Six minutes of news from around the nation.

U.S. allies express alarm at Trump's plan to let Russia keep most of the land it seized from Ukraine; Higher ed supporters rally on two IL campuses for students' rights; South FL farming program in limbo after federal grant freeze; PA public defenders struggle with high caseloads, attorney shortage.

Transcript

The Public News Service daily newscast April the 25th, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Some US allies are highly alarmed by the framework the Trump administration is pushing to end the Ukraine war, and Europeans are bracing for the outcome of another round of high-level talks between the US and Russia, multiple diplomatic sources told CNN.

They report the administration's framework, presented in Paris last week, proposes significant sacrifices by Kiev, including U.S. recognition of Crimea as a Russian territory.

CNN notes asked what concessions Russia was offering.

On Thursday, Trump replied, "stopping the war," suggesting that not taking the whole country is a pretty big concession.

Next, it has been a busy week for supporters of higher education in Illinois with two separate protests.

More than 100 students and faculty members rallied at Chicago's NEIU campus on Tuesday in support of the Adequate and Equitable Public University Funding Act. students spoke about the importance of higher ed funding, particularly for diverse campuses that serve many low income and first generation students.

NEIU professor Brandon Bisbee says the bill would help to address the university's underfunding challenges.

He says state appropriations cover about 30 percent of their budget.

It's cost more money to serve students whose social identities have these different aspects that affect their experience.

This is something that we struggle with at Northeastern because we just do not have the resources to give all the students all the resources that they need.

He says the school has been forced to continue to increase tuition to keep up with the disinvestment in higher education and says fair funding is even more critical in light of the Trump administration's attacks on university funding and academic freedom.

I'm Judith Ruiz Branch reporting.

Meantime, frozen federal grants have thrown a South Florida farm training program into chaos, leaving the nonprofit scrambling to salvage it after sudden funding cuts and delayed payments.

The Urban Oasis Project's $2.5 million federal grant was abruptly frozen in January, then partially restored months later, after a federal judge ordered the immediate release of climate and infrastructure funds.

Project Executive Director Art Friedrich explains the grant was to reimburse the project for money already spent.

But he says now that the government is an unreliable partner, there's a lot of uncertainty.

Basically by mid-February, they owed us $36,000 and we had no idea if we would ever get paid for them or not.

So we had to furlough the co-directors of the project and just put everything on pause.

So we've been doing a little bit to maintain readiness in case we did get access to the funding.

Friedrich says he learned just this week that the grant to purchase farmland for training disadvantaged farmers is now unfrozen.

He says his organization continues its mission to support local food systems.

Urban Oasis pioneered a program to double SNAP benefits spent at farmers markets, model later adopted nationwide.

I'm Tramiel Gomes.

This is public news service.

More than 60 Pennsylvania counties don't have enough public defenders for the caseloads, forcing some as an Erie County to handle over 400 cases a year or Daniel Smith has more.

A report by Quadroni Center says the state needs more than 1200 full time public defenders but has about 850.

Sarah Jacobson with the Public Defenders Association of Pennsylvania says the state was one of only two for public defense, but s dollars was allocated in budgets.

Jacobson says th spread across 67 counties real change in places lik got in 23 24 a little ove appropriation, $106,723.

T When you add the cost of an attorney's salary and benefits, the money that's there is not enough when it gets divided up.

The report finds Erie County would need 28 full-time attorneys to handle the large caseload to handle the growing need.

And the owner of Michigan's Palisades nuclear plant is getting another $47 million to restart the facility.

It is the third installment of a $1.5 billion federal loan package.

Palisades was decommissioned in 2022 after more than 50 years of operation.

Now owned by whole tech international.

The plan in Van Buren County is expected to supply enough power to serve about 800,000 homes, but environmental and indigenous groups are voicing frustration after a federal panel recently denied a full hearing on petitions challenging the restart.

Kevin camps of the nonprofit beyond nuclear is among those in opposition.

A recent analysis by Dave Lockbaum, who is retired from the nuclear safety program at Union of Concerned Scientists, placed palisades at something like 84th out of 105 reactors in the country.

So his analysis was, they're more like in the bottom rung of the industry, actually.

Crystal Blair reporting.

Finally, we head to Alaska, where the American Heart Association is helping save lives.

In a medical emergency, such as a heart attack, time and distance can be a formidable obstacle in rural Alaska for getting a patient to a hospital.

The association says only about 10 percent of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital will survive, but access to CPR or a defibrillator can triple those odds.

Kristen George with the Alaska Heart Association says it's all about keeping the blood flowing.

The benefit to having CPR and AED education is the time of restarting the heart.

If we can keep the blood flowing to the heart, then we're not losing any of the parts we need.

The reason we do the education is so that we continue to keep that heart beating.

George says by 2030, The association plans to visit more than 220 rural Alaskan villages.

I'm Mark Richardson.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service, member and listener supported.

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