News from around the nation.

In the fallout from the recent government shutdown, Ohio's rape crisis centers assess their efforts; Watchdog says "political insider" behavior a factor in health coverage premium spikes; and Braver Angels renews calls for civil chats over Thanksgiving.

Transcript

The Public News Service Daily Newscast afternoon update for November 24th.

I'm Mike Moen.

The death toll is rising in Southeast Asia from widespread flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains, with another person reported killed in Vietnam and five others in Thailand.

The Associated Press also reports that tens of thousands of people are displaced.

The total number of confirmed dead in Vietnam is now 91, with 11 others missing as the heavy rain that began a week ago has caused severe flooding and triggered landslides.

With roads washed out in many areas, helicopters have been deployed to drop food and aid supplies and to assist in evacuating people.

Overall, damage so far is estimated to be around $500 million in this round of floods.

In other news, as Ohio continues to recover from the lengthy federal government shutdown, sexual violence prevention leaders in the states say essential services never stopped and local rape crisis centers remained a lifeline for survivors.

Farah Siddiqui reports.

The Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence or OAESV is highlighting how training, community partnerships and prevention strategies kept that work steady.

Kaitlin Burke, senior director of prevention and impact at OAESV, says the most important message for Ohioans is that the Alliance's statewide network remained active during the shutdown.

She notes they support 32 accredited rape crisis centers, which often serve larger, complex regions and provide core services ranging from 24-hour crisis lines to hospital advocacy.

Work has and will continue.

We are strong in our efforts.

We're sustainable in a way that we can continue to go regardless of what's happening at a federal level or what's happening with funding, so that if we are here, that means our local rape crisis centers can continue to do the good work that they're doing.

Burke says Ohio's rape crisis centers serve every county in the state, offering crisis intervention, advocacy and prevention education.

The alliance also provides policy advocacy, technical assistance and statewide training to maintain consistent standards of care.

Farrah Siddiqui reporting.

Concerned Iowa residents gathered in Des Moines recently to call for safer drinking water.

The state is home to as many as 4,000 concentrated animal feeding operations.

Iowa's rivers and lakes are routinely closed to recreation as a result of high nitrate and phosphorus levels.

Food and Water Watch Iowa senior organizer, Mikaelyn Mankell, says during a town hall gathering, residents asked state lawmakers to continue funding for the state's water quality monitoring network of 500 sensors that report waterway pollution in real time.

There has been a move by the legislature to defund this program and push us back into the dark at a time where the crisis has never been more severe and when rates of pollution are skyrocketing.

Researchers are investigating the link between water pollution and Iowa's cancer rate which has the second highest occurrence of new cases in the nation.

This is public news service.

As residents in states like Michigan learn just how much their health insurance costs will go up next year, at least one group blames corruption in the nation's capital for or at least some of the price hikes.

More from Crystal Blair.

In Michigan, premiums for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act are set to rise sharply next year, with rates jumping 24 percent for Blue Cross policies, 23 percent for Blue Care Network plans, and nearly 20 percent for Priority Health plans.

One watchdog organization sees the recent government shutdown as the latest example of what it calls the cost of corruption.

Brian Lemick, with the group Defend the Vote, argues that political dysfunction means no one in Congress is making headway on the issue of healthcare affordability.

Instead of making laws, they closed the government.

And so when they close the government, they limit the ability to make sure families have affordable healthcare, to make sure SNAP benefits are available.

They're doing this to protect billionaire donors and corporate lobbyists.

Lemick says the instability could worsen before the next shutdown deadline in January.

However, supporters of the Trump budget plan argue it was designed to rein in federal spending and support long-term economic growth.

They also say rising healthcare costs are driven by market pressures and not congressional inaction.

Crystal Blair reporting.

Turning to higher education, a new study finds college financial aid in California fails to target the students considered dually disadvantaged, those from families that are both low-income and low-wealth.

These families have low annual incomes and have few assets such as college savings accounts, investments, or real estate, the type of wealth often passed down through generations.

Report co-author Laura Hamilton is a professor of sociology who says students who are dually disadvantaged end up borrowing a lot more money for their education.

Relative to their peers who are just low income, dually disadvantaged students get about the same amount of aid but they have a lot more need.

The study found that only 52 percent of dually disadvantaged students are predicted to attend college compared to 83 percent to students from low-income, high-wealth families.

And finally, civil conversations are encouraged this week as people gather with their families for Thanksgiving.

One group that's focused on bridging the political divide is Braver Angels.

Damien Prynance is co-chair of the organization's Idaho State Alliance.

He suggests people who are struggling to speak with family members of different political views engage in the lap technique, listening, acknowledging, pivoting, and offering your perspective.

After you've given what we call a turning signal, the change in the conversation, then you provide your perspective, which kind of makes it a little bit smoother of a conversation process.

Reynon says Braver Angels offers skills for having intelligent and vulnerable conversations while still maintaining relationships with people whom we disagree, which can be especially challenging among family members over the Thanksgiving holiday.

This is Mike Moen for Public News Service.

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