News from around the nation.

Trump heads to China with a trade showdown said to be likely; Six people found dead in a box care near the U.S. Mexico border; Arizona modernizes public health services with AI; Federal funding cuts threaten Tennessee Hispanic-Serving Institutions; Nonprofit pushes to renew childcare workforce in eastern Kentucky.

Transcript

The Public News Service Monday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Peace and stability will be the public message when President Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping meet in Beijing this week.

But behind the diplomatic platitudes, the New York Times notes both governments are quietly preparing for something harsher, a prolonged economic war, mapping vulnerabilities and sharpening tools to inflict pain on the other.

And six people found dead inside a Union Pacific train boxcar near the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, authorities said Sunday.

Local station KG&S reports first responders arrived and confirmed all six people inside the car were dead.

No survivors found.

Authorities say they'll begin with autopsies to find the cause of death.

Meantime, artificial intelligence is creating new pathways to patient services in the Arizona health care system.

It's part of a growing trend of providers using AI to improve diagnostics and service availability.

Arizona Technology Council CEO Stephen Zylstra says the public health care system is taking advantage of the nearly limitless amount of data that AI has made available.

It essentially has an accumulation of all the knowledge that mankind has ever accumulated, and it has the ability to query that database in seconds.

Researchers from U of A are working to combine AI with other scientific data to ensure that people have access to health care services they need.

I'm Mark Moran.

Next, national analysis reveals more than 600 institutions nationwide are identified as Hispanic-serving institutions, but federal funding cuts are creating challenges.

Our Danielle Smith reports the Trump administration eliminated $350 million in competitive grants to HSIs and other minority-serving institutions.

Deborah Santiago of Excellencia in Education says Title V funds help these institutions provide a quality education for Latino and other students.

Southern Adventist University, Tennessee's only HSI, earned a grant in 2023, and it can no longer meet certain academic goals after funding was cut.

So one was to improve their academic programs, and they were going to reimagine or relaunch the Summer Bridge program.

And that serves, again, all students, it wasn't specific to Hispanics, They now were not able to do that.

And this grant is a five-year grant.

They only got two years of it.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

Danielle Smith reporting.

Speaking of grants, a Kentucky child care advocacy organization is using an $8 million grant to support rural child care and early education in Appalachian, Kentucky.

Chelsea Harville works as Kentucky State Director for Save the Children.

On average, most children in these rural communities, children under the age of five, do not have access to a child care center within 10 miles of their house.

Nearly all households in the region face child care barriers, and in 79 of the state's 120 counties, there aren't enough child care providers to meet demand.

This is Public News Service.

Ohio affordability advocates say American Electric Power is taking in record profits as residents face rising costs and an increasing number of disconnections.

The company recently hosted its quarter one earnings conference call for 2026 and announced a more than $36 million compensation package for the company's CEO.

Morgan Harper, executive director of Columbus Stand Up, says many Ohio residents are struggling to keep up with utility bills, reaching as high as $800 a month.

She notes people on fixed incomes are simply unable to keep up with the higher rates.

And we want to make sure people are aware of it so that ultimately they start to engage and tell the folks in charge that we're not going to take this anymore and they've got to do something to rein in utility profits.

According to new Pew Research Center poll results released this month, the majority of Americans have seen their home energy costs go up over the last few years.

And more than 60 percent say it's because utility companies want to make more money.

This is Nadia Ramlagan.

And rentals in Los Angeles and across California are rising rapidly while incomes stagnate, leaving many families burdened by housing expenses that are beyond their means.

A group of nonprofit agencies is exploring creative ways to build and preserve affordable rental homes in the region.

The Center for Community Self-Help recently sponsored an online roundtable to examine initiatives to provide high-quality, stable housing for low- and moderate-income households.

Dan Levine, housing director for the center, says where you live can be critical to your quality of life.

Housing is so core to how families experience access to education, access to jobs, access to transit, health, to the point that there's lots of research about how your zip code impacts your life expectancy.

Levine says naturally occurring affordable housing is being rapidly lost to corporate buyers and market rate conversions.

I'm Mark Richardson.

Finally, almost half of young kids in the U.S. live in child care deserts.

According to a new report, in Wisconsin, 54 percent of residents do not have access to adequate child care with higher numbers for rural areas.

The Center for American Progress says the gap percentage rises to 70 percent in Wisconsin's smaller communities.

The center's Casey Peake says this creates a stark urban-rural divide.

She notes policymakers are rightfully focused on affordability issues, given child care costs are out of reach for most American families, but adds that's only part of the problem.

You can make child care free for every family living in a rural community tomorrow, but that's not going to solve the access piece.

She says inadequate staffing leads to program closures and causes less options and higher costs for families.

I'm Judith Ruiz Branch reporting.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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