News from around the nation.

At least 1 person dead and a dozen missing after catastrophic flash flooding in the Grand Canyon, U.S. colleges and universities brace for the loss of international students, Virginia candidates, advocates call on the GOP to rescind Medicaid, ACA cuts.

Transcript

The Public News Service Monday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Weather forecasters say more floodwaters are possible today after a catastrophic flash flood this weekend.

National Park Service officials say at least one person is dead and more than a dozen others are missing after flash floods overwhelmed a remote area of the Grand Canyon on Sunday.

NBC News notes the Park Service is asking for information about anyone who may have been hiking or backpacking along Bright Angel Creek in Arizona.

The catastrophic flooding prompted the Park Service to cancel a bar all overnight stays and impose water conservation measures.

Meantime, this has been Oregon's largest wildfire year on record, and for the state's small tourism-dependent communities, wildfires bring economic and emotional consequences long before any flames reach their doorstep.

Many towns have been under evacuation warnings for weeks this summer, emptying them of tourists and leaving locals without income.

In government camp, a village on the slopes of Mount Hood, Julia Williams runs Upward Spiral Collective, a mental health and suicide prevention nonprofit.

She says mountain communities like hers have higher than average rates of depression and suicide, challenges that can get worse when fires rage nearby.

When the tourists aren't coming up, we start having to whittle down, say at the resorts.

They have multiple restaurants and multiple bars.

They'll have to close some of them and funnel people towards the other ones.

That leaves an entire town without work.

I'm Isobel Charle.

Next, Nevada conservation groups want to make sure ratepayers aren't stuck with the bill as NV Energy seeks to build out three new natural gas plants to serve an influx of data centers.

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada will hold a hearing on September 22nd on the utility's new integrated resource plan, which calls on data centers to pay for any infrastructure needed to support them.

Christy Cabrera-Geordson with the Nevada Conservation League says regulators need to require the utility, which is a monopoly, to shield customers from the $6 billion price tag on those gas plants.

Right now, when big energy projects are built, whether they be clean energy or fossil fuel, all of those costs come back to rate payers.

So the PUC would have to direct something different for those costs to go somewhere else.

The PUCN will hold additional hearings in October and November and will take a final vote in December.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Ohio teachers expect for sickness like the common cold to spread when students return to class, but a bill in the state legislature could leave more serious outbreaks out of their control.

Ohio Public Health Association President Kate King is in favor of the current law, which protects the most vulnerable students should an outbreak occur.

I think that there still is a lot of work to do with the language of this bill.

I think moving forward, there would be some more discussion and maybe some amendments to it.

HB 561 would change an existing law to mandate that during a health outbreak, schools can't deny emissions to unvaccinated students.

Credit for original reporting on this story goes to Anthony Morris, Kent State News Lab.

This is Public News Service.

As Missouri students head back to class, schools may soon have a new option aimed at keeping them safe.

A recently passed state law creates specially trained school security personnel known as Missouri Rangers.

The Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission is developing the program.

Schools will not be required to participate, and rangers can be paid or service volunteers.

State Senator David Gregory, who sponsored the legislation, says the training will focus on key questions during a school emergency, including how to respond to a threat and safely enter a building.

He shared other critical pieces of the training for an active shooter response.

What type of technology do you have to track an active shooter?

What types of training do teachers have to communicate with law enforcement while they're in lockdown in their classrooms?

All these things are what rangers are going to be specialized in.

Critics of the program argue that more guns in school could increase risk, Crystal Blair reporting.

And a new national poll finds 75% of Americans would oppose a data center near their home.

That is a dramatic swing from roughly even support a year ago.

The Heatmap Pro poll of more than 2,000 voters found the shift across age, gender, income, party, and geography.

In Georgia, where more than 80 data centers have been proposed or built, the backlash is now a central issue.

Amy Sharma is executive director of Science for Georgia, which tracks the facilities statewide.

She says there's a reason for the growing opposition.

These deals are all done in secret and then they just show up and the city council and the Economic Development Authority has been negotiating in secret for like 18 months and then they're like, surprise, here it is.

And that is just pissing people off.

The poll finds opposition to data centers spans party lines with Republicans opposing them by 43 points.

I'm Tramiel Gomes.

Finally, as early as next year, Texas college students could start earning a degree in three years.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is working on a statewide plan for all public universities to offer accelerated 90 credit hour degree programs.

Governor Greg Abbott says the option would allow students to save thousands of dollars in tuition and living expenses and get into the workforce sooner.

There's high demand for more college educated and trained students to go directly into the workforce.

This will assist to make sure they are graduating more of these highly qualified and skilled and trained students who are ready on day one.

A report from Lumina Foundation in Gallup shows 23% of Americans think college is too expensive and doesn't align with needs of the workforce.

Freda Ross reporting.

This is Mike Clifford.

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