News from around the nation.

Search for Savannah Guthrie's mother continues with 18,000-plus calls pouring in; GA loses 209,000 ACA enrollees amid Medicaid debate; New Seasons workers win landmark union contract in OR; Experts: KY pork plant settlement wouldn't protect environmental health.

Transcript

The Public News Service Thursday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

The search for the missing mother of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie continued Thursday as investigators revealed they had received more than 18,000 calls about the case.

A search of desert terrain near her Arizona home came up almost empty.

That for the Guardian.

They report almost a quarter of the tips came in during the 24 hours since the FBI Tuesday released door camera video and still images of a masked and gloved suspect outside Guthrie's home in the Catalina foothills on February 1st.

Meantime, new enrollment numbers from the Affordable Care Act marketplace show in Georgia over 209,000 fewer people signed up for health insurance this year.

It's one of the steepest declines nationwide.

Health policy advocates say the drop is leaving thousands of low-income residents with limited options for coverage in a state that hasn't fully expanded Medicaid.

Liz Ernst with the group Protect Our Care says the impact is immediate.

What that means is less people are going to be covered and there's nowhere for them to go.

In states that have exceeded Medicaid, they are able to, if they don't have ACA coverage or private insurance coverage, then Medicaid may be an option for them.

Ernst says without full Medicaid expansion, many Georgians fall into what's known as the coverage gap, earning too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, but too little to afford private insurance without subsidies to help pay their premiums.

Shantia Hudson reporting.

And members of the New Seasons Labor Union have won their first collective bargaining agreement with the New Seasons market and they hope it will set a standard for grocery workers across the state.

The contract covers about 850 workers at 10 stores across the Portland metro area.

Ava Robbins is a cheese clerk at the Concordia New Seasons and a co-chair of the union.

She says workers were pushed to unionize after facing a continued decline in in working conditions, including pay that was not keeping up with inflation and an increased workload due to lack of staff.

You can look back decades and see that kind of similar story, not just for us, but across our industry and across the working class.

Eventually, we realized that the only way that we could stop that decline was to take matters into our own hands as workers and try and do something about it.

The contract victory follows three years of organizing by workers who voted to authorize a strike at the end of last year.

The agreement delivers significant wage increases with almost all members now making over $20 per hour.

I'm Isabel Charlay.

And the final fairness hearing wrapped up this week in the class action lawsuit Louisville residents brought against the JBS Swift Pork Plant in Butchertown.

However, experts say a proposed settlement would not address ongoing environmental and animal harms associated with industrial slaughterhouses.

Christine Ball-Blakely is a senior staff attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

This case is a great example how industrial animal agriculture harms humans in addition to animals.

She says JBS is one of the largest meatpacking corporations in the nation with a lengthy list of violations.

She adds the Trump administration has indicated it wants to further loosen slaughterhouse regulations.

This is public news service.

The federal government has now expanded its drug price negotiation program for seniors in Michigan and beyond adding more than a dozen high-cost medicines.

For the first time, the expansion includes drugs covered under Medicare, Part B, typically prescribed in a doctor's office or clinic.

It builds on the first round of Medicare-negotiated drug prices that took effect on January 1.

Lee Purvis is the prescription drug principal for the AARP Public Policy Institute.

There are now some really significant price reductions for drugs.

People in the Medicare program tend to use a lot.

I'm talking reductions that could be 56 percent or close to 40 percent.

They're really big savings for people who are taking these drugs.

Drugs in the program now include treatments for asthma, cancer, lung disease, and diabetes, as well as popular medications like Ozempic and Rubelsis.

Medicare spent more than $15 billion on those drugs in 2024.

Crystal Blair reporting.

And the Trump administration is moving to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency's 2009 endangerment finding, which lets the agency regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The change could result in the elimination of federal rules surrounding pollution from cars and trucks, which Pennsylvania officials say would worsen air quality in the Lehigh Valley.

Mary Ellen O'Connell with the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment says asthma and lung disease are already harming people in the region.

She notes that in North Hampton County, nearly 6,000 children and more than 26,000 adults have asthma.

What we're worried about is that if this endangerment finding is removed, health care providers can no longer then rely on EPA safeguard standards over particular matter.

So again, just increasing the rates of illness in our community.

Danielle Smith reporting.

Finally, some Illinois walking trails that are built on old railroad tracks are providing more than recreational outlets.

The sites are generating ideas for business development and growth.

Trails of the Grand Prairie is part of a coalition of non-profits and government agencies to create an expansive rail trail network across Illinois.

Board Chair Joe Yockey says the sites are great for watching nature, jogging or dog walking but the group has other goals in mind. recreational trails for a regional trail network in central and east central Illinois.

Taking old corridors and to enhance the natural resources along these trails.

We want to enhance the vegetation and restore Illinois prairie and oak savanna prairie ecosystem.

He says the trails also serve as community connectors for the surrounding neighborhoods for students at St.

Joe Austin or Muhammad Seymour high schools to ride their bikes.

I'm Terry Dee reporting.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service, member and listener is supported.

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