get a shot by visiting its mobile vaccine clinic at any of its several stops throughout the county.

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As the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet intensified in June, a nurse in Portland, Oregon, left work one midafternoon and drove to a nearby detention facility to voice his opposition. Federal agents had set off smoke grenades, driving away many protesters at the front of the facility, but Vincent Hawkins lifted his megaphone anyway.

“You should stop and think about what you’re doing!”

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The Trump administration wants access to state driver’s license data on millions of U.S. residents as it builds a powerful citizenship verification program amid its clampdown on voter fraud and illegal immigration.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeks access to an obscure computer network used by law enforcement agencies, according to a federal notice, potentially allowing officials to bypass negotiating with states for the records.

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In a tacit admission that U.S. food production requires foreign labor, the Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries.

At the same time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months appears to be refraining from conducting agricultural workplace raids, even as it scours Democratic-led cities for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

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For nearly 80 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was respected around the world for its authoritative, evidence-based leadership in public health.

But the CDC’s stunning reversal Wednesday—stating on its website that “studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism”—shows the agency can no longer be trusted, multiple doctors and public health advocates told CIDRAP News.

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Today, the Washington Post reports that career scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are quite upset to learn that the agency has updated the CDC website to resurrect the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism.

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The farmers and ranchers who descended on City Hall in Jacksonville, Texas, had been told to “leave their pitchforks at the door.” While everyone ultimately arrived unarmed, the attendees of the June 19 board meeting of the Neches & Trinity Valleys Groundwater Conservation District were ready for a fight.

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On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.” 

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If you’re confused about what the law does and doesn’t allow the president to do with the National Guard, that’s understandable.

As National Guard troops landed in Portland, Oregon, in late September 2025, the state’s lawyers argued that the deployment was a “direct intrusion on its sovereign police power.”

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For most of this year, Texas Tribune reporters have aggressively reported on the state’s water supply crisis. As part of our special report, Running Out, we created a chatbot that we trained to answer your questions based on our reporting.

Y’all asked a lot of questions! And in some instances, the bot could not answer those questions. Technology! Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Those queries were sent to us. We read each one and began to see some themes.

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FBI Director Kash Patel granted waivers to Deputy Director Dan Bongino and two other newly hired senior FBI staff members, exempting them from passing polygraph exams normally required to gain access to America’s most sensitive classified information, according to a former senior FBI official and several other government officials.

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced “a war of bureaucratic attrition” in a speech on Friday afternoon. The target of his address was the Pentagon’s perennially-criticized process for buying and fielding military capabilities.

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A massive military buildup in the Caribbean has sparked speculation that the U.S. is now engaged in its latest chapter of direct intervention in Latin America.

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Fine points of the law are likely to dominate legal arguments in the case before the Supreme Court challenging the Trump administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs. Facts, however, matter and should play an important, even dominant, role.

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