News from around the nation.

Investigators focus on whether Midtown Gunman was targeting N.F.L. offices; Kentucky lags behind other states in medical debt protections; Report: NV caregivers need support to meet rising responsibilities; MT Powder River Basin coal leasing could reopen.

Transcript

The Public News Service Tuesday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Investigators Tuesday were focusing on whether a gunman had been targeting the headquarters of the National Football League when he burst into an office tower in midtown Manhattan and killed four people including a police officer in a rare episode of deadly mass violence in the city.

That from the New York Times.

The report mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday morning authorities have reason to believe that he was focused on the NFL which has offices at the tower.

A The note found on the gunman mentioned the league as well as claims that the man had suffered from CTE, a degenerative brain disease, from playing football.

The NYPD says the note asks that his brain be examined for signs of CTE and accuses the league of concealing the dangers of the game.

Meantime, Kentucky is among the states with the least amount of safeguards for patients with medical debt, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.

An estimated one in five residents have medical debt in collections.

That's according to Eva Stahl with the advocacy group Undo Medical Debt.

She adds, over the past few years, many states have been moving to fill in consumer protection gaps.

But Kentucky continues to lack policy standards for financial assistance or hospital repayment plans.

Putting guardrails around payment plans and protecting people, making sure that doors are open around financial assistance at hospitals with respect to medical debt on credit reports.

He also does not set medical debt interest or wage garnishment limits.

This is Nadia Romligan for Kentucky News Connection.

And family caregivers in Nevada and across the country are stretched thin with far too little support, according to a new report.

It comes from AARP.

The survey finds that 63 million Americans serve as family caregivers, a 45 percent jump from 10 years ago.

Jason Resendez is with the National Alliance for Caregiving.

Over half of family caregivers, that's more than 30 million Americans, are performing complex medical and nursing tasks that once primarily took place in clinics and hospitals.

We're talking about managing catheters, administering injections, and managing medical equipment.

The Nevada State Plan for the Support of Family Caregivers estimates that between 325 and 620,000 Nevadans provide care for a loved one.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

And the Trump administration is looking to amend resource management plans that could reopen coal mining in the Powder River Basin just a year after the Biden administration ended coal leasing there.

Shiloh Hernandez is a staff attorney with the Northern Rockies Office of the Non-Profit Earth Justice and says the move ignores the reality that coal is no longer economically competitive.

I think it's in some ways a false promise to the region that has long depended on coal mining as an economic driver that these lines are somehow going to continue forever and that's not responsible, it's reckless and it's unbalanced.

The move dovetails with energy policies passed by the GOP and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including streamlined lease reviews for coal mining.

The public comment period for the amendments closes August the 7th.

This is Public News Service.

A non-profit is helping farmers and consumers in Illinois build a more resilient and just food system by shifting their communities dependence from global to local one connection at a time.

Currently more than 90 percent of the state's food is imported.

Jacqueline Evers with the Land Connection in Champaign says through supporting small farmers with necessary resources and helping consumers access affordable food, they're hoping to change that.

They distribute about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually through their food assistance programs to address local food insecurity.

She says the organization works with farmers, consumers, and businesses to impact the entire food system.

We know that providing all types of educational opportunities to farmers is only beneficial if there are food businesses and eaters that want to purchase their products.

More than 13 percent of people in central Illinois experience food insecurity.

Through the state's link up program people with SNAP can buy food at local farmers markets and co-ops and double their funds.

The land connection then adds to those funds.

I'm Judith Ruiz Branch reporting.

And a new Washington law ensures employees quick access to their personnel files which are necessary for many things including filing for workers comp and unemployment claims.

Employers must now provide copies of the files when requested within 21 days or face possible legal action.

Attorney Jesse Wing notes that under the old law, many employers ignored or restricted requests.

There are even employers who are located in the different part of the state who say, if you want to drive here, you can sit in our conference room and look at the documents, but you can't have a copy of them.

We won't send them to you, which also can cause a lot of problems for employees who have disabilities.

Wing says the new law took seven years to pass, largely because the business community voiced concerns about time-consuming document searches and possible sensitive employee information in the files.

I'm Isabel Charlet.

Finally, Florida's coastal historic sites from Key West 19th century buildings to ancient indigenous grounds are increasingly at risk from climate-driven flooding and erosion.

Diane Sylvia, a licensed building inspector who also heads the historic Florida Keys Foundation, assessed Hurricane Irma's damage alone for days after her husband was injured.

She says emergency plans must prioritize cultural sites.

One thing I would always recommend is that all emergency operations retain a building official as part of their emergency operations and hopefully an inspector.

With Hurricane Irma, once the storm cleared, there was no one to do damage assessment except for me.

Sylvia says Key West was well prepared with a special software allowing her to upload critical data to FEMA with her cell phone.

But her experience underscores gaps in emergency planning for cultural sites, even in tourism-dependent Key West, where historic districts drive the economy.

I'm Trammell Gomes.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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