Six minutes of news from around the nation.

A powerful earthquake in Colombia leaves 111 people dead and more injured; Trump executive order that spaces out childhood vacations; New data: Hunger reaches families in every Indiana county; Oregon expert: Trump's nuclear plan threatens Hanford remediation; Trump administration buys back New York offshore wind leases.

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service Daily Newscast, August 11, 2026.

I'm Mike Clifford.

A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck Western Columbia.

At least 100 people are confirmed dead and many more injured.

CNN notes at last report, emergency responders were racing to dig people out of the rubble.

Among the collapsed structures were the pediatric and neonatal sections of a hospital in Cali.

The government has declared a national disaster and deployed soldiers to the area.

And from the AP, President Donald Trump signed an order Monday it calls for a revamped childhood vaccine recommendation that promotes his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.

The order advocates separating the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunizations at separate appointments whenever possible.

Meantime, nearly 1.1 million Hoosiers experienced food insecurity in 2024, including more than 327,000 children.

Julie Lurie tells us more about the new research on this issue.

The latest MAP the Meal Gap study from Feeding America shows the problem exists in every Indiana County and is especially pronounced in rural areas.

Emily Weikert-Briant, Executive Director of Feeding Indiana's Hungry says the latest numbers reveal a significant change among younger Hoosiers.

The percentage for food insecurity in children in 2021 was just under 13 percent, and for the 2024 data it is just under 21 percent.

So we are talking about one in five Hoosier kids who doesn't know where their next meal will come from.

The numbers reflect Indiana households also face a $691 million gap between what they could afford and what they needed for food.

And a new The report warns federal deregulation of nuclear safety standards could undermine Hanford nuclear site cleanup efforts.

The nearly 600 square mile site along the Columbia River holds highly radioactive waste from nuclear arms production that spanned from World War II until 1989.

Simone Antar is with Columbia Riverkeeper, the group behind the report.

She says it looks at how removing safety and environmental standards will impact cleanup at the most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere as the Trump administration pushes to build new small modular nuclear reactors there.

To say they're safe, it's a different type of nuclear is simply not true.

They create high level nuclear waste, which is a huge problem with the Hanford nuclear site.

Now, we don't know how to deal with our high level nuclear waste.

The Trump administration says it's streamlining deployment of next-generation advanced reactors, largely to generate more electricity for data centers.

It calls the effort a nuclear renaissance.

I'm Isobel Charle.

The report focuses on an area near Richland, Washington, where plutonium production began, which is now being eyed for new reactors.

This is Public News Service.

The Trump administration is buying back New York offshore wind leases as it moves forward with its plans to expand the use of fossil fuels.

RWE U.S. offshore is receiving more than a billion dollars to give up its leases to build wind farms off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana.

It's one of several deals the federal government made with renewable energy companies to get them to invest in fossil fuels instead.

Adrienne Esposito with the Citizens Campaign for the Environment says now isn't the time to ditch renewables.

We're living in a time right now where our energy costs are going up because we're being held hostage by oil industries and there's geopolitical circumstances such as wars.

And we could instead be generating clean, safe, homegrown energy here in America.

In the last year and a half, the federal government has issued a series of stop work orders for various offshore wind projects, though the courts consistently overturned them.

Beyond this, data show the federal permitting process for energy projects can hold them up for more than a decade, excluding the time needed to address lawsuits against these projects.

I'm Edwin J. Viera.

Next, artificial intelligence making its way into California classrooms spurring concern among educators.

The California Federation of Teachers just released a white paper on the dangers of AI in schools.

The California Federation of Teachers just released a white paper on the dangers of AI in schools, presenting their case to the state legislature at a lobby day in Sacramento.

A poll of CFT members showed that 74 percent believe AI harms student mental health.

CFT President Jeff Freitas says there's no substitute for the experience, good judgment, and compassion of a real teacher.

We are finding that there is less critical thinking when there's interaction and learning through AI versus in the classroom when there's discussion, when there's debate.

Educators are also concerned about the amount of data that AI can collect and disseminate about students and staff.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Finally, at the start of 2027, new work requirements for Medicaid are scheduled to begin in all states.

Pregnant and postpartum Medicaid recipients in New Hampshire are protective from these rules, but identifying who qualifies could be an issue.

A Georgetown University report finds that the real test may be whether the state's Medicaid program can identify who is pregnant.

Elizabeth Wright Barak, a fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and co-author of the study, says the new rules could imparal prenatal and postpartum care under the program.

The Medicaid expansion has been really important for maternal and infant health outcomes.

It's allowed women to have coverage before, during, and after pregnancy for the first time in many states.

Policy excludes pregnant and postpartum Medicaid recipients from the requirement, but analysts say many states, including New Hampshire, may not be set up to identify pregnant clients.

I'm Mark Richardson.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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