News from around the nation.

Texas charges midwife in first arrest under state's abortion ban; Program trains underserved high school students for careers in the 'data economy'; Bill would revamp OR special ed preschool funding; 'He didn't cut red tape': ND mayor echoes worry about national park layoffs.

Transcript

The Public News Service Tuesday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

A Houston-area midwife was arrested for providing illegal abortions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday, marking the first criminal charges under the state's near-total abortion ban.

And one of the few times a provider anywhere in the U.S. has been charged since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

That's from the Washington Post.

A report Maria Margarita Rojas, 49, is accused of performing abortions and practicing medicine without a license, both of which are felonies.

Rojas owned and operated four health clinics in the Houston suburbs.

A data analytics program at Howard University introduces high school students from underserved backgrounds to potential careers.

The program offers a year-long data analytics course to students from Title I schools.

Some 226 high school young people from Virginia and around the country are enrolled in that program.

Laura Moore is the chief higher education officer at the National Education Equity Lab, one of the program's sponsors.

She says it was designed to ensure that young people, who may not be considering a college degree, have access to careers in the data industry.

We were founded on the belief and the reality that talent is evenly distributed in our nation, but that opportunity is not.

And as an organization, we were created to help change that.

Industry research shows that only 4 percent of data scientists are black.

One survey shows that the median starting salary for a data scientist is $83,000 a year.

For Virginia News Connection, I'm Mark Richardson.

And sticking with the education beat, legislation that would overhaul the way Oregon funds early childhood special education has advanced through the state House, with near unanimous support moving to the Senate Education Committee.

House Bill 2682 would create an advisory committee to recommend service updates incorporating the latest research and family experiences.

Representative Courtney Nearon, a Democrat from Wilsonville, is sponsoring the bill.

She says the current funding model no longer reflects the reality of what it takes to support young children with disabilities, and this bill would set the state up for success.

This prepares us to know exactly what needs to change in our early intervention, early childhood special education to make sure that we are taking appropriate legislative next steps.

Nearon highlights the need to update the timing of special education funding, which is currently allocated in the spring.

I'm Isabel Charlay.

And as their legal fights play out, national park enthusiasts in North Dakota worry about a situation where staff reductions carried out by the Trump administration make visitors cancel their trip.

Phil Riley is mayor of Watford City near Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

He likes the idea of spending reform, but says President Donald Trump got it wrong.

He didn't cut bureaucracy.

He didn't cut red tape.

What he did was he caught honest, working American people that support their families and provide a service to us in the general population that we might not get this summer.

Nearly 1000 National Park Service workers were recently let go as part of broader federal layoffs.

This is public news service.

Indigenous people have made great contributions to the state of Wisconsin, yet the alarming rates of violence against them remains a public health crisis.

A new study shows that intimate partner violence disproportionately impacts indigenous women more than any other ethnic or racial group in the U.S.

The murder rate for Native American women and girls is up to 10 times higher than the national average, according to the U.S.

Department of Justice, yet they account for less than 1 percent of the population.

Desiree Totey with the Center Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse is a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Wisconsin.

She says violence against Native women is underreported and unaddressed.

There's jurisdictional issues that come into play as to how things are investigated, how things are tried, and there's always racism.

There's less attention paid to the individuals that some of these things happen to.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice created a task force to combat violence against Native women across the state after legislation that would have addressed these issues failed to pass.

I'm Judith Ruiz Branch reporting.

Next, children's advocates are crying foul after House Republicans called for $12 billion in cuts to the community eligibility provision that allows high poverty school districts to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students regardless of their ability to pay.

Erin Heisum with the Food Research and Action Center says these funds are an important public investment.

She says no child can learn on an empty stomach.

We hear from teachers all the time that when schools offer healthy school meals for all, behavior in the classroom improves and their academics improve and they're able to graduate and become more productive members of society.

Some 557 Colorado schools serving more than 206,000 students are projected to be impacted.

The proposed cuts are part of a sweeping effort by Republicans to eliminate waste and inefficiency in the federal budget in order to pay for extending President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts and other policy priorities, including mass deportations.

I'm Eric Galatas.

Finally, a Senate committee will decide whether to advance House Bill 1007, which if passed will allow Indiana utilities to recover costs for small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs.

The bill also includes a 20 percent tax credit for SMR manufacturers.

Supporters say it will lower long-term energy costs and improve reliability, while opponents warn it could raise consumer bills.

Robin Skyabas is chapter director of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter.

He says the bill shifts financial risk to utility customers.

Hoosier customers could see their bills going up to subsidize and cover the cost of building out these extremely expensive small modular nuclear reactors.

I'm Joe Ulori, Public News Service.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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