News from around the nation.

Community health centers in Florida are left ravaged by hurricanes; Wyoming county pushes back against rural health access woes; and new findings detail the failure rate of charter schools, with a focus on Michigan.

Transcript

This is the Public News Service Daily Newscast for Tuesday, October 15th, 2024.

I'm Mike Bowen.

Federal disaster workers paused and then changed some of their hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina, including abandoning door-to-door visits after receiving threats that they could be targeted by a militia.

The Associated Press says officials revealed that information Monday as FEMA tries to help states recover from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

The government's response to those storms has been targeted by runaway disinformation.

Former President Donald Trump and his allies have seized on the aftermath to spread false information about the Biden administration's response in their final weeks before the election.

Their debunked claims include false statements that victims can only receive $750 in aid, that emergency response funds were diverted to immigrants, that people accepting federal relief money could see their land seized, and that FEMA is halting trucks full of supplies.

In Florida, the storm damage means several community health centers are being pushed to their limits.

While some were spared from structural damage, other facilities were not so fortunate.

Jonathan Chapman of the Florida Association of Community Health Centers expressed deep concern about the ongoing impact of the storms on the health center network.

I talked to a health center.

They just went on one of their sites only to find out that all the windows were smashed in.

The rain, the wind caused damage to the point where it's inhabitable.

Officials hope the devastation provides greater urgency in bolstering short and long-term funding for these sites.

Federally recognized community health centers provide care for patients in underserved areas, regardless of their ability to pay.

Out West, Sublette County is the only county in the state of Wyoming without a hospital.

But according to KFF Health News, that's about to change, despite the struggles rural hospitals across the nation face.

Kathleen Shannon has more.

A new 10-bed hospital and attached long-term care facility is under construction in Pinedale and slated to open next summer.

Residents, who often drive 100 miles for primary care, are excited, says Carrie DeWitt with the Sublette County Hospital District, a district locals voted to form in 2020.

About half of rural hospitals lost money in the last year, and nearly 150 have closed or converted to smaller operations since 2010.

But DeWitt says there's more to the equation.

People ask me how can we afford to have a hospital, and it's actually we can't afford not to have a hospital because we have to be getting the proper reimbursement rates for the services we're providing.

DeWitt says Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance reimburse services provided by hospitals at a rate about 10 times higher than those offered at a clinic, which is Pinedale's current medical facility.

She adds that Sublette County might have a leg up on other rural communities because it receives high revenue from oil and gas industries.

This story was produced with original reporting from Sarah Jane Tribble for KFF Health News.

I'm Kathleen Shannon.

This is Public News Service.

In New York City, election integrity is under added scrutiny after Mayor Eric Adams' indictment.

Part of the indictment alleges Adams broke campaign finance laws during his 2021 mayoral bid.

But some groups that advocate for good government feel there isn't much cause for concern.

Rachel Fals with Reinvent Albany notes that charges against Adams mean the enforcement mechanism works in New York's public matching program for political campaign funds.

She says the city's campaign finance board flags any suspicious patterns of contributions.

There's a whole filing and disclosure process that candidates have to go through.

By vetting those filings, the campaign finance board can find where they think there are violations, and in this case, it ended up going through to the Southern District, and an indictment resulted from this.

And with the mayoral election next year and Adams vehemently aiming for a second term, Fals notes there are ways to bolster election integrity.

One recommendation is for the campaign finance board to hold campaign audits closer to elections, which could boost confidence in the process.

In other election news, amid ongoing divisions about election integrity in the U.S., a new national report from the Movement Advancement Project outlines what happens after polls close.

The release of the findings is designed to provide more clarity and facts with misinformation still being reported.

The project's Brian Hinkle says while there are timeline variations, all states generally take the same careful steps before election results are certified.

For many voters, they cast a ballot, and that feels like the end of the process, but in reality, that's the first step in a deliberate, specific, and careful process to get the final election results.

On election night, or the days after, the public gets a look at unofficial results submitted in each state.

After that, there are actions like canvassing to ensure the ballots cast are accurate, along with post-election audits to confirm the accuracy of results and check for errors.

Turning to education, a new report analyzing nationwide school closures shows in Michigan about one in three charter schools fails.

Judith Ruiz's branch has a look at the findings.

The report says backers of these schools accept closures as a natural consequence of market forces, but Mitchell Robinson on the Michigan State Board of Education suggests charter schools are being treated a lot like dry cleaners or dollar stores.

They pop up in strip malls, he says, and can be gone just months later.

Our state is attracting people who put profits before the best interests of kids.

Additionally, he said, millions of federal dollars are allocated to Michigan for charter schools that have never opened.

The report from the National Center for Charter School Accountability found nearly half of the charter schools that closed nationwide cited low enrollment as the reason.

About 20 percent of closures were due to fraud and mismanagement of funds.

I'm Judith Ruiz, Branch, reporting.

And this is Mike Moen for Public News Service, member and listener supported, heard on interesting radio stations, as well as your favorite podcast platform.