QCA.news - Quad Cities news and view from both sides of the river

Thursday, July 2nd, 2026
	Bryan Bielanski performing in Burlington July 3 Bryan Bielanski, a self-described “traveling musician from Charlotte, North Carolina” will perform at Great River Casino, 3001 Winegard Drive in Burlington, on July 3 at 6:30 p.m. in support of his newest album, “Bryan’s Super Happy Fun Time.” Call 319-753-2946 for more information and tickets. Bielanski spoke with Our Quad Cities News via Zoom to [...]
	Feds: Burlington men stole millions from area investors The indictment lists luxury cars — including multiple Audis and a Dodge Viper — along with hundreds of acres of farmland and real estate purchases.
	A look at what’s ahead for first round of John Deere Classic tournament The John Deere Classic enters its first day of tournament play today and some of the world’s best golfers will be on the course.
	The Declaration of Independence 250 years ago this week, the Continental Congress declared independence from Britain. WVIK staff and listeners commemorate this anniversary by reading the Declaration of Independence.
	More than headstones: IMEG engineer explains what goes into engineering a national cemetery "When you're faced with a design decision, it's always about what's best for the veterans," Matt Snyder, principal/project executive at IMEG, said of his work engineering national cemeteries.
	More heat and humidity and higher storm chances An "Extreme Heat Warning" remains in effect until 10 p.m. Thursday for much of the Quad Cities area. Even after that expires, it's still going to stay hot and humid. Showers and storms will become more likely later Thursday all the way through Sunday with severe weather possible. Here's your full 7-day forecast.
	Flood Crest This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Tornados, earthquakes, and lightning have this in common: they come quick without warning, like cats pouncing on mice.…
	Going outside in this heat? Follow these guidelines to stay safe Man, it's a hot one! Don't go out in this summer's heat wave before you arm yourself with these tips and a really big water bottle.
	The albums and songs of 2026 that we love the most (so far) As the year reaches its mid-point, we have answers to a question more pressing than what to wear to the cookout or how early should we arrive at the fireworks show: What should I listen to?
	Federal civil rights data holds schools accountable. Under Trump, it's 6 months late The Education Department has long collected civil rights data about things like bullying, harassment and disability services in schools, but it hasn't made the latest information public.
	Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops The Vatican responded Thursday to a traditionalist society that consecrated bishops without the pope's consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X in schism and excommunicating its bishops and priests.
	Extreme Heat Warning until THU 10:00 PM CDT Extreme Heat Warning in Effect Until 10 PM CDT: High Heat Index Values
	Parasitic illness cases are spiking: The symptoms to watch for While cases are common this time of year, the number of cases is causing concern.
	U.S. and Iran hold separate meetings in Qatar and agree to continue discussions U.S. and Iranian negotiators met separately on Wednesday with Qatari and Pakistani mediators, with "positive progress made," and they agreed to continue discussions, host Qatar said.
	Russian missiles and drones kill 11 and cause damage across Ukraine capital The large-scale attack with ballistic and cruise missiles and drones damaged buildings and civilian infrastructure across the city. Many residents took shelter at metro stations.
Wednesday, July 1st, 2026
	Sleep Better This Summer with Breathable Bedding (Feature Impact) If warm summer temperatures have you tossing and turning at night, you aren’t alone. Heat is a common culprit behind seasonal insomnia and can make it difficult to get a good night’s sleep. When the body struggles to cool down properly, it may lead to restlessness, night sweats, and disrupted sleep patterns. Watch this video to learn more Before you reach for the thermostat, though, take some time to examine your bedroom setup. Switching to breathable bedding, like Bedsure PureWoven Bamboo Sheets, can help your body regulate its temperature better overnight. Made with bamboo-derived fibers, the sets include sheets, pillowcases, duvet covers, and comforters designed to keep you cool and comfortable while you sleep. The bamboo viscose material is moisture-wicking and smooth, and you can choose from a variety of colors to match your decor. In addition to choosing bedding made with soft, breathable materials like viscose derived bamboo sheets bamboo, try using fans to promote better airflow in your bedroom. You can also improve your overall sleep quality by winding down with soft, dim lighting as you prepare for bed, and using blackout curtains to keep your space dark overnight. Making simple swaps in your sleep environment can help you stay well-rested throughout the summer. Learn more at bedsurehome.com or search “Bedsure PureWoven Bamboo Sheets” on Amazon.
	July 4th fireworks: What to know about wildfire risk With wildfires raging across the Western U.S., cities and states are restricting fireworks just as the nation gears up for one of its biggest Fourth of July celebrations in decades.
	Davenport opens DREAM applications for homeowners and businesses around Rockingham Road Davenport is accepting applications through July 31 for new rounds of its DREAM and Commercial DREAM grant programs for homes and businesses.
	Fire destroys Hampton home on Wednesday, no injuries reported A fire destroyed a home in Hampton, Illinois, on Wednesday. No one was injured.
	Galesburg residents encouraged to stay cool as heat climbs With hot temperatures this week, the City of Galesburg is providing cooling centers for residents. Plus, how one family is beating the heat.
	Extreme Heat Warning until THU 10:00 PM CDT Extreme Heat Warning in Effect Until 10 PM CDT Thursday
	QC teen caddie could win $100,000 scholarship A QC teen could win the prestigious Chick Evans scholarship worth over $100,000.
	2 Bettendorf Catholic parishes unite Members of the parish shared their excitement for the change and said the collaboration will bring opportunities in Catholic education as well as bringing people closer together as they more forward in faith.
	QC teen caddy could win $100,000 scholarship A QC teen could win the prestigious Chick Evans scholarship worth over $100,000.
	Davenport crews respond to water main break Crews in Davenport responded to a water main break.
	Quad City Arts interim executive director resigns amid police investigation Quad City Arts sought the resignation of its interim executive director after a video circulated online. Police say the investigation remains ongoing.
	Muscatine announces July 4 road closures It's an Our Quad Cities News traffic alert. The City of Muscatine announced parking and traffic restrictions in Downtown Muscatine to ensure the safety of participants, spectators and visitors during Independence Day activities. According to a release: The annual Fourth of July Parade begins at 4:00 p.m. Traffic restrictions take effect at 2:00 p.m. Residents [...]
	Colona church to open pantry for baby supplies A church in the QCA is operating a baby pantry to help anyone in need of baby supplies. Grace Community Church of The Nazarene will open the pantry Saturday, July 18 from 10:00 a.m. until noon. The pantry will give away baby-related items like diapers, toys, car seats and clothes. The church is accepting baby [...]
	Strong at Every Age: How Women Can Help Combat Muscle Loss (Feature Impact) Aging is inevitable, but losing muscle and mobility doesn’t have to be. For many women, maintaining strength, independence, energy and mobility are top priorities as they get older, particularly as they deal with the mental and physical responsibilities that come with working, caregiving, keeping up with friends, hobbies and enjoying an active lifestyle. In fact, 58% of women in the United States are actively focused on staying healthy as they age, according to a recent survey commissioned by Viactiv, a line of award-winning supplements for women known for their unique formats and flavors. However, 73% of respondents weren’t aware of sarcopenia, or age-related muscle loss. According to the “International Journal of Women’s Health,” age-related muscle loss often begins between ages 30-35, with women losing 3-8% of their muscle mass per decade and increasing to 5-10% loss per decade after age 60. Hormonal changes, decreased activity levels, stress, poor sleep and inadequate nutrition can all contribute to the decline in muscle, which can also negatively impact balance, bone health, metabolism, posture and everyday mobility. Yet, despite 70% of women reporting some level of concern about muscle loss, 54% are unsure how to protect their muscle health. “Women want to stay strong, active and independent as they age, but many are getting mixed messages about what actually supports long-term muscle health,” said Dr. Tania Elliott, a dual board-certified physician in internal medicine. “A lot of women are already making healthy choices like walking and staying active, which is a great start. However, maintaining muscle health really requires a more complete approach, and one that starts earlier than most women think, which is in your 30s.” Prioritize Strength Training Many women report barriers such as lack of time (15%), feeling overwhelmed (23%) or simply not enjoying exercise (23%). The key is finding realistic, sustainable habits. While walking and cardio exercise aid in heart health, which 58% of survey respondents report already engaging in, strength training is one of the most effective ways to preserve and build muscle as you age. Still, just 34% of women report doing strength or resistance training. You don’t need an intense fitness regimen to support healthy aging. Aiming for at least two strength-focused workouts a week – lifting weights, using resistance bands, practicing weight-bearing yoga or doing bodyweight exercises like squats and pushups – that target major muscle groups can help maintain muscle health. The goal is to fatigue your muscles during sets so they build. Fuel Muscles with Proper Nutrition Exercise is only part of the equation. Muscles also need proper nutrition to recover and stay strong. Protein plays a critical role in maintaining muscle mass, especially as women age. Incorporating high-quality protein throughout the day, such as eggs, Greek yogurt, fish, lean meats, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, may help support muscle repair and overall strength. Support Healthy Aging with Supplements In addition to a balanced diet and exercise, some women may consider supplements that support healthy aging and energy production, including CoQ10, which is a naturally occurring antioxidant that helps cells produce energy. According to research published in “The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging,” because muscles require significant energy to function, CoQ10 shows potential for managing sarcopenia by improving mitochondrial function and reducing oxidative stress. An option like Viactiv CoQ10 Cardio Complete, available in a tasty fruit-flavored chew, can help support heart health, muscles, nerve function and daily energy. Enhanced with vitamins D3 and K2, it provides daily essential nutrition for women without the need to swallow a large pill. Practice Healthy Habits Muscle health is influenced by more than workouts. Sleep, stress management and daily movement all play important roles. Adopting some simple habits, including prioritizing quality sleep, stretching regularly, staying properly hydrated, reducing sedentary time throughout the day and practicing stress-management techniques, like yoga, meditation or deep breathing, can help aid in healthy aging, including maintaining muscle. The earlier women begin prioritizing muscle health, the better positioned they may be to maintain strength and mobility as they age. Visit Viactiv.com for more information and resources to help combat muscle loss.
	University of Illinois men’s basketball head coach tees off in John Deere Classic Pro-Am Some famous faces made it to the course including Illinois head basketball coach Brad Underwood.
	Spring Forward QCA keeps kids learning and cool during summer heat The summer program helps elementary students stay engaged while school is out, with free enrichment programs and activities. Here's how they're beating the heat.
	Youth Day at the John Deere Classic brings families together Read what parents and kids at the John Deere Classic’s Youth Day had to say about the event, golf and family.
	Crews respond to house fire in Hampton, Illinois A News 8 photojournalist arrived on the scene of a fire on the 600 block of Second Avenue in Hampton around 5 p.m.
	Kids take over the John Deere Classic The main events of the 55th John Deere Classic get underway on Thursday, and on Wednesday kids and the Savannah Bananas stole the show before Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler and more hit the stage this weekend. "I've been coming here since I was a little kid, like his age, even my newborn son's age," said [...]
	Iowa raises speed limit on some state highways, but DOT warns of safety concerns Iowa’s speed limit on some state highways is increasing from 55 to 60 miles per hour starting in July, but the Iowa Department of Transportation said not all roads are ready for the change.
	Health experts urge hydration and heat‑safety precautions as summer temperatures rise University of Iowa Health Care Health urges residents to stay hydrated, limit peak‑hour sun exposure and watch for early symptoms of heat illness as temperatures climb this summer.
	State health dept. confirms U.S. cuts for pregnancy prevention, seeks other funding The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is looking for ways to replace federal funds that have been cut for pregnancy prevention programs in the state. (Getty Images)More than a dozen Wisconsin organizations are affected by the Trump administration’s move last week to cut grants for teen pregnancy prevention programs, Wisconsin’s health department confirmed Wednesday. The programs were expecting to share in almost $1 million per year over the next two years — the remaining period in the five-year grants that were cut off abruptly by the federal government in June. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has administered the Teen Pregnancy Prevention grant program in the Office of Population Affairs through several presidential administrations, notified 53 out of 67 grant recipients on Friday, June 26, that their grants were being canceled, Stateline reported. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services was among the agencies with canceled grants. DHS was just finishing the third year of a five-year grant period. The DHS grant totaled $1.162 million per year, and the department was expecting a similar amount for the next two fiscal years, 2026-27 and 2027-28. Most of the DHS grant — $986,375 — was distributed as subgrants to local or statewide organizations and agencies. Another $175,530 was set aside for DHS to cover grant administration costs. “All Wisconsin funding was cancelled,” DHS spokesperson Elizabeth Goodsit told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message Wednesday. DHS is exploring whether the department can get funding elsewhere to replace the grants the federal government canceled, and DHS is “assessing all avenues possible to ensure the federal government is following all requirements in this funding agreement,” Goodsit said. Goodsit said the DHS teen pregnancy prevention program aimed to reduce unintended pregnancies as well as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teenagers. Sexual health data demonstrates a need for those programs, she said. According to CDC data, the teen birth rate in Wisconsin in 2024 was about 10 per 1,000 girls, with the rate dropping steadily in recent decades from a high of nearly 45 births per 1,000 girls in 1991. “The overall rate is below the national average, but there are several counties with high rates,” Goodsit said. “We know the birth rates for Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, and non-Hispanic Black teens were more than two times higher than the rate for non-Hispanic White teens.” Across all racial groups, the STI rate is 1,979 per 100,000, but rates for Black, Native American, and Hispanic youth are especially high, Goodsit said. Teen pregnancy prevention cuts hit Wisconsin program connecting health providers and teens The grants DHS made with the federal money supported programs for teens “in a variety of settings including clinics, schools, community-based organizations, juvenile justice settings, and shelters — with the goal of decreasing unintended youth pregnancy rates, reducing STI rates among Wisconsin adolescents, and increasing the number/percent of youth who feel connected to their community and have access to youth-friendly services and resources,” Goodsit said. The 13 grants went to nonprofit education programs, three county public health departments, one public school district, the Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Individual agency grants ranged from $7,500 per year to $130,375 per year. “They are focused on populations with the highest teen birth rates and highest STI rates,” Goodsit said. “Along with youth programming, organizations were also focused on family/parent/caregiver programming and engagement.” From July 1, 2025 through May 31, 2026, the Wisconsin organizations reached 942 youth participants and 17 non-youth participants. “But without this grant funding, these activities will stop,” Goodsit said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Courtesy of Wisconsin Examiner
	Fire destroys house in Hampton A fire destroyed a house in Hampton. Firefighters were called to the home on 2nd Ave. July 1 around 5:00 p.m. There's no word of any injuries or how it started.
	A look inside the plans for Raphael’s Emporium The City of Davenport has received a state grant to help redevelop a long-vacant historic building in the Hilltop Campus Village, with plans to create new commercial space and future housing.
	Bettendorf's school superintendent leaves district Bettendorf's superintendent has left her role and the district. According to a release from the Bettendorf Community School District, Michelle Morse's departure is effective July 1: We are grateful for Dr. Morse's six years of dedicated service to our students, staff, families and community. Her leadership and commitment to the district have made a lasting [...]
	No, your drinking water isn’t contaminated by abortion pills Mifepristone is one part of a two-drug regimen commonly used to terminate a pregnancy before 10 weeks and for miscarriage treatment. (Photo by Natalie Behring/Getty Images) This story was originally reported by Jenae Barnes, Climate Reporter of The 19th. Meet Jenae and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Anti-abortion advocates, including Republican lawmakers and state officials, want the EPA to review mifepristone as a water contaminant. Scientists say there’s no evidence it harms the environment or people. While there is no scientific evidence that abortion medication is contaminating Americans’ water supply, it has nonetheless become a central claim by the anti-abortion movement. Activists, Instagram influencers and Republican Party officials — including state and federal lawmakers — are doubling down on what experts describe as a disinformation campaign that mixes environmental policy and reproductive rights, and risks exploiting legitimate concerns about clean water. “What if I were to tell you that every time you fill up a glass of water at your kitchen sink from the tap, you were actually drinking someone else’s abortion,” influencer Isabel Brown wrote in an Instagram post in May. In the accompanying video, the Gen Z conservative content creator, who has more than 1 million followers on her platform, talks to Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, a national anti-abortion organization, and contends that anti-abortion medication is “poisoning” the water. The claim isn’t new. For decades, anti-abortion advocates have argued that abortion medications, primarily mifepristone, pollute the environment and put pregnant people’s health at risk. But the argument has now become part of a widespread and often coordinated effort to create federal and state policy that further suppresses abortion access. On June 5, 14 Republican state attorneys general and 19 GOP lawmakers in Congress urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to classify and regulate mifepristone as a water contaminant. In two concurrent letters, officials argued that the abortion medication, part of a safe and effective two-drug regimen to terminate pregnancies, is “a growing threat to the country’s waterways” and violates the Safe Drinking Water Act. Alaska attorney general among those urging EPA to classify mifepristone as water contaminant One letter was signed by attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. The other letter, led by Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, made similar claims and was signed by 18 other GOP lawmakers. Environmental health experts have consistently said there is no scientific evidence that abortion medication causes harm to the environment — or to humans. Both reproductive rights advocates and environmental scientists have said that the argument co-opts environmental policy as a pathway to weaponize and stigmatize health care. “This is really part of a broader effort to restrict access to medication abortion,” said Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports reproductive rights. She said anti-abortion activists are increasingly turning to “every lever they can” as medication abortion has become the largest share of abortion care nationwide. Medication abortion accounted for 63 percent of all abortions in the United States in 2023, according to Guttmacher Institute data. Does oral abortion medication really end up in drinking water? Anti-abortion advocates contend that over 50 tons of medical waste “including blood, placental tissue, and human remains” are flushed into water systems each year as a result of these drugs. They argue high concentration of the elements of mifepristone in water, specifically a hormone called progesterone, disrupts and reduces fertility in women. They also say that previous results of federal testing of mifepristone’s environmental impact are outdated. Environmental health experts dismiss these claims. These experts consistently point out that there is no scientific basis for treating mifepristone or other abortion medication as a water contaminant. Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that mifepristone is used by a small fraction of the population and is typically taken as a one-time dose. By comparison, many pharmaceuticals taken daily by tens of millions of Americans enter wastewater systems in far greater quantities. He also noted that mifepristone was not included among nearly 700 pharmaceutical compounds the EPA previously screened for potential water contamination concerns. Instead, Donley described the effort as an attempt to use environmental concerns as a pretext for limiting reproductive rights. He noted that while proponents are seeking to add mifepristone to the EPA’s 6th Contaminant Candidate List (CCL6), a preliminary list of substances that could potentially be considered for future drinking water regulation, placement on the list would not itself regulate the drug but could begin a lengthy review process. Donley added that focusing on mifepristone distracts from well-documented water quality threats, including PFAS — known as forever chemicals — pesticides, lead and nitrate contamination. “There are legitimate water quality threats that we need to attack and rectify in a regulatory manner. And then there are things that are out in the left field that just distract people,” Donley said. Where did this argument come from and why is it gaining traction again now? In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tested for the environmental effects of mifepristone and found “no significant impact.” In the June letter, lawmakers cite the FDA study, and urge “reconsideration” of potential harm to the environment. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, opponents have increasingly focused on limiting access to abortion medication and prescribing it through telehealth, which has become a critical pathway for people living in states with abortion bans. But anti-abortion groups have ramped up efforts during the second Trump administration to advocate for the official classification of mifepristone as a water contaminant. Last November, Students for Life of America (SFLA), a national anti-abortion group, met with the EPA to advocate for adding mifepristone to the CCL6 as the agency carried out a routine update to a separate list of health benchmarks for pharmaceuticals that must be tracked in drinking water. The coordinated letters in June were timed toward the EPA’s 60-day comment period, which began in April and allowed members of the public to submit their thoughts on draft proposals to be reviewed by the agency. “SFLA asks that mifepristone be tracked, given the reasonable cause for concern that regular and ongoing exposure to a progesterone blocker is impacting public health, endangered species, and the environment,” the anti-abortion group said in a statement on their website, adding that the group plans to take on the issue in every state. “You don’t have to be pro-life to want clean drinking water. You don’t have to be pro-life to be concerned that we are being ‘microdosed’ by progesterone blockers, which are a factor in rising infertility.” The SFLA said it collected over 1,700 public comments to send to the EPA, and helped spearhead the 14-state campaign of letters from attorneys general to the EPA ahead of its public comment period for the CCL6. The draft for the CCL6 received nearly 22,000 public comments before closing on June 5, public records show. How are lawmakers trying to change environmental abortion policies? In 2025, anti-abortion policymakers introduced nine bills in seven states tying medication abortion to water pollution, according to the Guttmacher Institute. That same year, 25 members of Congress sent a similar letter asking the EPA to monitor for environmental harms of mifepristone. This March, U.S. Rep Mary Miller, a Republican from Illinois, introduced a Clean Water for All Life Act, citing similar claims of environmental degradation from abortion medication. According to Bernstein and Guttmacher state policy adviser Kimya Forouzan, some proposals would require state agencies to test wastewater for abortion medications. Others would require patients to use so-called “catch kits” and medical waste bags to collect and return pregnancy tissue after taking abortion medication. Some bills would create liability for drug manufacturers if abortion medications were detected in wastewater. While the bills vary, abortion rights advocates say they share a common goal: creating additional barriers to medication abortion access. “The CCL is one part of a broad regulatory process. This draft list is then used to inform another list, which determines which contaminants are monitored and regulated, but the surveillance really does happen at a municipality and then state level,” Bernstein said, adding: “So this would be setting federal benchmarks for localities to monitor in their wastewater.” To date, neither President Donald Trump nor EPA chief Lee Zeldin have explicitly spoken to any health risks of mifepristone in water. But the president and leading administration officials’ decision to stay silent on the issue may increase pressure from anti-abortion advocates, according to Bernstein. “We anticipate that disinformation campaigns surrounding mifepristone, including these false claims on the environmental impact, will continue to escalate — particularly as abortion opponents are frustrated at a perceived lack of action by the Trump administration,” Bernstein told The 19th. “We know, however, that restricting access to abortion is politically unfavorable, and candidates may be hesitant to focus on these efforts before the midterm elections. What are the stakes for pregnant people? As abortion rights and access have shrunk, Forouzan said that medication abortion has become a “lifeline” for many people seeking care after Dobbs, particularly through telehealth providers operating under shield laws, which are state-by-state legal protections to safeguard practitioners from being sued by states with abortion bans. As a result, anti-abortion officials at the state and federal level have increasingly focused on restricting the remaining ways people can access abortion care. Forouzan said the push to monitor abortion medication in wastewater contributes to a broader “culture of surveillance” surrounding abortion. She said proposals to test wastewater for mifepristone raise concerns about how such monitoring data could eventually be used and whether it could increase scrutiny of people who obtain medication abortions. Do these claims have the potential to impact federal policy? The potential of environmental harms continues to shape policy for abortion and anti-abortion advocates. On the anniversary of Dobbs, Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat from Colorado, submitted a resolution to address the disinformation campaign, saying that water systems should “not be weaponized for the purposes of surveilling, tracking, or detecting use of, stigmatizing, and further restricting access to medication abortion care.” Advocates also point to what they see as a contradiction in the campaign. Many of the same advocates and elected officials who support mifepristone monitoring have opposed other environmental hazard regulations. For example, in Indiana, where the state’s attorney general co-signed the letter, state lawmakers recently passed legislation to deregulate the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, an agency in charge of limiting pollution in the state’s air, water and soil. The EPA has already taken action to recommend states begin testing drinking water for abortion medications. In April, the agency released a list of 374 drugs that states should monitor. While it does not include mifepristone, it does include other medications used in abortions such as misoprostol and methotrexate, commonly used in daily birth control and the NuvaRing contraceptive. It’s the first time the agency has designated pharmaceuticals as a contaminant group, according to an April press release. The EPA did not respond to The 19th’s request for comment. The EPA’s comment period allowed 60 days for the public to weigh in on the list before agency staff began reviewing the feedback and finalizing. Now that the June comment period has closed, whether the agency will ultimately add the medication to the list remains uncertain. However, when federal regulators previously reviewed environmental concerns related to mifepristone, they found no evidence warranting restrictions, according to Bernstein. Bernstein and Forouzan said that anti-abortion states and lawmakers often learn from each other in order to pass bills in their respective states. Forouzan added these efforts work “parallel” to federal bill proposals, both with the same goal: to restrict further access. “Its really just to restrict access to mifepristone and specifically to roll back requirements to force in-person dispensation, which would really limit access to a lot of folks.” Four years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, reproductive advocates say the evolution of anti-abortion campaigns continue to “severely restrict” access to care across the country. Thirteen states currently enforce total bans, and 6 explicitly prohibit telehealth use to provide abortion pills, according to Guttmacher Institute. “It’s contributing to this culture of surveillance around medication abortion at a time when that is already increasing, and folks, especially in banned states, are facing increasing fear of criminalization,” Bernstein said. “There are concerns whether it will be eventually used for the criminalization of patients, in addition to creating a broader restriction of mifepristone and perpetuating these myths.” SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Courtesy of Alaska Beacon
	Davenport's Veterans Memorial Park adds statues, memorial wall, brick display The additions include a veterans’ brick display, a Vietnam War veterans remembrance wall and three new statues.
	Iowa City braces for hundreds of thousands of visitors this weekend Law enforcement asks public to be patient as Savannah Bananas, Jazz Fest and Big and Rich concert converge on Johnson County
	Youth Day at John Deere Classic brings plenty of fun to kids and families As for at the golf course, Thursday morning tees off four days of tournament play.
	Minnesota set to divvy up 53M eggs with other states in settlement agreement over inflated prices The U.S. Department of Justice and 17 states, including Minnesota, announced a $3.3 million settlement agreement this week with egg producers accused of hatching a years-long scheme to inflate egg prices nationwide. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)The U.S. Department of Justice and 17 states, including Minnesota, announced a $3.3 million settlement agreement this week with egg producers accused of hatching a years-long scheme to inflate egg prices nationwide. As part of the agreement, settlement documents show, Minnesota will receive 2 million out of 53 million eggs procured at the companies’ expense to be donated to food banks and nonprofit organizations. All eggs donated by the defendants must be equivalent to products sold at grocery stores, according to settlement documents. The rest of the eggs will be distributed to other plaintiffs in the complaint, including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. Both the antitrust complaint and proposed settlements, which must still be approved by a judge, were filed Monday in Iowa. The Department of Justice accused the defendants — Cal-Maine Foods, Centrum Valley Holdings, Versova Holdings, Versova Management Cooperative and Hickman’s Egg Ranch — of conspiring to raise egg prices by collaborating on high-price bids to Urner Barry, a pricing service provider used for egg supply contracts. Versova Management Cooperative is a Minnesota cooperative association, a coalition to promote shared business and policy objectives, headquartered in Iowa. Cal-Maine denied “all wrongdoing and violations of law,” saying such claims are “baseless” in a press release. The company maintains that “its conduct was lawful, appropriate and in the best interest of supplying eggs to the marketplace” and did not interfere with egg prices. Centrum Valley Holdings, Versova Holdings, Versova Management Cooperative and Hickman’s Egg Ranch did not respond to the Reformer’s requests for comment at the time of publication. The DOJ conducted its investigation from July 2022 to March 2025. Investigators noted a significant drop in egg price quotations in March of 2025 after the defendants were informed of the investigation, according to the complaint. U.S. egg prices averaged $6.22 per dozen in March 2025 before dropping to $5.12 the next month, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. By March of this year, egg prices averaged $2.34 per dozen. The DOJ observed a direct correlation between the increase in Urner Barry’s quoted egg prices after communications between the defendants revealed attempts to flood the pricing service with high-price bids. One December morning in 2022, the defendants submitted dozens of bids in attempts to raise prices when all other market participants combined submitted less than six. Urner Barry increased its price quotation for white, large shell eggs the next day. “Corporations should be competing against one another for your business, not colluding with one another to keep prices high,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a press release. “As I travel Minnesota, I hear all the time from folks who are struggling to afford rising food prices. Unlawful and unethical behavior like this is a big part of the reason for that.” In addition to the egg donations, the settlement agreement would require defendants to appoint antitrust compliance officers within their respective organizations to report potential settlement violations. Courtesy of Minnesota Reformer
	No yolk: NC AG Jeff Jackson settles antitrust lawsuit for 3 million eggs (Photo: MirageC/Getty Images)Some might say the settlement wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. You might even think Attorney General Jeff Jackson went over easy on the perpetrators. Although the puns write themselves, Jackson’s recent legal settlement with bid-rigging egg producers is actually a serious story. And the eggs — about nine semi-truckloads of them — will be a welcome gift to the state’s food banks. The price of eggs played a big role in the 2024 elections, often standing in for larger consumer concerns about rising food prices. At the time, economists and industry insiders blamed higher egg prices on an outbreak of avian flu that began in early 2022, along with overall post-COVID inflation and higher demand. But a settlement signed this week by Jackson and 16 other attorneys general tells a different story. According to the settlement, three major national egg producers engaged in a price-fixing scheme to drive up egg prices. According to Jackson’s office, the producers set benchmark prices for wholesale to large national buyers like grocery store chains and restaurants. The complaint contends that the three big producers — Cal-Maine, Versova and Hickman’s Family Farms — coordinated with each other for years to artificially drive prices higher, violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. “In December 2022, Hickman’s CEO emailed Versova and Cal-Maine executives and urged them to submit ‘strong bids, early and often’ to push the benchmark higher,” Jackson’s press release said. “All three companies then submitted dozens of bids at higher prices, which led to the benchmark prices increasing.” The investigation began in early 2025 — about the time egg prices were peaking across the country. The prices fell dramatically over the next few weeks. Under the settlement, the egg producers will provide 50 million eggs to food banks across the country by October 2026. North Carolina food banks will receive three million of them. The producers also have to pay $1.5 million to the group of plaintiffs for legal fees, avoid any illegal cooperation in the future, and agree to more antitrust oversight. NC food banks can’t fill the hunger gap caused by federal SNAP cuts, nonprofit leaders say “This settlement makes sure they can’t rig the market anymore, and food banks in our state will get millions of eggs to help feed people who are hungry,” Jackson said in a statement. Three million eggs works out to 250,000 dozen eggs, or a little over nine truckloads, according to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. CEO Amy Beros said she’s excited to get the donation into the hands of needy families. “Hunger in our community is the highest we’ve seen in at least a generation — and more and more families are turning to food banks for help as everyday costs continue to rise,” Beros said. “Protein is consistently one of the most requested and hardest-to-source items, which makes these eggs an especially meaningful source of nourishment for families across North Carolina.” Courtesy of NC Newsline
	Crews respond to house fire in Hampton The house appeared to suffer extensive charring to its exterior.
	Nursing home cited for violations tied to three deaths and alleged abuse and neglect Pine Acres Rehabilitation and Care Center in West Des Moines was recently cited for 39 regulatory violations by state inspectors who reported the home’s quality-of-care issues and recurring, pervasive urine odors. (Photo via Polk County Assessor's Office)A West Des Moines nursing home could be facing more than $60,000 in fines after being cited for dozens of violations tied to allegations of neglect, physical abuse and three resident deaths. Citing the home’s quality-of-care issues and recurring, pervasive urine odors that inspectors describe as “overwhelming,” the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing recently cited Pine Acres Rehabilitation and Care Center for 39 regulatory violations – an extraordinarily high number for the 81-resident care facility in West Des Moines. The department also proposed, but held in suspension, a total of $66,250 in state fines. Those fines are being held in suspension while the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services determines whether a federal penalty is warranted for those same violations. Currently, Pine Acres is one of 10 Iowa nursing homes deemed eligible by the federal government for “special focus” status due to serious and recurring quality-of-care violations. In 2024, state inspectors cited Pine Acres for failing to ensure a male resident of the home was treated for foot ulcers, leading to a bacterial infection and the amputation of the resident’s left leg. The federal government subsequently fined Pine Acres $177,240. That was in addition to a federal fine of $71,169 imposed eight weeks earlier for violations stemming from two 2023 inspections that led to the home being cited for 62 violations, one of which was tied to a resident who contracted gangrene in the home and had to have a leg amputated. Latest inspection tied to multiple complaints State inspectors visited the home beginning on May 11, 2026, in response to nine complaints, all of which were deemed verified by the inspectors. Over the next 23 days, inspectors compiled a 355-page report detailing all of the violations that resulted in citations for deficient care. Among the alleged issues: resident abuse; failure to treat pressure sores; violations of residents’ rights; failure to provide a safe, clean and homelike environment; failure to investigate or report alleged regulatory violations; inadequate quality of care; failure to manage residents’ pain; insufficient nursing staff; a lack of competent nursing staff; a significant rate of medication errors, and failure to prepare or serve food in a safe and sanitary manner. The home’s administrator, Patricia Wiltfang, did not return messages from Iowa Capital Dispatch seeking comment on Wednesday. Specific incidents detailed by the inspectors as a result of their most recent visit include: Three deaths: According to inspectors, a male resident of the home fell from his bed on April 19, 2026, striking his face on the floor and sustaining a head injury. The facility allegedly failed to conduct ongoing neurological nursing assessments after the fall, despite a significant change in the man’s mental condition over the next seven days. On April 27, the man was admitted to a hospital’s intensive care unit and died there on May 3, 2026, of sepsis resulting from an infection and possible swelling of the brain or spinal cord. The home was also accused of failing to provide adequate assessments for another resident, in February 2026, who experienced nausea and vomiting hours before going into cardiac arrest and dying. Regarding the third resident who died, inspectors noted the man’s wife reported being at home the afternoon of March 23, 2026. According to inspectors, she stated that when she arrived, she saw two employees chatting outside her husband’s room and then found her husband in his room sitting in a recliner and “hanging on with fright” because the chair was tipped over so far forward the footrest was on the floor. The woman yelled for help as her husband’s oxygen levels dropped. Inspectors reported she told them the skin on her husband’s arm appeared to have been ripped off, causing him “extraordinary” pain. The wife told inspectors she informed the staff of the issue and waited six hours for assistance with no response from the nurses, according to state records. The man, who was already receiving hospice services prior to the incident, died several hours later. “He was so fearful that he did not want me to leave him,” the wife allegedly told inspectors. “I believe he just was frightened to death.” Quotation Damn it, I am at the facility because I need to be, not because I want to be, and the staff go through the motions just to get the state off their backs but they don’t really make any changes. – A Pine Acres resident, as quoted by state inspectors Resident abuse: Inspectors reported Pine Acres failed to prevent the physical abuse of one resident whose right elbow and left wrist were left bruised by a staff member holding the resident’s arms too hard. Inspectors also alleged the home failed to perform a thorough investigation regarding one resident who was left with rib fractures of an unknown cause. The home also failed to prevent “patterned issues of neglect,” the inspectors said, citing an alleged lack of assistance provided for residents who needed help with grooming, oral care, repositioning and incontinence. Residents and family members complained the staff was disrespectful and rude at times, with one resident stating an employee had called her a “stupid b—-.” Intimidation: A state inspector reported that during the course of the May 2026 inspection, she overheard what sounded like an argument between a female employee and a male resident, with the worker saying, “I am trying to take damn good care of you. I do everything for you. People deserve to be criticized, but you need to call those names out, just not my name. Talk about the good, not just the bad.” According to the inspector, the resident responded, “I will let the state know. I will not give your name.” The inspector intervened and the resident allegedly stated the staff had come around earlier than usual that day to provide him with a shower, which he felt was the staff’s way of “trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the state.” According to the inspector, the man also stated, “Damn it, I am at the facility because I need to be, not because I want to be, and the staff go through the motions just to get the state off their backs but they don’t really make any changes.” The inspector cautioned the worker against impeding the state’s investigation, advising her to refrain from telling residents what they could and could not say to inspectors. Staffing levels: Pine Acres was cited for failing to have sufficient staff on hand to meet residents’ needs, with inspectors stating the problem appeared to be “widespread” given the number of complaints and written grievances filed by residents. According to the inspectors, residents complained the staff took up to 90 minutes to answer call lights. One resident spoke to inspectors and stated that he was wet with urine at that time but knew that because of staffing issues, he wouldn’t be changed for another three hours. The state, the resident allegedly added, was the only thing that could make a difference because the facility’s leadership wasn’t going to improve matters. Another resident allegedly complained that she once sat in her wheelchair with blood on her face and hands and used her call light to summon assistance. A worker, she allegedly told inspectors, entered her room, turned off the light, and immediately left, never to return. Administration: The home was cited for failing to provide the necessary leadership to address residents’ grievances and the recurring quality-of-care issues within the home, leading to an ineffective quality-assurance program. Pervasive urine and ammonia odors were noted throughout the building by the inspectors and were described as “overwhelming” in some areas. One employee reportedly told inspectors she had relayed to the home’s administrator her concerns about the “terrible odor” and the fact that the housekeeping staff “cannot get the smell out.” The administrator also was reported to have no explanation as to why the facility wasn’t publicly posting up-to-date information on staffing levels for residents and family to read. The available postings, according to inspectors, were either outdated, printed in text that was small and hard to read, or posted in the staff restroom. Wrongful death lawsuit, allegations of neglect In 2025, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave Pine Acres one-star ratings for quality measures and inspection results on the government’s five-star quality scale. The ratings for Pine Acres are now suspended due to what CMS calls ongoing “serious quality issues” at the home. Pine Acres is currently being sued by the family of the late Richard M. Cox. The lawsuit alleges that on Oct. 21, 2024, Cox was able to exit the Pine Acres building unattended and without detection. He then sustained severe injuries in a fall about two blocks from Pine Acres and he died on Nov. 4, 2024, allegedly as a result of those injuries. Pine Acres has denied any wrongdoing, and a trial is scheduled for May 17, 2027. Earlier this year, a former Pine Acres certified nurse aide, Abigail Kromah, was awarded unemployment benefits after being fired from the home due to what her bosses characterized as “numerous resident complaints” regarding quality of care. According to a judge’s findings in her unemployment case, Kromah had received multiple disciplinary warnings for failing to answer residents’ call-lights in a timely manner, failing to properly assist residents with their personal care, and for telling a resident who needed to be toileted to go to the bathroom in their briefs. Pine Acres’ management alleged that in August 2025, Kromah failed to check on a resident’s feeding tube throughout the entire night, leaving the resident drenched in feeding solution from head to toe. One resident of the home had allegedly become so frustrated by the lack of response to his call-light that he contacted the police for assistance. According to federal records, Pine Acres is owned and managed by a New York-based group of investors that includes Yisroel Kaplan, who shares operational control of Pine Acres and a stake in another Iowa care facility, the Prestige Care Center in Fairfield. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Iowa Capital Dispatch
	Ronald Reagan's QCA first home tells his story The QCA has plenty of historic landmarks, including two presidential birth homes. Fortieth president Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois on February 6, 1911. That first home is now a museum, dedicated to teaching the public about Reagan. "It was a very difficult birth" said Joan Johnson, a volunteer at the birthplace. "He weighed [...]
	MercyOne Genesis Foundation delivers $132,645 grant to help care for moms and babies The grant was used to purchase life-saving technology for the MercyOne Genesis NICU, Davenport Birth Center and Silvis Birth Center.
	Kansas governor achieves goal to open early childhood office, months before her term ends Gov. Laura Kelly signs an executive order to establish the Kansas Childhood Advisory Council following the celebration of the Kansas Early Childhood Office opening on July 1, 2026 at the Docking Building in Topeka. (Photo by Baya Burgess/ Kansas Reflector)TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said at a celebration Wednesday that she accomplished her “No. 1 priority” by opening the Kansas Office of Early Childhood. The office consolidates programs and staff from the state health and environment, children and families, and education departments as well as the Kansas Children’s Cabinet to create a single early childhood agency. Kelly, who spent 14 years in the state Senate and will conclude her second term as governor in January, said she has been working on this for decades, and that it will continue to improve Kansas after her time as governor ends. “I believe without a strong early childhood system, nothing else will work,” she said to reporters at the Docking State Office Building. The Legislature passed House Bill 2045 and Kelly signed it into law in 2025 to create the early childhood office, appoint an ombudsman to advocate for families, initiate childcare pilot programs and remove certain regulations. The law reduced staffing and licensure requirements for childcare providers, such as lowering age and education standards for assistant teachers and removing license regulations for providers watching four or fewer children and no more than two infants for less than 35 hours per week. The law also allowed families to opt out of vaccination requirements for religious reasons. In August 2025, Sen. Cindy Holscher, a Democrat from Overland Park who is running for governor, accused the governor’s office of leveraging campaign support to try to gain Holscher’s vote on the 2025 bill. Concerned with reducing regulations and vaccine mandates, Holscher voted no on the bipartisan bill. In November 2025, Kelly endorsed Democratic Sen. Ethan Corson of Fairway for governor. Corson voted yes on the bill and attended the Wednesday celebration. In December, Kelly appointed Christi Smith, the director of Child Care Aware of Kansas, as the early childhood office director. Smith told reporters Wednesday the office will improve childcare access from the state’s previous system spread across multiple agencies. “I hope we forget how fragmented all the systems were,” she said. “I hope that there’s a day that we forget we had to go from place to place to place. So that it’s a world in one year from now when a family walks into any office, they understand the resources and supports of everything that’s available, and not just what they intended to walk into that office for.” She said the first tasks are fully integrating staff and programs from the four state agencies and listening to the needs of constituents and childcare providers. In her speech, Smith spoke about a woman who could not get childcare without a job and could not get a job without childcare. “That’s why today matters,” she said. “House Bill 2045 doesn’t just ask to build new programs from scratch, it asks us to better organize what Kansas already has and to make our early childhood system more efficient, more effective, and easier to navigate.” Abdul Yahaya, the co-founder of Open Minds Child Development Center in Olathe and a speaker at Wednesday’s celebration, said the early childhood office fills the same gap that led him to create his childcare business for his family. “Kansas is doing something powerful,” he said. “It is removing barriers, streamlining access, and sending a clear message to families across the state: we see you, and we are investing in you.” Courtesy of Kansas Reflector
	Enjoy the fun of camping with GLAMP at Camp Liberty You're never too old for the fun of camping, and you can enjoy an event for women of all outdoor interest levels! Andrea Gaskin joined Our Quad Cities News to talk about GLAMP. For more information, click here.
	Planned Parenthood expands mifepristone access to Kansas City suburbs Beginning June 22, Missourians could again access medication abortion for the first time since 2018 following a court ruling striking down dozens of the state's challenged abortion restrictions (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent).The Planned Parenthood clinic in Gladstone began offering medication abortion on Wednesday, becoming the fourth location in Missouri to open appointments following a court ruling that expanded access to medication abortion for the first time since 2018. This is the first time the suburban Kansas City clinic has ever offered medication abortions. Planned Parenthood officials said the Gladstone clinic will initially open up several medication abortion appointments each month. Available appointments have “filled quickly,” a spokesperson said in a press release Wednesday. “This is what having constitutionally protected care looks like: appointments in more communities, with fewer burdens on patients,” said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. “Today’s expansion is another step toward ensuring Missourians’ rights aren’t just protected on paper; they’re available to patients closer to home.” The Gladstone clinic is located in Kansas City’s Northland, about 13 miles north of Planned Parenthood’s Kansas City location. It is one of four clinics in Missouri operated by Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which also oversees clinics in Kansas and Arkansas. In a June 19 decision, Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang struck down decades of laws enacted by anti-abortion lawmakers, including a mandatory pelvic exam for patients seeking medication abortion, a 72-hour waiting period between an initial consultation and an abortion, as well as a state-approved complication plan for doctors prescribing medication abortion. Planned Parenthood officials previously said these regulations made it all but impossible to prescribe the abortion pill in Missouri. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Medication abortion is used in about two-thirds of abortions in the United States, making it the most common way to end a pregnancy despite ongoing efforts at the federal level to limit access to mifepristone, the first of two medications used in a medication abortion. Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis opened medication abortion appointments in the days following the ruling. But not every Planned Parenthood clinic in the state has the capability to offer medication abortion appointments. This is because of two statutes that remain in place. Zhang in her ruling upheld an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone and a requirement that only physicians can perform abortions or prescribe medication abortion, making it more difficult for clinics that aren’t staffed by a full-time physician to begin offering it. The regulations were challenged by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri in November 2024 and tried in court in January. “For years, Missouri physicians were prevented from providing the standard of care by politicians with no medical training,” Dr. Iman Alsaden, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement Wednesday. “It’s difficult to put into words what it means to begin righting that wrong by once again offering medication abortion to patients in Missouri.” Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has said her office plans to appeal the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court. In November, Missourians will be asked to vote on a legislature-proposed constitutional amendment that would again ban abortion with limited exceptions for medical emergencies and for survivors of rape and incest. It will be listed on the November 2026 ballot as Amendment 3. Courtesy of Missouri Independent
	Lock 14 Dam Good Salsa opens new QCA home The folks behind the popular Lock 14 Dam Good Salsa are expanding to help other local businesses succeed through Lock 14 Kitchen. Lock 14's salsa has made waves over the past eight years, and they cut the ribbon on a new space on River Dr. in Moline. Staff plan to offer space to other local [...]
	Measles confirmed in Wyoming’s Teton County as summer crowds flock to national parks This illustration is a 3D graphic representation of a spherical-shaped, measles virus particle, that is studded with glycoprotein tubercles. (Graphic courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)This story was first published by WyoFile on June 30, 2026. After confirming a case of measles in an unvaccinated adult in Teton County, Wyoming health officials are warning the public about possible exposure at locations in Grand Teton National Park and Jackson. The news comes as summer crowds flood the region with tourists from around the world. The public may have been exposed between June 17-25 at several locations in Teton County, according to the Wyoming Health Department. They include restaurants in Grand Teton National Park’s Colter Bay Village on June 17-18; a Colter Bay convenience store on June 20 and the Target in Jackson on June 25. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); “We are asking people who may have been exposed to watch for measles symptoms for 21 days past the exposure date and consider avoiding crowded public places and high-risk settings such as daycare centers,” State Health Officer Alexia Harrist said in a press release. Monitoring is especially critical for people who have not been vaccinated with the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, according to the health department. Measles vaccination rates dip It marks Wyoming’s second confirmed case of the highly contagious infection in 2026. Wyoming went 15 years without a confirmed case of measles until last year. Health officials confirmed Wyoming’s first 2026 case in May. An adult patient in Fremont County who did not have a confirmed vaccination status caught the disease, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 — indicating no endemic transmission for 12 months or more. But it re-emerged in recent years primarily due to declining vaccination rates and increased public health skepticism. Those trends worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic and have persisted during the second Trump administration. The neighboring state of Utah is one of America’s 2026 measles hotspots, with 499 cases reported so far this year. A vaccination rate of 95% is necessary for community immunity to prevent measles outbreaks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2025, Wyoming’s proportion of kindergarten students who had completed the MMR vaccine was 93.6%, the CDC reports. That rate is higher than Colorado, Utah and Montana for the same year. However, it’s declined overall since 2012-13, when Wyoming’s kindergarten vaccination rate was above 97%. It fell to 90.2% in 2020-21 before inching back up to the current 93.6%. A measles case had not been reported in the state since 2010 until July 2025, when the health department confirmed measles in an unvaccinated child from Natrona County. By year’s end, 13 more cases were confirmed. The majority involved unvaccinated children and adults. Along with being extremely contagious, measles can cause severe complications like pneumonia and brain swelling and can leave lasting impacts on the immune system. One to three out of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles will die from complications, according to the CDC. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Courtesy of Idaho Capital Sun
	Statewide prevention initiative aims to combat Alaska’s high rates of child sexual abuse Student backpacks seen on the first day of school at Harborview Elementary School in Juneau on Aug. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)Content warning: This story contains references to sexual violence and abuse of children. A new statewide initiative aims to prevent and reduce Alaska’s pervasively high rates of child sexual abuse. The statewide prevention plan is led by the Alaska Children’s Trust, a non-profit advocacy group focused on supporting children and families and preventing child abuse and neglect. Trevor Storrs, the president and CEO of the Alaska Children’s Trust, said a coordinated effort among state and community groups, service providers, schools, caregivers and youth is needed to make serious strides in intervening and preventing abuse. “We should not expect children to fight off these predators. We want them equipped with the tools, but it’s our job, not just as adults, but as a community and society, to make sure kids are safe,” he said. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse or are healing from a crisis, resources are available: STAR Alaska Crisis Line: Confidential 24/7 (800) 478-8999 The StrongHearts Native Helpline: Confidential 24/7 confidential helpline for Native Americans and Alaska Natives dealing with domestic and sexual violence. Call 1-844-762-8483 or use the chat feature. Child sexual abuse prevention resources provided by the Alaska Children’s Trust can be found here. AWARE’s list of resources, including housing, medical and financial resources Legal help through Alaska Legal Services Corp. The plan was developed last year with a variety of statewide groups, including representatives from Child Advocacy Centers, the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, the Office of Children’s Services, which runs the state’s foster care system, law enforcement, Tribes, health care providers, lived experience experts, faith communities, and the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Storrs said the plan focuses on education and raising awareness, as well as preventing harm by developing and strengthening institutions so that questionable behavior is identified and stopped. “If we don’t keep strong boundaries established, that’s when we start opening the door and predators see their opportunity,” he said. “If we keep those strong and not have those potential openings, it actually prevents the predators from ever accessing, or anybody who’s had even a slight inclination — they’re not being tempted to even try — and that is what our job is.” The group launched the plan earlier this month and is providing an initial $100,000 in grant funding for prevention work in the three priority areas outlined by the initiative. Nonprofit organizations, tribes, local or state governments, schools and regional attendance areas are invited to apply by July 17. Alaska has some of the highest rates of sexual violence and rates of child abuse, neglect, and child sexual abuse, in the nation. Many victims delay or never report abuse. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Maltreatment report published this year noted reports of child abuse and neglect have declined somewhat since 2020, but Alaska rates in 2024 were 80% above the nationwide average. Nationwide, American Indian and Alaska Native children have the highest rates of victimization, and in Alaska national data from the maltreatment report shows rates of abuse among American Indian or Alaska Native children are nearly three times higher than the overall statewide average. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. The Alaska Children’s Trust cites a national survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2013 to 2015 that showed on average one in five Alaska children experience sexual abuse. A 2023 report from the Alaska Children’s Justice Act Task Force showed that an estimated one in seven children will experience an allegation of sexual abuse before their 12th birthday. “The majority of child abuse and neglect cases that are substantiated are neglect, then it’s physical, and then it’s a small fraction of child sexual abuse,” Storrs said. But sexual abuse can have severe impacts on a child’s development, according to the CDC, with short and long term effects, including chronic health conditions, mental health issues and even post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Child sexual abuse is defined as any sexual activity between a child and adult or a child and another child that the child does not fully understand, does not consent to or is not developmentally prepared for and therefore cannot consent to. In Alaska, lawmakers this year changed the law to raise the age of consent to 18 years old. An estimated 90% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the child or the child’s family, according to the CDC. Perpetrators can exploit what Storrs calls “natural trust” to get close to a child, including people in positions like a coach, teacher, religious leader or friend of the family, in a pattern of behavior called grooming. “Grooming is developing that relationship, developing a trust with the family that the child can be left alone with them,” Storrs said. “The trust with the child where their interactions may feel awkward, but are okay. The trust that it’s okay to keep secrets. They really build that trust and build that relationship that then allows them to abuse the child, to do what they do. And you see that in story after story when you talk to a survivor of child sexual abuse, they talk about the relationship.” Storrs says addressing the stigma to intervene when behavior is inappropriate, also means implementing proper protocols for adults interacting with kids. He said for example, coaches should not text youth individually, but include parents in all communications. That extends to online safety, he said. Nationally, there are increasing rates of predatory behavior and “sextortion,” a form of blackmail where perpetrators threaten to disclose information or images unless the victims make specific demands. Storrs said caregivers should talk with children and youth about what is and isn’t appropriate, in person and online. “It’s also making sure that your child understands what the expectations and rules are, as well, of what it’s like to interact with an adult, and what are those boundaries,” he said. Storrs said in raising awareness of potentially predatory behavior, it’s also important to trust children when they disclose inappropriate behavior. “A lot of kids don’t disclose that X is happening, what they start disclosing is, ‘I don’t feel comfortable, I don’t want to go. I don’t like hanging out with this person anymore.’ They don’t feel connected,” he said. “That’s a sign.” The statewide prevention plan likens preventing child sexual abuse to wildfire prevention. That means reducing risks, setting safety codes, educating communities and monitoring high risk situations — to prevent harm. Three approaches to prevention The statewide prevention plan has a three-pronged approach: educate and mobilize, cultivate safer environments and act early to prevent harm. Storrs says all three involve children, families, and community-wide efforts, and the plan calls for local advocacy groups, service providers, schools and governments to gather community input and develop their own child sexual abuse prevention programs and resources best fit around cultural values. The initiative calls for local communities to develop and strengthen systems for children to safely report harm without fear of punishment and family disruption. The first prong focuses on education: increasing awareness and reducing stigma, and increasing the number of people able to take action proactively. That means training for youth-focused employees like teachers and coaches, and building in protocols for reporting and addressing inappropriate behavior. It also involves providing educational resources for parents and caregivers on healthy boundaries, warning signs, and how to respond to concerns. The plan calls for education and resources for children and youth on what’s appropriate. Storrs says the plan suggests children receive human development education, not necessarily sex education, so that children develop an understanding of consent, their body anatomy and healthy relationships. “When you talk to a child about something, it does not give a child permission to engage in something or to act inappropriately,” he said, adding that teaching kids about sex does not give them permission to have it in the same way that teaching kids about car accidents doesn’t give them permission to drive recklessly. Education is aimed at empowering children to identify when physical boundaries have been violated, Storrs said. “So when a kid needs to talk about any of their private areas or someone is trying to talk about it or touch it, they’re able to know what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate,” he said. Similarly, reducing shame and stigma can empower children to talk with an adult or caregiver when they’ve experienced or seen adults behaving inappropriately. Children should know that adults should never ask them to keep secrets, Storrs said, and when inappropriate behavior has occurred they can get help to stop it from continuing. The second prong, “cultivating safer environments,” calls for state and local governments, Tribes and service organizations to support programs and policies that help families meet essential basic needs to address conditions that put children at risk for sexual abuse. Storrs noted that children and families with unstable housing, inadequate child care or health care can create circumstances that put children at higher risk. “Our safety net plays a critical part in keeping kids safe, not just of child sexual abuse, but child abuse in general,” he said. “We know when families have stable housing, food security, all those things, it puts less stress on the family.” The plan calls for increasing safety of physical and digital spaces where youth spend time, and local community organizations to hold listening sessions in communities to identify risk factors and best prevention strategies. The third prong aims to prevent harm by increasing access to resources to respond to harmful sexual attitudes or behaviors. That includes addressing people who have harmed or are at risk of harming children. “I truly believe there’s more gray in our world ever than there is black and white,” Storrs said. “And there are definitely individuals who are 100% predators, and it’s very clear. Then you have individuals that may have some thoughts, but don’t act on it, or it’s controlled internally by themselves and by within the society they are.” The approach includes responding to harmful and problematic sexual behavior among youth. Storrs said with youth having access to graphic sexual material online, problematic behaviors and attitudes may arise. The plan aims to expand treatment and support services for youth to address harmful behaviors. “We’re seeing that kids are sexually maturing faster or becoming more hypersexual at a much younger age without the knowledge, skills, supports and resources to then deal with it or understand it,” Storrs said. “And if kids do not have an adult to talk to, or have learned this information, it starts creating hyper sexual experiences, which then can lead to this harmful sexual behavior.” Alaska has unique challenges with rural and remote communities having less access to services, Storrs said, as well as grappling with legacies of trauma and adversity. He said the initiative aims to push a statewide focus and investment in policies and programs that support children and families that can help prevent harm. The plan is a collaborative effort, he said, and in the first year advocates with the Alaska Children’s Trust will visit communities to discuss the plan, help raise awareness, identify gaps and strengthen protocols and safer environments to prevent abuse. “What we want to create that’s very clear in our community, in our state, that we as a community are watching and will not stand for any type of inappropriate behavior with our kids,” Storrs said. “And we will say something, we will step in, and you won’t be allowed.” SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Alaska Beacon
	Eldridge Fire Department, city debate future of fire services in Eldridge The two organizations' negotiations have broken down and spilled onto social media and in the mailboxes of Eldridge residents as the officials debate how to address burnout and volunteer shortages.
	Youth Day, Pro-Am kickstart John Deere Classic week The John Deere Classic is in full swing with the first day of events teeing off Wednesday morning from TPC Deere Run.
	Coal Valley balloon artist inflates the decor at the John Deere Classic The display includes a golf bag and a golf ball made of balloons, as well as other pieces.
	New NC budget keeps Khanmigo contract, but slashes funding from $10 million to $500,000 The North Carolina Legislative Building (Photo by Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline) Republican lawmakers have sharply reduced a proposal to fund an artificial intelligence platform for North Carolina schools, scaling back an earlier plan that would have directed $10 million to Khan Academy for an AI-powered tutoring and teaching assistant platform called Khanmigo. The conference budget proposal released Monday appropriates $500,000 in nonrecurring funding to the Department of Public Instruction to contract with Khan Academy for Khanmigo licenses and to develop an AI course over the next two years. The proposal still must be approved by the House and Senate before heading to Gov. Josh Stein. The funding marks a significant reduction from legislation introduced earlier this year that would have appropriated $10 million to Khan Academy to pilot Khanmigo in North Carolina classrooms. NC bill would steer $10 million to Khan Academy for AI tool of debatable value NC Newsline previously reported that the original proposal raised concerns because it directed the state to contract with a specific vendor without a competitive bidding process. Educators and artificial intelligence experts also questioned whether Khanmigo had been sufficiently evaluated before lawmakers proposed the funding, and whether it had demonstrated enough educational value to justify the investment. The latest budget proposal continues to identify Khan Academy by name, but reduces the appropriation to 5% of the amount originally proposed. The bill states the money would be used to contract with Khan for licenses to the Khanmigo application and to create an AI course required elsewhere in the legislation. Sen. Mike Lee (R-New Hanover), who spearheaded the original proposal, did not immediately respond to NC Newsline’s request for comment The reduced appropriation comes as lawmakers move forward with a broader package of AI initiatives for public schools. Elsewhere in the budget, lawmakers propose requiring the Department of Public Instruction to develop a model artificial intelligence policy for schools, requiring school districts, charter schools and laboratory schools to adopt AI policies, and directing N.C. State University’s Friday Institute for Educational Innovation to develop professional development for educators. Public school teachers would be required to complete AI training by June 30, 2028. The proposed budget is expected to receive votes in the House and Senate this week. Courtesy of NC Newsline
	New state law expected to increase patient access to Georgia’s medical cannabis program A new Georgia law eases barriers that advocates and physicians said hindered access to medical cannabis and hampered interest for those who may benefit. Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesA new state law that took effect Wednesday fundamentally changed Georgia’s medical cannabis program. The new law, named “Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act,” significantly eases barriers that advocates and physicians said have hindered access to medical cannabis and hampered interest for patients. Georgia lawmakers first opened the door to medical cannabis in 2015 and created what has been called the state’s low THC oil program ever since. Under the bipartisan measure passed during the 2026 legislative session, Georgia’s program will have a new straightforward name – medical cannabis – and new rules. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Gary Long, the CEO of Botanical Sciences, a Georgia-based company that grows, processes and sells its products in its five dispensaries, with a sixth opening late summer in Augusta, said the new law “modernizes the state’s program and brings it in line with other states.” “We’ve been in that ‘low THC oil’ place, and it has limited the interest of the people that are out there,” said Long, who predicted the new changes could triple the number of patients by mid-2027. As of Tuesday, there were nearly 36,600 active patients enrolled. “In that former model, not only did it not allow for the potency but also the delivery methods that many of those patients are interested in consuming,” he added. Under the new law, Georgia will drop the “low THC” label, which capped products at a 5% THC limit, and adopt a milligram system, which allows patients to buy up to 12,000 milligrams of product at a time. The new law also allows patients over 21 to purchase oil and products for dry herb vaporization. Smoking cannabis is still prohibited by state law. The new law also adds new qualifying conditions, such as lupus and irritable bowel syndrome, and it gets rid of the requirement that certain conditions, like cancer and AIDS, must be “severe or end stage” to qualify. US Justice Department downgrades risk of state-licensed medicinal marijuana And coupled with April’s rescheduling of medical cannabis on the federal level, which allowed independent pharmacies to then start selling medical cannabis products, the state’s new law will ease access by allowing pharmacies that were previously prohibited from selling products due to being within a certain distance from schools and places of worship to participate in the program. The new law also decreases that distance for dispensaries, bringing them in line with stores that sell alcoholic drinks. Dr. Tiffanni Forbes, an internal medicine physician and certified cannabis doctor based in Fayetteville, said she’s most excited about the rebranding of the program that does away with the “low THC” name and the caps based on percentage. She said the old system led to confusion among patients who are used to medications being dosed in milligrams. Dr. Tiffanni Forbes, an internal medicine physician and certified cannabis doctor based in Fayetteville, sits for an interview in Newnan, Ga. on June 25, 2026. Alander Rocha/Georgia Recorder “People got very confused about what to take, how to take it, is this potent, is this not so potent, so we’re doing away with all of that,” Forbes said. “There will be certain things that are more potent based upon how much THC versus others, but you don’t also have this percentage sitting here, which means really nothing to us. It was just how the law was written.” While the new law is seen as a win for increased access to medical cannabis, advocates said the work is not finished. Yolanda Bennett, who is a patient herself and has advocated for the program’s expansion over the years as the co-head of the Georgia Medical Cannabis Society, an organization that advocates for medical cannabis access and educates patients, said she was excited about the changes. But she also said advocacy in the next lawmaking session will focus on pushing for insurance coverage, protecting patients who live in public housing and overturning restrictions on consuming medical cannabis outside a patient’s home. House passes bill seeking to ease access to Georgia’s medical cannabis program “I realized that consistency and advocacy do work when you have legislators that are listening, and since we were a part of moving the needle with this, it really and truly feels pretty good, even though I know that we have a long way to go. I want to make sure that the legislators know that this is not the finish line, and you shouldn’t forget about the patients, because this is a start,” Bennett said. Steph Sherer, founder and president of Americans for Safe Access, a national organization advocating for federal policy to make medical cannabis safer and more accessible, said that advocates hope the rescheduling of medical cannabis will lead to federal changes and more uniform laws across the country. “Now that registered medical cannabis patients have a stronger basis to assert protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other civil rights laws and do not have to fear losing their jobs, homes, healthcare, or basic rights, we expect a groundswell of advocacy demanding equal access nationwide,” Sherer said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Georgia Recorder
	Trump's crypto earnings far outpace the businesses he spent decades building NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Bernard Condon of the AP about how President Trump and his family raked in more than a billion dollars last year through crypto ventures.
	The benefits shift: What small businesses need to know The benefits shift: What small businesses need to knowBenefits play a significant role in how employees feel about their employer. According to the 2026 ADP TotalSource Employee Benefits Survey of 12,429 U.S. workers, 78% of employees say they feel valued because their employer offers medical benefits. Even more, 83%, say they feel valued because of nonmedical benefits like life and disability insurance, dental, vision, etc. Medical insurance remains the most valued workplace benefit, followed by retirement savings plans.For small businesses, these insights present a challenge and an opportunity. But the upside is when small businesses help their employees understand their benefits, it can build trust, improve retention and help people see the full value of their compensation.Benefits remain a powerful employee retention toolHealthcare costs, rising economic pressures and growing concerns about retirement are changing how people view workplace benefits. While competitive health insurance and retirement plans remain essential, workers are looking for more than access to coverage. They want help navigating complex decisions that affect both their financial well-being and their health.The Employee Benefits Survey’s findings suggest that benefits are one of the most visible ways people judge an employer's commitment to their well-being. Many view pay and benefits as a single package that contributes to both short-term financial stability and long-term security.For small businesses that may not always be able to match the salaries offered by larger organizations, benefits can reinforce the value of total compensation and help attract strong talent.Employees expect more than access to benefitsBenefits decisions have become more complicated. Choosing healthcare coverage, understanding out-of-pocket costs and planning for retirement all require people to make decisions that can have a lasting impact.Nearly three-quarters of people believe their employer will provide benefits that meet their needs. That level of confidence creates an opportunity for small businesses to play a more active role in supporting employee decision-making.Simple explanations, educational resources and year-round benefits communication can help people better understand their options and use available resources more effectively. In many cases, people may place as much value on guidance and support as they do on the benefits themselves.Rising healthcare costs are changing employee behaviorAffordability has become one of the defining issues in employee benefits. Rising healthcare expenses are forcing many workers to make difficult choices about care and coverage.More than one-quarter of people surveyed report skipping medical care for themselves or a family member because of out-of-pocket costs. And nearly 1 in 4 say they have taken less medication than prescribed to save money. Another 15% have declined dental or vision coverage so they could afford medical insurance.These decisions may help people manage short-term expenses, but they can create larger challenges over time. Delayed care can lead to more serious health conditions, higher treatment costs and increased absenteeism.At the same time, more people are taking an active role in managing their health. More than two-thirds report using the internet to seek medical information, while more than one-quarter have used generative AI tools for health-related advice. In addition, 78% say they are paying closer attention to wellness habits such as exercise, nutrition and mindfulness. Preventive care usage has also increased.People are caught between wanting to stay healthy and struggling to afford it. Small businesses can help close that gap through better benefits education, decision-support tools and plan options that work across different income levels.Retirement security is becoming a core employee concernWhile healthcare remains a major focus, retirement readiness is moving rapidly up the list of employee priorities: 63% of employees rank a 401(k)-retirement savings plan as a top-tier benefit. Retirement savings have now surpassed dental insurance to become the second most valued workplace benefit, only behind medical. The shift reflects growing concerns about long-term financial security.For small employers, retirement benefits are becoming a competitive necessity rather than a nice-to-have offering. Not having retirement offerings may put small businesses at risk of losing out on top talent, as people place greater value on employers that help them prepare for the future.Fortunately, several developments have made retirement plans more accessible for small businesses. The SECURE 2.0 Act expanded tax credits that can offset much, and in some cases all, of the startup costs for eligible small businesses. Additional incentives tied to employer contributions and automatic enrollment can further reduce the financial burden.Access to a retirement savings plan, employer matching contributions and financial education resources can help address one of the fastest-growing sources of employee anxiety.Employees have more savings but less confidencePerhaps the survey's most surprising finding is that employees report saving more money while feeling less financially secure. Nearly 40% say they are unprepared to handle unexpected out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. Meanwhile, the percentage of people with less than $500 saved for unexpected medical costs has increased from 20% to 28% over the past five years. Even workers who are putting money aside often worry that they are not prepared for a medical emergency or other unexpected expense.Small businesses can support employees by strengthening financial wellness efforts. Benefits education, retirement planning resources and tools that help employees estimate healthcare costs can improve understanding and reduce uncertainty. Even modest improvements in benefits literacy can help your employees feel more prepared to manage financial challenges.What employers can do nowThe data points to several practical steps employers can take to improve the employee benefits experience:Simplify benefits communication. Use plain language and focus on helping people understand how plans work and how to use them.Extend education beyond open enrollment. Provide year-round resources that help people make informed healthcare and financial decisions.Promote financial wellness. Offer retirement planning support, educational workshops and resources that help people prepare for future expenses.Leverage technology. Decision-support tools, benefits calculators and personalized resources can help employees compare options and choose coverage that fits their needs.Highlight the full value of benefits. Many underestimate the investment employers make in benefits. Regular communication can help reinforce the value of the total compensation package.The new measure of benefits successBenefits have always been important for attracting and retaining talent. What is changing is the role small businesses play in helping their people understand and use them.People are not necessarily asking for more benefits. They are looking for benefits that are easier to navigate, better aligned with their needs and supported by practical guidance. As healthcare and financial decisions become more complex, offering strong benefits combined with ongoing education and support may help businesses gain a meaningful advantage in building trust, engagement and stability.This story was produced by ADP and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Rising costs are moving buyers to used vehicles, and public fleets are feeling it first Rising costs are moving buyers to used vehicles, and public fleets are feeling it firstWhen money gets tight at home, people get predictable. They buy the used car instead of the new one, they keep the old one running another year or two, and they trade down to whatever covers the daily drive and skip the extras. No one needs a degree in economics to understand when a monthly payment no longer fits the budget.But you may be surprised that school districts do the same thing. So do transit agencies, hospital van fleets, and the companies that bus their crews out to a jobsite. Yes, the vehicles are bigger, and there are a lot more of them, but the instinct is the same for the car sitting in your driveway. And in 2026, it’s showing up across fleets that have nothing else in common, whether they run school buses in Ohio or haul crews to an oil field.Of course, a salesperson won’t recommend this because they want to move a new bus off the lot. But more and more companies are finding that it’s what the company spreadsheet recommends. The logic is one a family would recognize.BusesForSale explored why households and fleets are opting for used vehicles instead of purchasing new ones.Why buyers are choosing used over newWalk onto any dealer lot, or just open the emails dealers send you, and reality hits your dreams of a new vehicle. New prices keep climbing, and tariffs on imported components are a major reason. The Detroit News recently said, “Used vehicles are having a moment as new costs rise.” JD Power's Tyson Jominy told CNBC that prices "have gone up about a third" while incomes haven't come close to keeping pace, leaving a smaller pool of buyers who can still afford new. New prices aren't going down. Used vehicle prices have also climbed, but they remain well below new-car prices. So more used cars are finding homes than ever before.For a household, a 30% jump like this will kill the new-car plan. For a fleet, a decision on what to do barely needs a meeting. A used bus earns the same revenue as a new one on the same route, so the operator who adds capacity without paying the new-vehicle premium is the one with more left over at the end of the run. The marketplace for new and used buses sees demand for used inventory first, for the same reason the family two doors down bought a three-year-old SUV instead of a new one. The used one does most of the same work at a fraction of the sticker price.Keeping buses longer instead of replacing themA squeezed budget quickly causes chief financial officers to fall in love with what they already own. When a new bus gets expensive enough, the replacement clock stretches. A transit bus that would have been retired at 10 years runs to 12, kept going by the maintenance shop rather than being traded in. Fleets can play that out because these are commercial-grade engines. Thomas Built Buses, one of the country’s major school bus manufacturers, notes that clean-diesel engines are built to last 15 to 20 years.That's the kind of runway that lets a maintenance shop justify keeping a bus another year or two instead of replacing it. It is the same bet a family makes putting new brakes on the Honda minivan instead of trading it for an SUV. The difference is that a fleet runs the math across 40 vehicles, and the savings come back with another zero on the end.Buying smaller and skipping the new-bus waitAn option many corporate fleet buyers are eyeing is rightsizing. When an organization shrinks, the fleet shrinks with it. More often, the buyer specs down on purpose, choosing the vehicle for everyday employee pickup instead of the bigger one bought for the worst day of the year.And a lot of them are choosing used vehicles because they can put them to work now. Even when funding is approved, a new bus does not show up next week. IC Bus told School Bus Fleet in December 2024 it was running close to a year's worth of order backlog, and while original equipment manufacturer delivery times have eased, they haven't snapped back to normal. Some public fleets have turned to leasing and the used market to get vehicles into service rather than sit in a production queue for the better part of a year. Cheaper and sooner tend to work together these days.Why school districts are buying used busesThe squeeze is easiest to see in student transportation, because the buyers are public agencies and their books are open. What districts actually spend to replace a single school bus has climbed past what their budgets planned for. Prices have been pushed up by a higher base price, the 2025 tariffs, and a federal rebate that stalled. Instead of living with that gap, more districts and contractors work the used market to keep routes covered. The ones who can put together a fleet of sound used buses quickly are the ones winning the contracts and getting paid.Where the squeeze is hitting hardestThe states that feel it first are the ones where the budget math broke first.Texas is feeling it more than others. Northwest ISD's CFO told CBS News the state allotted his district $3.5 million for transportation while the district spent more than four times that. And other Texas districts said the state's share covered as little as 12% of what they actually pay to move kids. When the gap runs that wide, every replacement decision gets harder, and buying used stops being a choice and turns into the default.The same pressure is forcing hard calls elsewhere. Columbus City Schools in Ohio cut back K-8 busing and moved to close four schools while working through roughly $50 million in budget cuts. In Connecticut, Bridgeport floated pushing its walk-to-school line out as far as 2.5 miles before a kid qualifies for a bus. Those are service cuts, not purchase orders. But they come from the same budget math that’s pushing a district toward the used lot when it does buy. When a board is debating whether to bus a kid who lives 2 miles out, it is not going to sign off on a new bus it can replace for a third of the price used.With the cost of a single replacement bus still climbing, the places that hit the wall first are the ones where buying used quietly became the whole plan.What it tells usCost pressure doesn’t freeze fleet purchasing. It just reorders a buyer's priorities toward buying preowned buses, keeping them longer, sizing down, and getting them sooner. The same type of moves a family makes with one car, a district makes with 80 and a city makes with a few hundred.Many transportation directors are making the same choice that local parents already made. A 3-year-old used bus that runs every morning beats waiting another year for funding approval on a new one.This story was produced by BusesForSale and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	SC law extends paid parental leave to temporary workers, ensures time off for stillbirths Gov. Henry McMaster signed the expanded paid parental leave bill into law on Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (Stock photo by John Carleton/Getty Images)COLUMBIA — About a month before Liyun Zhang was due to give birth to her son, she got in a serious car crash that sent her to the hospital until late into the night. The next day, Zhang went back to work with bruises still on her belly. She didn’t want to call in sick because, as a grant-funded researcher for the University of South Carolina, Zhang had no paid parental leave under state law, meaning every day of paid time off she used was a day she wouldn’t get to spend with her newborn. “That was not a smart decision, now that I think about it,” Zhang told the Daily Gazette. “I should have taken some days off. I was just so driven by, ‘I need leave.’” Under legislation Gov. Henry McMaster signed Tuesday, full-time employees like her will qualify for up to six weeks of paid parental leave. The new law, which takes effect Oct. 1, further expands on the state’s first paid leave law passed in 2022, which provided employees of state agencies and colleges paid time off whether they give birth, adopt or foster a child. A year later, the Legislature also made K-12 public school employees eligible. Newly eligible starting this fall are employees who are temporary or whose position is funded by a grant. The new law also clarifies that women whose babies are stillborn are still entitled to their six weeks of paid leave. And it doubles paid leave for the parent who doesn’t give birth — or, in cases of adoption or fostering, the parent who’s not the primary caregiver — from two weeks to four. The intent is to help families “during both moments of joy and moments of unimaginable loss,” Sen. Darrell Jackson, the proposal’s lead sponsor, said in a statement. Both the House and Senate gave unanimous approval. “When we invest in parents during one of the most important moments in their lives, we strengthen families, improve employee retention and make state government a better place to work,” said Jackson, D-Hopkins. How many people the change might affect is unclear, since it depends on the number who plan to take parental leave. In 2024, 958 state employees used their paid leave benefits for the birth or adoption of a child, according to an analysis by the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office. Temporary and grant-funded workers For Zhang, now 39, guaranteed parental leave would have meant a lot less stress during a pregnancy already considered high-risk. Knowing her position as a researcher for the university’s Children’s Law Center didn’t come with maternity leave, Zhang saved vacation days for years so she could spend three months at home with her newborn son when he was born in June 2024, she said. Every day she took off for doctor appointments was another day she couldn’t use for her maternity leave. She and her husband skipped vacations out of fear Zhang might need those days down the line. “I had to be very careful to calculate, to see how much time I had,” she said. SC House tries again with 12 weeks of paid parental leave for state workers Zhang watched as colleagues employed directly through the university took time off before their baby’s arrival for anniversary trips and so-called babymoons, which are short trips meant to give new parents quality time before their baby is born. Under the 2022 law, covered employees don’t have to use up their accrued vacation and sick days for parental leave. “I was very, very happy for them, but at the same time, I wish I had those luxuries, too,” Zhang said. Unpaid leave was an option. A 1993 federal law guarantees parents up to 12 unpaid weeks off. But Zhang and her husband worried about the financial toll of going without her salary for weeks. Having a baby is expensive, and Zhang wanted to save up as much as possible, especially after undergoing pricey in-vitro fertilization treatments, she said. Before the law passed, Zhang and her husband worried about how they might handle time off if they had another child, which they both want. Zhang wasn’t sure how she’d save up enough vacation time again, since she used up years of saved time after the birth of her first child. “It was hard for us to even think about future children, even though we want more,” Zhang said. “The price of that is, if you want to have more children, you just need to do leave without pay, and that’s all stress, too.” Although time off won’t be the determining factor, it does make the planning much easier, she said. As does the additional two weeks guaranteed for her husband, since he also works for the university. If Zhang does have another child, she won’t have to scrutinize every sick day and vacation to make sure she has enough time to spend at home with her newborn, she said. “I’m just feeling so grateful and so hopeful for myself and for other people now that it won’t be so stressful,” Zhang said. “We can have a little peace of mind.” Stillbirths It took Mariah Kinnie more than a month after giving birth to realize she could use her paid maternity leave. Kinnie’s second son, Jennings, was stillborn in October 2024. The middle school social worker in Beaufort took about a month off work, unpaid, to recover and grieve. Even though she didn’t get to take her son home, Kinnie still went through the physically taxing process of giving birth, she said. “It wasn’t just like nothing happened,” Kinnie, whose first child is 4, told the SC Daily Gazette. About a month after she came back, a member of her grief support group asked why she didn’t use her paid parental leave. Curious, Kinnie asked her school district, which acknowledged she should have gotten that time and offered her the full six weeks. SC paid parental leave law covers stillbirths, attorney general’s office says District officials were very supportive once Kinnie raised the issue, she said. But because stillbirths weren’t mentioned in the law, neither Kinnie nor her bosses realized she qualified at first. “There wasn’t any clarification for anybody,” she said. In an interpretation of the law, the state attorney general’s office wrote last year that it does apply to stillbirths. Though not legally binding, the office’s opinion is a prediction of how a court might interpret the law. At least three school districts, including Kinnie’s, denied teachers paid time off following stillbirths because the law didn’t explicitly state that, said Rep. Neal Collins, the sponsor of the 2023 law expanding paid leave to teachers, in a letter asking for the opinion. The bill passed this year will further clarify that point, ensuring districts know immediately to approve paid leave for teachers who experience a stillbirth, Collins said this week. Two of the districts, which Collins declined to name, later offered the teachers paid leave. “As with everything, I’m excited about the progress we made,” he told the SC Daily Gazette. His biggest disappointment, he said, was that the bill didn’t also double the paid time off from six weeks to 12. The House added that in its version, but the Senate took it out. In situations like hers, Kinnie said, it’s hard enough without adding legal ambiguity. Many grieving parents might not think to ask if they can still take their paid leave or want to jump through bureaucratic hurdles right after losing a child, she said. The first few weeks after Kinnie’s son died were a blur, she said. Whether her benefits were correct was far from her mind. “That’s the last thing anybody should be thinking about,” the 34-year-old said. Kinnie ultimately opted not to take the full six weeks. By the time she knew to raise the legal question, she was already back at work and reestablished in her routine, she said. The district instead recouped the unpaid time she took off. Once the new law is in effect, she hopes parents will no longer have to deal with questions over their leave after the trauma of giving birth and losing a child, she said. “It’s one less stress that a grieving parent has to experience,” Kinnie said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
	Extreme Heat Warning until THU 10:00 PM CDT Extreme Heat Warning: Dangerously High Temperatures Through Thursday Evening
	More states try to give patients relief from medical debt Legislators in at least six states this year have approved measures related to patient medical debt. (Photo by Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)Legislators in at least six states this year have approved measures related to patient medical debt, according to a report on legislative policy trends released Wednesday by United States of Care, a nonpartisan think tank. Many Americans are struggling to afford healthcare. A recent survey found that 46% of adults, regardless of their health care insurance status, reported struggling to pay for medical care last year. Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Oregon and Washington enacted laws this year related to medical debt. Hawaii legislators have approved a measure that is awaiting the governor’s signature, and other states have bills in committee. In 18 states, legislators introduced or approved measures related to preserving no-cost preventive care, and a dozen states weighed legislation related to hospital facility fees, according to the report. Louisiana enacted a law that limits the interest that providers and debt collectors can charge on medical debt. The new rule caps the annual interest rate on medical debt for “medically necessary care” at 3%. The law defines such care as services or medications deemed necessary by a licensed health care provider to prevent, diagnose or treat an illness or disease symptoms. Under Washington’s new law, unpaid medical bills can’t be assigned to a debt collector for at least 120 days after the first billing statement in situations where the patient is a pedestrian or bicyclist who has been struck by a motor vehicle. Maine’s law prohibits debt collectors from salary or wage garnishing for medical debt. And Hawaii’s legislature passed a medical debt forgiveness bill that is awaiting the governor’s signature. Indiana enacted a bipartisan measure that requires hospitals to inform patients of financial assistance programs for which they might be eligible before debt collection begins. The law also requires such information to be posted inside hospitals. It also prohibits health care providers from using automated tools to submit health benefits claims without a provider first reviewing the claims. Last year, Alaska Democratic state Rep. Genevieve Mina introduced legislation that prevents medical debt from showing up on patients’ credit reports. Michigan lawmakers introduced a similar bill, which has been referred for a second reading. And on Tuesday, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey proposed an action that would stop medical debt from being reported to consumer credit agencies. New Mexico enacted a law prohibiting hospitals from charging patients facility fees for preventive outpatient care, vaccinations and telehealth, but preserves facility fees for inpatient and emergency care. Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Stateline
	Pillen signs off on Nebraska medical cannabis regulations Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen signs official paperwork to certify Nebraska's May primary election. June 8, 2026. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)LINCOLN — Nebraska’s medical cannabis regulations will become a permanent fixture of the state regulatory code Monday, five days after Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen gave final approval. Pillen announced Wednesday that he had signed the proposed set of regulations from the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission. Under state law, the regulations will take the force of law five days after the governor’s signature and after being filed with the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Office. A temporary set of regulations, identical to the now-approved version, had been set to expire July 15. They will be replaced next week. Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers, whose statutory duty is to review proposed regulations for legal and constitutional validity, signed off on the medical cannabis regulations Tuesday. He said they “do not clearly violate the state or federal Constitutions on their face.” Nebraska AG Hilgers approves medical cannabis regulations; Governor Pillen to review next Pillen did not issue a statement about his approval of the regulations. In September, he rejected a draft set of regulations because they did not yet include a plant limit for licensed cultivators, but much of the rest of the regulations were the same. “If an inclusion of plant population limits for permitted cultivators can be included, I will support the remainder of the proposed emergency regulations to go into effect,” Pillen said in a Sept. 4 letter. “Again, thank you for your work on this matter and answering the call to public service.” Medical cannabis regulators answered Pillen’s request at a Sept. 8 meeting, limiting the state’s four licensed cultivators — the maximum number allowed under the regulations — to grow no more than 1,250 flowering plants at one time. One cultivator has so far passed inspection and has been approved to begin growing. Among other requirements in the regulations: Establishing a “Recommending Health Care Practitioner” directory and requiring patients who want to access Nebraska-licensed dispensaries to go through one of the providers. Restricting purchases of medical cannabis to no more than 5 ounces of medical cannabis in a 30-day period, of which no more than 5 grams can be delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from the same dispensary. Delta-9 THC is the part of cannabis most associated with a “high.” Allowing no more than 12 medical cannabis dispensaries statewide, arranged by judicial district. That would mean one dispensary each in Douglas County (584,526 residents), Lancaster County (322,608 residents), Sarpy/Cass Counties (217,202 residents) and Buffalo/Hall Counties (112,979 residents), according to 2020 census data. Prohibiting the sale of smoking or vaping products and edibles of any kind. Oral tablets with a “thin layer” of flavoring to make the products swallowable would now be allowed. Pillen and Hilgers, when the voter-approved medical cannabis laws took effect in December 2024, said they both believed “serious issues remain regarding the validity of these [ballot measure] petitions under federal law and the Nebraska Constitution.” In the time since, Pillen has taken a more open stance to the Medical Cannabis Commission than Hilgers, who has continued to oppose federal marijuana rescheduling efforts. His office had also threatened possible legal action against the commission if it issued licenses. When that occurred shortly after Oct. 1 last year, a voter-imposed deadline, no such lawsuit came. The next Medical Cannabis Commission meeting is July 20. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Courtesy of Nebraska Examiner
	Tailgate theft prevention: How to keep your tailgate from being stolen Tailgate theft prevention: How to keep your tailgate from being stolenTruck tailgate theft is on the rise in the U.S., especially in urban settings and high-traffic areas. What was once a rare nuisance has become a frequent and frustrating crime—often occurring in broad daylight, in your own driveway, and taking less than a minute to pull off.Why, you may ask, is this crime becoming increasingly common? The answer is simple—modern truck tailgates are valuable, easy to remove, and difficult to trace once stolen. For thieves, it’s a relatively low-risk, high-reward crime. But for truck owners, it can mean a costly and frustrating replacement.RealTruck.com shares several practical steps you can take to significantly reduce your risk of falling victim. From quick DIY deterrents to purpose-built locking systems, protecting your tailgate is easier and more affordable than ever.Why Are Tailgates Stolen?Tailgates are stolen because they’re worth loads of money and they’re easy to take.Modern truck tailgates aren’t just simple hinged panels—they’re full of expensive cameras, sensors, and power components, giving them a high resale value. Depending on the make and model, a tailgate can fetch hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the secondhand market.On top of their value, tailgates are easy to remove, tough to track, and in demand, especially in areas where rust runs rampant. While some steal tailgates for their own trucks, most are looking to flip a quick profit.According to an ABC7 news story posted in 2024, in Costa Mesa, California, the most common targets for tailgate theft include those without tailgate locks, such as the midsize Toyota Tacoma.Which States Report the Most Tailgate Theft?Some states are worse than others, with the highest recorded theft rates present in metropolitan areas with high truck ownership. According to a study published by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NCIB), based on the most recent data available, truck thefts are most common in Texas, with 1,360 reported thefts in 2016–’17, followed closely by California, with 1,039 during the same time period. These two states also contain all five of the top cities for tailgate theft, including:Houston, TX (277)Dallas, TX (242)San Antonio, TX (196)Los Angeles, CA (97)Fresno, CA (79) How Are Tailgates Stolen?One of the biggest reasons tailgate theft is so common is the ease of the process. On most trucks, removing the tailgate requires no tools and takes less than a minute. On most applications, here’s how a tailgate is removed:Open the tailgate.Disconnect the support cables.Lift the tailgate to roughly a 45-degree angle.Pull upward to disengage it from the hinges.That’s it. Because most tailgates aren’t physically locked to the truck bed, a thief can easily make away with your truck’s valuable tailgate in minutes.How to Keep Your Tailgate from Being StolenPreventing tailgate theft comes down to one simple principle—make your truck a harder target than the one next to it. Most thieves are looking for a quick and easy score. Often, small deterrents are enough to make them move on to the next target.There are two main approaches to reducing the risk of tailgate theft: simple DIY methods and secure, purpose-built products.DIY SolutionsIf you’re looking for a fast, low-cost way to reduce the risk of tailgate theft, these DIY methods are a great place to start. These methods don’t require special tools or advanced installs—just a little time.The Hose Clamp MethodThe hose clamp method is one of the most popular and affordable tailgate theft deterrents. By placing a standard hose clamp around the tailgate hinge on the side that allows removal, you physically block the tailgate from being lifted off the truck bed.This solution prevents quick, tool-free removal, adds time to the theft process, and makes your truck less appealing to opportunistic thieves. While not foolproof, the hose clamp method is a solid deterrent, as most thieves won’t risk getting caught.For added security, consider using a keyed hose clamp, which requires a specific tool to remove.Park Close to a Wall or Parking PillarParking your truck strategically can make a big difference. If you can back into a parking space close to a wall, pole, or pillar, you limit how far the tailgate can open. Since removal requires lowering the tailgate to around 45 degrees, restricting that movement can prevent theft altogether.Parking in a spot that obstructs tailgate access is an effective solution, especially in public parking areas scouted by opportunistic thieves.Park in a GarageIt sounds obvious, but it’s one of the most effective solutions.Parking in a garage, whether at home or in a secured structure, limits access to your truck. Fewer eyes and less opportunity mean a much lower chance of theft.If the garage isn’t available, well-lit areas with security cameras are the next best option.Etch VIN on the TailgateOne of the biggest reasons tailgates are so easily stolen is due to how untraceable they are. Without a VIN (vehicle identification number) or any identifiers, thieves can easily swipe and resell them without repercussions. One way to combat this factor is to etch your vehicle’s VIN into the tailgate in a non-visible area, like the jambs. Even if the tailgate leaves the vehicle, there’s still an identifier marker that can be used to locate the stolen item.Use Factory LockMany modern pickup trucks have a factory-installed lock (electric or manual) that can be used to secure the tailgate in the closed position. When engaged, thieves will have a far more difficult time lowering the tailgate, a process necessary to remove the tailgate.If your truck didn’t come with a factory lock, consider a purpose-built tailgate security product. What to Do If Your Tailgate is StolenIf you’ve already been the victim of tailgate theft, don’t panic—there are a few important steps to take right away.File a police report: Doing so creates an official record of the theft and may be required for insurance claims.Document the loss: Take photos of your truck and gather any relevant details (make, model, condition of the tailgate).Contact your insurance company: Comprehensive auto insurance may cover tailgate theft, depending on your policy.Check local listings: Browse online marketplaces in your area as you might spot your tailgate being resold. Don’t confront the seller yourself. Reach out to law enforcement before taking action.Replace and upgrade: When replacing your tailgate, consider adding a lock or security device to reduce the risk of repeat theft.FAQsQ: How Long Does It Take to Steal a Tailgate?A: In most cases, less than a minute. Experienced thieves can remove a tailgate in 30 seconds or less.Q: Which Trucks Are Most Commonly Targeted for Tailgate Theft?A: The most common targets for tailgate theft are full-size pickup trucks—especially high-volume models like the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra, and Ram 1500—due to their popularity, interchangeable parts, and high resale value.Q: Does Car Insurance Cover a Stolen Tailgate?A: Yes, if you have comprehensive coverage. Liability-only policies typically won’t cover theft.Q: How Much Does It Cost to Replace a Stolen Tailgate?A: Costs vary widely, but modern tailgates with cameras and sensors can range from $150 to $1,200 depending on the options, and that’s secondhand. Ordering a new tailgate from the dealership can easily cost over $5,000.Q: Is the Hose Clamp Method Actually Effective?A: Yes, as a deterrent. It won’t stop a determined thief, but it adds enough difficulty to make most move on.Q: Will My Truck Alarm Go Off if Someone Tries to Steal My Tailgate?A: In most cases, no. Factory tailgates are rarely tied to the alarm system, except for some specific exceptions, like the GMC Sierra EV.Q: Why Is the Toyota Tacoma So Commonly Targeted for Tailgate Theft?A: The Toyota Tacoma is one of the most frequently targeted vehicles for tailgate theft for several reasons. According to an article posted by Jalopnik in late 2025, the primary reason for the increase in thefts is due to how easy Tacoma tailgates are to steal. While some newer, higher-trim models have locks, many owners aren’t in the habit of locking them. If left unlocked, it only takes a couple of seconds to drop the tailgate, disconnect the cables, and lift the gate.This story was produced by RealTruck.com and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	What Iowa law says about saving children, pets from hot cars While Iowa has no specific laws about breaking into vehicles to save kids or animals from the heat, the state's "Good Samaritan Law" might apply in some cases.
	Why press releases alone aren't enough anymore, and what PR teams are doing about it Why press releases alone aren't enough anymore, and what PR teams are doing about itGetting a press release out used to be the job. Now it's the starting point.According to PR Newswire's 2025 State of the Press Release Report, 33% of PR professionals say their biggest challenge is not generating the media pickup they expected. That number has stayed stubbornly high, and it reflects something structural. The way people find information has changed, and communications strategies are catching up.Gartner predicts some earned media budgets could double by 2027. The reason, as reported by Inc., is that AI is replacing traditional search as the primary way consumers discover brands, drawing heavily from earned, third-party sources when building its answers.PR Newswire shares insights into why communications strategies now demand a coordinated approach to break through the noise and capture the attention of fractured audiences and AI bots.How AI search is changing brand discoveryAI-powered search tools no longer return a list of links. They synthesize, summarize, and recommend, pulling from sources that aren't determined by ad spend.Similarweb's 2026 Generative AI Brand Visibility Report found that 35% of U.S. consumers now use AI at the product discovery stage, compared to 13.6% who use traditional search. AI holds a more than 2-to-1 advantage at every stage of the purchase funnel until the final transaction. By the time a consumer opens a search engine, the shortlist is often already formed.Similarweb also tracked what happens when AI platforms send visitors to websites: In its data, those visitors convert at a 7% rate, compared to 5% from Google referrals. The volume is lower, but the intent is higher.For brands not appearing in AI responses, the loss is invisible. No bounce rate, no impression count. The consumer just moves on.Crafting content specifically for discovery and summarization by AI models, a practice sometimes called generative engine optimization (GEO), is a skill most PR teams haven't had to develop until now. As Courtney Sandora, owner of marketing consultancy Go Social, told Inc.: "AI doesn't rank brands like Google. It learns narratives from trusted sources.”On the media relations side, the volume problem hasn't gotten easier either. According to Cision's 2026 State of the Media Report, more than half of all journalists receive more than 50 pitches per week. Generic pitches will be deleted.What a modern campaign actually requiresThe multichannel approach isn't new. What's changed is why it matters and what it needs to accomplish: a consistent drumbeat of authoritative content that both journalists and AI systems will trust.That starts with a clear foundation before any content is produced:One clear takeaway. If the core message is ambiguous, every downstream asset suffers.A defined audience, including the AI tools they use to discover information.A "so what." Why this story matters, right now, to this reader.A one-sentence summary that can anchor every format without contradiction.From there, the goal is to repurpose the story, not duplicate it.The content types doing the workLuckily, many communicators are already using the exact types of content that AI models are learning from to build summaries and generate answers. “PR pros are perfectly positioned to adapt,” Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina explains. “The goal is a large, visible digital footprint, but with AI, it’s more about providing rich, descriptive content that the AI can understand and recommend. It’s less about traditional links and more about ensuring your brand and expertise are well-represented in text.”According to Cision’s State of the Press Release Report, 91% of communicators repurpose their press release content. This coordinated push of multiple content types across earned, owned, paid, and shared channels, paired with the right distribution strategies, ensures a consistent message LLMs use as authoritative signals. Different content types surfaced in different places also help to ensure a brand’s story reaches the right audiences in the right places at the right time. PR Newswire Press releases remain the standard format for verified announcements. Cision's report found 66% of journalists still want news through this channel. A well-structured release that is factual, organized, and clearly sourced is also among the most AI-discoverable formats a team can produce. Despite past reports that the press release is dead, press releases are a credible resource with a structured format that can even include FAQs—a goldmine for LLMs.Personalized pitches matter more as inboxes get fuller. With most journalists receiving more than 50 pitches a week, a pitch that doesn't demonstrate familiarity with the reporter's beat gets deleted. One journalist surveyed by Cision put it directly: “Think deeply about why you are pitching me a story idea, then show me in the pitch that you understand why I would want to bite on it as editorial content." Simply put: Do the homework.Earned-media articles are bylined, editorially compliant pieces that can be placed in third-party publications. Newsrooms are dwindling, and editors need content. With articles, brands can help editors fill in content gaps. Earned pickups satisfy AI's preference for independent, third-party sources, contribute to the citation pool AI draws from, and reach audiences through editorial environments that carry their own authority. Gartner’s forecast is based on earned media’s influence on AI search.Blog posts on owned channels extend reach and signal consistency. Sixty-seven percent of communicators are already repurposing press releases into blog posts, according to the 2025 State of the Press Release Report. Regular, substantive owned content tells search engines and LLMs that a brand has standing in its field.Video travels in ways text doesn't. Thirty-two percent of journalists value multimedia content from PR teams, including video, per Cision's State of the Media Report. Subtitles and transcripts aren't optional; they're how video content gets indexed and cited across platforms.Social content works best when it's built for amplification, not just distribution. The 2025 Cision-PRWeek Comms Report found 53% of PR professionals consider branded social among the most effective formats for influencing behavior, and 52% identified employees as the most effective influencer type.Data visualizations and infographics give journalists something they can use directly. Nearly half of journalists in the 2026 State of the Media Report said they actively want original data and research from communications teams. A well-made infographic also travels long after initial placement, shared across platforms.Building the record that AI learns fromA failure to adapt to the new rules of content discovery means ceding the narrative to competitors or, worse, to misinformation. The stakes are no longer just about getting coverage; they are about creating a steady drumbeat of content in the digital record.A press release alone is not enough. A campaign that combines distribution, earned placement, owned publishing, and social amplification increases the chances of citations, and each piece reinforces the others over time. AI systems learn from that consistent record when forming the recommendations that a growing share of consumers are acting on.Here are four practices that hold this together.Plan the full campaign before publishing anything. A press release written without a downstream pitch, blog post, and social strategy in mind is a missed opportunity.Keep the message consistent, not uniform. The core facts stay the same across formats. Tone and length shift to fit the channel.Repurpose with a purpose. A press release becomes a blog post; that post becomes social copy; the data becomes an infographic. Each version should serve a distinct role, with the content being tailored to each platform.Measure the whole picture. Pickup, reach, AI-search citations, and social engagement, together tell the story that any one metric can't.The brands that show up in AI recommendations didn't get there by accident. They earned coverage, published consistently, and built a record that AI systems could learn from. That's the new job.This story was produced by PR Newswire and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Have you seen these suspects? Crime Stoppers wants to know! Crime Stoppers of the Quad Cities wants your help catching two fugitives. It’s an Our Quad Cities News exclusive. You can get an elevated reward for information on this week’s cases: JOSHUA AVILA, 33, 5'9", 220 pounds. Wanted by Rock Island County Sheriff's Office for violation of murder and violent offender against youth registration. ZACHARY [...]
	The special green card option for doctors The special green card option for doctorsThe Physician National Interest Waiver (PNIW), which is a subset of the EB-2 National Interest Waiver visa, is one of the most direct paths to a U.S. green card for foreign doctors. It allows qualifying physicians to self-petition under the EB-2 visa category without a job offer and without going through the permanent labor certification Program Electronic Review Management (PERM), as long as they work full-time in a designated underserved area for five years. The process can be complex and includes interim check-ins throughout the service period, but it can also offer multiple advantages over other green card pathways.This article is informed by real-world insights from Manifest Law’s practicing immigration attorneys. It reflects not only what the law says, but also how USCIS officers are currently applying that law, and where risks are increasing.Key takeaways:The Physician NIW is a subcategory of the EB-2 NIW immigrant visa, but it has a different statutory framework and compliance requirements.Every state health department handles the public interest attestation differently. Delays here are one of the most common reasons filings slip.Miscounting prior clinical service is one of the most expensive Physician NIW mistakes. Getting it wrong can cost years of credit.Miss the 120-day interim evidence deadline at year two, and USCIS can deny your I-485 and revoke your I-140.What is the Physician NIW?The Physician National Interest Waiver is a pathway for certain EB-2-eligible physicians to qualify for a green card. Most EB-2 applicants who apply through the National Interest Waiver (NIW) must satisfy the three-prong Dhanasar test to argue their work is in the national interest of the U.S. Congress created a separate statutory pathway for physicians, allowing certain practicing doctors to bypass that test entirely if they commit to work for five years in an underserved area of the country.Who qualifies for the Physician NIW?To qualify for a Physician NIW visa, you must meet all four of the following requirements:Hold an M.D., D.O., or equivalent foreign medical degree (or demonstrate exceptional ability in medicine or science)Work full-time in clinical practice for an aggregate of five years. Time worked in a qualifying area before filing generally counts, but time in J-1 status does notWork in a qualifying practice site: HPSA, MUA, MUP, MHPSA (psychiatrists only), or a VA facilityReceive a public interest attestation letter from a state health department or federal agencyOnly M.D. and D.O. holders (and their foreign equivalents) who work in primary care or as specialty physicians qualify.Who doesn’t qualify for Physician NIW?Dentists, chiropractors, podiatrists, and optometrists are not eligible for the Physician NIW but could explore the regular NIW as a pathway to permanent residency.How to apply for the Physician NIWApplying for a PNIW requires you to get a qualifying position before you submit an EB-2 PNIW visa petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Your petition will require a handful of other forms, and cannot be approved until after you complete your five years of eligible service.Confirm your practice location is eligible for the PNIW. It must hold a current Health Professional Shortage Area, Medically Underserved Area, Medically Underserved Population, or Mental Health Professional Shortage Area (psychiatrists only) designation, or be a VA facility.Obtain an employment contract for full-time clinical practice. The contract must be for a qualifying site, and USCIS generally requires it to be dated within six months of when you file the visa petition.Obtain the attestation letter from your state department of health or a federal agency. Each state has its own process to get a letter. An immigration attorney can help you understand your relevant state’s requirements and process.File Form I-140 and other required forms. USCIS Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, is used to petition for an EB-2 immigrant visa. You’ll also submit your work contract, attestation letter, proof of degree, medical license, and documentation of the site’s shortage designation. Premium processing is available for a faster decision.Wait for a current priority date. Once your I-140 is approved, you must wait until your priority date (your place in line for a visa) is current. At that time, a visa will be available for you, and you can submit the actual application for an EB-2 immigrant visa. Your priority date may be current at the time you submit I-140, allowing you to file both concurrently.Apply for a green card. The application process requires Form I-485 for adjustment of status if you currently live in the U.S. with valid status. If you are living abroad, you will instead go through consular processing. In either case, USCIS will not approve your green card application until the full five-year service is complete.Meet all interim evidence deadlines. USCIS requires you to submit interim evidence within 120 days of your I-140 approval’s second anniversary. Miss it, and USCIS can deny your I-485 and even revoke your I-140 petition. As you complete your five years of service, you also need to report any changes in your position or location to USCIS.Your priority date is the day USCIS receives your EB-2 PNIW petition. Once that date becomes current on the USCIS Visa Bulletin, you’re eligible to move forward with your green card application.How long does it take to get a Physician NIW?USCIS will not approve Form I-485 until your five-year service requirement is fully documented, so most physicians can expect at least five years from filing Form I-140. Beyond completing your service time, current I-485 processing times are nine months or more.Physicians from India and China will likely face longer wait times because of high demand and per-country caps on EB-2 visas.What should you look for in a Physician NIW lawyer?The Physician NIW has more moving parts than most green card petitions: a five-year service commitment, interim evidence deadlines, state attestation letters, and a priority date that may not be current when you are ready to file. The right lawyer will track necessary deadlines and handle your petitions and application so that you can focus on your day-to-day work.When evaluating a law firm, look for:Specific Physician NIW experience: The statutory framework and compliance requirements are different from standard EB-2 and EB-2 NIW work.State attestation know-how: Every state health department handles the public interest letter differently, and delays here are one of the most common reasons filings slip.Clear guidance on the J-1 exclusion: Miscounting prior clinical service is one of the most expensive mistakes in a Physician NIW case. In some cases, you also need to file for a J-1 waiver.Clear communication. While there’s significant waiting in the PNIW process, there are also interim deadlines you need to hit. A good lawyer will be able to track those deadlines and clearly communicate what you need to provide.FAQs on Physician NIWsCan I self-petition for a Physician NIW?Yes. The Physician NIW allows self-petitioning, so you do not need an employer sponsor to file Form I-140. You do need a qualifying employment contract and an attestation letter, but neither requires an employer to file the petition for you.Does J-1 time count toward the five years for a Physician NIW?No. Time in J-1 status does not count toward the five-year service requirement for a Physician NIW. That’s true even if you were working in a qualifying underserved area with your J-1. The clock only starts when you transition to another qualifying nonimmigrant status, such as H-1B.Can I change employers during the five years?Yes, you can complete your five years of PNIW service across multiple employers or positions, as long as you remain working full-time in a qualifying shortage area or VA facility. The five-year requirement is aggregate, so time at multiple qualifying employers counts cumulatively.This story was produced by Manifest Law and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Untold casualties and humanitarian needs: What to know a week from Venezuela's quakes Here's a look at some of the major developments since major back-to-back earthquakes rocked Venezuela on June 24, devastating parts of a country already reeling from crisis after crisis.
	Kids line up to get autographs from the Savannah Bananas at the John Deere Classic In the words of Gwen Stefani: Bananas.
	States where homeowners with fair credit struggle most to access home equity States where homeowners with fair credit struggle most to access home equityAmerican homeowners are sitting on a potential goldmine. By the end of 2025, total aggregate home equity in the United States reached a staggering $17 trillion. On average, this translates to roughly $295,000 in built-up property wealth per mortgaged homeowner.This massive cushion represents financial security on paper, but in reality, there’s a slowly widening chasm between the homeowners who hold this equity and those who can actually use it. For the millions of Americans carrying a fair credit score between 640 and 699, accessing wealth through traditional channels has become something of an uphill battle.Lending standards vary across state lines, meaning geography is one of several factors that affect who gets approved and who gets locked out of their own equity. Splitero has leveraged data from The Mortgage Reports, Experian, ATTOM, Realtor.com, and more to detail the states where this impact is greatest and why.The credit score gatekeeping problemTraditional financial institutions often view home equity lines of credit and home equity loans through a risk-averse lens. Since home equity products act as a second lien, they sit behind your primary mortgage. This means that if you were to default, the primary lender is paid first, leaving the equity lender to absorb the remaining risk.To protect themselves, traditional lenders price loans by credit tier. If your FICO score sits in the fair range, you likely won’t qualify for the lower rates offered to borrowers with good or excellent credit; in some cases, you may not qualify at all. In practice, that means a higher interest rate, a bigger monthly payment, or an outright denial.When looking at how different interest rates affect monthly payments on a typical $50,000, 15-year home equity loan, it highlights the compounding cost of traditional equity borrowing across different credit tiers: Splitero For a homeowner with fair credit, accessing the same exact pool of funds costs over $10,000 more in interest than a neighbor with excellent credit. Compounding this effect, specifically in a tightening credit market, is that a fair credit score may just mean an outright denial in some states.The state-by-state equity picture: Not all homes are equalEquity dispersion across the country varies greatly on a state-by-state basis, with some homeowners in key states having greater housing wealth than others. A property is considered “equity-rich” when the combined loan balance is no more than 50% of its estimated market value; the owner holds at least 50% equity. ATTOM Data outlined the state-level breakdown of equity-rich homes across the country based on data from the first quarter of 2026: Splitero High-appreciation and equity-rich states like Vermont, California, and portions of the Mountain West and Northeast show home equity levels soaring. However, a high concentration of equity-rich homes does not automatically guarantee easy access. In areas where values rose quickly, some lenders apply tighter terms or lower borrowing limits as a hedge against local price corrections.Home equity line of credit debt across the country has increased steadily in recent years. Experian data from 2022-2024 shows that average balances increased from $41,045 to $45,157 during that time period.When potentially inflated housing prices are combined with increased overall debt, it can be a red flag for certain lenders. As a result, potential borrowers with fair credit scores may face stricter traditional underwriting guidelines.A tightening environment: What 2026 means for borrowersThe macroeconomic landscape of 2026 has further added to the challenges borrowers face. As lenders face tighter regulatory capital requirements and shifting portfolio risks, many have implemented more defensive lending positions. Refi.com business manager Kyle Bass outlined in a conversation with Realtor.com that increased mortgage delinquencies and a softening housing market are two of the driving forces behind this tightened environment.Prime-rate borrowers can still secure lines of credit with relative ease. However, tightening debt-to-income caps and the push for higher minimum credit scores can harm potential borrowers with fair credit scores. A FICO score of 600 that may have gotten through an approval pipeline a few years ago may now trigger reviews, lower borrowing limits, or automated rejections.What homeowners should know before they applyIf you’re looking to access your home’s equity and you have a fair credit score, navigating your options requires a strategic approach. Consider the following tips.Assess your true equity position: Calculate your current loan-to-value ratio using recent comparable sales in your neighborhood, as this is what lenders and investment partners will look at to see how much accessible equity you have.Avoid headline interest rates: Traditional lenders love to advertise low introductory APRs, but those rates are typically reserved for borrowers with very good to excellent credit scores. Always ask for a personalized disclosure of pricing to know what your rates may be.Evaluate the best product for your needs: If you have steady income and excellent credit, a traditional HELOC may serve you well. However, if you fall into the fair credit tier and can’t afford a hefty monthly payment, explore alternatives like a home equity investment, which can give you access to cash while keeping your monthly payments low.Your home equity represents years of hard work, mortgage payments, and market growth. A single credit score shouldn’t stand between you and the financial flexibility you deserve. By looking beyond typical frameworks, you can confidently choose a financial instrument that puts your home’s wealth back where it belongs. Before accessing your home equity, it’s worth speaking with a qualified financial advisor who can weigh your specific circumstances.This story was produced by Splitero and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Cities where Americans are buying second homes at record rates and who is buying them Cities where Americans are buying second homes at record rates and who is buying themThe desire to own a secondary home somewhere else in the country has never been stronger for Americans. Whether it’s somewhere with a lake or a mountain view, or just fewer people, owning a second home is a pursuit of many, and the COVID-19 pandemic offered the perfect opportunity to achieve that goal with heavily cut interest rates and cheaper pricing.In the years since, demand has come down from its peak. SellMyTimeshareNow’s analysis of Federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data found that mortgaged second-home purchases dropped roughly 66% from their 2021 peak, falling from 257,547 to 88,158 in 2025.This correction was largely driven by elevated interest rates post-pandemic and the high median cost of vacation properties. That number, however, undercounts the real level of activity as many affluent buyers are utilizing cash to sidestep the mortgage market entirely.The demand for vacation homes is real, but it’s unevenly distributed and concentrated among older, wealthier and more geographically flexible buyers. This has resulted in a specific set of markets across the country emerging as the primary beneficiaries. AnyWho has examined data from the U.S. Census Bureau, National Association of Home Builders, Realtor.com, the National Association of Realtors, Fortune, and more to show where buyers are going and why.The scale of second-home activityU.S. Census Bureau data shows roughly 7.5 million homes are classified as seasonal, recreational, or for just occasional use as of 2023. These broad categories include vacation cabins, lakefront houses, beach houses and normal second homes that are used intermittently. They also found that these properties were heavily concentrated in some of the geographies you’d expect: lake towns, mountain resorts and small rural communities.Further, the National Association of Home Builders index tracks construction in second-home areas. While mortgaged second-home purchases have fallen by roughly two-thirds since their 2021 peak, the NAHB construction data from 2024 shows that new construction designated for that purpose remained at an all-time high. This is indicative of many wealthy buyers skirting the mortgage market with cash.It also shows how half the nation’s second homes are concentrated in a remarkably small number of congressional districts. Coastal Florida, coastal New England, the Upper Midwest lake country, and mountain resorts in Colorado, Utah and the Carolinas dominate. By studying where second homes are clustered, you can better understand the places where geography, accessibility and lifestyle intersect for the American upper-middle class.Who is buying: The buyer profile in 2025 and 2026The second-home buyer of 2025 looks different from the pandemic-era buyer of 2020, which is a trend that has carried into 2026. There are three distinct groups driving most of the activity today:1. Baby boomers cashing outBoomers reclaimed their position as the largest homebuying cohort in 2025, per Realtor.com data. Many are equity-rich after decades of primary residences that were increasingly mortgage-free. For some boomers, making second-home purchases as part of a broader transition toward retirement feels like a natural next step.These individuals sell a large primary home in an expensive major city, then buy a smaller replacement home in a lower-cost city. The remaining equity then goes toward a vacation property. The upper end of this cohort also uses cash, meaning their movement isn’t recorded in mortgage data at all.2. Millennials inheriting and co-buyingThe great wealth transfer is also finally starting to reshape the second-home market, too. As the Silent Generation and early boomers pass down their assets, a meaningful group of millennials are entering the second-home market for the first time. Younger millennials are still frugal, per home buying data from Motley Fool, with a median home purchase price of $250,000, but their older counterparts are acquiring more property through inheritance or co-purchase agreements.3. High-earning hybrid workersThe third buyer group is the one that is most associated with the pandemic: dual-income households with remote or hybrid flexibility. These individuals treat a second home as more of a secondary base of operations as opposed to a vacation home. These buyers can range in age and generation, but typically have household incomes over $200,000 to be able to afford this lifestyle.Where they're buying: The regional breakdownWhere these groups are purchasing homes is spread out across the country, but there are a few key trends defining the moves. Based on data from Realtor.com, GoBankingRates, the Wealth Enhancement Group, Pacaso and Fox Business, these markets are seeing the most growth:The Southeast Coast and Gulf: High Demand, Accessible Entry PointsFlorida dominates the national second-home market. It is home to five of the top 20 counties in many luxury second-home rankings and appears consistently from an investment perspective. The Florida panhandle, Gulf County, Walton County and Okaloosa Island in particular have emerged as the most active corridor, driven by white-sand beaches and relatively accessible flights.North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, also appears in many reports, reflecting the same drive to coastal demand that has made the Grand Strand one of the most accessible beach markets on the East Coast.The Mid-Atlantic Shore: Drive-To Proximity WinsCape May County, New Jersey, topped Pacaso’s luxury ranking by a wide margin, the result of its combination of coastal access, historic character and close proximity to Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore. The Jersey Shore broadly has seen sustained second-home interest from buyers seeking beach access without the logistics associated with flying, and Cape May’s unique Victorian architecture creates a natural appeal.The Delaware beaches of Rehoboth, Bethany and Dewey also operate in the same region, drawing D.C. and Baltimore buyers looking for proximity over name prestige.New England: From Prestige Markets to Underdog PicksBarnstable County near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, remains in the top five second-home markets nationally by transaction volume. However, it is increasingly a market of established owners holding rather than new buyers entering.Prices have gone up sharply since 2020 and the inventory remains thin. The underdog picks in this part of New England are all migrating inland: the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, specifically Meredith and Wolfeboro, and the coastal Maine communities north of Portland.The Mountain South and Appalachian Corridor: Affordability Meets SceneryThe Smoky Mountains region, anchored by Gatlinburg and Sevierville, Tennessee, is one of the most sought-after second home and vacation home regions in the country, not by luxury transaction value, but by volume. The area attracts buyers who want mountain scenery and cabin ownership at price points that remain cheap compared to the rest of the country. The short-term rental market provides a clear income offset to this.Asheville, North Carolina, and the surrounding Blue Ridge communities all serve a similar function, albeit at a slightly higher price point. This area draws buyers from Atlanta, Charlotte and the Research Triangle.The Midwest: Underappreciated and Increasingly Sought-AfterGoBankingRates identified Michigan and Wisconsin as hosting some of the hottest housing markets in the country. The second home dynamic is a meaningful part of that story. The Upper Midwest lake country, anchored by Vilas County, Wisconsin, the Traverse City area in northern Michigan, and the Lake Michigan shoreline, offers lakefront property at low price points.For Chicago buyers in particular, the Wisconsin Northwoods and Michigan’s Lower Peninsula are the primary second home destinations.The West: Constrained Supply, High StakesWestern second-home markets are considered to be the most supply-constrained in the country. Colorado’s resort corridor of Summit County, Eagle County and Pitkin County, for instance, have seen median second-home prices skyrocket above $1 million. This limits the buyer pool to the upper quartile of wealth distribution.The more accessible Western alternatives see buyers migrating outwards. The Bend, Ore., Ketchum, Idaho and Sun Valley corridor, and Montana’s Flathead Lake region are all absorbing demand from buyers priced out elsewhere. In California, the second-home geography concentrates around Lake Tahoe, the Central Coast near Paso Robles and Cambria, and the Palm Springs desert.The community trade-off: What influx means locallyThe communities that are absorbing all of the demand are not passive recipients. Second-home concentrations create a noticeable set of economic and social dynamics that play out consistently across the country. Regardless of whether these communities are in the Wisconsin Northwoods, the New Jersey Shore, the Tennessee Smokies or Lake Tahoe, the impacts are similar.First, the fiscal upside is real. Second-home owners pay property taxes without proportionally consuming the local services of the area. Children typically aren’t being sent to local schools and municipal services aren't being used, yet these individuals contribute heavily to the tourism economies of the areas through food, retail, and general service spending. This often results in property tax revenue from second homes serving as a form of subsidization year-round.However, the housing affordability problem is also equally real. When second-home buyers enter a local market, they are usually competing against local buyers who have less capital. Academic research published in Progress in Planing journal during the pandemic found that second-home influx into rural and small-town markets created devastating disparities and displacement of local buyers and renters. Price appreciation that outpaced local income growth and reduced supply of long-term rental housing were a few of the major downsides.The tension becomes most acute in small markets. A town of a couple thousand people having to absorb several hundred new second-home purchases over a short period of time is far more disproportional than a larger community facing the same issues. Gatlinburg, the Northwoods towns, and the Maine midcoast are a few areas that are hit hardest. Workforce housing availability, infrastructure strain during peak travel seasons, and the social textures of communities where a growing number of houses sit empty during the year are all important issues.What buyers should know before choosing a marketThe most important variable in a second-home purchase isn’t the property itself, but rather the market infrastructure around it. Markets sort into three categories that should shape how a buyer evaluates a purchase:Established markets with thin inventoryEmerging markets with improving fundamentalsHigh-volume rental marketsEstablished markets offer liquidity and proven demand, but appreciation is limited and there is little margin for timing errors. These are the markets where paying the wrong price is punished by slow recovery. On the other hand, emerging markets offer better entry prices and appreciation potential, but the offset is a higher required conviction about the trajectory of local demand and less reliance on short-term liquidity. High-volume rental markets should be viewed more as income-producing assets first and vacation home destinations second. These markets are defined by factors such as cap rates and rental yields, rather than the restaurants and shops nearby.Before committing to an unfamiliar market, it also pays to do your homework on the community itself. Verifying a seller's contact information, reconnecting with a local contact who can give you an honest read on a neighborhood, or simply getting a clearer picture of who your neighbors might be in a small town are all reasonable steps in the due diligence process. A people search can help buyers quickly surface contact details and background information on individuals before any money or trust changes hands.Across all categories, the financing environment is an underlying factor. Second-home mortgages carry a premium over primary residence rates. Lenders will scrutinize your debt-to-income ratio strictly and the down payment requirements will be higher. Cash buyers have an inherent structural advantage here, which is partly why the data shows mortgage activity declining despite increased demand. Buyers who need financing should model out their carrying costs at current rates, rather than the rates they expect to see in a couple of years.The second home as a concept has never been more aspirational given housing prices. The markets that support it are specific, the costs are hefty, and the communities absorbing the demand have many trade-offs. For buyers who do the work, though, the entry points are there so long as you know how to read the map.This story was produced by AnyWho and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Bettendorf Superintendent Michelle Morse announces departure Superintendent Michelle Morse has announced her departure from the Bettendorf Community School District in an email sent to families, effective Wednesday.
	Black Hawk College extends president's contract to 2030 The Black Hawk College Board of Trustees has unanimously approved a contract extension for President Dr. Jeremy Thomas through June 30, 2030, recognizing the college’s continued momentum under his leadership and reaffirming its confidence in its future. Dr. Thomas became the college’s president on June 1, 2023 and has successfully completed the original term of [...]
	Davenport opens DREAM applications for homeowners and businesses Davenport is accepting applications through July 31 for new rounds of its DREAM and Commercial DREAM grant programs for homes and businesses.
	Understanding heat exhaustion vs. heat stroke can be lifesaving, doctor says Prompt action in a heat stroke situation can save a life. Here's how you can tell the difference.
	Beating the heat as hundreds gather at TPC Deere Run Various cooling stations will be available throughout the concourse for spectators and athletes alike to get out of the heat.
	School budgets are under pressure nationwide. Here’s what’s driving the cuts. School budgets are under pressure nationwide. Here’s what’s driving the cuts.School districts are under pressure this year.Some of the largest in the country are handing out pink slips. Canceling technology contracts. And even slashing specific medications from employee health plans.As many school boards debate their budgets for the upcoming school year, a Chalkbeat analysis found a common thread: More than half of the country’s 50 largest school districts are poised to or already have made cuts, or are facing a reported deficit.Budget timelines vary from state to state. And it’s not fully clear if this year amounts to the “big shrink” that some in school finance have predicted. But experts say schools are facing a daunting combination of financial roadblocks. Some of them are wildly specific to the times in which we live: rising healthcare costs linked with GLP-1 weight loss medications, immigration fears keeping some students out of school, and rising gas prices.“There are a lot of expenses that are out there that are increasing and the districts don’t have a lot of control over them,” said Michael Griffith, an analyst at the Learning Policy Institute who studies school finance.But districts are also feeling the impact of yearslong declines in enrollment.Nearly 30 of the 50 largest districts have recently cited declining enrollment. Most school districts are funded based on how many students they have, so lower enrollment makes it harder to keep up with rising costs.The result: school closures, beloved staff members losing their jobs, and higher class sizes.Some districts, like Broward County in south Florida, say they have little choice. Enrollment in Broward County Public Schools — the sixth-largest in the country — has declined by nearly 40,000 students, or 17%, over the past decade.In what the district has billed to the community as a “realignment,” Broward is cutting its staff by 1,000 positions. The district is also closing six schools, with more closures possible. Superintendent Howard Hepburn said these are the toughest decisions he’s had to make in his two years leading Broward.“It costs us a lot of money on the operation side, so we’re spending more money on operating the school rather than spending a lot of money on actually educating kids in that school and providing all the bells and whistles that come with a school that’s at capacity,” he said.Why are school districts cutting staff and programs?Griffith and other experts say there’s not one overarching cause hurting school budgets.Decades-long enrollment decline is one driving force. This year appears to be a year for reckoning over enrollment for a lot of big school districts.Take Los Angeles Unified, the second-biggest district in the country. Like Broward, the district has hemorrhaged students over the last decade, with a 28% enrollment decline, according to state data. In February, L.A. Unified took steps to lay off as many as 3,200 people, though about 650 actual layoffs are expected, due to attrition and other strategies.Julien Lafortune, a senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California, said districts in his state this year are confronting enrollment declines of as much as 20%, in the case of some districts in the Los Angeles area. So even while total per student funding has increased in California — a fact politicians often tout — district administrators still have to cut, because they have fewer students.“You can have a situation where funding is going up, but districts are in deficits, are trying to find ways to cut, because the overall student count is going down, and so the total pie of funding is going down,” he said.Enrollment declines themselves have different causes in different districts. For example, the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement has led some families to keep their children home or move away.But there are several other reasons districts and outside experts have cited for cuts or potential budget cuts.Rising inflation, including food and fuel costs, has hit schools “across the board,” Griffith said. Many districts also agreed to teacher pay raises in recent years that are now hard to pay for at their current staffing levels.While states may be funding education at higher levels, federal pandemic relief funding has ended. Some districts still have employees and programs once funded by that money, a fact cited by Philadelphia’s school superintendent in explaining planned budget cuts this year. The same is true in Chicago, where leaders say they are facing a deficit of more than $730 million.Many school districts have not been able to find new local money to offset their rising costs. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the nation’s 14th-largest school district, county officials are balking at raising taxes to cover the school district’s budget request. A Michigan study found voters are rejecting property increases at the ballot at higher rates than in the past.Healthcare costs are also rising, Griffith said. While overall the costs of employer-sponsored plans are going up, the increased use of GLP-1 medications for weight loss is a notable factor. Some districts, including Broward County, are cutting employee coverage of these medications.Regardless of causes, some say that reductions are appropriate. They’ve pointed out that overall, schools are receiving more public funding than ever, even as the country’s test scores have declined.Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, has been an outspoken supporter of legislation passed last year to merge school districts into bigger, more efficient systems with class-size minimums, in order to cut costs.“In the last five years alone, property taxes have increased by over 40% with fewer kids in our schools, fewer opportunities in the classroom, and more inequities from town to town,” he said in a press conference in December.But Griffith said those critiques ignore the difficult reality of budgeting. For example, enrollment declines usually don’t happen evenly, so district officials may have to employ the same number of teachers to maintain state class size standards, even with fewer students.“Can there be efficiencies? Probably, you know, there can be efficiencies just about anywhere, right?” he said. “But the main driver right now is just inflation and the loss of students.”Painful school budget cuts in south FloridaThere may be no better region than south Florida that illustrates the complications of school budgeting this year.Overall the population of the state is increasing, including the number of people under 18. But school enrollment in several big districts like Broward and Miami-Dade Counties has declined. That’s likely due to declining birth rates, immigration policy, and an array of school choice measures giving families options outside of district schools.“I love competition,” Hepburn said. “I support parents’ rights to choose. So as a system, what we have to do to react is actually compete better and market ourselves.”Broward faces a $90 million budget deficit. The district’s budget for the current school year is $5 billion. To try to close the budget gap, district officials are cutting 1,000 positions. Of those, 700 are already vacant — the other 300 will be layoffs.Included in those layoffs are nearly 40 student support instructional specialists, who among other things identify students who may need help with their mental health.Slater Pauff, 14, an eighth grader at Westglades Middle School in Parkland, said the cuts mean he and his classmates will lose an adult he trusts enough to come to with sensitive problems.“It’s just important to have her, because a lot of kids know her, no one else really knows anyone else in the school board ... it’s important to have someone that actually helps,” he said.As the district grapples with layoffs that will go into effect at the end of the school year, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School media specialist Diana Haneski said some of the decisions board members are signing off on don’t make sense at the school level.“It feels like they don’t really understand what it’s like working at school,” she said.This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	How cognitive automation can transform your business How cognitive automation can transform your businessIf you've ever copied/pasted the same thing 47 times while whispering "this is fine" to your laptop, congratulations, you've met the problem that cognitive automation is here to solve.For years, businesses have automated the obvious stuff: moving data from point A to point B, sending emails when a form gets filled out, scheduling posts to publish later. But cognitive automation is different. It's what happens when machines stop just doing tasks and start making decisions about them.In other words, it's automation that doesn't just follow instructions—it thinks (at least a little). It can read, classify, predict, summarize, and decide based on patterns it's learned, not just rules you painstakingly hard-coded during a caffeine spiral in 2019.Here, Zapier digs into cognitive automation and how it can transform a business.What is cognitive automation?Cognitive automation (often called AI automation) adds AI to traditional automation, with the goal of automating tasks that normally require human cognition (perception, understanding, learning, and decision-making).Classic automation thrives on strict rules and tidy inputs. Cognitive systems, on the other hand, can interpret information before acting on it. For example, it can read a casually-written email, extract details from a blurry image or PDF, or spot a purchase pattern hidden inside thousands of transactions—the kind of pattern a human could theoretically find, if that human had infinite patience and no desire to ever feel joy again.Here are the key components that make cognitive automation work:Machine learning (ML): This is what helps AI learn from data over time, so it gets better at its job without being told to. For example, the more call transcripts it reads, the better it gets at spotting hesitation signals.Natural language processing (NLP): NLP lets AI understand how we talk and interact, whether that's a formal contract or a terse Slack email.Computer vision and OCR: This allows automation to "see" and interpret images or scanned documents (like identifying a packaging machine in a picture of an assembly line).Agentic AI: In some setups, multiple AI agents can perceive, reason, act, and collaborate to achieve complex objectives, like managing an entire marketing campaign from content creation to ad placement and budget optimization.Sentiment analysis: This detects the emotional tone behind text or audio recordings (like knowing to prioritize an angry customer email over a simple return request).Cognitive automation vs. RPARobotic process automation (RPA) and cognitive automation are related, but they solve different problems. RPA is best for predictable, rules-based tasks. Cognitive automation is necessary when the system has to interpret information before deciding what to do.RPA is great for automating repetitive, high-volume data entry tasks, like a bot extracting data from a PDF invoice and manually entering it into a legacy ERP system without needing a direct API connection.Cognitive automation helps when the format changes. If an invoice arrives as a scan, payment details come through a voicemail, or a customer explains a problem in plain language, a cognitive system can help interpret that information and move the work forward.In other words, use RPA—or another type of workflow automation—to automate repetitive tasks. Use cognitive automation for processes where the end goal is clear, but the path to it changes every time.Benefits of cognitive business automationCognitive business automation isn't just about doing things faster—it's about doing them smarter. When systems can analyze information, spot patterns, and make judgment calls, you move beyond basic efficiency into actual strategic advantage. Less manual triage. Fewer bottlenecks. More time spent on work that requires a human brain—like creativity, empathy, and knowing when not to hit “reply all.”Complex analysis: It can process large volumes of emails, transcripts, documents, audio, and other unstructured data faster.Adaptability: It can handle more variation than rules-based automation, which is helpful when formats, phrasing, or inputs change.Efficiency: It understands the entire workflow, from trigger to completion. It can reduce the manual review work that slows down routing, triage, and decision-making.Accuracy: Human analysis is prone to bias, fatigue, and simple oversight errors. Cognitive automation reduces these risks, especially in data-heavy fields (though it still needs oversight for higher-stakes work).Scalability: It can help teams handle more volume without adding the same amount of manual effort. Zapier Cognitive automation examplesCognitive automation is most useful when work depends on interpreting something before taking action. Here are a few practical examples:1. Customer serviceSupport teams deal with a constant mix of simple requests, edge cases, and emotionally charged messages. Cognitive automation can help sort that queue before a human ever opens it.For example, AI can analyze an incoming email or voicemail, identify the customer's intent, detect urgency, and send the case down the right path. A billing question might get an automated reply, while a frustrated cancellation request might get escalated to a human agent right away.2. ITIT teams spend a shocking amount of time buried in repetitive tickets (think password resets, access permissions, and "my computer is slow" tickets). Cognitive automation can help triage those requests, suggest known fixes, and document what happened for audit or compliance purposes.3. HRHR teams spend a lot of time reviewing resumes, interview notes, and onboarding documents, much of it in inconsistent formats.A common use case for cognitive automation is initial candidate screening. AI can review incoming resumes, compare them against a set of requirements, and help recruiters prioritize which candidates to review first.4. SalesSales teams collect useful signals everywhere—call transcripts, emails, CRM notes, and meeting summaries. The challenge is turning messy, scattered data into something actionable before the moment passes.Cognitive automation can help by identifying signals like urgency, objections, budget concerns, or competitor mentions, then surfacing the next best action for your rep.5. MarketingMarketing teams often need to pull insights from online reviews, support tickets, surveys, social posts, and product feedback all at once. That's a perfect fit for cognitive automation.Add a brain to your workflowsWhen systems can interpret information, adapt to variation, and make informed decisions, teams stop spending their time translating chaos into structure and start actually using that structure to move faster.Instead of building endless workflows to handle every possible edge case, you build systems that can handle the edge cases for you. That means fewer brittle processes, less manual triage, and more capacity to focus on work that benefits from human judgment.This story was produced by Zapier and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Eldridge officials respond to volunteer fire department Eldridge officials are responding to claims made by the Eldridge Volunteer Fire Department on social media.
	Bix 7 leaders honored by industry groups Two leaders with the Bix 7 have been honored by industry groups for their work putting the event on every year. Laura Torgerud, Operations Director for the Quad-City Times Bix 7, was named an Emerging Industry Leader by the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) on June 24. She earned the distinction [...]
	Traveling this summer? Here are some ways to help you save money. Traveling this summer? Here are some ways to help you save money.There’s no doubt we could all use a getaway this summer. But the costs involved are making it more challenging than ever.Just look at what would-be travelers are saying: Four in 10 Americans say they will not be taking a single trip this summer, with most (52%) saying it’s because they just can’t afford it, according to a recent poll of 5,000 Americans (split evenly by state and generation) conducted by Talker Research and commissioned by Current. Instead they’re trying to achieve goals like saving cash (25%) or paying off debt (22%).So the travel bug is still there, but the funding isn’t. The good news is that you can probably still pull off a summer trip. But you need to get creative about factors like exactly where, when, and how you’re going to pay for it.Current, a consumer fintech banking platform, compiled a list of tips for how to save money during summer travels.“Even though summer travel feels especially expensive this year, there are still ways to make it work,” said Meena Thiruvengadam, a travel expert and publisher of the site TravelWithMeena.com.An example from the Current poll: The most prominent travel trends for this summer include ‘staycations’ (exploring your own city or state) at 32%; and taking ‘microbreaks,’ like long weekends, at 30%.In other words, many people seem to be redesigning their vacation plans to keep them modest and affordable, but not abandoning them altogether. Here are a few ways to do that effectively.Be flexible about timing. Most travelers like to kick off trips on the weekend at a reasonable hour, which is perfectly understandable. But for others who are willing to do the opposite, that represents a money-saving opportunity.“Shift your travel days to depart Tuesday or Wednesday for cheaper flights, and also consider leaving early morning or late at night,” said Britton Williams, a financial planner in Raleigh, North Carolina. Even pushing your ‘summer’ travel out of summer altogether, even if only by a few weeks, can result in major savings. “Travel on the ‘shoulder’ months, like September, which often runs 60% less.”The findings of Expedia’s most recent Air Hacks report: Friday is the cheapest day to fly internationally, while domestically Tuesday is the most affordable, saving 14%. And here’s good news for summer travelers: August is actually the cheapest month to fly abroad.Be strategic with your cards. This will take some homework, but if you have a few different cards in your wallet, know which ones will lead to which benefits. For example, maybe one of them is offering discount packages at a destination you want to visit, or double miles on travel-related purchases.Also consider using a secured charge card to book your travel and make any travel-related purchases. You can only spend the amount of money available in your account, which minimizes risks of debt, and your on-time monthly payment can then help you build your credit history.Another tip: “Connect your rewards programs to maximize your benefits,” recommended Thiruvengadam. “Many airline reward programs offer elite status matching at certain hotel brands, something that can come with money-saving perks like late checkout and waived resort fees.“Also, decline auto insurance at the car rental counter and use a credit card that provides rental car coverage as a benefit.”Use points smarter. You probably have rewards sitting around that you haven’t taken advantage of. In fact 23% of cardholders say they haven’t redeemed anything at all over the past year, according to a 2023 CreditCards.com survey.So make sure to “use your airline miles and hotel points,” urged Thiruvengadam. “Miles and points typically get less valuable and harder to redeem over time, so there’s no reason not to use them in this economy. And make sure you’ve used any hotel night certificates or companion fares that may be set to expire.”Tap savings over plastic. The one thing you want to avoid is a splashy summer trip that gives you a debt hangover for the remainder of the year. In fact, 29% of those plotting summer trips in 2025 were planning to take on debt to do so, according to a Bankrate survey conducted in March of that year.Instead, if you recently enjoyed a tax refund — the average this year was over $3,500, according to the IRS — that’s the kind of windfall you could keep earning on with an account paying higher yield.Every travel dollar you can pay out of savings is a dollar that won’t cost you 20% interest on revolving balances.This story was produced by Current and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	How government fines of over $1M are increasingly targeting immigrants How government fines of over $1M are increasingly targeting immigrantsFirst came the fines: Last year, the Trump administration began aggressively fining immigrants who allegedly stayed in the country past a deportation order. The law allowing these fines had been on the books since 1996, but was rarely used before 2025 — and the original fines were much lower.The Marshall Project dug into how the federal government is imposing steep fines on immigrants while pushing for them to self-deport.As of May, the federal government had issued more than 65,000 fines to immigrants who reportedly have deportation orders but who remain in the U.S., seeking more than $36 billion in total. Some of the individual fines are as high as $1.8 million — $998 per day for the statutory maximum of five years. The Department of Homeland Security also reduced the number of days’ notice that immigrants receive under the federal rule before collection efforts can begin, providing only a window of 15 business days to contest the fine.After the fines came the lawsuits: The Department of Justice began filing civil lawsuits in federal court against a handful of immigrants who had received fine notices but had not yet paid. It started last September as a small trickle of cases in federal court districts from California to Florida. By May, a Bloomberg Law analysis had identified more than 50 lawsuits, some demanding more than $1 million. Essentially, the government is seeking a court-ordered financial judgment against these individuals, which it could then use to seize assets, garnish wages and intercept tax refunds.“It’s a manufactured perfect storm,” said Hasan Shafiqullah, a lawyer with The Legal Aid Society, part of a coalition of nonprofit advocacy groups fighting the immigration fines through an attempted class action lawsuit. Shafiqullah said that many of the people being fined are not just ignoring removal orders — some have pending immigration cases open, or are “present with ICE’s permission on orders of supervision, or otherwise lawfully here.”And now come the debt collectors: A recent investigation by The Lever found government contracts with at least four private companies that secured debt collection deals as DHS began ramping up its efforts to fine immigrants. Another company is doing debt collection work for DHS through a contract with the Department of the Treasury, which manages the account where payments for these fines are deposited.As a result, more immigrants are now receiving collection letters from these private companies seeking steep interest and fees on top of the already massive fines. The Lever’s investigation found at least one $1.8 million fine that ballooned to $2.3 million under these debt collection efforts.To be sure, the government has little hope of collecting most of these debts. So what is the plan?When initially announcing the fines, DHS officials said the agency would forgive all fines and penalties for any immigrant who opted to use the CBP Home mobile app to self-deport. This includes the offer of a free flight home and an “exit bonus,” now set at $2,600, to be paid after their return is confirmed via the app. Officials at DHS declined to say how many people have been paid that bonus, but sent a link to a January press release saying that “there have already been nearly 100,000 users of the CBP Home app,” and more than 2 million immigrants have chosen to “voluntarily” self-deport since January 2025.Some immigration attorneys, however, have said in the past that DHS’ assertions about those offers are misleading. And some demographers have raised questions about the number of immigrants who have left the country.Lawyers representing the immigrants who are fighting these fines say the goal is primarily to scare people or force them to self-deport (even those who had legal status or pending asylum claims). Some of the attorneys say this process also gives the government an avenue to seize whatever money or personal property immigrants have acquired while in the U.S. — or to trap them in debt forever.“They jammed these notices through the administrative process. Now they’re taking them to court and trying to get default judgments,” said Charles Moore, a senior attorney at Public Justice, one of the groups representing the class plaintiffs. He was referring to cases in which immigrants said they were never notified before a judge issued a decision. The federal government is trying to do all of this without any independent review, he said, because “they know the fines themselves are legally dubious” and may target people who should not be fined.“And as much as they can keep this out of the public eye, the better.”In a recent lawsuit filed on behalf of the plaintiffs represented by Moore’s nonprofit, one person said that she never received initial notice of the million-dollar-plus fine from DHS, and didn’t know about it until the Treasury Department seized her joint tax refund. She filed taxes with her husband — a U.S. citizen and active duty service member. She and her husband have four children together, all U.S. citizens, and she has been in the process of applying for legal residency. Now there is a civil judgment against her. The federal government reported her to credit bureaus, claiming she is in default on the debt, damaging her credit.And the debts could soon get even worse for some immigrants. In May, DHS proposed a major increase in a separate category of fines. Under the proposal, the civil penalty would jump from $5,130 to $18,000 for immigrants who received an in absentia removal order, which means they were ordered deported because they did not appear before an immigration judge.Public comment on the rule change closed on June 22. Some of the comments support the fine increase, saying it will shift the burden away from taxpayers — but others note the unlikelihood of the government ever recouping these costs: “Instead of helping the government recover its money, this will just trap people in a huge amount of debt that they won’t be able to escape.”This story was produced by The Marshall Project and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Extreme Heat Warning until THU 10:00 PM CDT Extreme Heat Warning: Dangerously High Temperatures and Humidity Until Thursday Evening
	Ottumwa physician agrees to surrender his medical license (Photo courtesy of the Iowa Board of Medicine)An Ottumwa physician accused by state regulators of failing to comply with an order to submit to a clinical competency evaluation has agreed to surrender his license. Iowa Board of Medicine records indicate Akhtar Ashraf was issued an Iowa medical license in July 1990, and that the board launched an investigation into his practice, which includes diagnostic radiology, in 2023. The board alleges that in June 2025, it issued a confidential order requiring Ashraf to undergo a clinical competency evaluation within 30 days. The board has not publicly disclosed the rationale for issuing that order. Recently, the board said it had determined Ashraf had failed to comply with the order or schedule the competency evaluation. Ashraf, 80, has now indicated that he has chosen to retire from the practice of medicine in Iowa and would like to surrender his license, the board alleges. The Iowa Capital Dispatch was unable to reach Ashraf for comment Monday. Des Moines physician sanctioned The Iowa Board of Medicine has sanctioned Dr. Matthew R. Brown of Des Moines, an Iowa-licensed physician who practices otolaryngology. The board reported that it received a complaint alleging that in March 2024, Brown “exhibited unprofessional and rude behavior” toward coworkers. The board charged Brown with unprofessional conduct and recently issued Brown a citation and warning for the violation as part of a settlement agreement. The board also ordered that Brown pay a $1,00 civil penalty and comply with the December 2025 recommendations of the Professional Resource Center as a result of its evaluation of the matter. Those recommendations include completion of a continuing medical education course that focuses on improving communication in highly emotionally challenging healthcare settings, and that he engage, for at least one year, a professional coach who works with physicians who have “difficulties with elements of emotional competency and communicating effectively when frustrated.” Broadlawns Medical Center’s website indicates Brown is the section chief of the hospital’s Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. The Iowa Capital Dispatch was unable to reach Brown for comment Monday. Courtesy of Iowa Capital Dispatch
	Abortion medication, HPV vaccine laws take effect today in three states A University of Miami pediatrician chats with a 13-year-old patient while administering the HPV vaccine, which research has shown is highly effective against cervical cancer. An Iowa law taking effect July 1 prohibits Iowans under age 18 from consenting to vaccinations related to sexually transmitted diseases and infections such as HPV. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Several laws restricting access to medications that can be used to terminate a pregnancy and others placing limits on minors’ access to sexual and reproductive healthcare — including the HPV vaccine — take effect today in Iowa, Mississippi and Tennessee. Many bills were considered in state legislatures earlier this year that would have added legal restrictions to mifepristone and misoprostol, but only a few made it into law. The 13 states that have near-total abortion bans already have restrictions in place, but some have proposed more in the wake of new methods of obtaining the medications online or by telehealth. A federal lawsuit is also ongoing that will determine whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s rules allowing mifepristone to be dispensed via telehealth will remain in place. That ruling will apply nationwide. Gov. Kim Reynolds signs laws restricting access to abortion pills, HPV vaccine Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute, said the increased efforts to restrict access underscore the importance of shield laws in states that protect abortion access. In Hawaii, provisions strengthening the state’s existing shield laws also take effect today. Those provisions include prohibiting the use or disclosure of patient health information to investigate someone who received reproductive or gender-affirming care and adding malpractice insurance and healthcare contract protections for providers in the state to prevent exorbitant rate increases, Forouzan said. Iowa Iowa’s new law requires medications including mifepristone and misoprostol to be dispensed in person, restricting access by telehealth. Mifepristone and misoprostol are typically used in combination to terminate a pregnancy in the first trimester or to treat miscarriages. Iowa has a six-week abortion ban, which is before many people know they are pregnant. The law also made changes to abortion and pregnancy loss reporting, requiring a provider to report to the state whether a patient took mifepristone or misoprostol within 14 days of a pregnancy loss. It does not require the patient to tell the provider that information, nor does it compel the provider to ask, said Forouzan, but it might come up when a patient is asking questions or raising concerns. “The reporting requirement is something that really has raised alarm bells for us because we know that mandatory state reporting of abortion has a potential to cause a lot of harm and increase the feelings of surveillance that patients experience,” Forouzan said. Lawmakers also adopted a law prohibiting Iowans under age 18 from consenting to vaccinations related to sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that Republican lawmakers said the bill aligned with other state laws on vaccines — the HPV and hepatitis B vaccines were previously exempt. Science has shown the HPV vaccine prevents several strains of human papillomavirus that can be transmitted through sexual activity and potentially cause cervical and other cancers. Mississippi Mississippi passed a law in April adding mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s drug trafficking law, making it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to distribute or intend to distribute the drugs. It takes effect today. Republican lawmakers in Mississippi have said the intent of the bill is to keep mifepristone and misoprostol from being sent to residents and undermining the state’s abortion ban, but providers say it creates more harm, especially for patients experiencing miscarriages. Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a family medicine physician in Texas, told Stateline in March that the law causes confusion and prevents patients from seeking timely care and providers from administering care out of fear. “Healthcare providers are suddenly having to think about laws and rules that have nothing to do with patient safety,” Kumar said. Tennessee Tennessee added new restrictions to medication abortion that allow the state attorney general to bring civil lawsuits and impose fines for violations of the state’s in-person dispensing requirements for medication abortion. Tennessee has a near-total abortion ban, but some states have tried to enforce these laws against providers for prescribing medications to their residents, such as Louisiana, where the attorney general tried unsuccessfully to extradite a provider on charges. The law allows for $10,000 fines per violation, up to $1 million. Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Stateline
	Labor unions, Gray Matters Collective call for I-74 bridge barriers Labor unions from Iowa and Illinois are joining The Gray Matters Collective to call for real, evidence-based suicide prevention on the I-74 Bridge, including physical barriers, prominent crisis hotline signage and emergency phones that connect directly to the 988 Lifeline or local crisis lines. The Barriers to Suicide Act of 2025 (H.R. 3505), a bipartisan [...]
	SNAP is how millions of Americans afford food. Cuts to the program have thrown it into chaos. SNAP is how millions of Americans afford food. Cuts to the program have thrown it into chaos.A missing zero put Sarah’s grocery money in jeopardy. Every month, Sarah receives $219 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for her and her 9-year-old. Sarah works two jobs in food service, one at a senior center and one at a banquet hall, and has relied on SNAP for support ever since her husband died unexpectedly about six years ago. But last year during her annual benefits renewal, one of her employers messed up a number on the required paperwork.It was around Christmas, and Sarah and her daughter were about to take a long-awaited trip from Michigan to Texas to see Sarah’s mother for the holiday. That’s when the letter came. (This article refers to SNAP recipients by their first names only to protect their privacy.) It stated that Sarah would lose her benefits if she didn’t re-complete the paperwork. Before, she had been able to call a caseworker assigned to her who could answer questions. Now, paperwork simply disappeared into a portal. She debated canceling their trip—would it be better to save the travel money to put toward food just in case? She crossed her fingers and headed to Texas anyway, and while there, contacted her job to have them correct the error. She resubmitted with a week to spare. But it was tough to get into the spirit of holiday fun when she was hiding how stressed she was from both her daughter and her mother.It makes you on edge, she told The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Slate, not knowing if you can protect your kid, if you can feed her, all because of something outside your control. She called it a low-grade terror: “You know how that feels, right? Where you’re worried all the time, and it’s like a low burn in your chest, queasiness in the belly.”She was right to worry: After she returned home, a second letter arrived, telling Sarah she’d lost her benefits.SNAP helps over 41 million people in the United States afford food, and under Donald Trump, it’s been thrown into chaos. It’s “completely unprecedented as to what we’re dealing with,” said Gina Plata-Nino, director of SNAP policy and advocacy at the Food Research & Action Center. In July 2025, when the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or H.R. 1, was signed into law, it included the largest cuts to SNAP in history. With that came new work requirements, costs of the program shifting to states, and other sweeping changes that could lead to more than 3 million people losing access within the next few years. Then, in November, the program paused for the first time ever, when the Trump administration refused to fund benefits during the government shutdown, which left many without food assistance for nearly two weeks, a decision that had lasting detrimental effects. People were forced to go hungry, choosing between paying for bills or for food, or not eating to ensure children were fed. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved waivers that allow 18 states to restrict some foods from being purchased with SNAP, creating confusion for retailers and recipients, according to CivilEats. All this is unfolding amid an affordability crisis with continued high costs for medical care, housing, and, of course, food.“The government has shown us what they think is important in terms of keeping people fed and healthy and able to participate in our economy, and they don’t care,” said Lindsay Allen, health economist and policy researcher at Northwestern University, adding that health care and food have been used as political pawns.Even when benefits do end up coming through, the endless chaos, changes to the program, and fear around access to food are taking a toll. After receiving the second notice, Sarah fought to get her benefits back. It turns out that a communal caseworker never got to the resubmitted paperwork. After over an hour on the phone, her SNAP benefits were reinstated—but somehow she got less by about a fourth. “If you want to talk about mental health strain, that kind of thing can happen at any time, and does,” she said. She’s still figuring out how to make up for the fact that her monthly benefits are lower.Food insecurity, defined by the USDA as the economic and social condition of having limited or uncertain access to adequate food, affects some 50 million Americans. Changes to SNAP could deepen existing food insecurity—and food insecurity itself is linked to anxiety, depression, and psychiatric disorders. There is nothing that being hungry does not worsen. Hunger and mental health issues feed off each other, said Mariana Chilton, a professor in the department of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She’s done extensive research showing that food insecurity is strongly associated with major maternal depressive symptoms; she points to research focused on the association between food insecurity and suicidal ideation and attempts in teenagers. Children are profoundly impacted by hunger, with consequences for mental health and development, among other things, extending far past childhood.Some experts have long called for benefit amounts to be increased, or for other changes to make the program more accessible and responsive to needs. A 2023 analysis from the Urban Institute found that SNAP benefits weren’t keeping up with rising food costs in 99 percent of counties. Current cuts are making everything worse.SNAP participation has historically reduced the likelihood that a given household will be food insecure by 30 percent. Research led by Anna Austin, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of North Carolina, found that policies that increase the number of households eligible to receive SNAP benefits contributes to reductions in poor mental health and suicidality. She noted that when people gain access to SNAP, they show improvements in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Removing the cognitive strain of where food will come from also can reduce stigma and feelings of shame.There’s also a general sense of unease around changes to SNAP. Some described it as fear: fear around where a next meal will come from. Fear over how someone will pay for a child’s birthday cake. Fear that the program—without warning or reason—may become impossible to access.What’s more, changes to SNAP are happening alongside cuts to Medicaid. It leads to what Allen calls a “terrible synergistic effect” of people’s food being taken away and people getting sick because of it while health care is stripped away.People who are considered “able-bodied adults without dependents” have to work for at least 80 hours a month to receive SNAP benefits, according to KFF, a health policy organization focused on research, policy analysis, polling, and journalism, which broke down Medicaid and SNAP work requirements. H.R. 1 expanded work requirements to include adults ages 55 to 64 and adults with dependents over 14 years old. It also removed exemptions for veterans, young adults who aged out of foster care, and people experiencing homelessness. Lack of access to SNAP disproportionately harms children, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, immigrant households, and rural communities, and can exacerbate racial and ethnic health inequities, Austin said. Meanwhile, studies show that most people receiving SNAP who can work already do so, and research shows work requirements aren’t effective at improving employment outcomes, since they don’t address economic conditions, scheduling practices, or other barriers to work. Getting a job, even if you really want one, can be difficult.A March 2026 report from the Center for American Progress detailed the deadly consequences of these cuts, estimating that work requirement expansions could lead to almost 70,000 deaths by 2040. In the meantime, they are tormenting people. In 2022, Allen published research that found that SNAP work requirements worsened anxiety and depression, with visits to health care providers for depression and anxiety increasing faster for women than they did for men. SNAP and Medicaid are safety-net programs, she said, “and there’s nothing below the safety net but concrete.”The first time Nieves Aragon testified at a Colorado Board of Human Services meeting about the restriction on using SNAP benefits to purchase sweetened drinks, she held up a juice box. The second time, in early March, she held up a can of Coca-Cola. She wanted to show that what they are attempting to take away from SNAP recipients are lifesavers to her as a Type 1 diabetic. If she’s with her 5-year-old son and her sugar goes low, the first thing she thinks of is a Gatorade or soda, which wouldn’t be covered. Now, she worries about whether she can afford the $3 out of pocket to grab a Coke, or if she’ll have to compromise on what her child needs in order to grab what she needs for her sugar. Aragon has attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and said that maintaining a specific diet is crucial to both her diabetes and ensuring her ADHD medication is working properly. “I try not to think about it too much, because I feel like then you spiral down to that depressive ‘What are we going to do?’ kind of state,” explained Aragon of the restrictions. In March 2026, SNAP recipients in multiple states, including Colorado, sued the USDA over food-restriction waivers, stating in the complaint that they “destabilize food access.” The restrictions are stalled. But they could come back.Over in Tennessee, where restrictions on “processed foods and beverages” will take effect in July, Brittany, a single mom, says the cost of food is so high, she struggles even with the support of SNAP. Restrictions on what can be purchased will only make it harder, because out-of-pocket costs take away from other necessities, like gas. There are going to be parents who can’t afford a birthday cake for their kid thanks to restrictions, which isn’t fair to that child, she pointed out. “I feel like you can never get ahead,” she said. She already works full-time as a medical assistant. She can’t get a second job; if she did, she would then make too much to live in government housing—but still wouldn’t be able to afford to live elsewhere. She’s always worried about the next thing. “I try not to cry in front of my kids or let them know that I’m worried at all about anything, because that just puts more stress on them,” she said.The strain of uncertainty sits at an intersection of turmoil in the United States, all overlapping, all exhausting. There’s the cost of food, and the cost of health care. Jobs feel impossible to find, and wages don’t meet the cost of living. Even attempting to keep track of changes is like “drinking from the firehose,” said Austin, the researcher who found that expanded SNAP access improved mental health. “I think the constant uncertainty, particularly when it’s something as important as ‘How am I going to feed my family? Where am I going to get my next meal?’ is just so much strain and stress and really negatively impacting mental health,” she said.Recently, Krysten, who lives in Pennsylvania, was dropped from SNAP because she technically makes too much money. Krysten makes $13 an hour as a home health aide, but doesn’t have paid leave or benefits, so when she’s sick, she makes nothing. Because she lives in the same household as her mother, what her mom receives in Social Security counts as income. That’s left her household receiving only $72 a month in SNAP benefits. She thinks elected officials who are making decisions to cut or restrict SNAP should visit food pantries to see how many people are coming in—last time Krysten went, the food pantry was so low on items that they weren’t able to really help. Krysten does meet the requirements to stay on Medicaid, which she’s thankful for.Recently, when she went to the doctor, she said they asked if she wanted medication for depression. But she didn’t feel like there was anything amiss that could be solved with medicine. She is depressed because she doesn’t have enough food in the house, she explained to the doctor. “That does make you stressed. It does make you depressed.”For many, SNAP is a direct mental health support. That’s the case for Annika Verma, a college student who moved out of her family’s home shortly before she turned 18. Verma was struggling with depression and an eating disorder, and working as a barista while enrolled in community college. She didn’t know she could access resources like SNAP. “Starving, to me, started to feel like an economic choice that just became congruent with those aesthetic and obsessive choices around food,” she explained. By summer 2024, SNAP benefits made it possible for her to work with her nutritionist and clinical team to eat consistently, and to build new, nutritious foods, as well as fun foods, back into her diet.But the threat of that support going away was constant. While she recently has become financially stable and stopped using SNAP, she recalled worrying that one mistake on a form would mean not eating. The fear would keep her up at night catastrophizing; the calculator on her phone was always being used for either calorie counting or counting SNAP dollars. It stays with you, she said. Now, she added, it feels like the Trump administration is telling people “that they are not allowed to be a human in need.”Co-published by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Slate.This story was produced by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Slate, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Medical providers say NM policy of taking custody of substance-exposed newborns hurts families Doula Melissa Marie Lopez-Sullivan, practicing body balancing techniques on Nicara Rodriguez Hardin to help baby move into the optimal position for birth, says New Mexico's approach to mothers who have used alcohol and drugs is eroding the relationship between expectant mothers and providers. (Courtesy photo) When Dr. Francheska Gurule sees pregnant patients who use drugs or alcohol at the clinic where she works in Albuquerque, she says their “fear has always been very palpable.” As a family doctor board-certified in addiction medicine and working in the field for the last decade, Gurule says she knows patients worry about the stigma they’ll face when they disclose their drug use. But “the number one reason” they withhold their drug or alcohol use “is because they don’t want their baby to be taken from them.”SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. “That fear has always existed,” Gurule told Source NM, but has become more marked in the year since New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered the Children, Youth and Families Department to seek immediate custody of newborns diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome or substance exposure. No exceptions. Gurule and dozens of providers signed a December 2025 letter objecting to the directive. Dr. Francheska Gurule, a family doctor board-certified in addiction medicine, says fear among pregnant patients with substance-use issues has increased since New Mexico’s governor created a “no exceptions” policy for the state to take custody of newborns exposed to some substances. (Courtesy photo) “I am a family doctor, those babies are my patients too,” Gurule said. But she believes she and others who oppose the directive, “also want to keep the moms healthy and safe.” On June 8, the New Mexico Supreme Court rejected a petition from the ACLU and two state lawmakers asking the state to immediately halt Lujan Grisham’s directive. But opposition to the order persists, particularly on the front lines among health care providers who treat women with histories of substance abuse. “Child protective services involvement is a risk factor for maternal depression,” said Dr. Jocelyn Wu, an OB/GYN who’s worked in northern New Mexico and Albuquerque. She pointed to data that shows mental health conditions, including substance use, as the leading cause of death during pregnancy and postpartum in New Mexico. “We have a postpartum mental health crisis on our hands,” she said, noting it was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Gurule echoes those concerns. She worries pregnant patients will avoid doctors’ offices in an effort to keep custody of their kids, and says when moms avoid prenatal care, “they don’t get diagnosed with syphilis so then their babies are born with congenital syphilis, which can be a lifelong debilitating disease. They don’t get Narcan, so they overdose and they die. They don’t get on methadone. They don’t get on buprenorphine. And those are real, real scary outcomes.” National data supports Gurule and Wu’s fears, showing that patients avoid prenatal care and report higher rates of congenital syphilis on average in states with punitive substance use policies. New Mexico reports the third highest rate of moms who do not receive adequate prenatal care, according to the March of Dimes. In 2022, New Mexico reported the highest rate of congenital syphilis among all US states. Although the CDC has not released updated congenital syphilis data since 2023, when New Mexico still ranked second nationwide, the state Department of Health in April reported that rates fell more than 30% last year. The governor’s office stands behind the directive, and Communications Director Michael Coleman responded in a written statement to the questions Source NM posed about the providers’ concerns. “The governor believes safety is the top priority — and that means giving parents the space they need to recover, while making sure no baby is left in a home where exposure puts them at risk,” he said. New Mexico’s “substance-exposed newborn strategy exists,” he continued, “because substance-exposed infants and parents alike deserve a rigorous evaluation of whether their home environment is safe before a newborn is discharged into it. In each of the cases where a child was placed in safe care, the determination to temporarily remove them from their parents was made by a judge, based on the state’s risk assessment. The important decision to remove substance exposed newborns from their families is never a unilateral one by the state.” Awaiting new rules Meanwhile, the state Health Care Authority is slated to release new rules on Wednesday governing the state’s implementation of the federal Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, as mandated by a separate law passed by the New Mexico Legislature. That law shifted the authority over cases involving substance-exposed newborns from the Children, Youth and Families Department to the HCA. Lujan Grisham signed the law in April 2025, before issuing her separate directive in July 2025. Responding to draft rules published by the Health Care Authority in April, 40 healthcare providers, social workers, attorneys, former CYFD employees, tribal governments and national and local non-profits shared concerns. “I have seen first hand how well children do with their own parents. I have also seen how well families do when kept with their kids,” wrote pediatrician Mateo McBatra. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s July 2025 directive ordering the state’s child welfare agency to take custody of newborns exposed to substance use has already survived a legal challenge. Licensed psychotherapist Bryce Pittenger also wrote about the impact the proposed rules could have on newborns. “For infants, time is not neutral. Prolonged separation during the early attachment window is associated with long-term impacts that are difficult—and costly—to remediate.” Troy Clark, president and CEO of the New Mexico Hospital Association, wrote that Lujan Grisham’s mandatory directive contradicted the Legislature’s law guiding voluntary plans of safe care, and added that hospitals “need clear and definitive direction about what will be in effect July 1, 2026.” In response to Clark’s concern, Coleman noted in his statement that the CARA directive “was written to operate within the framework SB42 established, and we have trained and supported on implementation questions as the CARA administration transitions to the Health Care Authority on July 1.” Providers and others who submitted comments to the Health Care Authority, also voiced concern with the proposed definition of substance-exposed newborns, which included newborns exposed to legal prescribed medications like buprenorphine and methadone and legal drugs like alcohol, tobacco and marijuana. “That is potentially a lot of people who are super stable in their recovery,” said Gurule, speaking of patients who use opioid agonists to treat their opioid use disorder. It also might include people who “don’t have a substance use disorder,” such as occasional smokers. Hannah Gillum is one such mother who’s spoken up about her experience grappling with the state’s policy. After receiving a diagnosis of infertility, Gillum had given up on having a child. “When I found out I was pregnant it was jarring, I wanted it for so many years,” she told Source NM. Gillum said she sought medical care immediately and learned she was pregnant at five weeks gestation. “And I made the huge mistake that I know now of telling them the truth,” which was that she had consumed alcohol and legal cannabis a few days earlier. The Monday after she gave birth, a CARA case worker reached out and scheduled a home-visit. “And that is when I hear that I am a part of the CARA program,” she said “And I am being forced to be a part of this. And if I don’t comply, they’re gonna refer me to” CYFD. Gillum said the punitive approach made her reluctant to opt into state programs. “I was already interested in some of those resources [offered through the CARA program] and willing to engage until it became by threat,” she said. In her decade working as a doula, Melissa Marie Lopez-Sullivan says she’s supported many parents like Gillum who use cannabis, particularly as it’s become medicinally and recreationally legal. Prior to Lujan Grisham’s order, she said, doing so “was almost a non-issue for most families.” Since the order, “People go out of their way to not test positive or to not disclose.” Coleman from Lujan Grisham’s office, however, says, any claims that the governor’s directive “would flag alcohol or marijuana use before they are pregnant is inaccurate. Her directive only applies to cases in which one of those substances is being used concurrently with meth or fentanyl.” Lopez-Sullivan, who serves as director of the New Mexico Doula Association, said the bottom line is that the CARA program “and the way it’s being implemented is eroding the relationship between patient and the provider, and the patient and the healthcare system.” Moreover, “There isn’t any more support or resources available than there were the day before [Lujan Grisham] issued” the directive. Gurule wishes that instead of seeking immediate custody of substance-exposed newborns, the state would invest in evidence-based practices recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “We don’t have housing. We don’t have substance use treatment in rural New Mexico. We don’t have family-centered rehab,” she said. “This is a chronic medical condition that is treatable.” And there are people who have come out the other side, “safely parenting and thriving as families.” Courtesy of Source New Mexico
	Americans are showing up for the World Cup in record-breaking numbers While the U.S. isn't a bona fide soccer nation yet, the past three weeks have perhaps shown what it would feel like if it were.
	Adrift after loss, he built a life — and a blueprint — around purpose (BPT) - After his life shifted into retirement at 68, John (not his actual name) expected to feel relief.Instead, after the first few months of feeling open and flexible, his days became harder to navigate. He still exercised, ran errands and kept up with friends. Yet mornings stretched longer, and evenings arrived without much to distinguish one day from the next.There was no single shift that caused concern. He felt a gradual drifting, and the questions that followed were practical: How do I organize my days now? What is this next chapter for?'I could keep going, or I could turn back'Victor Strecher, PhD and professor at University of Michigan School of Public Health, had grappled with those same questions too, but for entirely different reasons.In 1990, Vic's newborn daughter Julia became seriously ill from a heart condition. Doctors told him she might have only a month or two to live. There was a slim chance for a heart transplant, but the odds were daunting. Even if Julia lived only a few years, Vic and his wife asked themselves whether they could still give her a life worth living.They decided they could. Vic shifted his focus from career milestones to what would make her days full.Julia survived into young adulthood, but at 19, she died unexpectedly. Vic lost his footing. Grief showed up as a numb routine: hours of television, drinking, a sense of dissolving.One early morning, he climbed into a kayak on Lake Michigan and paddled out alone in the dark. As the sun rose and the water turned glassy, he sensed a choice. "I could keep going, or I could turn back," he said. "But if I turned back, I would have to live differently."He turned back. "I went home, pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote, 'Vic, you have to help yourself.' Then I asked: 'What are you going to do?'"He listed what mattered most — family, friends — then asked what mattered at work. His answer came quickly: his students. Vic called his university and asked to return to teaching. He committed to teaching every student as if they were his daughter.Victor Strecher teaching at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.Rebuilding a relationship with purposeWithout realizing it, Vic had begun rebuilding his relationship with purpose. He found having purpose changed not just the course of his life, but also the quality. He found greater clarity, a deeper connection, and more meaningful intentions."Purpose helps you organize what matters most. It directs your attention and energy toward that," Vic said.When he researched the impact of purpose in other people's lives, he found the science backed him up.In one study, participants wore identical 25-pound backpacks and estimated how steep a ramp appeared. One group was told the backpack was "dead weight." The other was told it carried important scientific equipment. Although both packs weighed the same, those who believed the load had meaning perceived the slope as less steep.Other research linked a stronger sense of purpose with healthier coping strategies. People with greater purpose were more likely to walk, spend time in nature, engage in meaningful rituals and step back during stress. They were less likely to rely on habits that dulled stress in the moment. Studies following people after large-scale trauma found that those who rebuilt purpose showed greater resilience over time."When you have a sense of purpose, you're more likely to step back, see the bigger picture and remember this won't last forever."An app for positive, lasting changeSurprisingly, Vic found purpose isn't a heroic vision or single-minded vocation a person is born with. It's a skill that can be clarified and strengthened, shaping daily behavior.Always a teacher, Vic began looking for ways to share what he had learned. He wrote the book, "Life On Purpose", gave TED Talks and lectures including at Harvard School of Public Health, structured two online courses rated 4th best in the world by Inc. Magazine, and conducted pioneering research on life purpose, cited in the Journal of the American Medical Association.Victor Strecher.In 2015, together with a team of psychologists, behavior designers and data scientists, he launched Kumanu (meaning "nourish" in Maori), a company designed to help people and organizations thrive by connecting deeply to what matters most through its app, Purposeful.The app is based on decades of research across behavioral science, neuroscience, public health and organizational psychology and more than 1,400 scientific studies. It prompts users to address the aspects of their lives they'd like help with, and guides users through the same steps he took to create positive, lasting change: identifying values, writing a purpose statement and building habits that align with it.Identifying values, such as family, health, faith, creativity, learning or service, creates direction. Putting those values into words shapes daily choices. From there, small practices create rhythm: a morning intention, a brief reflection, a consistent commitment. The consistency matters more than the scale."Users of Purposeful tend to be people who are going through transitions in their lives," Vic says. "I like to say you usually need to rethink your purpose when you need a Hallmark card."What matters most now?For users like John, it was exactly what they needed."Getting on Purposeful is part of my morning routine," a user said in a recent survey. "I have only missed a couple of days in the last year … it has really helped me stay in the present and be more focused and mindful about my days, relationships and my life."For others navigating loss, like Vic, the structure has been equally meaningful. The app "gave me a place to share my grief and trauma of loss and channel it toward a meaningful experience … a helpful reminder to keep me connected and do basic self-care tasks," another respondent said.For both, the shift began with the question "what matters most now?", choosing a direction and returning to it, one day at a time.To learn more, listen to Vic's podcast, PurposeCast, where he explores the science and stories behind living with purpose. You can also try the Purposeful app with a free account — no credit card required. For those who choose to upgrade, a limited-time discount is available on Purposeful Premium: 29% off ($4.16 per month, billed annually at $49.99). Cancel anytime.Photo above: Victor Strecher (R), with his daughter Julia Strecher (L) and wife Jeri Rosenberg.
	The Trump administration’s multiple investigations of the 2020 election may have more to do with 2026 The Trump administration’s multiple investigations of the 2020 election may have more to do with 2026The FBI agents arrived at David Bolter’s Milwaukee home on a cool, cloudy Wednesday morning in late May. They were armed with a list of questions for the 2020 poll worker, who had raised concerns about the way local officials handled the 2020 election, Bolter told Votebeat.President Donald Trump relied on Bolter’s claims in an unsuccessful 2020 lawsuit that sought to throw out more than 220,000 votes. That would have been more than enough to move Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes from Democrat Joe Biden, who won the state, to Trump. Though courts, several election reviews, and many audits rejected Trump’s claims, the Republican never stopped believing that he was cheated out of the presidency in 2020.That appears to be why, last month, the FBI sent agents back to Milwaukee to question Bolter as part of an expanding national effort by the second Trump administration to investigate long-debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election.Votebeat dug into the Trump administration’s various investigations of the 2020 election and explained how those efforts could impact the midterms in 2026.The investigation into the 2020 election appears to be relying on already disproven allegations from people like Bolter. Bolter declined to divulge more about his conversation with the FBI, which has not been previously reported, but allegations from Bolter’s 2020 affidavit were central to some conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. For example, he alleged that somebody in Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility announced around midnight on Election Day that a “huge truckload of ballots” was going to be delivered — an accusation for which there has so far appeared to be no additional evidence.Around the same time Bolter says he talked to the FBI, two plainclothes agents with FBI badges showed up at the apartment of a former Milwaukee resident and 2020 poll worker about an affidavit she submitted, according to the former poll worker, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Christine, to give her the freedom to discuss an ongoing investigation.Christine had also submitted an affidavit about the 2020 election, saying election workers had been told that all votes were counted, but she then saw workers continuing to count ballots around midnight. That affidavit was the focus of the agents’ questions, Christine told Votebeat.“I suspected wrongdoing, but I’m not saying that it actually happened,” she said. “I’m just one lowly person that was working there.”During the interview, she added, an agent showed her a photograph of Claire Woodall, the former Milwaukee election chief, asking her if she recognized the former election official who has been central to false allegations about the 2020 election. She identified her by name. Woodall didn’t respond to a request for comment.Caroline Clancy, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Milwaukee office, declined to comment.While investigators seem mainly focused on the 2020 vote, some elections experts believe the Trump administration’s wide-ranging probe is actually designed to create more doubts among Americans about future elections, as Republicans face strong political headwinds that could cost them control of Congress later this year.“This isn’t about the 2020 election, this is about the 2026 and 2028 elections,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “This is about intimidating election officials. This is about creating a stream of disinformation designed to delegitimize an election the president may believe he’s going to lose. This is designed by the president’s underlings to satisfy the unrealistic expectations of a president that still cannot comprehend that he lost an election that he definitely lost, and it’s incredibly destabilizing.”Wisconsin is the latest known target of the Trump administration’s 2020 investigation. The FBI is looking to interview elections officials and Milwaukee police officers in what some worry could be a precursor to an effort to seize ballots from the 2020 presidential race, as it already has in Georgia.The Trump administration is revisiting allegations of election fraud that have been repeatedly scrutinizedIn January, federal investigators seized 600 boxes of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. The heavily Democratic county, home to Atlanta, was key to Biden’s narrow 2020 victory in the state.As in Wisconsin, the FBI in Georgia has built its investigation on allegations that have already been repeatedly scrutinized by audits, investigations, and courts without unearthing any evidence of fraud or tampering that could have overturned the results.The Georgia search represented an unprecedented intervention by the federal government into local administration. Even more unusually, Tulsi Gabbard, who will step down at the end of this month as director of national intelligence, personally oversaw the seizure and arranged for Trump to speak directly to the FBI agents via cell phone after they carried out the operation.The Trump administration investigations stretch from Arizona, where federal officials subpoenaed computerized records of a partisan review state lawmakers conducted of Maricopa County’s 2020 election, to Puerto Rico, where the Office of the Director of National Intelligence procured voting machines to examine for potential security risks.The administration’s investigations aren’t entirely limited to 2020. The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter in April to Wayne County, Michigan — home to Detroit — demanding all ballots cast in the 2024 election, which Trump won. But even in that case, to support the request, the Justice Department cited accusations of fraud made after the 2020 election, including a lawsuit that was quickly dismissed after a judge wrote that “plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.” Wayne County never handed over the ballots, because it doesn’t have possession of them.What do the 2020 elections mean for 2026?The FBI faces challenges in pursuing cases tied to the 2020 election since the five-year statute of limitations that applies to most of the likely charges expired last year. Law enforcement veterans said it is possible that the Justice Department could pursue broader conspiracy charges in the case, but the prospect remains unclear.FBI Director Kash Patel suggested in April that the Justice Department would soon announce arrests related to the 2020 election, but that has not yet occurred. Officials with the FBI and Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.John Keller, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section who resigned in 2025 after refusing the Trump administration’s demands to drop corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams, said the administration appeared to be trying to normalize federal investigations of state elections to pave the way for future intervention.“They are using enforcement directed at the 2020 election as a test run for what they can get away with on Election Day this year, or after, to try and delay certification or invalidate an election” if the results don’t go their way, he said.Injecting federal law enforcement officials into an ongoing election is a more extreme and serious action than investigating a past one, and it could face stiffer opposition. But it’s clear, at least, that the administration is scrutinizing current elections closely.Trump last week blasted California’s long vote counting process in its primary election and asserted that Democrats were trying to steal the election and federal authorities were investigating. Last month, Trump also said he was ordering the Justice Department to investigate an error that led to some voters in Maryland receiving ballots for the wrong party in the state’s upcoming primary. State officials in both cases have explained the true causes of the issues and that nothing nefarious was behind them.Any effort to seize ballots in an ongoing election would create unprecedented new issues, such as a breach in the chain of custody over cast ballots, that could prevent election officials from declaring a winner and throw results into uncertainty.Catherine Engelbrecht, co-founder of the Texas-based conservative group True the Vote, which has promoted debunked theories about the 2020 election, said she understands Trump’s intentions but believes the 2020 election questions should have been resolved “in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election.”“This is not necessarily the way I would have recommended that it would be handled,” she said. “The fact that it wasn’t addressed has left this lingering void.”In most cases, however, Trump’s claims of voter fraud were addressed in the wake of the 2020 election. Time and again, courts, state investigations, and even the Justice Department concluded that there was no evidence of problems or fraud that would have changed the results.Engelbrecht said she views the Trump administration’s ongoing investigations as an effort to dig into long-standing concerns about the voting process it wants to address for future elections.“The past is prologue,” she said. “If we don’t understand what happened, we are doomed to repeat it.”This story was produced by Votebeat and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Funerals held for 14 Pakistani children killed in tutoring center collapse Police are investigating whether negligence during construction work caused the collapse in the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday.
	Applications open for Davenport DREAM projects Applications are now open for new rounds of funding through the Davenport DREAM Project and Commercial DREAM Project. The program offers grants to new and existing homeowners in the city’s heritage neighborhoods by offering grants to make exterior property improvements. Commercial DREAM provides grants to eligible property owners to improve blight conditions on commercial, industrial [...]
	250 Years of Service, Reimagined: Meet the Soldiers Who Make Up Today’s Army (BPT) - Key TakeawaysThe U.S. Army — an institution one year older than the nation itself — continues to evolve to fit the needs of the modern world.With more than 250 jobs to choose from, the Army is a body of possibilities that helps Soldiers explore a variety of careers and interest areas, from infantry and aviation to engineering and music.Whether competing at the highest levels of athletic competition, performing for audiences around the world, or transforming the health and well-being of the force, today's Soldiers are redefining what service looks like, blending tradition with innovation and proving that Army service is more than meets the eye.As America celebrates its 250th birthday, there's a remarkable story that often goes untold: The U.S. Army has been defending the nation for its entire history, and then some. Founded in 1775, one year before the nation itself, the Army stands as the country's oldest institution with a proud history of service. But the Army isn't just preserving history — it's making it.Today's Soldiers are redefining what service looks like in the modern world, blending tradition with innovation and proving that Army service is more than meets the eye. With more than 250 jobs to choose from, the Army is a body of possibilities that helps Soldiers explore a variety of careers and interest areas, from infantry and aviation to engineering and music.What unites the Soldiers of today's Army is not the similarity of their paths, but their dedication to excellence and service. Whether competing at the highest levels of athletic competition, performing for audiences around the world, transforming the health and well-being of the force, or inspiring and motivating the next generation of Soldiers, each one has chosen to channel their talents through the Army.On this milestone birthday, read on to learn more about the Soldiers who serve today, who are proof that Army service is not just a career, but a powerful platform to pursue their passions, serve their country, and inspire their communities:U.S. Army Hip-Hop Artist Staff Sgt. Lamar Riddick When Staff Sgt. Lamar Riddick joined the Army, he made history as part of the force's inaugural hip-hop program, becoming the Army's first rapper. Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Riddick was immersed in the performing arts and attended Bethune-Cookman University, where he was in the Marching Band and earned a bachelor's degree in music recording engineering. He went on to work at the West Virginia University School of Music, where he continued to hone his craft and, in 2020, won an Eddy Award for Best Christian Rap Artist. Wanting to make a greater impact while still pursuing music, Riddick joined the Army in 2021, and after a long audition process, earned a spot in the U.S. Army Field Band. Since its inception, the Army Field Band has evolved to a collection of professional Soldier ensembles that perform more than 400 concerts per year for local and international crowds, highlighting genres including hip-hop, rock, and country.As the Army's only rapper, Riddick uses his talents to connect the public with both the Army and hip-hop culture, and has performed on countless stages, including The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland, NFL halftime shows, and The Kelly Clarkson Show. Riddick also shares his experience and original work with an even greater audience at @armyrappers.Team USA Bobsledder and Flag Bearer Sgt. Frank Del DucaOriginally from Sunrise, Florida, then growing up in Bethel, Maine, Sgt. Frank Del Duca always had an interest in extreme sports, originally competing in downhill slalom skiing in high school. After graduating from the University of Maine and recovering from a reconstruction of the ACL and meniscus, he wanted to continue his pursuit of winter sports, and participated in a USA Bobsled combine where he quickly excelled. Del Duca's path as a bobsled athlete continued when he joined the Army in 2019 as an Infantryman (11B) and Soldier-athlete in the Army's World Class Athlete Program — an elite group that allows Soldiers to serve in the Army while receiving the support and training to participate at the highest levels of competition. His decision paid off when he was named to Team USA for the 2022 Beijing Games, competing in the two-man and four-man bobsled events.By tapping into the teamwork, discipline, and resilience learned in the Army, Del Duca made another Olympic run at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina in both the two-man and four-man bobsled events — this time not only being named to Team USA, but also earning the coveted, peer-voted role as Opening Ceremony flag bearer. He carried this momentum to the Games, where he secured a historic 4th-place finish in the two-man bobsled event.U.S. Army Golden Knight Sgt. 1st Class Joshua Evans Originally from Bangor, Maine, Sgt. 1st Class Evans aspired to join the Army before graduating high school, and he has since experienced many different careers over his 15 years of Army service, from an Infantryman (11B) to a Career Counselor (79S). While serving at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Evans went tandem skydiving with his father and immediately fell in love with the sport. He soon got his license and tried out for the U.S. Army's Parachute Team, the Golden Knights, in 2022. Though he didn't make the cut his first time, he stayed determined and was officially assigned to the Golden Knights in 2024, where he now represents the Army at the highest levels of aerial performance.Since learning to skydive, Evans has logged more than 850 free-fall parachute jumps and 17 military static line jumps. He notes his most memorable performance as parachuting into the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., in celebration of the Army's 250th birthday in 2025 — a "twice-in-a-lifetime" opportunity he experienced again during America's 250th birthday celebrations in 2026.Holistic Health Leader Lt. Col. Jason BarberLt. Col. Jason Barber has dedicated his Army career to transforming how the force understands and pursues wellness. Currently activated to lead the U.S. Army Reserve's Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) system — a program that supports the physical, nutritional, mental, sleep, and spiritual health of Soldiers — at the 81st Readiness Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Barber has become an influential voice in redefining what it means to be holistically fit, as well as a key architect in how H2F is being implemented across the Army Reserve. After joining the Army in 1991 as a Cavalry Scout (19D), he made the decision to pursue higher education using the GI Bill, earning a degree in exercise science and an advanced degree in physician assistant studies. But it was a transformative experience working alongside a strength coach that made him realize his passion for helping others achieve their goals through evidence-based training.He went on to become the high-performance coordinator for the Army's World Class Athlete Program, where he helped train Soldier-athletes for the highest levels of international competition, and he was one of the first strength and conditioning coaches embedded in the Special Operations community — a pioneering role that laid the groundwork for the Army-wide H2F system. He operates under a growth mindset and believes that success is built through small, consistent effort that eventually compounds to true readiness and resilience.U.S. Army Six-String Soldiers Vocalist Staff Sgt. Megan Haskell Staff Sgt. Megan Haskell is the lead vocalist for the Army's Six-String Soldiers, a country music group performing Americana and patriotic music to inspire national pride. Originally from Hampton, Virginia, Haskell graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University and began her professional music career as a country artist. She later realized that her talent could serve something larger than a stage and joined the Marine Corps as the first enlisted vocalist in its history. After basic training, she attended the Naval School of Music, where she learned about the Army Field Band's special bands program and pursued an inter-service transfer to the Army, which led her to the Six-String Soldiers.Throughout her career, Haskell has continued to serve as an inspiration for others, performing at professional sporting events and the Grand Ole Opry, and appearing on NBC's The Voice in 2023, representing the Army. She also curates the Six-String Soldiers' social media presence, helping the group gain further national attention. Haskell notes that the Army gave her music a mission, and as a mentor to incoming military musicians, she pays it forward by helping them navigate the unique world of military musical service.Leadership Mentor and Influencer Maj. John Howell Throughout his 13-year Army career, Maj. John Howell learned that the most challenging leaders often become the greatest teachers. Serving under commanders who demanded perfection — even down to font sizes — originally frustrated him, but as he advanced in rank and eventually commanded his own unit, he realized those harsh lessons had shaped his attention to detail, standards for excellence, and understanding of effective leadership.Originally from Tullahoma, Tennessee, Howell grew up in a military family and pursued an ROTC scholarship to Carson-Newman University as a way to pay for college. He went on to serve as an Infantry Officer (11A) and Military Intelligence Officer (35A), commanded a unit in rural Washington, and spent time as an Army recruiter — an experience that shaped his leadership and passion for mentoring young Soldiers.Now, as the Scholarship Program Manager at the United States Army Cadet Command (USACC) at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Howell is channeling his life lessons into advice for the next generation of Soldiers, sharing valuable perspective and career guidance, through his Instagram account, @servantofleaders, which has built a community of 70K+ followers.These Soldiers represent the vast opportunities available in the Army today. To learn more about the possibilities of service, visit GoArmy.com.

Thursday, July 2nd, 2026

Wednesday, July 1st, 2026