News from around the nation.

More than 20 people missing after Grand Canyon flooding, while the death toll in Nepal tops 1,000, Muslim civil rights groups hail indictment in San Diego mosque attack, and Indigenous allies in North Dakota seek action beyond FBI rewards.

Transcript

The Public News Service Tuesday afternoon update.

I'm Mike Clifford.

Both the number dead and missing increased overnight.

The National Park Service now confirms two people are dead and 20 more are missing after that flash flooding struck the Grand Canyon in Arizona over the weekend, forcing the evacuation of dozens of hikers by helicopter.

Reuters notes heavy rains on Saturday set a cascade of mud and boulders and debris rushing through Bright Angel Creek, a major side canyon that runs from the park's north rim to the Colorado River, sweeping away trails, footbridges, and other infrastructure.

And at the Nepal-China border, thousands of people are missing and 1,000 people have died.

The AP notes mass graves are now required.

Police in Kathmandu buried dozens of bodies in multiple trenches.

Meantime, Muslim rights groups in California are expressing relief after the district attorney in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, indicted a 17-year-old girl in relation to the attack on a mosque in San Diego in May that left three people dead.

The young woman, named Sarah Lindsay Santiago, is accused of recording the live stream of the attack and disseminating the video and the manifesto written by the two teenage shooters who were found dead in a car near the scene.

Tazeen Nizam, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in San Diego, says people need to speak out if they see hatred brewing online before it turns to real-world violence.

It's about any other groups that knew about this attack similar to this individual.

This online hate, radicalization, this threat that we had could have been prevented.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

North Carolina law allows people charged with aiding and abetting to face the same penalty as if they'd committed the crime.

And local chapters of the NAACP in West Virginia have joined together in unanimously opposing a new construction of data centers, signing on to a resolution that demands a statewide moratorium.

Arnadyo Ramagon lets us know data center growth in the Mountain State is on the rise.

It's estimated that less than a dozen smaller centers are currently in operation, and around 10 large-scale projects have been proposed.

Loretta Young, president of the West Virginia State Conference of the NAACP, says local chapters in the Mountain State and across the nation are worried about how these projects could affect the cost of utilities.

Electricity bills have been increasing in West Virginia due to higher demands on the power grid.

State legislation now makes it easier for these types of facilities to be built in communities.

Next, the FBI is increasing rewards for information in cases involving missing and murdered indigenous people in North Dakota and nationwide.

Brandon Beatty with the Indigenous Association in Fargo says indigenous communities need more than a search party after someone goes missing or is killed.

Due to a lot of systemic and intergenerational reasons.

So the bottom line is addressing some of that vulnerability in our community overall would help us go further up the river so we're not always pulling people out of the river, literally and figuratively. 40% of North Dakota's missing population is indigenous.

This is Public News Service.

The social media giant Meta has agreed to settle a multi-state lawsuit for more than $17 billion and make changes to platforms Facebook and Instagram to improve children's safety.

Arnady Romnegan has more.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and his team led the charge for holding Metta accountable along with California, Colorado, and New Jersey.

Kentucky Youth Advocates Executive Director Shannon Moody says she hopes the lawsuit will spur lawmakers to take action next session on directing the settlement funds to after-school and summer programming.

Young people have more opportunities to connect in real life with investment of those funds for potentially out-of-school time opportunities or sports.

Under the settlement, which is still subject to court approval, Kentucky is due to receive $358 million.

In the lawsuit, the state's claimed Metta used harmful features to drive compulsive use by children and teens, despite claiming the platforms were safe for young users.

Credit goes to McKenna Horsley for the Kentucky Lantern for original reporting on this story.

Next, the Sierra Club of Tennessee says the Trump administration's decision to scrap $7.6 billion in clean energy grants has impacted eight specific projects in the state.

Court documents confirm that the federal government canceled more than 300 grants in 16 states because they voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Pat Couples with the Sierra Club, Tennessee, says the fallout is hitting major employers.

For example, a Wacker plant in Charleston that makes solar panel parts laid off 90 employees.

The Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga stopped production of their ID4 electric SUV and are furloughing 160 employees.

And we've got another 950 jobs at risk right now with the Mnemonics plant.

They make synthetic graphite for lithium-ion EV batteries.

That grant is currently threatened.

Danielle Smith reporting.

Finally, conservationists in Oregon are looking beyond their own species and to the state's iconic beaver to learn how to be more resilient to wildfires.

By slowing down and spreading out waterways, research shows beaver dams significantly reduce wildfire burn severity.

Maureen Thompson is with Central Oregon nonprofit Think Wild.

She says when it comes to wildfire prevention, beaver ponds are a big help.

That means we have late season water for wildlife and for fire breaks.

Firefighters in the Ochoa Coast know where the big beaver ponds are and literally send the helicopters there to get big buckets of water to put out the fires.

Thompson adds intense fires delayed beaver restoration work this summer.

So Think Wild is now calling for fall volunteers to help build starter dams and survey beaver activity across central and eastern Oregon.

I'm Isobel Charle.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service.

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