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

Friday, June 5th, 2026
	U.S. military says it shot down Iranian drones launched toward Gulf allies The exchange of strikes comes as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran to make a deal to end the conflict.
	River Bandits beat South Bend Cubs 13-8 in game one of double header The Quad Cities River Bandits defeated the South Bend Cubs 13-8 in game one of a double header Friday night.
	Recall: Target baby wipes found to have bacteria that could cause life-threatening sepsis Target is voluntarily recalling two types of baby wipes its generic brand baby wipes after testing found bacteria on the product.
	Pulling Focus African America Film Festival returns to the Quad Cities All screenings and events are free and open to the public.
	Chicago Bears fans weigh possible move to Indiana after stadium vote Chicago Bears fans are reacting after the team's board voted to advance a stadium project in Hammond, Indiana, potentially moving the franchise from Chicago.
	Our QC Crime Watch: Kewanee man faces child-pornography charges - Episode 68 Watch crime reporters Linda Cook and Sharon Wren talk about crime and courts in our area with the latest episode of the Our Quad Cities Crime Watch Podcast. In this episode Linda and Sharon discuss: updates on: To view, click the video above or watch on-the-go on Spotify. The QC Crime Watch Podcast \| Pod
	Davenport Parks and Recreation director resigns The City of Davenport announces that Chad Dyson will step down from his position as director of Davenport Parks and Recreation, effective June 10, a news release says. Dyson has accepted a position with another organization out of state. He joined the City of Davenport in 2018 to oversee park operations, recreational programming, and maintenance [...]
	Iowa American Water continues resurfacing project in Bettendorf Beginning Monday, June 8, work moves eastward on Central Avenue as Iowa American Water continues the first part of the Central Avenue Resurfacing Project by replacing the water main in some spots from 14th Street to Pius Lane, according to a news release. Beginning Monday, June 8, crews will begin work on the fourth of [...]
	It Takes a Village to close rescue and clinic operations The organization had closed its shelter, moving to being a foster-based rescue, in November.
	Democrat Xavier Becerra wins the top spot in November's race for California governor Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has clinched the top spot on California's ballot for governor. With millions of ballots still to be counted, his November challenger is unknown.
	Princeton Iowa's newest water well causes costly problems An $800,000 well in Princeton, Iowa, came with a flow of water and costly problems since it opened in 2022. It's taking water from the same aquafer as its main water source, but this well has produced high nitrate levels. This has forced the well to be closed since the fall of 2024. Exactly what [...]
	Iowa teachers back new classroom discipline law aimed at disruptive behavior A new Iowa law gives teachers more input when handling disruptive students. Educators say the change could improve classroom safety.
	Libertarians, independents file to appear on Nov. 3 Iowa ballot Iowa third-party candidates filed for the Nov. 3 ballot this week.
	Davenport residents rally for immigrant rights, civil liberties Community members gathered in downtown Davenport Sunday to raise their voices on issues ranging from immigration to civil rights and community support.
	Muscatine's It Takes a Village to close animal rescue and clinic The shelter shifted to a foster-only model in late 2025 as it struggled with funding issues.
	Rock Island to switch utility billing, new accounts will be needed for autopay The change to the new system is expected to happen in August.
	‘East Chicago Bears’ jokes fly as fans and taxpayers react to potential Indiana move Quad Cities and Illinois residents are strongly divided after the Chicago Bears voted to advance stadium talks with Hammond, Indiana.
	The Arc of the Quad Cities Area's Heritage Homes development receives state funding The Arc of the Quad Cities Area announced its Heritage Homes development has been awarded state funding.
	HEAT WAVE coming to the Quad Cities We haven't hit 90° yet this year, but we're about to several times next week. Highs this weekend will be in the 80s but then hit the middle 90s several days next week. Average highs right now are in the lower 80s. That means we'll be well above normal...but will likely fall just short of [...]
	Davenport Channel Cat dock reopens after renovations The project includes a fresh pedestrian bridge, landside improvements and the dock itself.
	Pride Festival, Rhubarb Festival and free Figge tours among weekend activities in the Quad Cities Find out what's going on in your neighborhood this weekend!
	Princeton well contamination highlights water challenges for small Iowa towns A drinking water problem in Princeton may be highlighting a larger challenge for small communities across Iowa.
	Morrison Fire Department celebrates 150 years with community event The Morrison Fire Department is celebrating its 150th anniversary this Saturday with a car show, parade, and open house at the county fairgrounds.
	MetroLINK, Davenport unveil refurbished Channel Cat landing Enabled by a $1.8 million federal grant, Quad-Cities stakeholders gathered in the Village of East Davenport to show support for the improvements to public transit in the bi-state area.
	East Moline neighborhood to see 'complete redevelopment' A new housing development in East Moline could start seeing construction within the next year.Officials are calling the project a 'complete redevelopment' of an area in the northeast part of the city. Built in the 1940's, the target neighborhood surrounding Morton Drive is embedded in the city's history. "Interestingly enough, it was actually built using [...]
	New Iowa DOT tool helps counties measure superload damage The Road Infrastructure Superload Analysis Tool (RISAT) is a spreadsheet-based program that allows agencies to estimate pavement damage and associated repair costs.
	Scott County worker identified after fatal dump truck crash Bridget Hillyer was driving a county-owned dump truck when police say she lost control of the vehicle and rolled into a ditch. The crash remains under investigation.
	Death Notice: Eugene Doyle A Memorial Mass for Eugene "Gene" Doyle, 87, of Bettendorf, will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, July 22, at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, Bettendorf. Visitation will be one hour prior to Mass at the church. A luncheon will follow at The Outing Club in Davenport. Per his wishes, the rite of cremation will be accorded. The Halligan-McCabe-DeVries Funeral Home, Davenport, is assisting the family with arrangements. Mr. Doyle died Sunday, May 31, 2026, at StoryPoint Senior Living. Memorials may be made to Bettendorf Parks and Recreation. A full obituary will appear in the June 10 edition of The NSP.
	Muscatine moms turn grief into action with mental health fundraiser following tragedy After a tragedy that left seven dead, Muscatine community members rally to host a vital mental health and suicide prevention fundraiser this Saturday.
	It Takes a Village, Muscatine, closes permanently: Facebook post It Takes a Village Animal Rescue and Resources, Muscatine, has closed permanently, according to a Facebook message posted Friday. "To our amazing Village of supporters and animal lovers, after much reflection, we have made the difficult decision to permanently close our rescue and clinic operations," the post says. "This is not the ending we had [...]
	Robert Young Center launches Quad Cities’ first intensive outpatient eating disorder program Local providers say eating disorders have spiked since the COVID-19 pandemic, yet Iowa's largest program to help closed in 2022. The QC program will launch June 22.
	New home for Davenport’s Bix Museum offers a sneak preview The relocated Bix Beiderbecke Museum is opening briefly tonight and Saturday for a sneak preview, at its new home across from its old one, 112 W. 2nd St., Davenport.
	Quad Cities’ first intensive outpatient eating disorder program to open this month UnityPoint Health - Robert Young Center will begin accepting referrals Monday for the program, which they say is a first for the region.
	Rhubarb Fest returns to Aledo for 34th year The annual Rhubarb Fest in Aledo has returned for its 34th years with thousands of pies and more.
	Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary and support the Wounded Warrior Project Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary and support the Wounded Warrior Project! Chris Bishop and Matt Magnafici joined Our Quad Cities News with details on the Red, White and Blue Ball. For more information, click here.
	Shelter closing It Takes a Village Animal Rescue in Muscatine is permanently closing, citing financial challenges after switching to a foster-only model.
	After D.C.'s Reflecting Pool gets repainted, visitors ask: What changed? The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is refilling after President Trump had it painted "American flag blue." Some visitors say the results of the project — which reportedly cost millions — are subtle.
	Fund established for families after Muscatine murder/suicide A fund has been established at the Community Foundation of Greater Muscatine to support the families directly affected by the murder/suicide of seven people in Muscatine on June 1. Charitable donations to the McFarland, Whitlow, and Harris Family Support Fund will help address immediate and ongoing family needs, including memorial-related expenses, through the coordination of [...]
	Graham Platner isn't going anywhere in Maine Senate race after latest controversy Graham Platner is denying accusations of being physically rough with former girlfriends saying that report in The New York Times and other controversies are a sign his campaign is gaining momentum.
	Pride Month celebrations taking place throughout the Quad Cities From festivals to 5Ks to movie screenings, here's a look at events LGBTQIA+ folks and allies can attend this month.
	Dead bills: Glock ban, prescription drug board among measures that stall in final days Key bills banning Glocks, creating a prescription drug price board, and regulating data centers failed to pass before Illinois lawmakers adjourned.
	2 QC Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh stores becoming Pump & Pantry Bosselman Pump & Pantry, a fourth-generation fuel and convenience retailer, announced an agreement to purchase 21 Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh standalone convenience store locations, including five in-store Starbucks and seven in-store Smokey Row coffee shops. The acquisition is expected to close in July 2026. The agreement includes 15 locations in the Des Moines metro, two [...]
	Bears say they are moving forward with Northwest Indiana location for new stadium The Chicago Bears voted to continue new stadium talks in Hammond, Indiana, after an Illinois tax incentive bill died in the state House.
	4 Your Money \| Broken Seesaw Many investors grew up learning that a balanced portfolio means owning both stocks and bonds- stocks for growth, bonds for protection. James Nelson, Financial Planner at NelsonCorp Wealth Management, shares how that traditional 60/40 ratio may be outdated in the current economic landscape.
	The Arc of the Quad Cities Area's Heritage Homes development receives funding The Arc of the Quad Cities Area announced its Heritage Homes development has been awarded state funding.
	Why you need independent energy this summer and beyond (BPT) - On May 18, 2026, PJM Interconnection — North America's largest power grid operator — scheduled a planned outage to prepare its facilities for summer energy demand. What should have been routine spring maintenance quickly became an emergency.The night before the outage, an early-season heat wave hit the East Coast. At the same time, according to a May 19 Utility Dive article, more than 40 gigawatts of power plant capacity were offline, leaving PJM's grid, which serves more than 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C., with dangerously thin reserves.PJM determined that it could not safely meet projected evening peak demand and requested assistance from the U.S. government to avert a disaster. Fortunately, on May 18, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a rare emergency order, granting PJM's request and authorizing backup generation to help prevent blackouts. But what happens when, not if, the next energy emergency arrives?An old problem with a new culpritSummer blackouts are nothing new. In the hottest months, homeowners and apartment residents rely heavily on air conditioning. That surge in electricity use strains the aging U.S. power grid, causing outages that can last for hours, days or even weeks.But extreme heat is not the only force putting pressure on the grid. AI is steadily driving up energy demand across the country. In fact, data centers accounted for 50% of all U.S. electricity demand growth last year. As more data centers come online and strain an already fragile grid, Americans are heading into summer with more heat and less reliable power.The good news is that households can take control of their energy before summer temperatures peak.Gaining energy independence with a reliable, renewable sourceToday's homes do not have to depend entirely on an unpredictable and costly grid. With a reliable, renewable energy source, households can keep power on when the rest of the block goes dark, reduce energy bills, and, most importantly, gain greater energy independence.There is no one-size-fits-all solution for residential energy needs, but solar generators in a range of sizes and capacities are proving essential for energy resilience. For example, Jackery's Essential Home Backup line offers clean-energy power stations designed as a modern alternative to gas generators, providing coverage for core essentials without the added cost and power draw of whole-home energy storage systems.Jackery, a global leader in portable power and solar generator solutions, anticipated growing U.S. grid instability and evolved its battery backup technology to meet it. Its solar generators run indoors, quietly and safely, without fumes and are built to support how a modern household uses energy, whether that means powering a full load of household appliances or simply keeping one room comfortable and one device charged in an apartment.Those living in large homes would do well to invest in models like the Jackery Solar Generator 5000 Plus and the HomePower 3600 Plus, both of which can be connected to a home's essential circuits through a Jackery Smart Transfer Switch and a Manual Transfer Switch, respectively, the installation of which promises to be simpler and more affordable than the traditional grid-tied backup options on the market.These modular, versatile home systems can power essentials in multiple rooms: refrigerators, medical devices, AC units and more through extended outages. Both models can be recharged in multiple ways, including solar and traditional AC power, so they're always ready. The Solar Generator 5000 Plus is even compatible with high-voltage solar panels, allowing it to recharge and store energy from a home's existing rooftop solar system. With over 10 years of durability, they offer lasting energy independence.Because the modern household's routine runs on power, every type of home deserves a tailored home backup. For renters and apartment dwellers, the HomePower 3000 and Solar Generator 2000 V2 are ideal portable, plug-and-play options. Using either model, households can keep a room comfortable, charge phones, run a fan and even power larger appliances like a refrigerator.Secure energy independence before the lights go outPower from the grid is never promised, but it's never been easier to find the right backup for your home and lifestyle. Designed around the way you live, the way you explore, and all the ways you need support, Essential Home Backup gives the place you call home the power, connection, comfort and safety you deserve. Don't wait for summer blackout or storm season to take energy independence seriously. To learn more about energy independence and find the right model in Jackery's Essential Home Backup line, visit Jackery.com.
	Boil order issued in Milan Boil order issued in Milan.
	New Channel Cat dock opens in Davenport The new Lindsay Park dock for the Channel Cat water taxi is open to the public.
	Officials investigating drone incidents at Eastern Iowa Airport, local drone operator recommends preparation to stay safe Federal aviation officials are investigating two drone incidents at the Eastern Iowa airport that might be tied to nearby data center construction.
	Better Health Foundation grants help improve wellbeing in QCA The Better Health Foundation (BHF) has awarded $956,575 to five nonprofit organizations whose community-informed projects will improve the health and well-being of the greater Quad Cities region as part of its 2026 Innovation grant program. BHF has awarded over $6.27 million for prevention and wellness programs and services since it was organized in 2023. “As [...]
	Nick Jonas steals Paul Rudd's 'Power Ballad' in a profound story about art and honesty In 'Power Ballad,' a wedding singer played by Paul Rudd writes a hit — and a popstar makes it his.
	Boil order issued for parts of Milan A boil order has been issues for parts of Milan. According to a release from the Village of Milan, due to a water main break, a boil water order is in effect for the 400 and 500 blocks of Blackhawk Ave. All drinking and cooking water should be boiled for five minutes prior to use.
	Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea next week in first visit since 2019 The announcement was made by both countries Friday a day after North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce nuclear fuel.
	Why leg fatigue and spider veins are getting more attention in everyday health Why leg fatigue and spider veins are getting more attention in everyday healthFor the estimated 25% of adults managing varicose veins, persistent leg fatigue is rarely an isolated inconvenience—it is an early clinical marker of vascular decline.Specifically, experts now understand that these two factors are early predictors of Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI), an affliction diagnosed in 150,000 people every year, with care costs of over half a billion, according to StatPearls data. In fact, the amount of information on the signs and symptoms of CVI can be treated as a key catalyst for growing public attention. MVM Health Red Flags and Long-Term ComplicationsIn isolation, it’s understandable to feel that, as minor-sounding everyday health concerns, leg fatigue and spider veins can safely be ignored. After all, there are all sorts of issues that accumulate over the years, the majority of which don’t spell anything more serious than everyday aches and pains. Clinical research indicates that the prioritization of telangiectasias and leg fatigue correlates directly with their role as primary indicators for CVI and related systemic pathologies.As outlined in the aforementioned research, spider veins, or telangiectasias to give them their proper name, are the first clinical sign of venous disease. Physicians will look out for them to identify the early stages of issues that, if left unchecked, could lead to more serious outcomes, including deep vein thrombosis (DVT).According to MVM Health, a vein treatment center, people are increasingly tuned in to these red flags and are addressing them with preemptive treatment that’s about more than just the cosmetic side of spider veins. Ideally, this attention will reduce the proportion of the population that ends up with more advanced iterations of venous conditions.The current data shows that 24% of people have varicose veins, while 6% have a more intensive form of CVI. While intervention is possible, experts agree that taking action at an earlier stage, when spider veins first emerge, is more likely to deliver the most desirable results.There’s also the cost of care to account for. According to a 2023 clinical review published in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by Stanek A, Mosti G, et al, in some regions roughly 3% of total healthcare expenditure is attributable to the treatment of advanced venous ulceration alone. Given the economic implications as well as the individual impacts, raising awareness of leg fatigue and spider veins has obvious multifaceted upsides.Preventive StepsNon-invasive surgeries that address the early signals of potential CVI are the best option for those already exhibiting telangiectasias. However, the true surge in awareness focuses on lifestyle modifications that can bolster vascular resilience before clinical intervention becomes necessary. Since the venous system relies on muscle contractions to pump blood back to the heart against gravity, prevention centers on movement and mechanical support.The Second Heart ActivationIncorporating calf-strengthening exercises, such as heel raises or rhythmic walking, serves to activate the calf muscle pump. This physiological mechanism is often referred to by experts as the second heart because of its vital role in preventing blood from pooling in the lower extremities.Graduated Compression TherapyOnce reserved for post-surgical recovery, graduated compression hosiery has moved into the mainstream wellness space. By applying the highest pressure at the ankle and decreasing it further up the leg, these garments mechanically assist blood flow, reducing the day-long leg fatigue experienced by those in sedentary or "standing" professions.Positional AwarenessClinical guidelines increasingly emphasize the rule of elevation. Raising the legs above the level of the heart for 15 minutes, three times a day, uses gravity to drain venous blood and reduce venous pressure, directly mitigating the development of new spider veins.Nutritional SupportEmerging research into bioflavonoids, such as diosmin and hesperidin, suggests that certain micronutrients may improve venous tone and reduce capillary permeability. When paired with a low-sodium diet to prevent water retention and subsequent pressure on vein walls, nutrition acts as a foundational pillar of long-term leg health.Playing the Long GameShifting the narrative from cosmetic annoyance to proactive vascular maintenance is how this increased attention ensures that leg fatigue and spider veins are treated as the vital health signals they truly are. Taking action today, whether through a brisk walk, a pair of compression socks, or a consultation with a specialist, can significantly alter the trajectory of one’s circulatory future.This story was produced by MVM Health and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Scott County jury finds Anamosa man guilty of sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl in 2018 An Anamosa man found guilty Thursday of sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl in 2018 is facing a mandatory 17 1/2 years in prison.
	National Doughnut Day 2026: How to get free doughnuts All the freebies we could find for National Donut Day.
	Bears: We’re moving forward with Indiana for stadium plans The Chicago Bears voted Thursday to continue talks with Hammond, Ind., for a new stadium, the team announced Friday.
	Design like a billionaire: 7 workspace principles from Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneurs Design like a billionaire: 7 workspace principles from Silicon Valley’s most successful entrepreneursSan Francisco has a celebrated rep as the cradle of tech innovation, but it’s also a hub for world-leading design—a city that shapes where and how things get made.Levi Strauss patented the blue jean in San Francisco in 1853. After leaving Bay Area-founded Apple, Jony Ive—creator of the candy-colored iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad—stayed local, and now oversees OpenAI’s future-forward creative from Jackson Square, one of the city’s most historic neighborhoods.SF’s spirit of designing the future is especially intoxicating in June, when international thought leaders from every industry flood the city's coffee shops, workshops, stores and coworking spaces during SF Design Week. This year, under the theme “Multitudes,” Michael Quesenbury will share how the romance of mid-century surf culture and coach builders Ferrari and Bugatti inspired him to perfect “The Art of Making Surfboards.” At Bang & Olufsen’s showroom, architect Craig O’Connell and guests from EMPIRE Records answer the question: What does a room sound like?The program demonstrates that great work is never restricted to a single discipline or perspective. Neither is a productive working life: SF’s most successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders not only think of their offices, but also of their daily rhythm, experiences, and relationship to the city and its communities as where and how they work.Here, CANOPY shares seven principles inspired by the world’s most acclaimed entrepreneurs to help you design for success.Pull down the wallsYves Béhar runs Fuseproject, his San Francisco design studio responsible for myriad projects, including human-service-focused robots and Samsung’s Frame TV, with no closed-off spaces and the kitchen as its social core. "I've never had a private office," he's said, dismissing any need to be isolated or separated. He didn't stop at his own studio: Béhar went on to co-found a design-forward coworking space in San Francisco, extending that no-walls philosophy to a broad community of professionals. Proximity, he wagers, flattens hierarchy faster than any org chart.Across the bay in Emeryville, Steve Jobs had the Pixar headquarters built to promote, in biographer Walter Isaacson's telling, "encounters and unplanned collaborations”—routing the café, the mailboxes, and the campus's only restrooms through one central atrium so colleagues from different teams couldn't avoid each other. Your coffee bar, in other words, is a cultural decision that can accelerate connection and success.Choose an inspiring location—ideally with a storied pastWhen Jony Ive left Apple to build his LoveFrom studio, he skipped building a gleaming tech campus for Jackson Square—San Francisco's oldest commercial quarter, a cluster of Gold Rush-era brick buildings that outlasted earthquakes, fires, and the lawless Barbary Coast. He's been candid about why: in a 2022 essay for the Financial Times, Ive recalled falling for the area on his first visit in 1989 and called its layered history the city's "bones." He has since assembled nearly a full city block there for a studio whose name invokes Steve Jobs’ driving principle—that making something with "love and with care" is a way of expressing gratitude to humanity. The bet is likely commercial, too: real estate brokers dubbed 2024 the "Year of Jackson Square" as venture firms and designers crowded its streets—the same blocks where Béhar's coworking office operates a two-story location. A vibrant, walkable neighborhood workplace with texture feeds the work in a way a sterile office park can’t.Great ideas spark from a mixed crowdWhen Salesforce founder Marc Benioff topped out San Francisco's tallest tower, he reserved the 61st-floor "Ohana" level not for executives but as a shared space open to employees, customers, nonprofits, and the public—a warm, residential-feeling design its creators dubbed "Resimercial."This attitude toward the importance of public space is built into SF’s blueprint. Since the city's landmark 1985 Downtown Plan, large downtown developments have been required to carve out publicly accessible areas—the plazas, atriums, terraces, and pocket parks known as POPOS—for the use of workers, residents, and visitors. The code even dictates how much sunlight each space must get and how well it must be shielded from wind.The logic mirrors the Multitudes theme: When people of different disciplines, ages, genders and backgrounds gather in one place—and feel genuinely connected to the community and sense of place—they trade assumptions, spark unlikely combinations, and arrive at new ideas.Surround yourself with what you make and sellAirbnb, led by RISD-trained designer Brian Chesky, modeled its meeting rooms on actual apartments from its own listings, transforming conference rooms into the home experiences the company exists to rent. Chesky has explained the rationale plainly: In Y Combinator's "How to Start a Startup" lecture, he argued that to keep a team thinking like its customers, you have to "put your product in the building" so everyone is immersed in the world they are building for.Levi Strauss & Co.—headquartered in San Francisco since patenting blue jeans in 1853—launched its redesigned headquarters at Levi's Plaza in 2025 with a working Levi's store right inside the building as a daily reminder of the vision the company is there to bring to life.The best ideas arrive off the clockIn 2013, with his team down 8–1 and facing humiliation, Oracle founder Larry Ellison skipped the keynote at his own company's flagship conference to be on San Francisco Bay as Oracle Team USA achieved an incredible comeback, winning eight straight to retain the America's Cup. Ellison has always treated time on the water as essential rather than indulgent—and in 1996 he'd prescribed taking a sabbatical to burned-out protégé, Oracle vice president Marc Benioff.Benioff decamped to Hawai‘i, and it was there, swimming in the open ocean among dolphins, that the vision for Salesforce came into focus: Building a company around his values. "I have gotten some of my best insights when I have been able to surrender myself to nature like that," he has said. San Francisco makes that surrender easy: Ocean Beach is one of Northern California's premier surf breaks and Crissy Field's Golden Gate winds draw world-class kitesurfers, while a Stanford study found that the simple act of walking measurably lifts creative thinking. Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey is a fellow believer, telling CNBC "If I'm with a friend, we have our best conversations while walking."Make the meeting a meal and the city your network.Serendipitous meetings spark inspiring conversations, as Maggie Spicer, founder of company culture firm WHISK, understands well. Maggie has taken brands from zero to launch and delivered world-class experiences to company teams and individuals. Her mission: to seek out the very best in every destination—singular places to sip and dine, design-forward offices and coworking spaces to ideate and collaborate. She recommends Parachute at the scenic waterfront Ferry Building for stellar morning pastries with conversation-sparking bay views, and Cotogna, a relaxed al fresco spot from one of SF’s best chefs, for dinner. “Michael Tusk's rustic Italian trattoria in buzzy Jackson Square has been consistently excellent since it opened, which is rare. Coupled with its three-Michelin-starred sister restaurant, Quince, you can't beat it. Expect a wood-burning oven, good wine list, and pasta changes seasonally—don't miss the rabbit agnolotti.”The city and work are never finished—treat your city as your studioSan Francisco's defining habit is reinvention—it keeps reactivating its own buildings to spark fresh ideas and conversations. Exhibit A sits beneath the Transamerica Pyramid, where San Francisco-born artist Lily Kwong's Earthseed Dome—a 3D-printed living-soil structure embedded with seeds that bloom over time—is growing in Transamerica Redwood Park through July, with visitors invited to act as "human pollinators." It anchors the new nomadic model of the Institute of Contemporary Art SF, which gave up a fixed home to stage shows in the city's landmark spaces. Director Alison Gass's logic doubles as a question for anyone rethinking where work happens: "What if we find the right space for the right project?" The conviction that even a traditional office is provisional runs deep here—Chesky has called the concept "an outdated notion.”This story was produced by CANOPY and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	QCA volunteer fire departments receive federal grants The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) has awarded $495,000 in federal grants to 73 volunteer fire departments statewide to help them buy new equipment or pay for fire training. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service funds the Volunteer Fire Capacity (VFC) grant program. It provides matching funds to assist fire departments in buying [...]
	2 young directors strike big at the box office with 'Backrooms' and 'Obsession' Backrooms, by 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons, is set in a mysterious maze of abandoned offices. Curry Barker, 26, tells a horror story about consent and male loneliness in Obsession.
	The World Cup is coming to the United States. What happens when 6 billion fans go online? The World Cup is coming to the United States. What happens when 6 billion fans go online?For most Americans, the FIFA World Cup has always been someone else's home game. This summer, that changes.The 2026 tournament is being co-hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico. FIFA projects nearly six billion viewers, making it the largest live and digital audience in the event's history. Fans across all 48 participating nations will be streaming matches, booking travel, checking schedules, shopping for gear, and tracking scores in real time.That is an enormous, wildly diverse group of people using digital products at the same time. Different languages. Different devices. Different levels of internet access. And a wide range of physical, cognitive, and sensory abilities.As AudioEye examines in this article, high-demand digital moments have a way of showing you exactly where your experience breaks down. The World Cup will be one of the biggest of the decade.What high-traffic moments do to digital accessibilityWhen a lot of people hit the same site at once, the gaps in a digital experience become impossible to ignore. For users who rely on assistive technology such as screen readers, keyboard navigation, or alternative input devices, those gaps often mean being locked out entirely. Countdown timers that interrupt screen reader navigation. Checkout flows that reset after a timeout. Ticket queues built around rapid visual cues that don't translate to keyboard-only navigation or assistive technology.The 2026 WebAIM Million report, which analyzes the accessibility of the top one million websites, found that 95.9% of home pages still have an average of 56.1 accessibility errors per page. For users relying on a screen reader or keyboard navigation, this is the baseline they're working around every day, before any traffic spike hits.In conversations with AudioEye's A11iance Team, a group of people with disabilities, checkout flows came up repeatedly as one of the most frustrating accessibility issues. One member put it plainly: "Ensure that the checkout and payment process is as well built as the shopping process. It's horrible to spend a lot of time finding that perfect thing only to be unable to check out."That experience doesn't change when the product is a tournament ticket or a team jersey. It just might sting more.A global audience isn't a uniform onePart of what makes an event like the World Cup worth paying attention to from an accessibility standpoint is that the audience isn't hypothetical. It's genuinely global, and it includes people across every kind of ability, language, and device.AudioEye's 2025 Digital Accessibility Index, which analyzed more than 15,000 websites, found an average of 297 accessibility issues per page. Many of those issues cluster around the exact elements fans rely on during high-demand moments: navigation menus, form fields, interactive buttons, and streaming controls.The common thread isn't complexity. Most of the barriers that make these experiences difficult, such as missing labels on form fields, color contrast that fails in bright environments, and video players without accessible keyboard controls, are fixable. They just require treating accessibility as part of how a digital product is built, not something layered on afterward.What accessible digital experiences actually look likeThere's no magic fix for accessibility at scale, but there are consistent practices that make experiences work for more people. Flexible time limits, or the ability to turn them off entirely, allow users with disabilities to complete transactions without being penalized for needing more time. Forms with clear labels, visible focus indicators, and useful error messages are navigable by screen readers and keyboard users. Captions and transcripts make video content accessible to users who are deaf or hard of hearing, and often more useful to anyone watching without sound.Accessibility improvements don't just help users with disabilities. They make experiences cleaner and easier to navigate for everyone, both during high-traffic moments and every day after.Members of AudioEye's A11iance Team have noted this directly. "People with disabilities are very loyal clients," one member shared. "Accessible websites are hit and miss — if you find one that is accessible as well as user-friendly, you want to share the wealth."Access isn't a bonus featureThe World Cup draws fans who have waited years, sometimes their whole lives, for their country to reach this stage. Some will be navigating streams with a screen reader. Some will be checking scores on a phone mounted to a wheelchair. Some will be watching with captions on because sound alone doesn't work for them.An event this global is a chance to prove what digital experiences can be when they are built for everyone from the start, not just under the bright lights of a tournament, but across the ticket queue, the banking app, and the government website people depend on every day.This story was produced by AudioEye and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Utility executives reindicted on state bribery charges Defendants former FirstEnergy executives Michael Dowling and Chuck Jones listen to the proceedings on the second day of their trial in Summit County Court of Common Pleas Judge Susan Baker Ross's courtroom on Feb. 4, 2026. (Pool photo by Mike Cardew/Akron Beacon Journal.)Former top executives with a utility involved in one the biggest corruption scandals in Ohio history have been reindicted on state charges, prosecutors announced on Thursday. Former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and Vice President Michael Dowling were indicted by a Summit County Grand Jury on numerous counts, including bribery, conspiracy and fraud. An earlier trial of the two men ended in a hung jury at the end of March. Outgoing Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Summit County Prosecutor Elliott Kolkovich issued a joint statement announcing the executives’ reindictment. “The roots of this complex case haven’t changed – FirstEnergy was hijacked by two scheming executives who sought to control the regulator that influenced the company’s stock prices,” the statement quoted Yost as saying. “I’m confident that Ohio’s ratepayers will get justice when the facts are unearthed in the courtroom.” In a 2023 federal court trial in Cincinnati, federal prosecutors laid out a scheme in which Akron-based FirstEnergy funneled more than $60 million through 501(c)(4) “dark money” groups. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.They said the scheme was to elect a Republican majority to the Ohio House of Representatives and make Larry Householder of Glenford speaker in 2019, so he could pass and protect a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout. Householder is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the conspiracy. Even after being convicted on federal charges, Householder maintained his innocence. In January, however, the former House speaker’s attorneys said he is open to a plea deal related to his state corruption trial, set to take place in Cuyahoga County this year. Jones and Dowling ran FirstEnergy during the time of the conspiracy of which Householder was convicted. In 2021 — after Householder and others were arrested and Jones and Dowling were fired — FirstEnergy paid a $230 million fine and signed a deferred prosecution agreement. The company admitted to paying millions through dark-money groups to Householder in return for Householder “pursuing nuclear legislation for FirstEnergy Corp.’s benefit.” FirstEnergy also admitted paying a $4.3 million bribe to Sam Randazzo, Gov. Mike DeWine’s first pick to be the state’s top utility regulator. In 2024, Randazzo died by suicide. The feds didn’t indict Jones and Dowling until Jan. 15, 2025 — after the men had already been indicted on state charges. No trial date has been set in the federal case. The case seems to be waiting on the state retrial, for which jury selection is expected to start on Sept. 18, according to a May 28 entry in the federal courts record system. After eight days of deliberation, the jury in the earlier state trial couldn’t agree on whether Jones and Dowling bribed Randazzo. Yost said 10 of 12 jurors agreed on the former executives’ guilt. But he explained that criminal cases require a unanimous verdict. The new indictment contains new information, Yost said in a YouTube video linked to in the statement announcing the new indictment. “This new indictment includes some additional facts that were not known to us at the time of the first indictment that we became aware of as a result of a civil lawsuit against FirstEnergy,” it said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Ohio Capital Journal
	Youth drug use is down, but overdoses have risen. One town’s schools have a possible solution Youth drug use is down, but overdoses have risen. One town’s schools have a possible solutionMichael Robertson struggled in school almost from the very beginning. But it was in seventh grade, when he started smoking cigarettes and drinking, that school seemed to become nearly unbearable to him.“There was always an excuse for why he couldn’t go to school,” his mother, Danielle Forino, told The Hechinger Report. “Every morning, he would say he was too tired or didn’t feel good.”At 13 years old, he was prescribed Vicodin following dental work and, his mother said, quickly started abusing it. By his sophomore year of high school, in 2017, he couldn’t get through the school day without nicotine, she recalled. By his junior year, he was addicted to oxycodone. In his senior year, he enrolled at the district’s alternative schooling program, which allows students more flexibility in their learning, but was kicked out for vaping nicotine. Throughout this time, he fell further behind academically and became disengaged from school, his peers, and other activities he previously enjoyed.Nationwide, there has been a drop in the share of young people using substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and harder drugs. But in recent years, unintentional overdoses among children and teens have spiked.In Robertson’s hometown of Fort Kent, Maine, which hugs the Canadian border, educators have seen students arrive at school hungover, fall asleep in class, and show up Monday mornings with substance-use-related summonses they received over the weekend, asking what to do. They also see students who skip school, arrive late, can’t focus, are restless, and lack drive, issues that they say have worsened in recent years.This August, Fort Kent will use new funding to try a novel solution to the problem: a public boarding school for high schoolers in recovery. Educators hope the school’s focus on abstinence and mental health will help students overcome their substance misuse problems — but first, they have to convince the teens who need help the most and are the hardest to reach that they should enroll.“Addiction doesn’t mean a student stops being a learner,” said Tammy Lothrop, who has worked as a school social worker in Aroostook County, where Fort Kent is located, for 25 years. “When we separate the two, students fall behind academically, fall behind their peers, which leads to more shame. For the first time, we’re not asking students to choose between recovery and education.”Substance use can be particularly harmful for young people because their brains are rapidly developing. It can disrupt that development by releasing chemicals that impede normal communication in the brain, potentially increasing anxiety and irritability and decreasing attention span, impulse control, and problem-solving abilities.In school, this can contribute to absenteeism, declining grades, and dropping out, according to experts. When substance use becomes compulsive or leads to addiction, those effects are heightened.“Substance use interferes with kids’ learning,” said Sharon Levy, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Substance use knocks systems out of balance.”Youth substance misuse affects adolescents of all races, socioeconomic groups, and geographies, but the way it progresses can vary greatly depending on the resources available.In Maine, a largely rural state, there is only one inpatient facility for youth struggling with substance misuse and addiction, and limited outpatient options.In Aroostook County, a sprawling region of 67,000 people that has higher-than-average poverty and lower-than-average educational attainment rates, preventative programs and mental health services for youth are also scarce.When Brooke Nadeau took her first teaching job in 2020 at Fort Kent’s high school, she was somewhat naive about youth substance use: She recalled being stunned when one of her students told her they took hallucinogens on the weekends. But since then, she has become more accustomed to — and concerned about — students’ drug and alcohol use.Nadeau, who is working toward a Ph.D. in criminal justice, started researching youth substance use and addiction support services in Aroostook County. She didn’t find much.The school district offers preventative and educational support, including health class lessons and assemblies in middle and high school on healthy strategies for coping with mental health challenges and the dangers of substance use. It also encourages students who may be struggling with substance issues to work with the district’s social worker, who can provide short-term counseling and connect students with outside resources.But the capacity of the district, which serves about 800 students in pre-K through 12th grade, is limited. So when Nadeau learned about the recovery high school model while conducting research for her dissertation, she immediately flagged it as something that could benefit her students.“With the recovery high school, we can help the students get into recovery and gain coping skills early on,” said Nadeau, who grew up just outside Fort Kent. “If we stop the cycle at a younger age, give them the supports they need, they might not need to go to jail and can go to college and become functioning adults.”Recovery high schools have been around for a few decades. Today, there are 46 across the country, serving youth with substance use and co-occurring disorders, such as depression and anxiety, according to Andrew Finch, who leads the nonprofit Association of Recovery Schools. Research on the schools is limited, but the data that does exist shows that students in recovery who attend these schools are more likely to abstain from drug use than students at standard high schools.“Recovery schools can be really helpful for kids who need a place where triggers are managed,” said Levy.The Upper St. John Valley Recovery High School will be part of the Fort Kent school district and run by the Valley Unified Education Service Center, which serves three area school districts, including Fort Kent. It will be the first recovery high school in Maine, the only one operating in a rural area, and, to serve Aroostook County’s widely dispersed population, the first with a boarding component in around 30 years. It has room to serve 14 students at a time, eight of whom will board there during the school week, and expects students to remain in the program for between 90 days and a full school year.Students enroll voluntarily, opting into the program with support from a parent or guardian.The school district is renting dorm space from the University of Maine at Fort Kent. The university is expected to provide the classroom and other living spaces — including a kitchen and a living room with a working fireplace — rent free in the recovery high school’s first year. It will be staffed by a social worker trained in substance misuse and addiction treatment, an academic teacher, a paraprofessional, and a dorm supervisor.On the weekends, the boarding students will return home armed with plans to maintain their sobriety, which will allow them to practice abstinence for short time spans away from the school as they gain trust in its staying power, according to Peter Caron, alternative school coordinator, who developed the recovery high school with Nadeau. If students relapse, which he said is expected, the school will work with them to strengthen their coping skills and identify new strategies to maintain abstinence.“We see that with adolescents in recovery facilities, they do well because of the structure, but when they return to their home communities, they fall back into old habits,” said Caron. “We need to give them more time and the opportunity to develop transitional skills.”Caron had never heard of a recovery high school when Nadeau presented the concept to him in 2023. But when she suggested they start one in Fort Kent, he immediately agreed. “We have not been able to effectively address the issue of substance misuse in our students’ lives,” said Caron.Once they had approval from their superintendent, Caron and Nadeau began searching for funding. Their timing was opportune: Maine had begun receiving tens of millions from nationwide settlement agreements with pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis. Nadeau and Caron applied to the statewide council responsible for distributing some of these funds and were awarded $616,000.Many here hope the school will allow students to stay more connected to their communities as they try to overcome substance misuse. Because youth addiction recovery services in Aroostook are limited, students who need treatment often have to leave their homes, and sometimes the state. That distance can create more trauma and isolation, said Lothrop, the Aroostook County school social worker.“Throughout my years, I’ve often felt the heartbreak of knowing a student needs more support than we have for them locally,” said Lothrop. “With the recovery school, they can continue to heal without being disconnected from their roots.”Despite the community’s support for the school, it faces significant barriers to success.Among them is stigma: Many kids are afraid to reveal that they are struggling with substance misuse, especially in a small community like this one. The school’s supporters worry that even if teenagers want the help the school could offer, they’ll be too afraid to enroll.“We know there’s a need,” said Caron, who was also born and raised in Fort Kent. “But we need to demonstrate there’s a demand.”So far, one student has directly expressed interest, Nadeau said. Caseworkers from around the county have started contacting her about teenagers they think will be a good fit.At the same time, the timeframe for proving the school’s value is limited.The money from the state’s opioid settlement, along with funds from school districts that send students to the recovery high school, is expected to fund it for two years.Elsewhere in the U.S., recovery high schools are funded through a variety of sources, including state and local funds, donations, and tuition.Caron and Nadeau hope to receive an additional million dollars from the state legislature so they can pilot the program for five, rather than two, years. They are working with their local legislator on a bill requesting the money to be introduced next year.But to receive that funding, Caron needs to show the school can fill its slots. “This is a use it or lose it proposition,” he said.Danielle Forino said she doesn’t know whether a program like the recovery high school would have been able to help her son, Michael, who died of an overdose in 2023 at age 22. To attend the recovery school, students have to be in active recovery — sober for at least 30 days, with some exceptions, and invested in sobriety for the long term. Forino doesn’t know if Robertson would have been ready. Although during his junior year of high school he suggested he might need suboxone — a prescription medication to treat opioid addiction — he didn’t make a concerted effort to ask for help until he was 19.But for Caron and others involved in the recovery high school who knew Robertson, he’s exactly the type of student they hope to help.“We didn’t have an answer for him,” said Caron. He hopes the recovery school can be the answer for other kids who are struggling with substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders.Ultimately, Nadeau and Caron want this to be just the start, that their school will flourish, normalize youth recovery, and spur the development of recovery schools statewide.But for now, their focus is closer to home.Success, said Nadeau, would be “if one life is saved.”This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Iowans eligible for MLB’s Field of Dreams ticket lottery MLB opened registration for the Field of Dreams ticket lottery on Thursday, which is exclusively available to Iowa residents through June 11.
	Some Scott County roads impacted by hot mix asphalt projects Starting on Friday, June 5, several roadways in Scott County will have lane restrictions as crews perform hot mix asphalt patching projects. Flaggers and pilot cars will maintain traffic and drivers should be prepared to stop and expect traffic delays. Lane restrictions may occur Monday – Friday between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. and the [...]
	Clinton drafting development rules for all data center proposals The city is drafting new regulations to address resident concerns over utility, noise, and environmental impacts of a potential new data center.
	A look inside the growing Australian truffle tourism industry, where dogs sniff and schnapps follow A look inside the growing Australian truffle tourism industry, where dogs sniff and schnapps followThere was a time when vacation meant sand between your toes, saltwater on your lips and a margarita by the pool. But travel in 2026 is changing. Many tourists are seeking longer, immersive activities that engage all the senses and provide a stronger understanding of place.And since few know their natural environment better than farmers, it’s sensible that agritourism—taking trips to farms or ranches—is trending in 2026. Data from vacation rental site VRBO shows a 300% spike in farm-stay interest from May 2023 to April 2024 versus May 2024 to April 2025. According to VRBO, 84% of travelers expressed interest in a farm-stay vacation, wanting to stay on a property with nature trails, animals, and fresh fruit and produce.One popular form of agritourism throughout regions all around the world is truffle foraging, an old-world European tradition. The tradition began in ancient Mesopotamia, and in recent history became associated with top producers like Italy and France, but is now happening in countries like Australia.Black truffles are among the rarest edible fungi, known for their unmistakable, woodsy aroma, often described as nutty and slightly musky. They grow entirely underground near the roots of certain trees and remain invisible from the surface. Trained dogs that can sense their scent beneath the soil help detect the truffles’ locations, at which point the lucky guest gets to dig them up and enjoy.Australia has become the world's fourth-largest black truffle producer since planting its first host trees in 1995. Truffle-farm experiences are also cropping up for visitors. Tourists can join guided truffle hunts during peak season in the country’s colder months from June to August. The setting is usually quiet forest or farmland, a scenic haven away from the city. In Australia, one of the most unexpected places to experience this is in Canberra, the country’s capital city, where cool winters create ideal growing conditions.Here, VisitCanberra gives a look inside the sensory experience, which visitors can experience with just a short drive from Parliament House, the seat of Australia's national government in the heart of the Australian Capital Territory.What to expect on your first truffle hunt VisitCanberra Truffle hunting begins in the hours after frost loosens its grip on the ground, says Alice O’Mara, co-owner of boutique truffle destination Beltana Farm in Canberra, Australia, which offers both rural charm and proximity to the city center. That way, trained dogs—often English springer spaniels, border collies or the Italian Lagotto Romagnolo, a fuzzy, endearing breed that somewhat resembles the lumpy truffles they were trained to retrieve—have the best chance of smelling the black gold below the soil.Sometimes, guests need to warm up, too, though not from frost, but to the truth about truffle’s flavor complexity. Fresh truffles taste richer than the oil that comes on top of truffle fries and truffle potato chips, but those trendy snacks are sometimes the only previous experience guests have with truffles before joining a foraging tour. "People come in thinking they don't like truffles because they've had truffle oil at restaurants. Then they smell the real thing and realize it's nothing like what they expected,” said O’Mara.Soon enough, though, they start digging. For an hour, guests crouch over, squatting or kneeling to follow their guide dog’s nose. Here, O’Mara takes the opportunity to give guests an oral history lesson and explain how the truffles are cultivated. As dogs move ahead, following the odor, they scan the ground. A dog detects something and stops to signal the specific spot. Guests then kneel and brush away soil.What comes out of the ground is small and black as an inkwell, almost knotted-looking and uneven in shape. It’s the Tuber melanosporum, the Périgord truffle. And then comes the smell. VisitCanberra Smelling and describing truffle aromas“It really hits you in the face,” said O’Mara. “I like it pungent, almost diesely-smelling. Some people think of asparagus; that is a quite common thing that we hear. Or beetroot, that earthy scent. They're probably the three key smells that people tell us when they're having a sniff.”That’s the benefit of truffle hunting in groups: You can compare truffle smells, but also compare the “smell palettes” each person’s nose picks up. In this way, truffle hunting is almost like an exceptionally interactive wine tasting, but with truffle aromas. Foragers learn about the way smells can vary depending on ripeness, as well as what kind of tree the truffles grew beside—oak, hazelnut or other varieties. Blue cheese is another common aromatic note, says O’Mara. The two foods share chemical compounds alike. After the search, truffle tourism experiences often continue the fun in the kitchen. Some farms serve meals made with freshly foraged truffles, shaving them over dishes so the flavor pops. Others may continue the hands-on theme and segue the group right into cooking demonstrations using finds from the day’s harvest.“People are wanting a bit more of a connection to land, a bit more of an understanding of where their food is coming from,” said O’Mara. Beltana Farm has a full-service restaurant on site that presents a seasonal menu with local ingredients like oysters from Australia’s South Coast, cuttlefish-ink-cured meats, desserts drizzled with caramelized wattleseed—an aboriginal Acacia seed—and, of course, truffles foraged by guests’ own hands“If guests are going to have a meal, why not make it a really unique experience?” O’Mara said.The euphoria of agritourismFinding one’s first truffle can bring about what O’Mara describes as “almost a euphoric state.” The combination of learning a new skill and building anticipation by getting down on the ground to dig with a trowel makes the moment tourists pull their truffle from the soil feel “like you've won the biggest prize in the world.”According to O’Mara, even very buttoned-up adults smile in glee when given the chance to follow their forager instincts and commune with nature on an outdoor excursion.At the end of the day, after the hunt and meal, a swig of truffle schnapps makes for the perfect aperitif to cleanse the palette. The truffle essence gives the drink an earthy undertone, but the schnapps adds complex sweetness.“People love it,” said O’Mara about the truffle schnapps. “It's great over ice cream. But as a shot it also works.”Unlike wineries, where visitors tend to arrive with a clear sense of what the visit will involve, O’Mara notes that many guests come to truffle farms with little prior understanding of the process. Unless they are already truffle enthusiasts, she says, most are encountering the experience for the first time.This lack of expectation sets truffle hunting apart from more familiar food and wine experiences. “Guests are always just so excited and blown away with watching a dog work and learning about how nature creates these amazing things,” O’Mara said.Wine tastings operate year-round, but truffle season arrives once annually for just a few months, typically June through August in Canberra. Nature’s short window for truffle hunting is part of what makes the activity so coveted. One week they’re there, the next they’re gone. But the knowledge and the memories last much longer.This story was produced by VisitCanberra and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	‘Die! Die! Die!’: New details revealed in Peoria stabbing murder A Peoria woman accused of stabbing another woman to death will have to wait another day to see if she stays in jail.
	Whirlpool ending second-shift production in Amana Whirpool says it will be ending second-shift production in Amana in July.
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	Davenport woman gets 20 years for trying to steal baby from home A Davenport woman who admitted to burglary and child stealing has been sentenced to consecutive prison terms totaling 20 years.
	How the AI-enabled race for taxpayer money starts in a superintendent’s inbox How the AI-enabled race for taxpayer money starts in a superintendent’s inboxStrange meetings keep appearing on Heidi Sipe’s Google calendar.The superintendent for the Umatilla School District in eastern Oregon never requested these meetings. But sales representatives selling education technology have found their way onto her calendar anyway. Sipe says it’s the latest tactic from education technology companies racing for her district’s business.Every week, Sipe roots through these unwanted invites and hundreds of other messages in her inbox from these companies. They offer her and her 1,500-student district “transformative experiences,” “memorable strategies,” and “research-backed answers.” There is seemingly no limit on buzzwords or emails. But her budget for software, online training, AI tools, and curriculum is far from infinite.Sipe isn’t the only school superintendent who says their inbox is bursting at the seams. Chalkbeat asked her and four other superintendents from New York to Oregon to share the sales pitches emailed to them in one day in March. In total, they shared 90 messages from 79 companies offering everything from 3D frog dissection simulations to AI training to student fingerprint scanning. The sheer avalanche of options makes the task of finding a quality tool that much harder. The superintendents also said they’ve found the flood of emails takes away their time and attention.While the endless march of marketing emails is a familiar irritation for Americans, ed tech companies are targeting taxpayer dollars. Pandemic relief dollars once fueled a surge in spending on tech in education, but districts are operating on more constrained budgets these days. Ed tech companies, meanwhile, don’t seem to be slowing down — industry leaders say entrepreneurs now face fewer obstacles to creating new products, because they can use AI to quickly spin up a new tool and the marketing emails to promote it.The backdrop to all this is a confusing moment for education and technology. School district leaders are thinking about how to rapidly adapt to the AI boom at the same time pressure is growing for them to scale back on screen time in the classroom.“It’s just a lot of energy drain that goes towards responding to this, in my opinion, instead of being focused on providing what students really need,” said Wendy Birhanzel, superintendent of the Harrison School District in Colorado Springs, and one of the five superintendents who shared pitches with Chalkbeat.AI fuels flood of ed tech marketing emailsChris Ryan, who worked in ed tech sales for decades and now works as a consultant helping districts navigate the purchasing process, said new AI-powered and advanced online marketing tools are part of the problem. They’re “finding ways in, faster than we realized.”Sales representatives have more tools at their disposal to reach more districts than they used to, he said. And these more aggressive tactics are magnified for smaller districts, where superintendents are already strapped for time. He recalled once making a sales call to a superintendent of a rural district in Texas who had to leave the call to drive a school bus, because the driver didn’t show up.“I don’t know that vendors understand how demanding that role is,” he said.Ryan thinks he might know why Sipe is suddenly getting unsolicited calendar invites.Recently, he sent a district staff member an unsolicited calendar invite. It was an accident, done through AI email marketing software and what Ryan admits was his sloppy prompting.Birhanzel said the sales pitches often feel scattershot, advertising to solve problems her district doesn’t have.For instance, she gets a lot of marketing for data collection. But she doesn’t need more data collection. In one day, she got emails from companies separately touting student academic data collection, employee data collection, and visitor data collection.“Many of these sales people haven’t done their research,” she said.And sometimes the promises companies make don’t add up. Several superintendents said they’ve bought tools that flopped.Birhanzel said her 12,000-student district once backed out of a contract after a data company failed to even transfer district data to its service. Curtis Finch, superintendent of the Deer Valley Unified School district in Phoenix, said in his early days as a district administrator, he didn’t push companies enough about whether their products would integrate into a district’s existing system.Because Deer Valley is a relatively big district, Finch has an instructional technology team to talk to app developers to truly see if a new technology will fit in the district. With 4,000 employees serving 31,000 students, not vetting products well can be a costly mistake.“If I’m changing a thing that impacts 4,000 people, I have to train everyone on this new system, and it takes years to get everybody up to speed,” he said.Ed tech marketing overload makes leaders’ jobs harderChalkbeat attempted to email every company that emailed the five superintendents. Most did not respond to a request for comment. A few emails bounced back. One company’s automated email system only succeeded in directing a reporter back and forth between a form and an email address.Some of the companies that did respond acknowledged that there’s a lot of competition in the ed tech industry, but that they try to be relevant and useful in the marketing they send.One of the emails that ended up in a superintendent’s inbox was from a company called Digitability. The message advertised a “financial ‘slam dunk’” — this was March, a peak time for college basketball — and the company’s financial literacy program, with a link to download a March Madness-themed financial literacy activity.Digitability’s founder, Michele McKeone, is a former special education teacher who built the company out of frustration that there weren’t enough tools to equip students with disabilities with practical skills. She said Digitability’s slam dunk email went to prospective customers on the company’s mailing list, indicating the superintendent may have already engaged with their website.“Most of our customers find us in some meaningful way.”But crowded inboxes and a glut of choices — in an industry where there’s little regulation — isn’t helping school district leaders make smart choices, superintendents said.In some states, districts can turn to other government authorities for help.Alicia Gallegos Butters, director of educational technology at the San Diego County Office of Education doesn’t keep a list of products to recommend, but tries to assess a district’s need when pointing them to a particular product.The federal government’s guidance recommends schools consider four tiers of evidence when deciding on a new tool. It outlines what would be considered strong evidence, as well as when a tool might have less evidence behind it but still demonstrates a strong-enough rationale to use. But that framework fails to address some key concerns in ed tech, like data collection and student privacy issues.Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE, said his organization has developed an index of ed tech products denoting whether a tool is evidence-based to help superintendents and instruction officers make more informed decisions, in part because it’s clear that they’re overwhelmed.The index — an ongoing project — uses a combination of validations from third-party organizations and ISTE’s own seal. Companies can submit their own research, but ISTE also reviews the product to verify claims, a spokesperson wrote in an emailed response to questions. Proving whether something is evidence-based can be imprecise, because the criteria across education for what is considered evidence-based varies so widely.“There’s no way to browse the options,” Culatta said. “I think if that existed … schools could go and say, ‘here’s what I need.’ And you wouldn’t have to be in this case where they’re relying on these weird dysfunctional behaviors to get stuff in front of them.”As for Sipe? She just wants fewer emails.“If I’m seeking something, I’m not going to find it from an unsolicited email,” she said. Edited by Erica Meltzer and Andrew UjifusaDevelopment and data analysis by Thomas WilburnThis story was produced by Chalkbeat and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	South Africa rolls out game-changing HIV shot amid funding shortfalls A new twice-yearly HIV prevention injection could transform South Africa's fight against the epidemic — but U.S. aid cuts and limited doses threaten to slow its impact.
	FORC Side Thrill Ride offers challenging terrain FORC’s (Friends of Off-Road Cycling) Side Thrill Ride is the group’s most popular race event of the year. The ride will be on Sunday, June 14 at Sunderbruch Park, 4675 Telegraph Road in Davenport. The park was once voted as the “Number One Mountain Bike trail in Iowa” by Singletrack.” Click here for more information [...]
	HR’s biggest challenges in 2026 and how organizational mental health can help HR’s biggest challenges in 2026 and how organizational mental health can helpEvery day, HR teams are supporting employees through burnout, financial stress, family pressures, global uncertainty, and rising mental health needs.At the same time, they’re being asked to defend every investment, manage tighter budgets, and show how their benefits programs contribute to business performance.That’s not easy, because some of HR’s most valuable work is preventative. It’s the resignation that didn’t happen. The leave that was avoided. The manager who got support before a team issue became a business issue. The employee who found care before stress turned into a crisis.This work matters. But to secure budget and leadership support, HR has to make that value visible.What are HR’s biggest challenges in 2026? In this article, Spring Health explores that question and outlines how you can address those challenges with both support and business results.HR’s biggest challenges in 2026In early 2026, Spring Health asked HR and benefits professionals what keeps them up at night. This research informed Spring Health’s 2026 Workplace Mental Health Annual Report that was published last month.Their top answers were:Retaining top talent in a competitive market: 44%Pressure to demonstrate ROI on benefits programs: 38%Rising burnout and mental health challenges among employees: 37%Budget pressures impacting benefits decisions: 37%Increasing disability and leave of absence claims: 29%Lack of leadership buy-in for mental health investment: 28%Managing mental health needs across a diverse, global workforce: 22%These are some distinct challenges, but many of them are intertwined. For example, demonstrating ROI will help secure leadership buy-in for benefits investment. Reducing burnout among employees should also help you retain employees.Breaking down HR’s unique challengesLet’s explore each of these unique challenges and how the right mental health solution can impact each.1: Retaining top talent in a competitive marketWhy this mattersNearly 7 in 10 organizations say it’s difficult to recruit for full-time openings, per a Society for Human Resource Management survey. That’s meaningful when you consider how much time HR professionals spend on recruitment and retention. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans stay with employers for an average of 3.9 years as of January 2024, which is the lowest number recorded since 2002.On top of that, replacing an employee is a significant cost for employers when you factor in covering for the departing employee, finding a new one, and training that new one. Employee Benefit News estimates that losing an employee costs about one-third of that employee’s salary.How a mental health solution helpsAs mentioned in Spring Health’s 2026 Workplace Mental Health Annual Report, 69% of employees say mental health benefits are very or extremely important to their job decisions. For 18-to-34-year-olds and 35-to-44-year-olds, those numbers are even higher: 83% and 78%, respectively.When employees have access to the right care before challenges escalate, they’re more likely to get better, stay better, and feel cared for. That, in turn, should encourage them to stay or want to be a part of your organization.2: Pressure to demonstrate ROIWhy this mattersThe ROI pressure becomes as much a finance exercise as it is a “do right for my people” exercise. But if you’re challenged to prove the ROI of your mental health solution, you’re not alone. Only 9% of HR professionals in Spring Health’s research said that their solution clearly drives down health plan spend.How a mental health solution helpsThe best mental health solutions can show more than just utilization rates. ROI should be an expectation when investing in mental health, and savings should clearly show up in the form of reduced health plan spend. And those savings should be independently verified so they have the credibility you and your finance leaders need when making that investment.3: Rising burnout and mental health challengesWhy this mattersEmployee burnout isn’t always visible, and it can be hard to spot. At the same time, burnout can also be the overlooked driver of many challenges that do show up from a business perspective, such as employee turnover and leave-of-absence claims. Within Spring Health’s research, 61% of HR and benefits professionals said employee burnout had increased in the past year.How a mental health solution helpsThe right solution can help employers identify risk earlier and give employees a faster path to support, before higher-acuity needs emerge. Early assessments, one-to-one navigation, self-guided tools, and manager-specific mental health training are all critical tools in reducing burnout.4: Budget pressures impacting benefits decisionsWhy this mattersNearly 3 in 5 employers were planning to make cuts to their health benefits plans in 2026 in an effort to combat rising costs, according to research by Mercer. However, what might get overlooked in making proactive cuts is the downstream cost impact of pulling back on proactive support.How a mental health solution helpsThe right solution should make care easier to access while helping reduce downstream costs tied to untreated or undertreated mental health needs. Those costs can include:Medical claimsPharmacy spendEmergency room visitsAbsenteeismPresenteeismEmployee turnoverDisability claimsLeaves of absenceWhen HR can connect mental health support to cost containment, the conversation shifts. The question becomes less about whether the organization can afford better mental health support and more about what untreated mental health needs are already costing the business. At that point, you are better equipped to secure budget.5: Increasing disability and LOA claimsWhy this mattersSpring Health’s research also found that 61% of HR and benefits professionals say their mental health leaves have increased in the past year, with 16% of all respondents saying they’ve increased by 25% or more.Leaves of absence provide organizational strain in a variety of ways. The employee on a leave of absence is clearly feeling the strain, but so are the managers and colleagues who are filling the void left by that employee. On top of that, if the employee doesn’t truly get better, then your organization could face repeat leaves or regrettable attrition.How a mental health solution helpsThe best mental health solutions can provide end-to-end support, including evaluations, documentations, personalized care plans, and return-to-work support.6: Lack of leadership buy-in for mental health investmentWhy this mattersBusiness leaders have many priorities to juggle. While investing in a mental health solution might seem like a slam dunk, organizations have many needs. To make this need a priority, HR leaders need to clearly articulate the need, the potential ROI of the investment, and also the cost organizations are paying by not investing.How a mental health solution helpsModern mental health solutions can help HR leaders frame mental health as more than just “the right thing to do” by providing data on measurable impact, such as ROI, clinical outcomes, and productivity.7: Managing diverse, global mental health needsWhy this mattersEmployee mental health needs can vary widely. A frontline worker may face different barriers to care than an employee who works at a desk. Employees with large families may have different needs than employees who live alone. And then there are different ages, races, cultures, genders, and income levels also coming together in the office, all of which influence top barriers to care and impact your utilization rates.When mental health goes under-utilized, your employees aren’t reaping the benefits and your ability to build the business case for it becomes more challenging.How a mental health solution can helpModern solutions should be globally consistent and locally relevant. That means culturally responsive care, language access, diverse provider options, flexible care modalities, support for dependents and families, and reporting that helps HR understand which populations are engaging and which may be getting missed.This is especially important for large employers with complex workforces. A strong mental health solution should help HR leaders manage centrally while still adapting to local needs, cultural differences, and population-specific barriers.3 takeaways to address your biggest challengesEvaluate whether employees can actually find and start care. Ask whether employees know your current EAP or mental health solution exists, do they trust it, and can they start care without friction. If awareness is low, access is confusing, or appointments take weeks, the benefit may be failing before care even begins.Pressure-test whether your solution supports the full range of employee needs. Many programs work for low-acuity stress but fall short when employees need more specialized care, medication management, crisis support, family support, or help navigating leave. Evaluate whether your current solution can support employees across the full spectrum of need.Ask whether your current reporting can support a budget conversation. If your current solution can only show utilization, you may not have enough evidence to defend the investment. Look for solutions with reporting that connects mental health support to outcomes that HR and finance care about.MethodologySpring Health surveyed 500+ HR/benefits professionals and 1,500+ full-time employees across five countries (United States, Canada, Mexico, India, and the United Kingdom) in early 2026. The HR survey was submitted to a variety of HR roles, from chief human resource officers and vice presidents of benefits to benefits managers and human resource directors. HR professionals must have been actively employed within those roles at organizations with at least 500 employees. The full-time employee survey included anyone 18 years of age or older who was actively employed full time. This research informed Spring Health’s 2026 Workplace Mental Health Annual Report that was published in April 2026.This story was produced by Spring Health and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Two Davenport men sentenced in 2025 downtown shooting case Two Davenport men avoided immediate prison time after pleading guilty in connection with a 2025 downtown shooting that struck a vehicle and apartment building.
	The U.S. adds 172,000 jobs as the labor market picks up steam U.S. employers added jobs for the third month in a row in May, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. But wage gains softened and likely failed to keep pace with rising prices.
	The U.S. adds 172,000 jobs. Many are in restaurants, bars and hotels U.S. employers added jobs for the third month in a row in May, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. But wage gains softened and likely failed to keep pace with rising prices.
	Another round of storms tonight After waking up to a warm and wet Friday in the Quad Cities, things are looking to clear up for most of the afternoon. However, we are watching for a second round of some showers and potential thunderstorms for late into the evening with a slight risk of severe weather. One of the risks we [...]
	Payroll accuracy is now a retention strategy Payroll accuracy is now a retention strategyEmployee experience has become a defining priority for human resources leaders. SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace report shows that employee experience is one of the top priorities workers believe HR departments should focus on in 2026. Organizations are investing in culture, benefits, flexibility, and career development to attract and retain talent in a competitive market.But payroll, one of the most fundamental aspects of employment, remains a persistently leaky faucet, according to The State of Payroll Report from Paylocity, a payroll, HR, and finance software provider. The report examines results from an early 2026 survey of 776 human resources and finance leaders.A LendingClub survey asked 3,252 U.S. consumers whether their next paycheck would cover their monthly spending; 62% answered yes. And more than 1 in 3 workers (34%) are living paycheck to paycheck, according to Bankrate’s Living Paycheck to Paycheck Survey.In a world where so many employees are living paycheck to paycheck, getting paid accurately is critical. And when it goes wrong, the impact is immediate and can severely damage morale.The State of Payroll Report reveals that payroll issues are more common than many organizations expect. The issues with payroll often stem from breakdowns that occur well before payday.Payroll Is More Than a Back-Office TaskFor employees, payroll is one of the few direct, recurring interactions they have with their employer’s systems. And they expect those systems to work so they can be paid correctly, every time.Most of the time, that expectation is met, so payroll stays invisible. When it’s not, it becomes one of the fastest ways to erode trust.The State of Payroll Report highlights that over one-third of organizations report payroll errors at least occasionally each year. That statistic may sound small from an operational perspective. But when an employee isn’t paid properly, the damage is rarely viewed as minor from their perspective.A single payroll error can create financial stress, especially for employees living paycheck to paycheck. It can also raise broader questions about the organization’s reliability.Making sure everyone is paid correctly every time is key to an organization’s credibility.The Real Problem Starts Before PaydayPayroll issues originate well before paychecks are issued, often upstream in the platforms and processes that feed into payroll.Paylocity’s report highlights that IT, finance, and HR frequently rely on fragmented, siloed systems, 69% of organizations report using at least two systems to manage payroll inputs and 40% cite manual processes as a primary source of payroll errors.This fragmentation creates a ripple effect: Data moves between systems through manual workflows or loosely connected integrations, increasing the likelihood that errors in one system carry through to the next.As a result, HR and payroll teams spend valuable time identifying and correcting issues, leaving less capacity for higher-value work. Nearly half of HR teams spend five or more hours per payroll cycle fixing errors or reconciling data, according to the report.By the time payroll is processed, the employee experience has already been compromised.Payroll as a Retention StrategyPayroll is rarely framed as a retention strategy. But while companies tend to emphasize engagement, culture, and career growth, payroll errors risk undermining even the strongest culture initiatives.The State of Payroll Report points out that organizations with more unified systems report fewer errors. They experience less manual work and usually have smoother payroll processing. A lack of avoidable errors builds trust over time, reduces friction in the employee experience, and creates a sense of reliability that supports broader engagement efforts.In this sense, payroll is no longer just an operational, back-office function. It is a retention lever.And if payroll is part of the employee experience, it needs to be managed that way, which starts by addressing the root cause of most issues: fragmentation.According to the study, this may mean rethinking payroll's position within the organization. Instead of being treated as a downstream task, it should be integrated into the full employee lifecycle, ensuring data is accurate from the moment it enters the system.The Bottom LineEmployee experience is shaped by everyday moments. Some are high-impact and visible, like career growth or recognition. Others happen in the background, but are just as important. Payroll lands here.Payroll carries real consequences when things go wrong. And The State of Payroll Report shares that 9 in 10 organizations use fragmented systems to pay their employees. The survey findings reinforce that fragmented payroll environments lead to greater reconciliation work and higher payroll leakage. Organizations operating on combined HR and finance platforms report lower payroll leakage and spend fewer hours correcting payroll issues each month.It’s clear that getting an incorrect check directly affects how employees feel about their organization. Companies that recognize the importance of consistent, perfect payroll, invest in modern, unified systems and treat payroll as part of their experience strategy will be better positioned to build trust and retain talent.This story was produced by Paylocity and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Reagan Mass Transit will expand to Whiteside County Reagan Mass Transit District, the Dixon-based provider of rural public transportation serving Lee County and Ogle County, has announced plans to expand its service area to include Whiteside County effective July 1. The mass transit district currently provides curb-to-curb rural transit services across Lee, Ogle, and rural Winnebago County, completing more than 91,000 passenger trips [...]
	The organic media mix: The strategy document every CMO should be building right now The organic media mix: The strategy document every CMO should be building right nowFor decades, the media plan has been the definitive artifact of marketing strategy. Channels on the left, budget on the right, allocations mapped across the year. When the CEO asks where the money is going, the media plan is the answer. It forces rigor, makes tradeoffs explicit, and aligns teams.Ask organic teams for something similar and the response is usually silence.That gap is becoming harder to justify. According to ChannelEngine's Marketplace Shopping Behavior Report 2026, 58% of consumers now use AI tools when researching products, based on a survey of 4,500 online shoppers across five countries. Meanwhile, Bain research finds that 60% of searches in traditional search engines now end without a click, as AI summaries answer queries directly on the results page.The sources shaping how AI models represent a brand extend far beyond its website: Reddit, YouTube, review platforms, third-party editorials, and influencer coverage all contribute to the picture AI systems build. And right now, most brands are managing that portfolio with no plan at all.As Brainlabs explains in this article, that is the problem the organic media mix is designed to solve.What is the organic media mix?The organic media mix (OMM) is a strategic framework for allocating effort, resources, and budget across organic channels based on where AI systems are actually citing a brand's category, and where there is a realistic chance of influencing those citations.The output is a one-page strategic view: the document that shows which organic channels are being prioritized this quarter, makes tradeoffs explicit, aligns cross-functional teams, and gives leadership a clear picture of where organic investment is going and what it is expected to deliver.No two OMMs look alike, and the differences between them are not small. The mix for a CPG brand is fundamentally different from a B2B technology company. And within the same brand, the picture changes depending on which AI model is being analyzed. That variability is the point.Step 1: Pull the citations reportA citations report shows where AI models are sourcing their answers in a given category. When a user asks a question relevant to a brand, such as a product question, a comparison, or a recommendation, what sources does the AI cite? Does it point to the brand's own site? Or does it cite a Reddit thread, a TechCrunch article, or a YouTube review?Most AI visibility platforms, including Profound, seoClarity, and AirOps, can generate this data. The process involves defining a prompt set covering the questions prospective customers are actually asking, running those prompts across the AI models that matter (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews), capturing which sources are cited in the responses, and categorizing those sources by type: owned site, YouTube, third-party editorial, Reddit, review platforms, Wikipedia, influencer content, retail listings.The result is a map of where authority currently sits in a category, not where a brand wishes it sat, but where AI models actually go to answer questions about it and its competitors. Brainlabs The citations report will produce surprises, and the surprises are different for every brand. In one category analyzed, Reddit did not appear in the top 100 citation sources. In another, it represented 21% of all citations and was three times larger than the second most cited individual domain. Whether Reddit matters for a given brand is not a general question. It is an empirical one, and it cannot be answered without the data. A strategy built on one platform's data alone will miss how a significant portion of customers are actually searching.Step 2: Score each channel across four dimensionsRaw citation volume shows what is happening. It does not show where to invest. For that, each channel needs to be weighted across four dimensions.Degree of influence: How much control does the brand have over what appears on this surface? An owned website sits at one end: A brand writes it, publishes it, and updates it without asking anyone. Wikipedia sits at the other extreme. Reddit, review sites, and digital PR all fall somewhere in the middle.Difficulty of implementation: Some channels require a single team and a content calendar. Others require developer resources, agency relationships, legal sign-off, or long editorial cycles. Scoring implementation difficulty allows the roadmap to be sequenced realistically.Prompt commercial proximity: Not all citations carry equal weight. A citation earned from a general informational query matters significantly less than one earned from a high-intent commercial query close to a buying decision. Citations from high purchase proximity prompts should be weighted more heavily in the analysis.Sentiment: A mention is not a win if it is negative. Favorable citations, especially from trusted third-party sources, carry significantly more weight than neutral or critical ones. A forum thread that cites a brand unfavorably in a heavily cited context is an active liability, not a neutral data point.Step 3: Build the mixWith the citations report categorized and channel scores in hand, the organic media mix can be built.Consider a hypothetical consumer health brand. Before running the citations analysis, the team assumed owned content was doing most of the work and had allocated accordingly. The data told a different story. Third-party editorial was the single largest citation driver, with high commercial proximity and consistently positive sentiment, but the brand had almost no structured investment in it. The team had been treating digital PR as a brand awareness play, not an AI visibility play. The OMM reframed that conversation and unlocked budget reallocation. Brainlabs Step 4: Assign resources, teams, and ownersThe OMM only has value if it drives decisions. It should answer three questions concretely.Who does what? AI visibility is not an SEO-only discipline. It is a marketing team sport. Executing an OMM requires SEO practitioners for owned content and technical infrastructure, PR and comms teams for digital PR and editorial coverage, social teams for organic social and community, and potentially influencer or affiliate leads for video and third-party advocacy. The OMM is the document that forces a cross-functional conversation about ownership.What is the budget? Organic is not free. Content production, outreach, PR agency retainers, community management tooling, and influencer partnerships all have costs. The OMM makes those costs explicit and ties them to expected citation outcomes, the same way a paid media plan ties spend to impression and conversion targets.What is the sequencing? Not everything can happen at once. Difficulty scores and citation gap analysis help sequence the roadmap: high-priority, low-difficulty items first, with long-lead infrastructure investments planned in parallel. Brainlabs Bridging organic and paidOne of the most underused applications of the OMM is using it to connect organic intelligence to paid investment decisions.If the citations report surfaces a Reddit thread that is heavily cited and consistently favorable to a brand, that is not just an organic signal. It is a paid opportunity. Can the paid social team place a targeted placement in that thread or adjacent community to amplify the content?The same logic runs in reverse. If a paid campaign is driving awareness around a specific use case, the organic team should be building citation coverage for the same queries, so the brand appears across multiple trusted sources, not just its own site.Paid and organic have historically been managed in silos. The OMM creates a shared language that makes bridging them practical.The document your CMO is missingToo many AI visibility strategies are built on vertical-agnostic assertions: what worked for traditional SEO and intuition about what should work now. The organic media mix is the document that replaces that with something defensible. It starts with data, weights channels against criteria that drive real outcomes, and ends with a structured framework for allocating resources, owners, and priorities.Every OMM will look different. The channel mix, the model variation, and the sentiment picture are all specific to a brand and its category. That specificity is the advantage. Generic organic strategy is why most brands are invisible in AI-mediated search. If a CMO can hand a board a media plan showing where every paid dollar is going, they should be able to hand them an OMM showing where every organic dollar is going too.This story was produced by Brainlabs and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Combat “Summer Slide” and Screen Fatigue with Free Outdoor STEM Lessons (NAPSI)—Here’s news about summer many families may find is not so hot: According to Dartmouth College, research shows some schoolchildren can lose approximately 20% of reading gains and 27% of math gains over the summer, with younger children and those transitioning from elementary to middle school most affected—but help for this “summer slide” may be at hand.A SolutionThe TurfMutt Foundation, which advocates for the care and use of backyards, public parks, schoolyards and other green spaces, reminds parents and guardians of its free educational resources designed to entice kids away from their screens and into the green space around them this summer. The TurfMutt Foundation offers downloadable activity guides, interactive lesson plans and outdoor exploration challenges tailored for children in grades K-8. These hands-on lessons are rooted in STEM standards and encourage kids to engage with the “outdoor learning labs” of their backyards and community parks. “Our lessons are designed to help kids see the world through the eyes of Mulligan the TurfMutt—where every backyard is a living laboratory to be explored,” explains Kris Kiser, President and CEO of the TurfMutt Foundation. Mulligan is a real-life rescue dog and “spokesdog” of the Foundation. “By following Mulligan’s lead into the green spaces around them, students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills while forming a lifelong connection with the environment.”Families can watch a quick “Mulligan Minute” for inspiration before heading outside to start their own exploration. See the latest segments from CBS Lucky Dog at https://www.turfmutt.com/education/videos. What Kids Can LearnThe TurfMutt educational suite includes lessons on: Environmental Superpowers: Understanding how green space produces oxygen, combats heat islands and traps carbon. Bio-Mapping: Identifying and charting local flora and fauna to understand neighborhood diversity.Rain Gauging: Tracking rainfall patterns to understand drought and water conservation.Wildlife Support: Learning how backyard biodiversity helps ecosystems thrive and supports pollinators.TurfMutt was created by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute’s (OPEI) TurfMutt Foundation and has reached more than 70 million children, educators, and families.Learn MoreTo download TurfMutt’s free educational resources, and for more information, visit www.turfmutt.com. Word Count: 331
	A deadly bacteria is creeping up the Atlantic Coast. How worried should you be? A deadly bacteria is creeping up the Atlantic Coast. How worried should you be?Bailey Magers and Sunil Kumar cut strange figures on Pensacola Beach. Bags of disinfectant solution surrounded them on the white sand; their gloved hands juggled test tubes while layers of rubber and plastic shielded their skin from the elements. As the two organized their seawater samples on the popular Florida shoreline last August, an older woman wearing a swimsuit walked over to ask what they were doing.“We’re just actively monitoring water quality,” they told her, but she pressed on.“Are you looking for that flesh-eating bacteria?”“We’re looking into it,” they replied, hoping not to frighten her. The woman turned back toward the ocean, her curiosity satisfied. As she walked away, Kumar noticed that she had scrapes and bruises on her body. A few minutes later, he watched her step into the waves. He shook off a chill and returned to the task at hand.Magers and Kumar study a bacteria called Vibrio, part of a lineage of ancient marine species that likely emerged sometime around the Paleozoic Era, Grist reports. Enormous, shallow seas flooded the massive, interconnected supercontinents that constituted the Earth’s landmass at the time, and complex marine ecosystems developed that thrived in these temperate, freshly-formed bodies of water. Researchers think there are more than 70 Vibrio species in the environment today, hundreds of millions of years later. The organisms float in warm, brackish water, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters.A small number of Vibrio species can sicken and even kill. In worst-case scenarios, a person who has been exposed to the most dangerous of them — by swimming in brackish water with an open wound or ingesting a piece of raw shellfish that is contaminated with the tasteless and odorless toxin — may find themselves with only hours before the flesh on one or more extremities starts to bruise, swell, and decay. Without the quick aid of powerful antibiotics, septic shock can set in and lead to death. Anyone can get infected, though it is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. Research shows that temperature and salinity are the largest predictors of how widespread Vibrio bacteria are. As water temperatures rise, so does the concentration of Vibrio in seawater — boosting the risk of infection for beachgoers and shellfish consumers. The bacteria start getting active in water temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as coastal waters warm throughout the summer.In recent years, scientists have documented Vibrio expanding into places that were once too cold to support the bacteria, pushing as far north along the U.S. East Coast as Maine and appearing with more prevalence in temperate seas around the world.Vibriosis infections in general are the leading cause of shellfish-related illness in the U.S. They have increased “more than any other illness caused by a pathogen in the U.S. food supply” since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, started keeping tabs on such illnesses in 1996, according to a 2019 analysis by the International Association for Food Protection. The report attributed the precipitous rise to a “perfect storm” of factors that include climate change, food handling practices, expanding globalization, a patchwork of regulatory oversight, and improved diagnosis.On their conspicuous expeditions to Pensacola and other Sunshine State beaches, Magers and Kumar are trying to understand where, and when, harmful Vibrio species are present across the state. The research they’re doing is part of an ongoing effort by a laboratory at the University of Florida to create a Vibrio early warning system for the eastern United States — a program that can alert public health departments to high Vibrio concentrations in any given area a month in advance.How many limbs would be saved, Magers wonders, if doctors and nurses could be warned ahead of time that their emergency rooms would soon see an uptick in these chronically underdiagnosed infections?The work serves more than one purpose: As Vibrio bacteria spread north into cooler waters, they serve as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions — giving researchers a heads-up that the familiar composition of marine species in their local waters may be starting to shift. In Europe’s Baltic Sea, for example, a spike in Vibrio infections in July 2014 closely mirrored a heatwave that rapidly warmed the shallow sea.The incident showed researchers that Vibrio spikes herald unusually warm marine conditions — and they have since been utilized as barometers for ocean heatwaves and sea-surface warming patterns, not just food safety.“We see Vibrio as the indicator for climate change,” said Kyle Brumfield, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland who has been studying the bacteria for a decade. “We can use the presence of Vibrio and Vibrio cases as a proxy for water health in general.” Courtesy of Natalie Larsen The CDC estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Of those 80,000 cases, most are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most commonly results in gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The vast majority of the deaths, however, are caused by a type of Vibrio called vulnificus — the Latin word for “wound-making.”Vulnificus is so potent it can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. In the last five years, the CDC registered 429 such vulnificus cases, plus 136 foodborne cases. But even though foodborne cases are less numerous, the patients who contract vulnificus by eating contaminated shellfish are more likely to die than those infected via open wounds. Thirteen percent of those nonfoodborne cases died, compared to 32% of people who got the infection from eating seafood. Most cases occur in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions.As far as infectious diseases go, vulnificus is exceedingly rare: The CDC reports between 150 and 200 cases a year. The sexually-transmitted disease chlamydia, by comparison, one of the most common bacterial infections in the U.S., infects northward of 1.5 million Americans annually. But vulnificus’ astonishing speed and high fatality rate — 15-50%, depending on the health of the person exposed and the route of infection — makes it a unique public health threat, particularly as climate change grows its pathways of exposure.Vulnificus is not the kind of pathogen you’d want behaving erratically, but that’s exactly what it’s been doing since the late 2010s. Across the Eastern Seaboard, local and federal health officials have been reporting “unusual increases” in vulnificus prevalence — jagged spikes in infections that appear to correspond to extreme weather events like hurricanes and marine heatwaves.In 2022 and 2024, years when the brackish water that Vibrio bacteria thrive in was pushed inland by major hurricanes, Florida’s public health department reported 17 and 19 deaths, respectively, linked to vulnificus exposure via open wounds. North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut also saw small clusters of infections during a record-breaking heatwave in the summer of 2023. “As coastal water temperatures increase,” the CDC warned in its investigation of those outbreaks, “V. vulnificus infections are expected to become more common.”A 2023 study that analyzed a 30-year database of confirmed vulnificus infections from outdoor recreation along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts found the northern boundary of infections has moved north by a rate of 30 miles per year since 1998. The study noted that “V. vulnificus infections may expand their current range to encompass major population centers around New York,” and that annual case numbers may double as temperatures rise and America’s elderly population grows.“In the 1980s, Vibrio abundance would increase in the late spring and stay high through the summer and drop in the middle of October,” Brumfield, who conducts research on Vibrio in Maryland, said. “Now … we can pretty much find them almost year-round.”Just how worried we should be about the changing dynamics of Vibrio bacteria depends on who you ask and what you read. The gruesome and fast-acting nature of the vulnificus infection makes it enticing fodder for local and national news media, fueling a spree of terrifying reports every time a new severe infection or death surfaces.“Virginia dad wades in calf-high water, dies 2 weeks later of flesh-eating bacteria that ‘ravaged’ his legs,” read a recent headline in People magazine. “2 dead after eating oysters, contracting flesh-eating bacteria, officials say,” per a 2025 web story about two deaths linked to oyster consumption in Louisiana and Florida. Like many others in their mold, neither story mentions how rare the bacteria are.The press is bad news for some in the seafood industry, which does not welcome a national conversation about the rise in vibriosis cases, vulnificus in particular. Shellfish farmers and industry representatives that Grist spoke to in Florida and New York argued that media attention on the safety of their products is unwarranted. “‘Flesh-eating bacteria,’” said Leslie Sturmer, a researcher who works for the University of Florida’s shellfish aquaculture extension program and consults with the shellfish industry on research and regulation — “the media loves it.”Paul McCormick, an oyster farmer in Long Island who sells 750,000 oysters a year, thinks all press is bad press. “Even if the title of your article says ‘New York oysters are the safest oysters in the universe,’” he told me on the phone from his office in East Moriches in January, “you’ve already created a problem.” Zoya Teirstein // Grist Zoya Teirstein // Grist In unrefrigerated oysters left out in warm conditions, Vibrio bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. But in 2010, states began deploying strict protocols known as “Vibrio control plans,” which require harvesters to rapidly cool their catch onboard and then refrigerate it at a shellfish processing facility within a set number of hours. The measures have proven effective at stopping the growth of Vibrio in harvested shellfish and preventing disease.The fact that infections can happen in one of two ways — shellfish consumption and seawater exposure — makes it easy to shift blame and point fingers. Consumers have more control over how much exposure they have to Vibrio than they have with E. coli, for example. A person with a kidney condition can choose not to eat oysters on the half shell. E. Coli, often found in raw vegetables, is far trickier to avoid. Likewise, someone with an open wound can opt not to bathe in brackish waters if they are aware of the risks lurking in the surf.For shellfish industry representatives, personal responsibility is the primary way to bring caseloads down. “The person is the risk,” said Sturmer. “Not the climate, not the water, not the bacteria.” Implicitly, this appears to be the government’s position as well: There is currently no numerical threshold at which state public health agencies will “shut down” a beach for outdoor recreation, though states will issue public advisories and, very rarely, close beaches if they happen to find high levels of Vibrio in the water.But that perspective doesn’t account for the rapid marine changes brought on by climate change, the patchiness of vibriosis awareness, and the fact that Americans often make personal decisions that are at odds with their own health and safety.The shellfishers Grist spoke to fully acknowledged the research underpinning Vibrio’s spread. McCormick studied environmental science in college, and Sturmer is running her own climate experiments in a laboratory, pictured below, in the fishing town of Cedar Key, Florida, putting different kinds of clams and oysters through heat stress tests to determine which species are best equipped to weather the decades ahead. Zoya Teirstein // Grist Marine mollusks are uniquely threatened by rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, issues that can lead to thin shells, low crop yields, and mass die-offs on farms. A detailed understanding of climate science, in other words, is good business for those who make their living fishing.The problem, according to Sturmer, is that shellfishers have been unfairly singled out for a health issue that doesn’t affect most consumers and is more often contracted by ocean bathing rather than raw oyster consumption. While beaches stay open even when Vibrio bacteria are present in the water and lead to infections, a small number of foodborne vibriosis cases can trigger state closures of shellfish harvesting areas and product recalls. The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science noted that these precautions “erode consumer confidence and likely decrease sales.”The panic that ensues after media reports of Vibrio infections has a similar effect: A 2024 study asked more than 350 shellfish consumers in Rhode Island — a state that relies heavily on its shellfish industry, particularly in summer months when people vacation along the coastline — to bid on entrees of raw oysters and clams. After showing study participants a real newspaper article about a 2015 Vibrio outbreak linked to an oyster farm in Massachusetts, the researchers reported that the news had a “significant negative impact” on participants’ willingness to bid on oysters. It had a depressive effect on clam sales, too.“You should really be out there beating the drum on botulism or salmonella or E. Coli,” Sturmer told me on a recent visit to her lab in Cedar Key. “Why worry about [vulnificus] when the number of cases are so minimal?” Sturmer is quick to point out that even the term “flesh-eating bacteria” is a misnomer. She’s right, in a sense: The bacteria doesn’t “eat” tissue; it destroys it. But it’s hard to say whether someone who has survived a bout of necrotizing fasciitis, the medical term for what vulnificus does to the flesh, would care to dispute the difference.Protecting consumers from being sickened by the bacteria isn’t as simple as trusting people with underlying medical conditions not to eat shellfish. Americans consume 2.5 billion oysters every year, half of which are eaten raw. Vibrio infections, which most often resemble food poisoning, are still underreported and underrecognized, even among individuals who are most at risk of developing a severe infection. Vulnificus infections are also underreported, but much less so than other Vibrio-related infections because they often require a hospital or emergency room visit.“I’ve cared for many people with salmonella infections and water-borne infectious processes, but this is the one that is likely the most serious,” said Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine who is also a practicing infectious disease doctor in Gainesville, and has seen limbs and lives lost to vulnificus.When it comes to preventing Vibrio infections, the work Magers and Kumar (pictured below) are doing could take some of the onus off of individual responsibility. The researchers are identifying which parts of the eastern U.S. coastline will be most risky for overall vibriosis infections, and vulnificus specifically, as waters warm. Alongside a group of microbiologists from the University of Maryland, including Brumfield, the scientists have developed a computer model that can predict how high the vibriosis risk will be in any given coastal county on the Gulf or East coasts a month in advance. The team trained their model by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. Zoya Teirstein // Grist The system is far from perfect. When the model was first trained and evaluated, it was only 23% precise in pinpointing high-risk counties, meaning just one in four of the counties the program labeled as high-risk actually ended up seeing a vibriosis case in a given month. But it was very good at determining which counties were low-risk, capturing those regions with 99%precision. And it improved over time as the quality of the data they fed it got better. When they had the model do a test run on data collected by the Florida Department of Public Health from 2020 to 2024, 72% of total cases occurred in counties the tool flagged as high-risk for vibriosis.Perhaps most significantly, the model was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80% of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk.The tool is geared toward predicting water-borne infections, but it may also provide useful information to the shellfishing industry, though the system isn’t a replacement for the established protocols farmers already use — protocols that have proven to be effective, particularly in states that are aggressive about enforcing them. What the new tool could do, however, is supplement those Vibrio control plans, especially when an upcoming weather pattern deviates from the historical norm — something that has been happening a lot lately.States currently use a rolling five-year average illness rate to calculate how many minutes or hours harvested shellfish can stay on a boat before moving into indoor refrigeration. In February, for example, Florida shellfishers have to get their oysters into refrigeration by 5 p.m. on the day of harvest. In July, they have no more than two hours, or they have to cool their catch in ice slurries on board. But these timetables don’t account for sudden temperature anomalies.“It’s going to be 80 degrees this week in Alabama,” Andy DePaola, a Gulf Coast oyster farmer, told me in February. “Yet I can keep my oysters out for, like, 14 hours, because the rolling five-year average is 20 degrees less than that anomaly.” (DePaola is also a microbiologist who worked on Vibrio at the FDA for the better part of 40 years, and is the author of the 2019 analysis that diagnosed the “perfect storm” for Vibrio spread.)But the shellfish industry doesn’t appear enthusiastic about the idea of assigning counties a risk category based on Vibrio prevalence. Vibrio researchers, by their own admission, haven’t done a good job of reaching out to shellfishers to find out how such a tool would work best for them. At an August meeting of the Delaware Bay Section of the New Jersey Shellfisheries Council last year, the director of a shellfish research laboratory brought up the idea of using Vibrio predictive models to “determine optimal days to harvest to reduce the transfer of infection to humans.” A lengthy discussion ensued. The consensus, ultimately, was that the model was a bad idea, and could be “used against the industry.”Not all shellfishers are dead set against the kind of work Magers and Kumar are doing. “If Vibrio is an indicator of global warming, then that’s just an unfortunate bad luck scene for us,” McCormick, the Long Island oysterman, said. But it’s hard for him to see what relevance that research has to an industry that already has its own methods of controlling Vibrio. “In my mind, that exists in one realm, and the safety of our oysters is a whole different thing.”As we move deeper into the 21st century, however, those two realms will have more overlap. If countries keep up their current pace of greenhouse gas emissions, most coastal communities along the East Coast will be environmentally primed for vibriosis outbreaks during peak summer months by midcentury. It won’t be a question of if there will be more vibriosis cases — it will be a matter of how to manage them. That’s the scenario Magers and Kumar are preparing for.“In 30, 40, 100 years, these models won’t even matter because the risk is so high,” said Magers, the lead author of the predictive modeling study. “When it gets to that point, it would probably be a different kind of modeling strategy where we’d be modeling case numbers instead of infection risk.”This reporting initiative is made possible thanks to support from the Wellcome Trust.This story was co-published with States Newsroom.This story was produced by Grist and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Preservation Iowa gives one of 7 awards to Muscatine project Preservation Iowa has announced its annual Preservation at Its Best Awards to honor individuals, organizations, projects, and programs whose work demonstrates a commitment to excellence in historic preservation, a news release says. The awards, which include were presented as part of the 2026 Preserve Iowa Summit held in Ankeny, Iowa, on June 2-3. “Preservation Iowa, [...]
	RFK Jr. seeks to peek at Americans’ medical records for clues on autism and vaccines U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a policy announcement event at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects. The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking data from little-known state systems that allow hospitals and clinics to exchange detailed, identifiable patient information, KFF Health News has learned. In private meetings, some public health leaders have objected to giving Kennedy’s team access to such data, raising doubts that it’s legal or that the information would even be useful. They have also expressed concerns about allowing the federal government to peer into the minutiae of Americans’ medical records, which could mean viewing anything from doctors’ notes to prescription history. HHS has offered no insight into how it will protect or handle the personal health information it obtains. But Kennedy told KFF Health News that medical records are key to investigating the cause of autism, vaccine safety and chronic diseases. And millions of dollars in grant money has poured into a Nebraska nonprofit that has assisted Kennedy’s effort, according to state records. He and his advisers have been frustrated that federal access to Americans’ medical records has been limited. “We need a good health record system, and one of the things that really surprised me most when I came into office is that there is — that the systems are broken,” Kennedy said in a May interview. “We’ve had to go to the states and, luckily, we’ve got a lot of cooperation from the states, but we now have databases together that we can actually do the studies on. Those studies are in motion.” RFK Jr. ends COVID vaccine recommendation for healthy children, pregnant people HHS has not publicly announced any new projects involving medical records and autism or vaccine research. Kennedy faced blowback last year when he proposed compiling the medical records of people with autism to create a federal disease registry — which health department officials later disputed was underway. But Kennedy said in May, “We have a whole pipeline of studies that will be done over the next year.” Though the White House has steered Kennedy away from further changes to U.S. vaccine policy ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections, President Donald Trump has regularly echoed Kennedy’s doubts about vaccine safety and last week signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children. Kennedy’s political appointees and allies — including William “Reyn” Archer III, a former Texas health official and vaccine critic whom Kennedy hired as a senior adviser — have led the initiative for the health department to collect and examine medical records. Federal officials met with leaders of the state-run health information exchange systems several times over the past year and asked how the personal medical records they maintain could be used for vaccine research, according to seven people who participated in the discussions or were familiar with them. Craig Behm, who runs the Maryland health information exchange, said Kennedy’s team asked about how the vast trove of medical records they store from hospitals and health systems could be used to study vaccines. “If this administration wants to conduct research on the effectiveness of vaccines, are you saying you all can help us conduct that research?” Behm recalled being asked by a top official at HHS’ health information technology office. Last June, Behm and leaders of other state exchanges met with Kennedy’s top advisers to discuss sharing more medical data with federal agencies. The state organizations followed up with a pitch in October for a new surveillance system that would give the federal health department “real-time, 24-hour data feeds on opioid and chronic disease trends” within a year, according to a presentation reviewed by KFF Health News. Under the proposal, HHS would get data from 90% of the population’s medical records by 2028. Administration officials regularly asked during the meetings how the records could be used to monitor vaccine safety. Kennedy has rejected the federal government’s current vaccine-monitoring systems; decades of research has shown immunizations are safe and effective for most people. “Vaccine safety, or whatever words you want to use, has come up pretty consistently in those conversations,” said John Kansky, CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange. Kansky sees the potential value of sharing information from the exchanges for public health but is worried about the focus on vaccines: “It’s like, oh man, I wish you would have picked something that pushed fewer buttons for people.” A system to monitor chronic disease Nearly every state has at least one health information exchange — often regulated by state laws and run by private companies or nonprofits — that enables hospitals and health systems to immediately share patients’ medical records with one another. The systems allow doctors and nurses to quickly pull up nearly anyone’s medical history and records at emergency rooms or share after-visit summaries and notes with patients’ primary care providers, for example. In certain circumstances — most often dealing with cases of infectious diseases such as measles or flu — the exchanges notify public health authorities, like the state health department or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using the exchanges for broader public health purposes is not an unusual idea in itself. But it can present privacy, legal and ethical complications, health officials say. In the end, Behm said his organization in Maryland declined to share more data with the federal government for vaccine research, noting that sharing medical records for that purpose would require a rash of approvals from hospitals, state political leaders and research boards. Any new data-sharing agreement should also have a clear, detailed framework outlining what would be shared and with whom, he added. “A number of us said, ‘We can’t do anything our agreements don’t allow us to do, so no,’” Behm said. Indeed, most health information exchanges have contractual restrictions on who can access clinical data. Vaccine ‘conscience exemption’ bill fails in SD House Kansky said Indiana is still weighing whether to provide additional data for Kennedy’s project, and that nothing has yet been shared. HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard did not answer questions about how many states are participating in Kennedy’s project, what new data the agency is collecting, how much the federal government is spending on the initiative, how it is protecting patient privacy, or who has access to the data. “HHS is strengthening public health surveillance and modernizing data systems to better understand and combat the childhood chronic disease epidemic as part of Secretary Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” Hilliard said in an emailed statement. “Americans deserve robust systems to monitor the drivers of chronic illness.” Kennedy has asserted, without evidence, that vaccines can cause chronic illness. A Kennedy partner in Nebraska At least one state has been cooperative. The former leader of Nebraska’s state health information exchange has led the effort to share data from medical records with the federal government. Jaime Bland, former CEO of CyncHealth — the Nebraska health information exchange used by most hospitals and health systems in the state — said several states are looking to “open up channels” to provide more analysis to Kennedy’s team. “They’re looking at the data differently and providing some insights back to the CDC,” Bland told KFF Health News. Bland was among a group who proposed that CyncHealth would help kick off the initiative, according to a 43-slide PowerPoint presented to federal officials during an October meeting. CyncHealth and other state health information exchanges would “ingest data from hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, payers and social services agencies,” then “link claims and clinical records through a master patient index.” Data from the exchanges “will be deidentified where appropriate,” according to one slide. The federal government would pay the exchanges for furnishing the records, according to the proposal: $3 a person, annually. Officials would “frame publicly that this is not a new database, but a federated trust model that delivers real-time data for all HHS missions,” the presentation reads. After the meeting, Nebraska’s health department was awarded a large grant from the CDC, and CyncHealth in turn got millions of dollars from the state. On Dec. 19, the CDC announced new funding under its Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity program, which sends money to state and local health departments for lab work, health information enhancements and solutions for outbreaks. States that once led in child vaccination fall as they expand exemptions Nebraska’s state health department was awarded $18.7 million — the most of any state last year, though Nebraska is the 38th most populous state. By comparison, Texas received $9.2 million, and California got $10.8 million. CyncHealth was then awarded three contracts totaling $13.6 million from the state health department just weeks later, on Jan. 9 and Jan. 16, according to a publicly accessible database of state contracts. Grace McNamara, a spokesperson for CyncHealth, said it retained $2.4 million of the funding for Kennedy’s project; the remaining money was distributed to “other participating states and various vendor organizations for implementation support.” A former CDC official who was aware of the transaction, but not authorized to speak publicly about it, confirmed the money was intended for CyncHealth to supply data for Kennedy’s initiative to look at vaccines and autism. McNamara said that the “work is focused on improving outcomes related to acute and chronic illnesses.” “The referenced project is not research, but rather a proof-of-concept project on how health information exchange and public health can work together to improve health outcomes and is not specific to autism,” she said in an emailed statement. McNamara did not answer questions about what type of medical data is being provided to the federal health department or whether patients’ identifying information is removed. Bland left her post at CyncHealth — where she was paid nearly $420,000 a year — in December. She was named in April as the chief data strategist for the MAHA Institute — a think tank founded by allies of Kennedy and Trump to advance their Make America Healthy Again movement. Bland agreed with Kennedy that data from state health information exchanges could provide more insight into autism’s causes or vaccine injuries. “The data is so fragmented, so modeled when it comes to population health and public health, that we lose sight of the individual stories,” Bland said. She told a story she had heard about a woman who had a seizure after receiving the HPV vaccine. “You know, the vaccine is safe — it absolutely is — but it wasn’t safe for her,” Bland said. “As public health officials, we say the vaccine is safe. But there are cases where it is not.” Daniel Jernigan, a former top CDC official who left the agency last summer, said he tried to point Kennedy to data that would help the health secretary study vaccine safety and autism. After 31 years at the CDC overseeing public health surveillance, emerging infectious diseases and the influenza divisions, Jernigan thought the solution was simple. The secretary could work with researchers to obtain huge databases pulled from health systems nationwide and maintained by major electronic health records companies. Those databases are deidentified, meaning they don’t include patient names or other information that can identify individuals. Jernigan said Kennedy didn’t seem interested. Instead, as The New York Times first reported, the health secretary dispatched two top advisers — Archer and Hannah Anderson, his former deputy chief of staff — to the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta last July to download millions of identifiable patient records directly from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the system the health agency uses to investigate complications from vaccines. The records, though, were decades old. Jernigan said the federal government has limited legal authority to access medical records from state health information exchanges. In any case, examining those records may provide a view of a person’s medical history that will not necessarily produce answers to Kennedy’s questions about vaccines and autism. “If they’re just using the electronic health record data, there are limits to that,” Jernigan said. “If they’re only looking at electronic health record data, all you’re going to get is what was captured in the encounter. It’s not going to be very satisfying.” KFF Health News data reporter Maia Rosenfeld contributed to this article. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF. This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Courtesy of South Dakota Searchlight
	Muscatine Chamber leader graduates from chamber institute The City of Muscatine and the Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GMCCI) have announced that Brad Bark, president & CEO of GMCCI, has graduated from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organization Management, earning the IOM Graduate Recognition, a news release says. This national designation reflects Bark’s completion of 96 credit hours [...]
	Walking may be one of the simplest ways to support heart health (BPT) - When people think about exercise, they often picture intense workouts or long hours at the gym. But supporting your heart health doesn't have to look extreme. One of the simplest ways to move more and build healthier habits is something many people can incorporate into their daily routine: walking.Walking is one of the most effective, accessible and sustainable forms of exercise you can do. This low-intensity movement can support heart health, boost energy, reduce stress and help build long-term healthy habits. Below are just a few reasons why walking may be the key to moving more, feeling better and supporting your overall health.Accessible and approachable For many people, walking is a simple, flexible way to move more and support their health. It's a low- to no-cost activity that doesn't require special equipment or a high skill level. Whether it's taking a quick walk during your lunch break or choosing the stairs, small moments of movement throughout the day can add up.Supports heart healthConsistent movement can play an important role in supporting cardiovascular health. According to the American Heart Association, physical activity like a daily 20-minute walk may help reduce cardiovascular health disparities.The good news? Those minutes don't have to happen all at once. Short walks throughout the day can help people gradually build healthier habits and incorporate more movement into everyday routines.Supports overall well-beingBeyond the physical benefits, walking may also help reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety and improve your quality of life and sense of overall well-being. Even a short walk around the neighborhood can be a great way to recharge during a hectic day.How much movement do you need?So, how much should you walk? The American Heart Association recommends getting at least 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of heart-pumping physical activity per week. That may sound intimidating, but you don't have to do it all at once!Throughout your week, you can get in a few minutes of walking here and there. That could mean taking a 10-minute walk during your lunch break, walking to the park with your dog or grabbing a coffee with a friend and taking a stroll around the neighborhood.Take the next stepAre you ready to start walking? Set yourself up for success by joining the American Heart Association's Heart on the Move Challenge. The free 21-day movement challenge encourages participants to move more and build heart-healthy habits through simple daily activities like walking.As you move, you can earn points that you can redeem for fun rewards along the way. Plus, you'll join thousands of others across the country who are moving more to feel better.Remember, walking for your health isn't about perfection. It's about consistent movement and progress. To learn more and join the challenge, visit Heart.org.
	‘No known exposures’ after measles detected in Brookings county child, health department says A sign at a University of Utah health clinic warns visitors about the spread of measles. Under the Trump administration, federal health officials have cut back the number of recommended vaccines, and more states are offering exemptions for parents who don't want to vaccinate children entering public schools. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)South Dakota Department of Health officials have flagged the state’s ninth case of measles this year. Healthcare providers detected measles with a child younger than 14 in Brookings County, department spokeswoman Tia Kafka said. A Wednesday notice from the department asked medical providers to “be alert” for measles symptoms in Brookings, Deuel, Hamlin, Kingsbury, Lake and Moody counties. The department did not issue a press release about the measles case, as it has in prior cases because, “there are no known public exposures at this time,” Kafka said in a written statement. Grant County man visits public places in Brookings, Milbank while infectious with measles The last case reported before Wednesday was in March, according to the department’s measles dashboard. So far this year, there have been six measles cases reported in Grant County, one in Brown and two in Brookings. Seven were in patients who were unvaccinated or who did not know their vaccination status. Kafka did not say if the most recent patient was vaccinated. Measles symptoms appear in two stages. The first could include a runny nose, cough, slight fever, red eyes sensitive to light and a rising fever. Between the third and seventh days of infection, a person with measles will have a temperature of 103-105 degrees and develop a red blotchy rash, typically beginning on the face before spreading to the entire body. People who are not immune, vaccinated or are unsure of their status should contact their medical provider, the department has advised. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 1,983 confirmed measles cases nationwide in 2026 across 40 states. Those states include South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska. There were 2,267 confirmed cases across the U.S. in 2025, according to the CDC. Measles was considered fully eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. Falling measles vaccination rates in recent years have contributed to its return. Several areas of the U.S. now have vaccination rates below the 95% threshold needed to prevent outbreaks. The kindergarten measles vaccination rate in South Dakota has tumbled from 97% to 90% in the past 10 years. Health officials blame disinformation about vaccine safety, which has contributed to a rise in parents claiming religious exemptions to avoid otherwise mandatory school immunizations. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of South Dakota Searchlight
	Broadway at the Adler Theatre, Davenport, announces upcoming season The Adler Theatre and Nederlander National Markets have announced the 2026-2027 Broadway at the Adler Theatre season, according to a news release. The season kicks off with the two-time Tony Award-winning hit musical SIX, a high-energy reimagining of "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" as global pop icons. Up next is the new musical "A [...]
	Man with 39 IDOC disciplinary tickets is deemed still dangerous by judge John C. Rumley Jr., 54, who has been incarcerated since he was 24 will remain in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections.
	Kewanee man charged with sex-related offenses Joseph A. Hardy, 19, is charged in one case with Class 1 felony soliciting child pornography and Class 3 felony unlawful possession of child pornography.
	Michigan Senate panel mulls financial ‘Catch-22’ for farms pledged federal clean energy funding A combine harvests corn on an Illinois farm in the fall. (Photo courtesy of Lance Muirhead/Muirhead farms)Members of the Michigan Senate continued to interrogate the impact that the administration of President Donald Trump has had on business and energy. Giving testimony on Thursday to the Senate Energy and Environment Committee were individuals harmed by the administration’s move to cancel rural energy grants. Among them were Allen Bonthuis, the vice president of sales and marketing at Jackson-based Harvest Solar, and Kyle de Beausset, a member of the Sierra Club and manager of Westcroft Gardens and Farm. The pair testified on how the Trump administration’s move to cancel funding for renewable energy projects through the Rural Energy for America Program had affected their businesses. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Bonthuis told members of the committee he wasn’t just representing himself, but the 18 businesses the company was working with whose clean energy projects were now in jeopardy. Initially conceived through the 2002 Farm Bill and formally created in 2008, the Rural Energy for America Program provides grants and loans to farmers and rural businesses making energy efficiency upgrades and purchasing renewable energy systems, with Bonthuis telling the committee those grants could cover up to 50% of project costs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture obligates the funds, legally committing them to the project, he said. Bonthuis said his customers moved forward after the funds were obligated to build the projects using their own money, in many cases taking on debt. On April 15, the USDA issued a notice rescinding funds for projects that do not have “a fully executed financial assistance agreement,” a document Bonthuis said is intentionally saved for the very end of the process after the project is completed. “USDA placed that agreement at the finish line,” Bonthuis said. “USDA is now refusing to sign it, and USDA is using the absence of its own signature as the reason to deny reimbursement. That is a catch-22 of the government’s own making.” Every single one of those 18 customers appealed the USDA’s decision to rescind their funding, Bonthuis said, and each was denied. Those appeals were not rejected on their merits, Bonthuis asserted, but rather on the grounds of general applicability. A denial determination Bonthuis shared with the committee explained that because the agency had broadly rescinded notices of funding opportunities through the program, the appeals were not subject to individual review, noting “this decision to effectively suspend the REAP grant program at this time is based on the general policy priorities of USDA.” “Think about what that means. The government changed the rules after the work was done and structured the change so that no individual business could challenge how it landed on them,” Bonthuis said. “My customers were told in effect that there is no door to knock on.” Kyle de Beausset, manager of Westcroft Gardens and Farm in Grosse Ile Township, and Tim Minotas, legislative and political director at the Michigan chapter of the Sierra Club testify before the Senate Energy and Environment Committee. June 4, 2026 \| Photo by Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance. While the decision hurts the farms and rural businesses who followed federal requirements and government timelines, Bonthuis said it also harms businesses like Harvest Solar, because they delivered and installed energy systems on the assumption that their customers would be made whole. Harvest Solar has 25 effective projects across 18 businesses, Bonthuis said, together representing $18 million in solar investments, most of which are structured around grants from the Rural Energy for America Program. Of that $18 million, $7.7 million in projects are already complete and paid for in full by customers who are now waiting for a reimbursement that may never come. Bonthuis later shared that those customers had been denied about $9 million in reimbursements. “If obligated funds can be withheld after businesses have fully performed on the basis of a signature government itself is refusing to provide them, then it becomes very hard for any Michigan business to confidently rely on a federal program again,” Bonthuis said. “Maintaining confidence in the USDA commitments is exactly what’s at stake.” Bonthuis asked members of the committee to adopt a formal resolution or communication calling on USDA to honor its obligations to Michigan Rural Energy for America Program participants and to reimburse projects built in good faith under the program’s guidance. He also asked them to call on Michigan’s Congressional delegation to press USDA for the legal basis for refusing to reimburse projects, and to examine whether withholding these obligated funds is consistent with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Engaging the governor’s office, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Attorney General could also help to explore all avenues available to protect Michigan businesses, Bonthuis said. It would also help to convene affected Michigan business owners and the USDA state office, so the committee can document harm directly and press for a resolution before it becomes irreversible. US House passes ‘skinny’ farm bill that keeps big GOP cuts to food assistance While speaking with the committee, de Beausset noted that his farm dates back to 1776 and has been with his family since. “When you’re part of a piece of land for that long, you tend to look at it a little bit differently,” de Beausset said.“I can speak for my parents and myself, we don’t really see it as something that we own. It’s more as stewards of it. You also come to realize just how much of the history depends on trust and commitments. The farm was there before me, and my hope is it’ll be there after I’m gone in some form or another.” Westcroft Gardens and Farm applied for a Rural Energy for America Program in September 2024, de Beausset said. “We didn’t see it as free money, we understood it as a shared responsibility that we were responsible for half of it.” de Beausset said. “We liked it because it would reduce our operating costs and improve the long-term sustainability of the property and help ensure that a farm that survived for almost 250 years could continue to be viable.” The plan for the project was to have the whole farm operate off solar panels placed on a barn roof, de Beausset said. Changes to the grant funding make that much harder to pay off, he said, while noting that there are other projects, like a boiler replacement and building upgrades, that demand money now. “We relied on the government’s commitment. We made plans in good faith, and for us, it’s not easy to absorb that loss, I’ll say that straight up. It’s a $120,000 project, we would have gotten $60,000 back,” de Beausset said, noting that’s more money than the farm made last year. Courtesy of Michigan Advance
	The World Cup vs. bugs, germs and heat: Here's the game plan Despite a diminished federal presence, public health departments are preparing for common ailments that could afflict fans who gather for the event — and are keeping an eye on the Ebola outbreak, too.
	Senate Republicans pass immigration funding after overnight vote After a marathon 18-hour vote, the Senate has funded immigration enforcement. The GOP bill funds ICE and the Border Patrol for three years.
	Nebraska DHHS reviewing federal rule on Medicaid work requirements, declines call to ‘press pause’ Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen in December announced that Nebraska would be the first state in the country to start implementing new federal work requirements for Medicaid health insurance recipients. The launch is Friday, May 1. Pillen appeared with a virtual Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Juan Salinas II/Nebraska Examiner)LINCOLN — Nebraska became the first state to implement new federally mandated work requirements for Medicaid recipients in May, and the federal government this week released a first look at what all states would need to follow by Jan. 1. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released its interim final rule on the work requirements Monday for public review. Local nonprofit Nebraska Appleseed blasted the proposal as more onerous than Nebraska’s requirements, implemented eight months early, and which the advocacy organization argues could lead to more hurdles down the line. Broadly, the federal requirements mandate that certain adults receiving Medicaid who are between the ages of 19 and 64 will need to work, volunteer or attend school for at least 80 hours per month, earn at least $580 a month or qualify for an exemption. Among those who are exempt are people who are pregnant, have a disability, are a parent or caretaker of a young child, or veterans with a total disability rating. Collin Spilinek, a spokesperson for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency is reviewing the new guidance “to determine what changes, if any, will be necessary to make.” States face tight timeline as feds unveil new Medicaid work requirement rules The state agency has said roughly 25,000 of the 72,000 adult Nebraskans enrolled through Medicaid expansion will eventually be subject to the updated work requirements to keep or get Medicaid coverage at their renewal period. The federal proposal includes a new hurdle on top of Nebraska’s requirements, Appleseed argues, that “directly targets” people with disabilities, mental conditions or medical needs, such as cancer or HIV, by requiring Medicaid recipients who have serious medical needs or disabilities to “prove” a condition makes them unable to work to qualify for an exemption. “This federal rule adds major and punitive new restrictions that will directly hurt Nebraskans, especially those with serious medical needs and disabilities,” said Sarah Maresh, Appleseed’s health care access program director, in a statement. Maresh said Nebraskans were already “confused, scared and at risk of unnecessarily and inappropriately losing” health care because Gov. Jim Pillen decided to act early. Collin Spilinek, a spokesperson for Nebraska’s DHHS, said the agency has been able to “successfully manage” the new workload of implementing the requirements with “no issues.” “Staff members have the foundational expertise to absorb the new requirements without expanding headcount and have received targeted training specific to the work requirements, including new policy content, system workflows and verification standards,” Spilinek said this week. Maresh and Appleseed urged DHHS to “press pause” and join the rest of the nation in implementing requirements by January 2027. Spilinek said there are “no plans” to do so. “People’s lives are on the line,” Maresh said. In April, days before Nebraska moved ahead with the work requirements, Drew Gonshorowski, director of the state’s Division of Medicaid and Long-Term Care, told KETV the changes are meant to promote workforce and curb Medicaid misuse. “Our commitment here is to ensure that our members receive coverage long term,” Gonshorowsk told KETV at the time. “And we will work with our providers to ensure sustainability of our systems.” SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Courtesy of Nebraska Examiner
	Youth mental health system in NJ hurts kids, frustrates parents, study says Lawmakers proposed fixes to NJ's child mental health system in response to a report saying it frustrates parents and leaves kids waiting for care. (Photo by Amanda Berg)Democratic lawmakers are pledging to introduce a package of bills to address New Jersey’s youth mental health system, which parents say is hard to navigate and can leave kids waiting months if not years for proper treatment. Sponsored by Sen. President Nicholas Scutari (D-Union) and Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex), the legislation is being drafted to address the findings of a report released Thursday by the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute that outlines 17 recommendations designed to strengthen the workforce, improve coordination between programs and agencies, give schools new ways to support students, and do more to make sure health insurance provider lists are accurate. “Children’s mental health is one of the defining public health challenges of our time. The research shows that the earlier children receive support, the better the outcomes for families, schools, and communities,” Vitale said. As it is, New Jersey is failing the way it takes care of its kids, Vitale said. He told the New Jersey Monitor that lawmakers are working with Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s office on the legislative package and said the first bills would be posted for a hearing next week. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.In her $60.7 billion budget proposal, Sherrill called for spending $33 million on a new grant program to help schools pay for mental health staff. That plan would have eliminated an existing program in which schools can partner with a regional mental health provider to run preventative programs and offer some clinical services. Lawmakers have until July 1 to finalize an annual budget. Sherrill spokeswoman Maggie Garbarino said the governor has heard from many stakeholders and now plans to continue contracts for the existing regional program, known as NJ4S, contingent upon funding in the upcoming budget. Garbarino did not mention the potential grant program, which Sherrill coined Spark. “As Governor Sherrill made clear in her budget proposal, she is committed to addressing the youth mental health crisis and getting relief to New Jersey families by meeting students where they are. The Sherrill Administration has continued to engage with stakeholders — including mental health providers, school district officials, and community members — about how we can best support young people and ensure continuity of services through strong, long-term implementation partnerships,” Garbarino said. Scutari said in a statement that when the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute was hired to map the system 18 months ago, roughly 1 in 5 children was reportedly struggling with mental health issues. Former Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill in 2024 allocating $1 million for the study, and the state Department of Children and Families, which oversees several child mental health programs, hired the institute to do the work. Scutari said the state needed to understand what families experience and where gaps exist. “If we leave this unaddressed, it will continue to impair their educational achievement, emotional development, and ability to realize their full potential in life,” he said. Senate President Nicholas Scutari, left, and Sen. Joe Vitale say they plan to introduce legislation to address parents’ complaints about the state’s youth mental health system. (Photos by Hal Brown/Dana DiFilippo) The Quality Institute reviewed the mental healthcare options for children under age 18 available from hospitals, community providers, state programs, and through schools. The team found fewer than 20% of the providers credentialed to accept Medicaid specifically for treating youth were actually billing for patient visits, indicating there is a big gap between the list of doctors families may be given and who is actually offering care, and just 15% of the providers at the state’s largest commercial insurance network were able to schedule an in-person pediatric mental health visit within two weeks. Vitale called that “not acceptable,” especially since existing laws require insurance companies to contract with enough doctors to ensure patients don’t have to travel too far, or wait too long, for care. Vitale said the legislation would strengthen the state’s ability to regulate the doctor networks compiled by insurance companies; connect schools to a psychiatry collaborative that offers remote consultations and case management; require the state to better organize, analyze, and present child mental health data; and link mental health consultants with family courts, among other things. “I have heard from parents in my district and across the state, and so has Senate President Scutari, who have made call after call. Who get put on waitlists. Who are struggling to help their children. We have a responsibility to make sure this system is easier to navigate,” said Assemblywoman Linda Carter (D-Union), who will sponsor Assembly versions of the bills. Hospitals reported treating more than 50,000 children annually for mental health issues in recent years, according to the report, both as inpatients and outpatients. Some kids are held in acute care while waiting for a spot in a specialized group home, delays that stretched past 100 days on average for children referred to a certain type of housing — and double that for youngsters who also had intellectual or developmental disabilities. One child waited more than four years for a spot, researchers found. Bob and Yvette Pusateri of Maplewood found there were zero treatment options in the Garden State for their son, who had multiple mental health diagnoses, including a tendency to self-harm. He ended up spending two and a half years at a facility in Utah. “It would have been nice if there had been somewhere in Cherry Hill,” Bob Pusateri told the New Jersey Monitor. “But there wasn’t an option in New Jersey.” Linda Schwimmer, the Quality Institute’s president and CEO, said New Jersey’s system does include several bright spots, including the state Department of Children and Families’ “children’s system of care,” which offers coordinated services to kids with moderate and serious behavioral health needs, and a psychiatry collaborative that pairs pediatricians with mental health experts who can advise them by phone. “New Jersey has many strengths and has nationally recognized programs, but families are still struggling to access timely and appropriate care — and delay in care is the enemy. Delay leads to greater complexity, greater complications for families and children and higher costs for them and the state,” Schwimmer said. To expand treatment capacity, the report also calls for expanding pediatricians’ access to the psychiatry collaborative, improving data collection, and improving the workforce pipeline. It also recommends the state do more to help families understand the children’s system of care and other state-run services, while adding drop-in centers for kids in crisis that can be a less stressful option to the emergency room, something New Jersey is now trying to do for adults. The report also urges the state to provide schools with sustainable funding to support behavioral health programs and staff, calls for better coordination between school and mental health crisis services, and recommends a uniform policy on threat assessments, or how to determine when a troubled child can re-enter the classroom. Courtesy of New Jersey Monitor
	Privacy, efficacy concerns continue as Detroit police seek more than $2M extension to ShotSpotter Aristide Economopoulos/for NJ MonitorThe Detroit Police Department is seeking an extension to its gunshot detection technology contract with California-based SoundThinking, Inc., whose ShotSpotter technology has been used in Detroit since 2020. The city’s current contract for the technology, which was signed in 2022 and is set to expire at the end of June, is for $7 million — a price tag that advocates and city lawmakers alike have raised concerns over. Now, the police department is asking city council to approve a nine-month extension to the contract, through the end of March 2027, for another nearly $2.06 million. The extension is coming down to the wire on the deadline. It was first brought to the city council on May 12, less than two months before the current contract expires. It was referred to the council’s Public Health and Safety Standing Committee for debate, where the proposal currently sits. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Police officials have argued that the technology has contributed to decreasing gun crimes in the city since it was established in Detroit, emphasizing its use as an important investigative tool. “It’s a large contributing factor. It’s not the only factor, because that would be disingenuous. Community violence intervention has been significant as well,” Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison told the committee on May 18. “But ShotSpotter, the technology has absolutely been a key to allowing us to find the evidence and also get guns that are used to shoot off the streets in the city.” The reason for the short-term extension, police officials explained to the committee, is that the department opened earlier this year a Request for Proposal to consider more options for gunshot detection technology in the city. Bettison noted that when the city began using ShotSpotter, it was the only such technology on the market, while now there are numerous companies that offer it. “But we don’t want to lose the coverage area and the benefits that we have. We believe that this technology definitely is beneficial, it saves lives. I’ve never seen a point in time when our non-fatal shooting closure rate was as high as it is,” he continued. “We don’t want to see a lapse when it comes to that coverage, but we want to be responsible when it comes to taxpayer dollars as well.” Some, however, have disputed the actual efficacy of the ShotSpotter technology — pointing to questions about how often ShotSpotter alerts actually return evidence of gunfire. According to information shared by SoundThinking Inc., of the 24,225 ShotSpotter-triggered incidents in Detroit between 2024 and 2025, shell casings were recovered in just over 12% of those incidents. Witnesses were located in just over 2% of incidents. And in less than 1% of the cases was aid rendered to a victim by a first responder. Quotation I will just have doubts on this until I see a direct correlation of reduction of crime. – Detroit City Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero In new data obtained by Michigan Advance through a public records request, nearly 81% of all police incidents originating from ShotSpotter alerts are currently inactive, versus 9.24% that have been cleared by an arrest and just 1.28% that are currently under active investigation. Compared to non-ShotSpotter gunfire-related crime incidents, available on to the Detroit Open Data portal, 54% of cases are inactive, 13.2% were cleared by arrest, and nearly 25% remain under active investigation. Still, the police department maintains that the technology is working and that it is deterring gunfire in the city. “The Detroit Police Department, we have been good stewards,” Bettison said. “Our patrol officers who are getting to the scenes of rapid gunfire within two, three, four minutes, finding individuals, rendering aid, oftentimes and sometimes catching individuals with the smoking gun still in their hands.” All three members of the Detroit Public Health and Safety Standing Committee — City Council Members Gabriela Santiago-Romero, Denzel McCampbell and Mary Waters — have expressed concerns about the extension of ShotSpotter. Detroit Police officials overseeing gunshot sensors don’t know their locations — and say that’s fine “I will just have doubts on this until I see a direct correlation of reduction of crime,” Santiago-Romero, who chairs the committee, said. “I’m still very doubtful that ShotSpotter has helped the city reduce crime. I really do think that that’s CVI, that it’s the city investing in our communities and working together with police.” CVI refers to community violence intervention programs, which focus on preemptively working with individuals most at risk of being a victim of or committing an act of gun violence. Santiago-Romero added that she has doubts about the price tag, telling police officials, “the time and the money does not make any sense if you look at it.” McCampbell also raised the fact that the Detroit Police Department does not have access to the locations of ShotSpotter sensors in the city, which Michigan Advance first reported in December. Consistent with their past statements, police officials said that they do not need access to the precise locations of the sensors, and that the triangulation offered by the company is enough to justify the technology’s use. Detroit Police Deputy Chief Mark Bliss told the committee that “it’s no benefit to us to know where they are.” Bettison also told McCampbell that the department “can definitely get with the vendor and be able to provide that information or know that information as to where the exact sensors are,” even though SoundThinking told the Advance that the company does not disclose precise locations of sensors to any customer, including the Detroit Police Department. Santiago-Romero raised privacy concerns with police officials, particularly around audio recording. Although Bliss noted that the only audio shared with the department is the short clip of actual gunfire, Santiago-Romero said that the company itself, which analyzes audio recordings to determine what is actual gunfire, has access to much more audio than just those short clips. McCampbell posited similar concerns about using a third-party vendor and how that data and its audio recordings are maintained. Waters sent a memo on May 13 to the council’s legislative policy division requesting further information on “an overview of all wrongful arrests, as well as all lawsuits filed against the City of Detroit, that involve the usage of ShotSpotter by the Detroit Police Department since the launch of the technology in the city.” As of June 1, her office confirmed that she had yet to receive any information regarding the memo, which is set to be brought back to discuss before the committee at its June 22 meeting, just eight days before the current ShotSpotter contract expires. A Detroit Police Department employee in the Real Time Crime Center examines live monitoring, including a map of ShotSpotter alerts. Nov. 24, 2025. \| Photo by Katherine Dailey/Michigan Advance. Santiago-Romero committed to Detroit Police Department officials that she would get the proposal in front of the full City Council before the current contract expires — even if it comes with a recommendation from the committee not to approve it. In 2022, Santiago-Romero and Waters joined Council Member Angela Whitfield-Calloway, who is also still on the council, and now-Mayor Mary Sheffield in voting against the expanded contract with ShotSpotter. Sheffield did not respond to requests for comment on the current extension proposal. Though she will not vote directly on it as mayor, her predecessor, Mike Duggan, was a major proponent of the technology and advocated for the 2022 contract to be passed. Committee members are not the only ones raising concerns about the contract extension. Public comment at the last two city Public Health and Safety Committee meetings heavily encouraged council members to reject the extension. “We don’t need police officers on autopilot going into our neighborhoods on high alert from a technology that is so inaccurate,” said District 7 Police Commissioner Victoria Camille, speaking in a personal capacity to the Public Health and Safety committee. “None of the data I’ve seen about ShotSpotter convinces me that it improves our society and instead, it makes us disconnected from each other. I am asking you to reallocate those funds to boost on the ground resources for community violence intervention, relationship building, de-escalation training and youth programs.” As Detroit weighs renewal, ShotSpotter data raises cost-benefit questions Daanyal Syed, an activist with the Detroit Anti-War Committee, added that they believe the city can better spend the money going to ShotSpotter, including on education, housing or other community violence intervention programs. “There’s just a lot of other things that need immediate money, but to see there being a push for $2 million for just nine months for a surveillance program that’s proven to do nothing rather than when they could use it for anything else that could actually benefit the city. Invest in CVI programs, if you want to actually stop violence before it actually happens, stop crime before it’s actually happening, more money to CVI programs is going to show less crime,” they continued, referring to community violence intervention programs. Syed added that, because ShotSpotter is an inherently reactive program — police respond to alerts after the gun has already been fired — it cannot be as effective in preemptively preventing gunfire as other violence intervention programs that target root causes of crime. Gabrielle Dresner, a Policy Strategist for the ACLU of Michigan who focuses on surveillance and policing, said that she hears in Detroit, much like she heard in 2022, that the priority of residents is safety — and that some people think that surveillance is the way to achieve that. “The data shows us that surveillance does not equal safety,” she said. “I think there’s an opening for how do we create safety without relying on surveillance technologies.” Courtesy of Michigan Advance
	PEEHIP board approves retiree trust withdrawal to close FY27 benefit gap The Public Education Employees Health Insurance Plan board approved a $380 million budget request increase at its quarterly meeting on Sept. 3, 2025, in the RSA building in Montgomery, Alabama. The Legislature this spring appropriated approximately $180 million, so the board on Wednesday approved a $200 million withdrawal from the retiree trust fund to cover the rest of the benefits. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)The Public Education Employee Health Insurance Plan (PEEHIP) Board on Wednesday voted to withdraw money from its retiree trust fund after the Legislature approved a benefit funding level less than what the board requested. PEEHIP currently provides $904 per member per month, an estimated $814.8 million, to the Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget. Amid rising healthcare costs, the PEEHIP board requested $1,209 per member per month, an estimated cost of $1.09 billion to the ETF, for fiscal year 2027. Gov. Kay Ivey asked the Legislature to appropriate $1,073 per member per month, an estimated $966.4 million cost to the ETF. In the final version of the ETF, lawmakers appropriated $1,048 per member per month, an estimated $180 million cost to the budget, leaving the PEEHIP board to fund the rest. The board unanimously approved a withdrawal from the trust for up to $200 million to cover the rest of its members’ benefits for fiscal year 2027. Jo Moore, the deputy director of administration for the board, said at a PEEHIP meeting on Wednesday that running a healthcare program is “one of the most difficult plans to administer.” “We don’t control our members’ health, we don’t control their need for health services, and we don’t control the cost of those health services,” she said. “But nevertheless, we have approximately 360,000 individuals that are depending on us to provide them with quality healthcare. We do the best that we can with what we’ve got, and we will continue to do so.” SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX. Growing economic pressures on the state’s budget have led to conservative budgeting and warnings from the legislative fiscal officers about future budgets. Kirk Fulford, legislative fiscal officer, told legislators in January that fiscal year 2028 would be “a rock fight.” As of Thursday, the ETF’s revenues, most of which comes from the state’s income tax, were up 0.79% from this time last year, according to the Legislative Services Agency. Neah Scott, PEEHIP’s legislative counsel, said at the meeting that the board “did pretty good” in the current fiscal year and FY 2027, which begins on Oct. 1, but said it would be more difficult as “the growth slows and there’s more pressure and demands.” Diane Scott, chief financial officer for PEEHIP, said Wednesday that as of Monday there was about $2.9 billion in the retiree trust fund. “PEEHIP faces funding shortfalls due to the escalating cost of providing healthcare benefits based upon a change in Medicare funding. Even with additional funding from the Alabama legislature, PEEHIP anticipates a shortfall of up to $200 million for fiscal ’27,’” she said, reading a motion presented to the board. The CFO said that if the Legislature’s rate stays the same for fiscal year 2028, the board will have to withdraw up to $293 million from the retiree trust, and up to $468 million for fiscal year 2029 if costs continue to increase and membership is stagnant at about 104,000 people. “We’re not going to deal with those today. We need to deal with what we’re going to do the rest of this year and what we’re going to do with ’27,” she said. “Get that anchor down and let the process naturally occur. But again, that’s consistent with those increases in costs that we’re seeing.” David Bronner, CEO of the Retirement System of Alabama, said those in attendance should ask political candidates “are you going to support us or not? “Then we know where we stand at least,” he said. “Are you going to support us for our pensions? But we also need to know, are you going to support healthcare for teachers? Or are you going to ask teachers without any meaningful raises, are you going to ask them to pay more for their healthcare?” Courtesy of Alabama Reflector
	The Republican lawmakers who tried to modify abortion bans and became political targets North Dakota state Rep. Eric Murphy at home planning a day of canvassing in his Grand Forks district on May 30, 2026. Murphy, an incumbent Republican, faces a contested primary election from conservative challengers after he introduced a bill to expand abortion access last year. (Photo by Dan Koeck/For ProPublica) ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. If Eric Murphy loses his primary election on June 9, he believes he already knows one reason why. Last year, the North Dakota state representative, a Republican, tried to expand the window of pregnancy in which women could access abortion. The state legislature had banned it for almost everyone from the moment of conception. Tied up in court, the ban hadn’t yet gone into effect. But Murphy wanted to lock in a less restrictive law, making abortion accessible up to 15 weeks and even later for women whose doctors deemed it a medical necessity. To convince his fellow legislators, he read out loud from two ProPublica stories about women in Texas who died without lifesaving care. “Physicians felt compelled to follow the law,” he said in a hearing, “and both women died so that an inane law could be followed.” A conservative colleague had warned him not to file the bill, Murphy told ProPublica, recalling the man’s words: “I can no longer protect you from who’s going to come after you.” There was some truth to that sentiment. At least four Republican state lawmakers across the country who challenged severe abortion restrictions lost support from anti-abortion groups and key party allies and went on to lose primary elections, ProPublica found. The blueprint in those races was remarkably similar. Opponents either embraced stricter abortion policies or avoided the issue altogether. Anti-abortion organizations campaigned against the incumbents, party endorsements shifted to their opponents and activists worked to turn out voters in low-participation primary elections. In some of the races ProPublica examined, lawmakers who replaced abortion-ban reformers went on to support even stricter abortion legislation. In South Carolina, for instance, two new senators supported a bill to eliminate almost all exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. One provision of the bill would send women convicted of illegally terminating their pregnancies to jail. Murphy is one of at least two Republican state lawmakers now facing a contested primary after trying to modify their states’ abortion restrictions. Richard Briggs, a state senator from Tennessee, is also fighting to keep his seat. In 2019, Briggs voted for the state’s so-called trigger law — a ban that would snap into place if the federal right to abortion was ever overturned. Richard Briggs, a Republican state senator from Tennessee, faces a challenge in the state’s Aug. 6 primary. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) But he had second thoughts after that actually happened. A cardiothoracic surgeon, Briggs realized the newly activated law didn’t provide adequate protections for patients having medical complications. “As a medical doctor, I drew the line,” he said in an interview. He introduced bills for a clearer medical exception and protection for doctors who intervened in cases where a fatal fetal anomaly risked the mother’s health. The latter bill failed and now serves as ammunition for the challenger vying for his seat in the state’s Aug. 6 primary. “My opponent consistently works to weaken Tennessee’s pro life laws,” Kent Morrell says on his campaign website, noting that Tennessee Right to Life had revoked its endorsement of Briggs. Murphy, who teaches biomedical sciences at the University of North Dakota’s medical school, ultimately did not succeed at reforming the state’s ban. His bill failed 87-6, and the state Supreme Court later reinstated the original ban, which forbids abortion from conception, with exceptions for rape and incest up to six weeks and to save the life of the mother. Rep. Eric Murphy discusses campaign issues with retired teacher Deb Stahlberg at her home in Grand Forks on May 30, 2026. (Photo by Dan Koeck/For ProPublica) The first time Murphy ran for election, his county’s Republican Party had endorsed him. Not this time. Instead, the party endorsed his two challengers, including Jill Chandler, the executive director of a “crisis pregnancy center” who believes abortion should be banned from conception. She told ProPublica she happened to be present in the committee room when Murphy made the case for his bill. “To know that he was an endorsed Republican candidate from my district and one that I had voted for because of that endorsement was eye-opening,” she said. “I remember thinking, ‘This can never happen again.’” It was not the first time either Briggs or Murphy had taken positions that aggravated members of their parties in legislatures that have taken sharp turns to the right. Murphy voted against book bans and private school vouchers. Briggs had urged the public to get COVID-19 shots and has said that medical expertise should trump politics in decisions that involve public health. Briggs expressed confidence in his election chances; he feels that voters agree with the decisions he’s made and noted that his Republican colleague, Sen. Becky Duncan Massey, survived a primary challenge over her support for abortion-ban exceptions. Murphy believes the “silent majority” supports the intent of his abortion bill, but primary races historically have low turnout. It could come down to a handful of votes, he said. “I might lose an election over this,” Murphy said, “but would I rather win an election by not doing the right thing?” As a Republican state representative in Louisiana, Mary DuBuisson sought legislation in 2023 that would make sure victims of rape and incest could terminate their pregnancies, and she also sponsored a bill that would have allowed women whose pregnancies were not viable to end them. She ended up losing a primary runoff. (Photo courtesy of Louisiana House of Representatives) Mary DuBuisson, a former state Republican representative in a suburb outside of New Orleans, considers herself passionately “pro-life.” Like Briggs, she voted for her state’s near-total abortion ban in 2019. Three years later, just before Louisiana’s trigger law was implemented, it came before the legislature again. Recognizing that women would now have to live under the restriction, DuBuisson wanted to make sure victims of rape and incest could terminate their pregnancies. When her colleagues refused to include those exceptions, she became the only Republican to vote against the ban. A year later, she caused a stir when she sponsored a bill that would have allowed women whose pregnancies were not viable to end them. “To force a woman to carry to term with zero chance of survival is heartless and cruel,” she said at the time. She didn’t feel it would be controversial. Other Republican women in the House told her she was doing the right thing. But when it was time to vote, another female Republican state lawmaker made a motion that ultimately succeeded at killing the bill in committee. “I mean, I just couldn’t understand,” she said of all her colleagues. “What if this was you, your daughter or granddaughter?” When she came up for reelection, her primary opponent latched onto her record. Brian Glorioso was an attorney she had handily defeated in 2018. He called her proposed legislation a leftist attempt to circumvent the state’s abortion ban and said any “pro-abortion” doctor would falsely deem a pregnancy nonviable in records just to perform the procedure. She beat him in the Oct. 14, 2023, primary by 384 votes — not enough to avoid a runoff. Then, he got some extra support. On Oct. 16, Louisiana Right to Life told its followers this runoff was key. Glorioso was expected to have a 100% “pro-life” voting record, while DuBuisson’s was 77%. On Oct. 27, the state’s new governor-elect, Republican Jeff Landry, endorsed him, citing issues other than abortion; he wouldn’t tell ProPublica whether DuBuisson’s record on it played a role. But Landry, who had defended the state’s ban as attorney general, made clear during his campaign that he was “an unwavering defender of life, especially in the face of adversity,” citing his 100% rating from a national anti-abortion group. “I think it partially cost me my election,” DuBuisson said of her attempts to reform the ban. History repeated itself the following year, this time in South Carolina. Three state senators — all Republicans who consider themselves “pro-life” — worked across party lines to defeat an abortion bill that essentially banned the procedure from conception and eliminated rape and incest exceptions. At the time, the state allowed abortion up to 20 weeks. Sens. Sandy Senn and Penry Gustafson spoke out against limitations on abortion access for victims of rape and incest. Sen. Katrina Shealy, who had the longest tenure for a woman in the state legislature, pushed for making abortion accessible up to 12 weeks and later for exceptions in cases involving rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies. Ultimately, a six-week window with rape, incest and fatal fetal exceptions became law. Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, holds up June 26, 2024, with white gloves the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award given in fall 2023 to the five bipartisan “sister senators” who helped block a near-total abortion ban in South Carolina. Of the five, only Sen. Margie Bright Matthews, D-Walterboro, far left, returned in 2025. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette) Amid the Statehouse showdown, they were nicknamed the “Sister Senators.” All lost their county GOP’s endorsement to their male opponents. But the bigger repercussions came from anti-abortion groups that mobilized a multifront grassroots campaign against them. Students for Life Action announced that it generated “37,000 pieces of mail, almost 130,000 personal text messages, more than 51,000 phone calls and thousands of doors knocked” to unseat the trio. “All three of them got voted out — every single one of them lost because of that decision,” said Dr. Matthew Clark, the executive director of Personhood South Carolina, which believes abortion shouldn’t exist at all and that women who have them should be prosecuted for murder. Clark, an allergist and Presbyterian pastor, said his group’s desired legislation has a better chance to advance now that the Sister Senators have been replaced. Matt Leber, who beat Senn, previously co-sponsored a bill as a member of the state House that would make abortion a crime equivalent to homicide. It failed to advance, and Leber withdrew his name as a co-sponsor amid a controversy surrounding it in 2023. This legislative session, Leber and Carlisle Kennedy, who beat Shealy, supported a bill that carries misdemeanor criminal penalties for women seeking abortions, with jail time up to two years. Senate Bill 1095 passed with supermajority support out of a committee Leber sits on. The bill died before the session, but watchers of abortion restrictions noticed it got further than any other similarly repressive legislation ever has. A fateful disconnect Rep. Eric Murphy speaks to a voter in Grand Forks on May 30 2026. (Photo by Dan Koeck/For ProPublica) The outcomes do not neatly match public polling. Surveys in states such as South Carolina and Louisiana have found that many Republican voters support at least some exceptions to abortion bans, including in cases of rape or threats to a woman’s health. But primary elections often draw only a small share of eligible voters, giving outsized influence to highly engaged activists and organized interest groups. DuBuisson’s runoff drew about one-third of registered voters. Participation in the South Carolina primaries was lower still. Some races were decided on tiny margins; Senn lost hers by 33 votes. The North Dakota GOP has moved further to the right on abortion in recent years, even as polling suggested the state’s restrictions were losing support from Republican voters. At its 2026 convention, the party passed a resolution rejecting any policies that “normalize” abortion. North Dakota is one of the few states with a multimember system, where two representatives and one senator govern together in the same district. District 43, which Murphy currently represents, is one of the only purple districts in an otherwise deeply red state. It includes part of Grand Forks, a growing college town home to the University of North Dakota. GOP lawmaker to propose bill preserving some abortion access in North Dakota Murphy’s fellow representative, Democrat Zac Ista, told ProPublica he hadn’t been able to make a dent in this legislature. He announced he wouldn’t be seeking reelection, opening up an opportunity for a Republican takeover of the district. Ista said the lack of support rallying around Murphy is due to his position on abortion, as well as culture-war legislation he refused to support. “I think it’s illustrative of that schism, where at this district level, Republicans are really trying to sort of press the most extreme conservative opinions,” Ista said. Richard Glynn, the GOP county chair in Murphy’s district, had previously supported Murphy’s abortion bill. In written testimony, Glynn shared his experience hearing about young women performing illegal abortions when he was a freshman at the University of South Dakota in 1966. Four young women who were in sororities died from using metal hangers to terminate their pregnancies, he wrote. “These deaths were viewed as preventable if these girls could have received competent care. Unfortunately, North Dakota is going down the same path with limited access to obstetric care that negatively impacts the health of the woman,” his letter said. When reached by phone, Glynn said delegates in the county voted and Murphy had the least amount of votes, which is why he did not receive the county’s endorsement. Glynn declined to answer more questions before hanging up on a reporter. One of Murphy’s opponents, Mike Holmes, has drawn a lot of excitement — and an endorsement from Gov. Kelly Armstrong — for his expertise in energy technology and industrial development. The governor said Holmes understands “what it takes to keep North Dakota’s economy strong.” Holmes has been silent on abortion and didn’t respond to ProPublica’s requests for an interview. Chandler, who touted her “respect for life” in a campaign mailer, is favored among anti-abortion groups. “It’s a pretty stark contrast,” said Bridget Turbide, executive director of North Dakota Right to Life, who called Murphy’s proposal “the most extreme pro-choice bill we’ve ever seen.” A flyer promoting Jill Chandler, one of Murphy’s opponents, was paid for by Citizens Alliance of North Dakota, a conservative group that opposes abortion among other causes. (Photo courtesy of Eric Murphy) Citizens Alliance of North Dakota, a conservative group that opposes abortion among other causes, paid for a mailer calling Chandler a “champion of family values.” The same group marked Murphy in “bad standing” in an online roster of legislators, questioning his alignment with North Dakota values. Murphy’s third colleague who also represents District 43, Republican State Sen. Jeff Barta, campaigned alongside him in 2022 as part of a unified Republican ticket when the primary election was uncontested. Asked about the upcoming race and the candidates, Barta pointed to Murphy’s proposal that would have expanded abortion access in North Dakota. “Last session, he introduced House Bill 1488, which created a little divide there,” Barta said. Barta said Murphy has also broken with the party on other issues. “That probably opened the door for the third candidate to run,” Barta added. Had that not happened, Murphy would have made it to the general election without having to defend his spot on the ballot. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, lawmakers taking such nuanced stands on abortion bans may not have risked a career death sentence, said abortion historian and law professor Mary Ziegler. “The kind of incrementalism that Eric Murphy seems to be doing is something from a bygone era, where people were more pragmatic in the movement and not punished for it,” she said. Courtesy of North Dakota Monitor

Friday, June 5th, 2026