News from around the nation.

A strong Nor'easter will bring winds and drenching rain to the East Coast, Pennsylvania leaders work to halt the closure of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and a Georgia solar factory navigates policy whiplash as tariffs loom.

Transcript

The Public News Service Friday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

A very wet and windy weekend forecast for up to 40 million people along the east-central coast.

It'll bring heavy surf and coastal flooding.

CNN notes the nor'easter, named for the direction its punishing winds come from, currently sits several hundred miles off the mid-Atlantic coast and will begin to track north and strengthen.

Areas from Boston to New York City metro will start to feel the effects of the storm's biggest punch of wind-driven rain and coastal flooding by late this afternoon or early Saturday.

Meantime, Philadelphia officials are fighting to keep a nearly 200-year-old museum open to the public.

A statement from the president of Drexel University says the Academy of Natural Sciences is closing its public museum due to severe financial challenges.

Dr. Nina Ahmed, a council member at large for the city, says the museum is critical to Philadelphia's culture and family life.

She calls the planned closure unacceptable, saying city leaders and residents weren't consulted.

She and other council members are organizing rallies, co-sponsoring a resolution, and supporting an ongoing investigation.

I started talking a legal route to see what options there might be.

So I reached out to a few people, and I would like to have a broader conversation with all the stakeholders and present a few options.

Danielle Smith reporting.

We're next to Georgia, where a Q-Cells factory in Cartersville is now the first in the U.S. to produce solar panels from start to finish under one roof.

Inside the vast Cartersville factory, about an hour northwest of Atlanta, ultra-thin slices of polysilicone moved through a series of machines and chemical baths to become solar cells.

The Q-Cells plant began expanding in June to bring the entire production process under one roof.

China has dominated solar manufacturing since the 2010s. and the U.S. is trying to bring production back.

Scott Bell is with QCELLS.

The two and a half billion dollars, the three and a half million gallons of water, the 90 megawatts of power, the 60 tons of chemicals on site, and all of the football field's worth of infrastructure you've seen is to arrive at this.

Tariffs on polysilicone are set to take effect in December.

This story was produced with original reporting from Emily Jones for Grist.

I'm Tramiel Gomes.

Finally, the American Postal Workers Union is expressing relief after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked that attempt to enforce new mail-in ballot requirements.

Oregon Postal Workers Union President Daniel Cortez says the USPS is trustworthy, but voters should be mindful of possible delays that are the result of recent policy changes.

Don't wait until the last week.

The mail is secure and it's safe.

Get it in early and it'll get where it needs to go on time.

If it's convenient to use a dropbox, use a dropbox.

A March executive order had directed the Postal Service to send ballots only to voters on the approved list.

That's a move the union has called unlawful and unworkable.

This is Public News Service.

In California this Sunday, a Bay Area church won't just be blessing the congregation.

They'll be blessing 21 new solar panels as part of their commitment to caring for the environment.

Grace Episcopal Church in Martinez wants to reduce strain on the grid via renewable energy, which helps in the fight against climate change because it lessens the need to rely on fossil fuel gas-burning power plants.

The very Reverend Dr. Deborah White serves as rector.

Jesus said, love one another.

And so our mission as we see it is to love one another in a concrete way.

And so it's important that we take care of all of God's creation.

The church worked with Revolve Solar, which specializes in helping nonprofits secure low-cost loans.

That's how they were able to fix the roof and then install the solar panels and a battery backup.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Grace Episcopal is one of six churches being honored in October with the 2026 California Cool Climate Award.

And Texas is one of several states across the country receiving money from the EPA to reduce lead in drinking water.

According to the agency, the funding will go toward finding and replacing lead pipes that deliver water into homes.

Lead pipes are typically replaced with PVC plastic pipes, but a city in Arizona recently opted to use ductile iron instead.

Judith Inc. with Beyond Plastic says the city council in Prescott voted unanimously to upgrade its engineering standards.

Their decision was based on wanting to protect the health of people using this drinking water system.

We've got plastic alternatives that are durable, and I think this can be replicated.

PVC is made from vinyl chloride and is categorized as a human carcinogen by the EPA.

Exposure to it has been linked to liver, brain, and lung cancers as well as leukemia.

Scientists say chemicals can leach into drinking water from the PVC pipes.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

Finally, a lack of access to affordable, stable housing is an issue felt across Minnesota.

Support organizations say they're working with a maze of complications.

The American Indian Community Development Corporation offers programs addressing housing and homelessness in the area.

The executive director there is Travis Earthwerner and says the support system has had a lot to contend with recently.

The opioid epidemic, the pandemic, all these events that have occurred throughout the last 10 years escalated.

Homelessness, poverty, there's a lot of first-time homeless individuals.

The nonprofit has about 500 units available for American Indians overcoming substance abuse disorders and other challenges.

Minneapolis is home to one of the largest concentrations of urban Native Americans in the U.S.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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