News from around the nation.

Winter weather warnings for 8 states, as 36 Inches of snow to hit; Mississippi group provides support, resources to family caregivers; Farmers, aquaculturists unite to protect Florida's land, water; Report: Number of PA uninsured children stable, but no progress.

Transcript

The Public News Service Wednesday afternoon update, I'm Mike Clifford.

Winter weather warnings have been issued for eight states with heavy snow, gusty winds, and dangerous travel conditions expected through Thanksgiving.

That's from Newsweek.

They report the National Weather Service has issued full winter storm warnings in Wyoming, Alaska, Colorado, and Utah.

Winter weather advisories are also in effect for parts of Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Nevada.

Newsweek notes in some areas up to 36 inches of snow could accumulate, with winds reaching speeds of up to 55 miles an hour.

Those hazardous conditions are expected to significantly impact Thanksgiving travel.

And the holidays can be both joyful and bittersweet for family members caring for loved ones.

AARP Mississippi says it's working to help meet the rising demand for caregiver resources.

Our Daniel Smith has the story.

In Mississippi alone, more than 470,000 people shoulder the responsibility of family caregiving, providing unpaid care valued at over $5 billion annually.

Rhonda Gooden with AARP Mississippi says with the toll caregiving can take, it's essential that caregivers connect with others, join discussion groups, and take advantage of other resources by phone or online.

You can reach out to the AARP Family Caregiving Resource Line at 1-877-333-5885 and request the AARP Caregiver Resource Guide for Mississippi.

And for decades, Florida's upstream farmers and downstream agriculturalists have been at odds over water quality and environmental impacts.

But now the two camps are working together.

Now the new initiative, Healthy Farms, Healthy Bays, seeks to bridge this divide and foster more collaboration to protect Florida's fragile ecosystem.

It's released a new report that outlines its visions as well as specific steps to protect water quality and conserve Florida's working lands.

Initiative co-chair Randall Dasher, a Suwannee County farmer, played a key role in uniting these groups to work on creating a healthier watershed.

It is about coming together and collaborating, getting across the table from each other in a non-threatening way, because too much of that has gone on, you know, and that just makes people be less likely to listen and hear and talk about best practices.

I'm Trammell Gomes.

And tens of thousands of children in Pennsylvania are still missing out on essential health care coverage, according to a new report.

The State of Children's Health Report reveals that Pennsylvania has the fifth number of uninsured kids in the nation.

Jackie Ludwick is with Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children.

There's still a little over 5 percent of kids who don't have health insurance in the state of Pennsylvania.

She says factors like race, where you live, and family income play big roles in whether kids have insurance.

And while the number of uninsured kids has stayed at relatively steady, a stable uninsured rate doesn't signal that there's been progress.

This is Public News Service.

People may find it hard to believe that schoolteachers in Northwest Arkansas fall into what's called the ALICE community.

We get more in this Arkansas Advocate went through Rockefeller Foundation, Arkansas News Service collaboration.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained and Employed, which means that although people are working, they don't earn enough money to cover their bills.

Freelance reporter Jordan Hickey with the Arkansas Advocate spoke with a schoolteacher in Bentonville who has a second job delivering groceries to supplement her income.

This is somebody who's in their early 30s, mid 30s with a master's degree.

This is not the sort of person who should be struggling, who should be going out and delivering groceries.

Starting salaries for schoolteachers in Bentonville are a little over $54,000, but housing prices in the area have continued to increase.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

And hundreds of former North Carolina college students are back on track to getting their degrees thanks to an innovative program called Project Kitty Hawk.

The project started in 2023 and has re-enrolled more than 1,700 students who started but left college and are now on their way to graduation.

The re-enrollment program is an affiliate of the University of North Carolina system and allows students to pick up where they left off at any of 10 UNC campuses around the state.

Andrew Kelly runs Project Kitty Hawk.

He says that students leave college for various reasons.

Something those individuals often have in common, many of them wish that they could find a way to come back and finish that credential because it's often what stands in the way of getting promoted, from them finding a family sustaining wage in their work, and from really launching that career.

Kelly says they contact former students who never finished, walk them through options for when and how to resume their studies, and help them find a UNC institution that fits their needs.

I'm Mark Richardson.

Finally, a lack of animal welfare laws is leading to pain and suffering in America's factory farms.

Close to 99 percent of livestock is now raised in industrial type facilities where efficiency and profitability take precedence over animals' well-being.

Associate professor of law at Vermont Law and Graduate School Del Siena Winders says while more than a dozen states have banned what are deemed torture-like confinement for these animals, there is no federal law protecting them from abuse.

If most people were aware that the animal they're sitting down to eat couldn't move throughout their entire life, just to give one example, I don't think they would want to support that.

Winders says the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act requires animals be knocked unconscious before they're killed, but corporations that run factory farms are lobbying for the law to be weakened in order to speed up meat production.

This story was based on original reporting by Seth Milstein at Sentient.

I'm Catherine Carley.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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