News from around the nation.

Democrat flips Florida House seat in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago district; While not a trendy career field, South Dakota college students take up rangeland management; Wyoming has plan to fund rural hospitals after $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts; Study finds Pacific Northwest can do more to prepare for extreme heat events.

Transcript

The Public News Service Wednesday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Democrats are projected to win a special election for a Florida legislative district that includes Donald Trump's Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago home.

Democrat Emily Gregory, a first-time candidate, defeated Trump-backed Republican Joe Maples in a race for the open Florida District 87 state House seat.

The BBC notes the result is a reversal from 2024 when a Republican won the district by 19 percentage points.

And around 1,000 soldiers with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division expected to deploy in coming days to the Middle East.

At the same time, President Trump expressing optimism, a deal to end the war with Iran is in sight.

Meantime, nursing and computer science are in-demand careers for college students, but South Dakota academic leaders say there's an under-the-radar major that often has plenty of opportunities for young adults, rangeland management.

When areas like vast open grasslands across the Upper Plains face ecological threats, scientists work with different partners to improve land resiliency.

South Dakota State University's Sandy Smart says they're one of only 14 schools accredited by the Society for Range Management.

It's kind of a nice degree because you don't have a lot of competition and you can find work.

Smart says graduates go on to work at federal agencies and non-profit steering innovation, do consulting, or get into farming.

I'm Mike Moen.

Next to Wyoming, where lawmakers say they have a plan to make five years of grants in a new federal rural health program last forever, according to reporting from KFF Health News.

Wyoming's Rural Health Transformation Perpetuity Fund could provide the state over $28 million each year, according to materials presented to lawmakers.

Patrick Hartigan, dean of the College of Health Sciences at the University of Wyoming, says if approved, the fund would ensure that projects will continue to help rural patients, even after the federal program ends.

Well, the real challenge is to turn the short-term federal investment into long-term rural health stability.

This is really a once-in-a-generation opportunity to try to strengthen our rural health care systems.

Congressional Republicans created the Rural Health Transformation Program to help offset nearly a trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

This story was produced with original reporting from Ariel Zoinks for KFF Health News.

I'm Eric Galatas.

And a new study suggests that state and local officials from Washington and its Pacific Northwest neighbors could do more to plan and coordinate the responses to major heat waves driven by climate change.

The record 2021 heat wave hit the Northwest hard.

The study's lead author, University of Washington researcher Ava Kohlberg says the extreme heat caught many off guard.

We see a lot of folks talking about impacts to people, but we also wanted to look into what were the ecological impacts to our plants and animals.

The report from the Northwest Climate Adaption Science Center convened dozens of researchers and practitioners to analyze responses to the extreme heat.

This is Public News Service.

A Washington non-profit is addressing the need for child care and on-the-job training at the same time by using an apprenticeship model that combines paid work and certification.

The Machinists Institute is a non-profit created by the International Association of Machinists that runs apprenticeship programs related to aerospace and manufacturing industries.

Shana Peshek of the Institute says many apprentices, especially women, have not been able to continue their program because of a lack of child care that could accommodate the extended schedule.

So in order to meet that need, the Institute is opening its own child care center.

It will be available to the entire community, not just IAM members, with the main purpose of being open during non-standard hours, to have a represented staff and to have apprenticeship as a pathway for those teachers and assistant teachers at the Child Care Center.

Pesek says the new center will operate from 4 a.m. to nearly midnight, far longer than typical centers.

I'm Isobel Charle.

Next to North Carolina, where clean energy advocates are calling on the Congress to pass a bill that would restore tax credits for wind and solar power and further regulate data centers.

The Energy Bills Relief Act would reinstate clean energy tax credits to continue wind and solar projects that were phased out under President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Since the initial tax credits were passed, North Carolina saw more than $20 billion in clean energy investments, the fifth highest in the country.

That includes more than 17,000 new jobs.

Matthew Davis with the League of Conservation Voters says North Carolina has seen a surge in solar panel and battery storage buildouts across the state.

What that battery storage allows is for those solar panels to be charging the grid and charging up the batteries when there is a large surge of energy demand to discharge those batteries and help bring down costs.

Trump has asserted he wants to contribute to America's energy dominance through the use of fossil fuels.

Opponents of the tax credits argue they distort the popularity of renewable energy.

I'm Zamone Perez.

Finally, a new kiosk at the Discovery Cube in Santa Ana can teach the basics of hands-only CPR in just five minutes, and it's free.

You simulate compressions on a mannequin, which has sensors that help you find the correct hand position, depth, and rhythm for each movement.

Dr. Mohamed Shafi is a neurologist with the University of California, Irvine, and a spokesperson for the American Heart Association.

He says people who get CPR right away are two to three times more likely to survive and avoid brain damage.

When you have a cardiac arrest, the whole brain is not getting oxygen, blood supply, and so you could have the potential for more severe injury after a cardiac arrest.

Nine in ten people who suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital end up dying, and more than half don't receive bystander CPR.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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