News from around the nation.

PA authorities give update on investigation into governor's mansion attack; AR officials respond to federal idea for helping the unhoused; New findings suggest reviving coal would be too costly for U.S.; and WI sees boost in voter turnout among Natives.

Transcript

The Public News Service Daily Newscast afternoon update for Wednesday, April 16, 2025.

I'm Mike Moen.

An independent expert will review security at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's official residence that after investigators accused a man of scaling a wall this past weekend and setting fire to the mansion.

State police said Wednesday the review will be a risk and vulnerability assessment following the arson attack, which caused extensive damage and forced Shapiro and his family to flee.

Authorities have since taken a suspect into custody.

Investigators were combing his background to try and determine any motive for the attack, including whether it had anything to do with the Democrats' politics or Jewish faith.

Turning to the nation's housing crisis, it's estimated that more than 2,600 people live on the streets across Arkansas.

Freda Ross reports on the Trump administration's plan for them.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has proposed a treatment-first plan that includes moving them into camps.

Neal Seeley with Arkansas Community Organization says the proposal doesn't address the root cause of homelessness.

There are a lot of homeless people that have addiction problems and they need help, but they also need to have a safe place to live.

And putting them in an internment camp is outrageous and it's punitive and it needs to be stopped.

There are all kinds of situations in life that your money's gone.

Seeley says Arkansas has been in a housing crisis since the 1980s, and additional cuts to housing and urban development will make things worse.

The number of unhoused people increased 6 percent between 2022 and 2023.

I’m Frida Ross reporting.

There's renewed focus on the affordability of online college classes.

Eighty percent of Americans think online learning after high school should cost less than getting an education in person, according to a survey by New America.

Yet colleges and universities are charging more for online education to subsidize everything else they do.

Experts say huge sums of money are going into online course marketing and advertising.

And according to Richard Garrett, chief research offer at Adventures.

I think what you have in U.S. higher education, which is big and decentralized, is a lot of bottom-up experimentation over the years that has led to a variety of different types of online.

So it's not one size fits all.

In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, more than half of West Virginia undergraduates were enrolled exclusively in online college courses, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

For the first time in history, this year more American college students will be learning entirely online than in person.

This is Public News Service.

A new research brief outlines the obstacles America would face in trying to reopen coal plants, an idea prioritized by the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that aims to boost coal production, despite coal's shrinking presence in the energy sector.

The administration says the move can help meet growing electricity demand with the emergence of data centers.

But the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis predicts giving coal-fired power plants new life would be costly.

The institute's Dennis Womstead says it doesn't make sense.

It's not an evil conspiracy to push coal out of the market.

The reality is that coal is the most expensive resource.

He points to Exxal Energy's Sherco facility near Minneapolis, a coal plant being phased out and replaced with a massive solar operation.

Womstead says utilities are planning for other sources because they've proven to be reliable and less costly.

The analysis says 24 of the 102 recently closed U.S. coal plants are already torn down, and restarting others would require big investments due to their age.

Turning to election news, the municipal clerk in Wisconsin's capital city has quit amid investigations into how she failed to count nearly 200 absentee ballots in the November elections.

That, according to the Associated Press.

Madison's mayor announced city clerk Maribeth Whitsell-Beal's resignation this week.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission launched an investigation in early January after learning that Whitsell-Beal had failed to count 192 ballots and didn't inform the commission until December 18th, more than a month after the election and weeks after canvassing was complete.

The ballots didn't affect the outcome of any races or referenda.

Meanwhile, voter turnout from tribal communities in Wisconsin has increased in recent years, with historic numbers for the state Supreme Court election this month.

Judith Ruiz Branch reports.

The Menominee reservation turnout increased by more than 80 percent from the spring 2023 election.

The Red Cliff and Bad River Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa saw turnout jump more than 60 percent, according to Wisconsin Conservation Voices.

The group works with tribal communities through its Wisconsin Native Vote Program.

Organizer Maria Haskins says listening sessions, roundtables and regional dinners have been crucial in building relationships and getting people to the polls.

With people seeing their peers being more active in the polls and becoming more informed about a lot of these issues is what is really motivating them to go out and cast their ballot because I think that people are realizing their vote is their voice.

Haskins says communities shared concerns at these events about issues like the opioid epidemic which is severely affecting tribal communities.

I'm Judith Ruiz Branch reporting.

This is Mike Moen for Public News Service, member and listener supported.

Find our trust indicators at PublicNewsService.org.