Six minutes of news from around the nation.

Tensions mount in the Persian Gulf with missiles and drones fired; Supreme Court restores mail access to abortion pill, for now; NYers oppose Governor Hochul's plan to roll back the state's climate law; Opponents to South Dakota property tax relief law launch ballot question.

TRANSCRIPT

The Public News Service Daily Newscast, May the 5th, 2026.

I'm Mike Clifford.

The U.S. around war grew more tense Monday as nations traded charges.

The United Arab Emirates accused Iran of firing missiles and drones at its territory.

At the same time, U.S. officials accused Iranian forces of launching cruise missiles at U.S. military ships and commercial vessels.

The New York Times notes Army Apache helicopter gunship sank six Iranian military speedboats in the Persian Gulf.

Their take, the attacks the first since the ceasefire was reached on April the 7th, threatened to shatter the four-week truce between the U.S. and Iran.

Meantime, health care providers in New Hampshire are applauding the Supreme Court's move to temporarily restore access to the abortion pill mefepristone, but warn more restrictions could lie ahead.

The justice's order blocks a lower court's ruling from last week, which banned prescriptions for the FDA approved drug through the mail or telehealth services.

Janelle Hall, executive director for the Equality Health Center in Concord, says attacks on the drug have been ongoing since Roe v.

Wade was overturned in 2022.

We are still providing care.

We are still here.

It is still safe.

It is still legal.

And our team is going to continue to be here every day.

Hall says mail access to the drug has been especially important for rural patients who could be hours away from the nearest clinic.

The Supreme Court's order stands until May 11th and follows a lawsuit by the state of Louisiana, where officials argue the availability of mifepristone by mail has allowed abortions there to continue despite the state's near-total abortion ban.

I'm Katherine Carley.

And New Yorkers concern with climate change or against Kathy Hochul's plan to roll back the state's environmental goals.

She's calling for a seven-year extension on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act's 2024 deadline to 2030.

It also pushes emissions targets back to 2040.

This has been a major sticking point in state budget negotiations, making the budget more than a month late.

Catherine Nadeau with Environmental Advocates New York worries about the long-term impacts this will have.

We're going to continue to kick the can down the road on climate pollution and on air pollution.

We're also going to kick the can down the road on using some of the best tools we have at our disposal to bring this type of pollution down while investing in communities across New York State.

The proposal stems from a late 2025 court ruling that found Hochul had to either comply with the CLCPA or change it.

NADU thinks the legislature can put the state back on track by enacting regulations to implement renewable energy programs by 2027.

Lawmakers haven't presented a counterproposal, but they haven't rejected Hochul's proposal either.

I'm Edwin J. Viera.

Posts show most of the state's residents support the state continuing an aggressive push to implement more clean energy.

This won't be easy, given the federal government halting or limiting numerous renewable energy projects and climate smart programs.

This is Public News Service.

Hundreds of abandoned coal mines dot the Kentucky countryside, leaving scars on the land and the people who worked in them.

But with an influx of federal infrastructure money, mine remediation projects are restoring the countryside and putting Kentuckians to work.

A study by the Ohio River Valley Institute says Kentucky will receive more than a billion dollars over 15 years under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

Report author Eric Dixon says Kentucky has some of the nation's highest levels of unreclaimed mine damage.

A lot of damage accumulated over decades and in fact over a century of coal mining.

This program, the Federal Abandoned Mine Land Program, is focused on reclaiming those sites that were abandoned a long time ago that caused historic damage and were never cleaned up.

Contracting has surged most visibly in eastern Kentucky, where many sites are concentrated, while the western part of the state has also grown from a smaller base.

Dixon says the average contract is $27 million and that 90 percent of the work went to Kentucky-based firms.

I'm Mark Richardson.

And opponents of a property tax relief law that passed the South Dakota legislature this year want the issue on the November ballot.

A coalition called South Dakotans for Fair Taxes is launching a ballot question proposal to ask voters if they support the law.

Senate Bill 245 will transfer money from the state's scheduled sales tax increase, set to take effect next year, into a fund for property tax relief.

Ned Horstead is chair of South Dakotans for Fair Taxes and a Republican candidate for State House District 6.

He calls this an unjust wealth transfer that benefits upper-income homeowners.

About two-thirds of South Dakotans own their homes.

There's an entire third of the population that's going to pay more at the grocery store, pay more for anything that they do.

The sales tax cut enacted by the state legislature three years ago ends on June 30, 2027, when the sales tax will increase from 4.2 percent to 4.5 percent.

I'm Laura Hatch reporting.

Finally, solving a shortage of affordable housing in Pittsburgh will require better coordination among municipalities across Allegheny County.

The county doesn't control zoning.

Instead, more than 130 local municipalities set their own rules, which makes it difficult to guide housing development.

Ebony Flowers, with new voices for reproductive justice, says demand continues to outpace available housing.

And the county is moving towards a more coordinated housing approach under its Housing for All program.

She adds that the strategy aims to bring alignment and coordination across all those municipalities.

I think that coordination is really critical and it's going to make them address the housing shortage more meaningfully.

Danielle Smith reporting.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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