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Police nationwide using high-tech weapon to apprehend suspects without injury: bodycam

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Police nationwide using high-tech weapon to apprehend suspects without injury: bodycam

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Several bodycam videos show police officers ending foot chases and taking down emotionally disturbed gunmen after shots rang out by wrapping them in wires from a distance.

The responding officers immobilize out-of-control suspects, who appear to be going through a mental health crisis or were on drugs, without hurting their targets and de-escalate situations that in the past might have spiraled out of control and ended in deaths.

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It’s part of a “High Purpose Police Movement” that coincides with increased police run-ins with erratic suspects, who are 10 times more likely to be involved in a fatal law enforcement confrontation, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Chief Kevin Davis said it “prioritizes safety and emphasizes de-escalation” and it’s “expected to transform our incident resolution capacity, especially in crisis situations.”

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A suspect is heard in the bodycam video saying, “I don’t have control of my body. You’re trying to decapitate me out here,” but the new tech wraps the erratic suspect without pain and allows police to take him into custody. (Mountlake Terrace Police Department via WRAP)

As tools are pulled from law enforcement’s toolbox, including physical restraints like certain choke holds, which are banned in about half the states, they need to be replaced.

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That’s where technology, like the hand-held restraint device dubbed “the Bola” comes in. 

In several bodycam videos of police in Mountlake Terrace, Washington state, which were shared with Fox News Digital, responding officers yell commands like “Prepping Bola” before launching the device.

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An armed suspect is immobilized and subdued from a distance without any injuries. (Mountlake Terrace Police Department via WRAP)

In each video, the suspect is immobilized and on the ground without hand-to-hand combat or the use of a firearm. In one video, a gunman threatened to open fire.

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A couple of shots were heard in the background, but no one was injured, and the video shows the captured suspect wrapped like a Spider-Man villain and taken into custody.

WATCH: Police bring down armed suspect in bodycam footage

Scot Cohen, CEO of WRAP, said the mental health crisis, especially in major cities, is worsening every year, and responding officers are dispatched to tumultuous scenes where anything can happen. 

“Thousands of people who get in violent altercations with police each year are battling a mental health crisis,” Cohen told Fox News Digital. “Our tools don’t hurt people to get them the help they need, whereas other tools that have been used in the past rely on pain-compliance.”

“While there are surely many cases where force is the only way to subdue a suspect, there are many others where force is not necessary.”

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The restraint wraps wires around the suspect and immobilizes him/her. (Mountlake Terrace Police Department via WRAP)

The Fairfax County Police Department, which is near the nation’s capital, is the latest department to implement the new technology after a pilot program that started in November 2022. 

“With a number of positive outcomes achieved, the department determined the deployment of BolaWrap to all patrol officers would be an invaluable asset to our police toolkit,” the Fairfax County Police Department said in a press release. 

Fairfax County police in Virginia show how the hand-held restraint device called “the Bola” works. (Fairfax County Police Department)

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Mental health and opioid crisis

Police and WRAP sent Fox News Digital several bodycam videos that showed a variety of situations where the BolaWrap was deployed. 

In one of the videos, a suspect yells at police, “I don’t have control of my body. You’re trying to decapitate me out here.”

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Responding officers ready their BolaWrap as they chase a suspect. (Mountlake Terrace Police Department via WRAP)

It’s unclear if the subject in the video was going through a mental health crisis or was under the influence, but officers from the Mountlake Terrace grabbed the Bola and went to work.

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In the video, a green laser dot appears on his leg. That’s the target. From several feet away, an officer fires the wire, and the subject quickly surrenders without incident.

Watch full bodycam video of the situation

“America is in the midst of a mental health and opioid crisis, and police have never before spent more time dealing with mentally ill suspects,” the company WRAP said in a statement. 

“Their day-to-day job is now less a matter of chasing violent criminals, and more so a matter of pacifying non-compliant individuals who don’t pose a deadly threat.”

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NAMI details a list of obstacles for law enforcement when confronting EDPs – emotionally disturbed persons – or individuals on drugs. 

NAMI said “use of force disproportionately impacts people with mental illness,” making it imperative for law enforcement to revamp training and utilize technology. 

Officers in the Fairfax County Police Department conduct training on how to use the BolaWrap. (Fairfax County Police Department)

“Interactions between law enforcement and people with mental illness often escalate and can even be deadly,” NAMI says on its website, “often because a person in a mental health crisis may have symptoms that appear threatening or impact their ability to listen to police commands.”

While the advocacy group suggests police shouldn’t be the first on the scene with someone with mental illness, it’s not the reality. 

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With that said, “it is critical that law enforcement has the tools, resources and training to reduce the use of force when they do respond,” according to NAMI.

Fox News Digital’s Emily Robertson contributed to this report.

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Montana

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

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Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026


HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.

“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.

It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.

(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)

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Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”

But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.

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“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.

Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.

“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.

The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.

The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.

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“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.

While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.





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Nevada

Nevada debuts public option amid federal health care shifts

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Nevada debuts public option amid federal health care shifts


More than 10,000 people have enrolled in Nevada’s new public option health plans, which debuted last fall with the expectation that they would bring lower prices to the health insurance market.

Those preliminary numbers from the open enrollment period that ended in January are less than a third of what state officials had projected. Nevada is the third state so far to launch a public option plan, along with Colorado and Washington state. The idea is to offer lower-cost plans to consumers to expand health care access.

But researchers said plans like these are unlikely to fill the gaps left by sweeping federal changes, including the expiration of enhanced subsidies for plans bought on Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The public option gained attention in the late 2000s when Congress considered but ultimately rejected creating a health plan funded and run by the government that would compete with private carriers in the market. The programs in Washington state, Colorado, and Nevada don’t go that far — they aren’t government-run but are private-public partnerships that compete with private insurance.

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In recent years, states have considered creating public option plans to make health coverage more affordable and to reduce the number of uninsured people. Washington was the first state to launch a program, in 2021, and Colorado followed in 2023.

Washington and Colorado’s programs have run into challenges, including a lack of participation from clinicians, hospitals, and other care providers, as well as insurers’ inability to meet rate reduction benchmarks or lower premiums compared with other plans offered on the market.

Nevada law requires that the carriers of the public option plans — Battle Born State Plans, named after a state motto — lower premium costs compared with a benchmark “silver” plan in the marketplace by 15% over the next four years.

But that amount might not make much difference to consumers with rising premium payments from the loss of the ACA’s enhanced tax credits, said Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute.

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“That’s not a lot of money,” Mueller said.

Three of the eight insurers on the state’s exchange, Nevada Health Link, offered the state plans during the open enrollment period.

Insurance companies plan to meet the lower premium cost requirement in Nevada by cutting broker fees and commissions, which prompted opposition from insurance brokers in the state. In response, Nevada marketplace officials told state lawmakers in January that they will give a flat-fee reimbursement to brokers.

The public option has faced opposition among state leaders. In 2024, a state judge dismissed a lawsuit, brought by a Nevada state senator and a group that advocates for lower taxes, that challenged the public option law as unconstitutional. They have appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Federal Policy Impacts

Recent federal changes create more obstacles.

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Nevada is consistently among the states with the largest populations of people who do not have health insurance coverage. Last year, nearly 95,000 people in the state received the enhanced ACA tax credits, averaging $465 in savings per month, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

But the enhanced tax credits expired at the end of the year, and it appears unlikely that lawmakers will bring them back. Nationwide ACA enrollment has decreased by more than 1 million people so far this year, down from record-high enrollment of 24 million last year.

About 4 million people are expected to lose health coverage from the expiration of the tax credits, according to the Congressional Budget Office. An additional 3 million are projected to lose coverage because of other policy changes affecting the marketplace.

Justin Giovannelli, an associate research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said the changes to the ACA in the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, will make it more difficult for people to keep their coverage. These changes include more frequent enrollment paperwork to verify income and other personal information, a shortened enrollment window, and an end to automatic reenrollment.

In Nevada, the changes would amount to an estimated 100,000 people losing coverage, according to KFF.

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“All of that makes getting coverage on Nevada Health Link harder and more expensive than it would be otherwise,” Giovannelli said.

State officials projected ahead of open enrollment that about 35,000 people would purchase the public option plans. Of the 104,000 people who had purchased a plan on the state marketplace as of mid-January, 10,762 had enrolled in one of the public option plans, according to Nevada Health Link.

Katie Charleson, communications officer for the state health exchange, said the original enrollment estimate was based on market conditions before the recent increases in customers’ premium costs. She said that the public option plans gave people facing higher costs more choices.

“We expect enrollment in Battle Born State Plans to grow over time as awareness increases and as Nevadans continue seeking quality coverage options that help reduce costs,” Charleson said.

According to KFF, nationally the enhanced subsidies saved enrollees an average of $705 annually in 2024, and enrollees would save an estimated $1,016 in premium payments on average in 2026 if the subsidies were still in place. Without the subsidies, people enrolled in the ACA marketplace could be seeing their premium costs more than double.

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Insights From Washington and Colorado

Washington and Colorado are not planning to alter their programs due to the expiration of the tax credits, according to government officials in those states.

Other states that had recently considered creating public options have backtracked. Minnesota officials put off approving a public option in 2024, citing funding concerns. Proposals to create public options in Maine and New Mexico also sputtered.

Washington initially saw meager enrollment in its Cascade Select public option plans; only 1% of state marketplace enrollees chose a public option plan in 2021. But that changed after lawmakers required hospitals to contract with at least one public option plan by 2023. Last year the state reported that 94,000 customers enrolled, accounting for 30% of all customers on the state marketplace. The public option plans were the lowest-premium silver plans in 31 of Washington’s 39 counties in 2024.

A 2025 study found that since Colorado implemented its public option, called the Colorado Option, coverage through the ACA marketplace has become more affordable for enrollees who received subsidies but more expensive for enrollees who did not.

Colorado requires all insurers offering coverage through its marketplace to include a public option that follows state guidelines. The state set premium reduction targets of 5% a year for three years beginning in 2023. Starting this year, premium costs are not allowed to outpace medical inflation.

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Though the insurers offering the public option did not meet the premium reduction targets, enrollment in the Colorado Option has increased every year it has been available. Last year, the state saw record enrollment in its marketplace, with 47% of customers purchasing a public option plan.

Giovannelli said states are continuing to try to make health insurance more affordable and accessible, even if federal changes reduce the impact of those efforts.

“States are reacting and trying to continue to do right by their residents,” Giovannelli said, “but you can’t plug all those gaps.”

Are you struggling to afford your health insurance? Have you decided to forgo coverage? Click here to contact KFF Health News and share your story.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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New Mexico

New Mexico veteran cemetery coming to Carlsbad via $8M in federal funds – Carlsbad Current-Argus

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New Mexico veteran cemetery coming to Carlsbad via M in federal funds – Carlsbad Current-Argus


Adrian Hedden Carlsbad Current-Argusachedden@currentargus.com Mack Dyer served for 21 years in the U.S. Army. He fought in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and Operation Iraqi…



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