Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Rural Alaska village banks on alternative energy as economic driver; Portland hospital workers vote to join service employees union, and CA's Channel Islands Fox is a conservation success story.

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service Daily Newscast for July 3rd, 2025.

I'm Joe Ulery.

House Republicans worked late into the night Wednesday to flip holdouts on a sweeping budget bill.

Party leaders paused floor business as talks continued.

President Trump and top aides met with conservatives and moderates aiming to lock in enough votes.

If the federal government finalizes the budget reconciliation bill in play, Pro Consumer Voices in Minnesota warned that changes won't be friendly to monthly bills for energy customers.

Mike Moen has more.

The analysts point to new findings from the nonpartisan think tank Energy Innovation, which looked at provisions in the Senate version from this week.

It says the plan would cause Minnesotans' home electricity costs to rise by 28 percent over the next decade.

Annie Levinson-Falk of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota says that's because Republican lawmakers are poised to eliminate clean energy tax credits while expanding new oil and gas leasing.

If we can't build as much wind and solar and renewables, then we're not just going to be building more gas plants, but running kind of inefficient, more costly gas plants more than we would have to.

Levinson-Folk says many Minnesotans are already struggling with their utility costs and the advancement of cleaner energy sources has prevented things from getting worse.

Fossil fuel linked groups are cheering the proposed measure, including America's Power, which says incentives for renewables are no longer needed and that they're pushing out sources like coal prematurely.

These debates remain at the forefront with energy demand predicted to spike in the coming years.

A judge denied bond for Sean "Diddy" Combs after a jury convicted him on prostitution related charges.

The jury cleared the 55 year old of sex trafficking and racketeering.

The verdict followed three days of deliberations.

Combs now faces up to 10 years in prison. the conviction could end his career in music, fashion, and television.

Despite debate in Washington over ending incentives to help Alaska's smallest places move away from traditional oil and gas-based power generation in the most remote parts of Alaska, one village above the Arctic Circle has found success and has plans to invest.

Kotlik, a Yupik native village nestled on the banks of the Yukon River, is using alternative energy as an economic driver.

CEO and President Richard Bender says Kotlik has developed a three-phase plan to move away from oil and gas-based power to generate electricity for its 600 residents.

Phase one is to purchase a battery storage system and switch the gear.

Phase two is to produce renewable energy using solar panels.

Phase three is production of electricity using wind turbines.

Despite the success of places like Kotlik and its aggressive plans for future alternative of energy development, Washington lawmakers are debating a budget bill that would eliminate tax incentives for investing in clean power in rural Alaska, which could reduce funding for the projects the village depends on. - This is Public News Service.

More than 1,100 caregivers at Portland's Providence St. Vincent Medical Center have voted to unionize, joining the service employees International Union Local 49.

Hospital staffers, including certified nursing assistants, cooks, lab assistants, pharmacy techs, environmental workers, and patient representatives will soon begin collective bargaining with management over a new work contract.

New union member, Finn McCool, who works in the hospital's food service department, says changes to working conditions in the hospital were a major driver to organize. - There's a lot that makes St.

Vincent a great place to work, but we've also seen just tons of changes over the years around staffing and benefits.

So my fellow caregivers really knew that jobs were only gonna get harder.

St. Vincent caregivers will join with thousands of other unionized workers at Providence Hospitals in Oregon, Washington State and other parts of the country.

Providence officials released a statement recognizing the union and saying they were prepared to work with them towards a new contract.

McCool says the company made several changes to staffing and work policies without feedback from its employees.

He says changes to the employees' health care benefits caused a major upheaval.

Environmental and Wildlife Conservation in Montana took hits during this year's state legislative session, including vetoes from the governor on bills that received bipartisan support.

Among bills Governor Greg Gianforte vetoed was House Bill 477, which would have phased out some single-use styrofoam food containers in favor of those made from Montana agricultural byproducts.

The bill's sponsor, Democratic Representative Marilyn Marler of Missoula, says it's discouraging when such a bipartisan effort is vetoed.

Because it seems to me he did not listen to a wide variety of people even in his own party.

I think that with this particular bill, it just didn't send the right message about what our values are.

Tourism and recreation are important and growing industries in the state and Marler says people don't come here to see trash.

Constituents can see how their lawmakers voted on conservation this session on the Montana Conservation Voters 2025 legislative scorecard.

I'm Kathleen Shannon.

And a small fox that lives on six of the eight Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California is thriving after near extinction.

The island fox, found nowhere else on Earth, was listed as endangered in 2004 when only about 30 remained.

A multi-agency recovery effort that started in 1999 resulted in the fastest comeback of any terrestrial mammal under the Endangered Species Act.

Photographer Chuck Graham has traveled to the islands to chronicle their recovery and share the story.

It wouldn't have happened with all the work of the biologists and everything.

I mean, otherwise, if it wasn't successful, then, you know, it would have been a really big disappointment.

But everything worked out.

Revered by the island's early indigenous people, the fox weighs just four pounds, smaller than the average house cat.

I'm Roz Brown.

This is Joe Ulery for Public News Service. Member and listener supported, find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.