Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr nominations clear committees; ID lawmakers seek to increase barriers for passing voter initiatives; Factory farm advocates' blind spot on food system reforms; Georgia's school mental health report card reveals urgent gaps; OH group wants federal accountability for Lake Erie phosphorus reduction.

Transcript

The Public News Service Daily Newscast for February the 5th, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance former Representative Tulsi Gabbard's nomination for Director of National Intelligence at a closed-door session Tuesday afternoon.

That from ABC News.

They report Gabbard advanced in a 9-8 vote along party lines, according to senators leaving the meeting.

All Republicans voted in favor of Gabbard, while all Democrats opposed her, according to a source familiar with the vote.

Meantime, for the Washington Post, Robert Kennedy Jr. is now one step closer to running the nation's health agencies, after a Senate panel voted narrowly Tuesday to advance the nomination of President Donald Trump's controversial pick to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Post notes the longtime anti-vaccine activist, who has been widely opposed by public health experts and Democrats, could soon be confirmed for a sweeping post to oversee Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.

Next to Idaho, where lawmakers have introduced a slate of bills that would put up greater hurdles for passing voter-initiated ballot measures.

Our Eric Tegethoff has the story.

Legislation this session includes bills to increase the threshold for passage to 60 percent, allowing the governor to veto past measures, and proposes a constitutional amendment that would require signatures from 6 percent of voters in all 35 districts.

Assistant Senate Minority Leader and Pocatello Democrat James Ruckte says the measures come after years of attacks from Republicans on voter initiatives.

They constantly live in fear that the people will tire of the legislature not listening to them and will use the initiative process to get done that which the legislature should do.

Ruckte notes one instance in which lawmakers didn't listen to Idahoans was on Medicaid expansion.

In 2018, 60 percent of voters approved a measure to expand the program.

Lawmakers have introduced a bill this session to repeal Medicaid expansion.

Sponsors of ballot measure legislation say out-of-state money drives the initiatives.

And recent editorials of the New York Times and Washington Post defending factory farms make one critical mistake.

They both assume there is no other option.

That's according to Peter Lehner with Earth Justice.

He says industrial agriculture doesn't feed the world, it feeds itself, perpetuating a cycle of overproduction, sickness, and environmental degradation.

And U.S. taxpayers foot the bill, sending tens of billions of dollars each year to large corporations.

There is huge numbers of subsidies to the livestock industry.

The hamburger that you pay is only a fraction of the true cost as reflected by what taxpayers pay.

The New York Times argued that the crop yields of smaller scale family farms are insufficient to meet the world's daily caloric needs.

The Washington Post urged readers to save the planet by not eating free-range beef, moving millions of livestock off pastures and into high-density operations where in many cases animals can't even move around conserves valuable farmland.

I'm Eric Galatas.

This is Public News Service.

Next to Georgia, a state that faces a growing mental health crisis among children with schools on the front lines.

A new report shows that 119 kids across the state experience major depression and more than half aren't getting the help they need.

Angela Kimball with the mental health advocacy group Inseparable says schools play a key role in closing these gaps by making mental health resources more accessible.

One of the most important roles is that schools can help promote resilience and skills like getting along well with others, healthy coping skills, making responsible choices.

All of those things can help mitigate against mental health challenges later on.

The report suggests several policy changes to help address the crisis.

They include expanding Medicaid billing to cover school-based mental health services.

Shantia Hudson reporting.

And legal action continues in efforts of cleaning up a portion of Ohio's waterways.

The Ohio EPA has been added as a defendant in a lawsuit accusing the board of Lucas County Commissioners, the city of Toledo and the Environmental Law and Policy Center of failing to have an effective plan to prevent dangerous amounts of phosphorus from occupying Lake Erie.

Phosphorus produces cyanobacteria which appears in water as a blue green or brownish algae.

Lake Erie waterkeeper Sandy Benn calls the EPA's control plan ineffective.

We've got now just in the last two years an increase of 100,000 cattle coming into the Maumee watershed, most of it unpermitted, piles of manure on the ground here, there and everywhere and you can actually physically see the manure running off into the streams.

Benn notes commercial fertilizer phosphorus use has decreased by almost 40 percent but livestock is increasing and with that comes more manure runoff.

She says the agency's being sued or more focused on the phosphorus in farmers chemical fertilizers.

I'm Terry Dee reporting.

And the final deadline is approaching for members of the Texas legislature to decide on participating in the summer EBT program that provides grocery benefits to low-income families with students.

The state didn't participate in the program last summer.

Clarissa Clark with the North Texas Food Bank says if lawmakers don't meet the March 1st deadline they're essentially leaving federal dollars on the table.

It's 450 million dollars in federal taxpayer money that comes back to the state.

It helps those who are food insecure and it also puts money back into our economy so there's a lot of wins to it.

To qualify for summer EBT families must meet the income requirement for the national school lunch program or be certified for school meals through SNAP or Medicaid.

I'm Freda Ross reporting.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service, member and listener supported, heard on radio stations big and small, your favorite podcast platform, find our trust indicators and content at publicnewsservice.org.