Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Janeese Lewis George wins the Democratic primary for mayor of Washington, District of Columbia; Celebrities and former presidents attend the gala for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago; Coloradans could see Social Security benefit cuts unless Congress takes action; A proposed data center at Fisk University faces community pushback; Advocates in New York and the nation rally for a fair North American trade deal.

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service daily newscast June the 19th, 2026.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Janice Lewis-George won Tuesday's Democratic primary for mayor in D.C., setting up a potential showdown with the Trump administration over its moves to challenge the city's limited autonomy.

The AP notes that Lewis-George was likely to take the top spot in the November general election, replacing moderate Mural Bowser.

And ahead of tomorrow's opening, celebrities and former presidents celebrated the new Obama Center in Chicago Thursday.

The New York Times notes the rare event drew four former presidents standing together, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Joseph R. Biden Jr., along with Barack Obama himself.

An invitation was not extended to President Trump, who recently compared the center to a trash heap.

Meantime, people who paid into Social Security for their entire working lives could see their monthly checks cut by 22 percent as early as 2032, according to a new report from the program's trustees unless the Congress steps in.

One in five Americans receive benefits and it's the biggest source of income for people who can no longer work.

Bill Sweeney with AARP points to recent polling showing that eight in 10 people age 50 or older don't want lawmakers to cut social security in order to save it like they did back in 1983.

The last thing they need to be doing when prices for everything are going up and people are stretched so thin is to look at cutting social security even further.

What they need to do is shore up the finances without cutting the benefits that people have earned.

The revenue shortfall is largely due to declining fertility and immigration rates, which means fewer workers contributing social security payroll taxes.

But the program is far from doomed.

According to the Center on Economic and Policy Research, the shortfall is less than half the cost of increased military spending called for in the Trump administration's 2027 budget.

I'm Eric Galatas.

And more than 14,000 people, including alumni at Fisk University in Nashville, are voicing their concerns about a proposed data center on campus.

The historically Black University's Quantum Leap Master Plan includes a $400 million five-acre data center development billed as an innovation center that would drive academic excellence and enhance workforce development.

Fisk University President Dr. Agena Walker-Clark says she's disheartened by the opposition from alumni and elected officials, saying they're misrepresenting the good work of the university.

Clark says the final design of the data center is still unknown, but stresses the university does not intend to bring a polluting data center operator to the campus.

When we say do no harm is a result of two years of research where we now know that the energy source, the water, the environmental footprint will not be affected and impact negatively anywhere within this community or anywhere else.

Danielle Smith reporting.

This is Public News Service.

Advocates in New York and nationwide are rallying for a better North American trade deal.

Our Edwin Javier reports as part of their Days of Solidarity campaign, they are hosting events in border states like Buffalo and calling for certain changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, which is up for review on July 1st.

Jesse Lenny with the New York Trade Justice Coalition outlines what the USMCA should do to improve trade.

Trade agreements, trade should benefit all communities and it should lift wages and protect workers' rights, protect safety in the workplace, protecting communities and the environment that we all depend on, and then it just hasn't done that.

He and other advocates want the deal to prioritize everyday people over corporations and doesn't want it to pit working people from the three countries against each other.

President Donald Trump has long shided the USMCA despite negotiating it and says he's not interested in renewing it.

An Economic Policy Institute report finds the US trade deficit with Canada and Mexico reached $263 billion in 2025, up from $125 billion in 2020.

While some believe the USMCA has deficiencies, Lenny and others still see it as a step above the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data finds New York lost around 392,000 manufacturing jobs while NAFTA was in effect.

He says Rust Belt cities like those in western New York saw the biggest impact.

It really carved out the foundation of the American working class.

And that fear of offshoring, the artificial seeking of low wages, bad environmental policies, and no safety protections has also struck fear, even in industries that can't be offshored.

Under NAFTA, the U.S. lost more than four and a half million jobs.

And some of America's top colleges are working to increase their enrollment of students from rural areas and provide the unique support that they need to succeed.

While 90% of rural students complete high school, less than half go straight to college, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Marjorie Betley, executive director of the STARS College Network, says more college recruiters are building relationships with rural high schools and helping students see the value of earning a degree.

We don't want to contribute to any sort of brain drain.

We want to make sure that they know they can get this great education and they can also still be an integral part of their home community.

Last year, more than 90,000 rural students applied to STARS member schools like Dartmouth, Yale and Brown University.

That's up 15 percent from 2024.

Data show rural students are also more likely to drop out of college than their urban or suburban classmates.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

I'm Katherine Carley for Commonwealth News Service.

Many rural high schools don't offer advanced placement courses, so schools in the STARS College Network are offering rural students increased academic advising to help them fulfill their college dream.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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