Six minutes of news from around the nation.

IVF clinic bombing should be a security wakeup call for fertility centers, experts say; Illinois is first state to restrict federal access to autism-related data; Virginia ranks in top 10 for lowest rates of deaths on the job; Food security researchers in 20 countries thought they had U.S. funding. Then Trump took office.

Transcript

The Public News Service daily newscast for May the 20th, 2025.

I'm Mike Clifford.

A bombing this weekend at a fertility clinic in California is raising fears that the threat of violence that has long loomed over abortion providers is now extending to other areas of reproductive health.

That from NBC News.

They report authorities said four people were injured when a car bomb exploded outside the the American Reproductive Centers Clinic in Palm Springs Saturday and the 25-year-old suspect was killed.

The facility was badly damaged in the blast.

Next to Illinois, the first state to block the federal government from accessing state data on autism.

The order signed by Governor Pritzker last week is in response to federal efforts to create a mass data collection on autism.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to use Medicare and Medicaid data to create an autism registry with the goal of finding the cause of what he calls an autism epidemic.

Governor Pritzker's order prohibits the collection in Illinois without consent from an individual or guardian.

Jeff Chan is a professor at Northern Illinois University and says along with concerns about accidental disclosure of protected health information right now there is no single cause or cure for autism and he's skeptical that a database like this could change that.

I don't even know if we will ever find that one single cause.

There's a variety of factors in play that on the genetic side and the environmental side that are all affecting parents and mothers and children.

Federal agencies said they will protect sensitive health information.

More than a dozen autism organizations and advocates are pushing back against the plan database and any rhetoric that autism is curable or is caused by vaccines.

I'm Judith Ruiz branch reporting and more than 5000 workers nationwide died from traumatic injuries while on the job in 2023.

That's according to a new report from the AFL-CIO.

Virginia ranked 10th in the country for the lowest rates of workplace deaths with 117 workers in the commonwealth dying on the job in 2023.

But the report also noted that tax on regulations could worsen the problem in the future.

An executive order by President Trump also requires any federal to rescind 10 regulations before a new one can be issued.

That includes federal agencies like the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, or OSHA.

Vance Ayers with the Virginia Building and Construction Trades Council says workplace regulations from federal agencies have bettered safety for working people for decades. - To me, it's absolutely ridiculous.

OSHA was created decades and decades ago to protect workers on the job, everybody working around you, standards for requirements for inspections, safety inspections, and everything else.

The Trump administration has defended the move as a way to stop what it calls a regulatory blitz from the previous administration.

I'm Zimone Perez.

This is Public News Service.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives hashing out last-minute details of a huge funding bill that could come to a floor vote this week. warned that proposed Medicaid cuts could force layoffs or closure of rural hospitals.

The Trump administration is looking for savings to fund his tax cuts, which primarily benefit the wealthy.

Joan Onker with the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families says rural hospitals are often the only maternity ward for hundreds of miles.

It doesn't matter who their health insurer.

If they have private insurance, employer insurance, but there's no facility, then they can't safely give birth.

And that's why these issues are so consequential.

In order to cut the cost of Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in the Golden State, Republicans are considering drastic cuts to states like California that fund health care for low-income undocumented immigrants.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Next, in January, the Trump administration ended funding for most of the Feed the Future Innovation Labs, which promoted food security and established new commercial markets in developing countries.

Anchored in 17 U.S. universities, the labs were funded by USAID and in turn funded international research partners in 20 countries, developing climate-resilient crop varieties including sorghum, peanuts and chickpeas, among others.

The Soybean Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois was part of the program, and Director Peter Goldsmith says addressing poverty and malnutrition overseas reduces the need for military interventions and costly diplomacy.

"When countries are able to operate and thrive by themselves, not only are they more stable and so forth, but as theory has turned into practice, we know from Asia that they turn into trading partners, especially for food."

Feed the Future reported alleviating hunger for over 5 million families, lifting 5.7 million people out of poverty and deploying over 1,000 agricultural innovations.

This story is based on original reporting by Graeme Moran at Sentient.

Brett Pivito reporting.

Finally, a recent National Wildlife Federation poll shows Pennsylvania farmers and ranchers benefit from voluntary conservation programs from the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

More on that now from our Daniel Smith. 75 percent would like to see the programs expand.

The Federation's Aviva Glacier says Pennsylvania farmers and ranchers are using the funding to adopt good conservation practices on their farms.

Practices like cover crops or grazing management or it could be a conservation easement.

It could be putting in a buffer strip.

There's a lot of different practices that fall into that voluntary agriculture conservation funding.

The poll reveals 79 percent of Pennsylvania producers support increased conservation funding.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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