Rural News
OHSU researchers unravel mysteries of Zika virus
Oregon Live | Posted on March 15, 2017Oregon scientists have unlocked some of the mysteries of the Zika virus, tracking how it invades the body. The research by a team at Oregon Health & Science University is likely to help develop a vaccine against the virus, which has caused outbreaks in South America and Southeast Asia and also has turned up in Florida and Texas. The study was conducted on male and female rhesus macaque monkeys last year at OHSU's primate center in Beaverton. Scientists followed the virus as it spread from the bloodstream to other tissues. They found it attacked the central nervous system, reproductive and urinary tracts, muscles, joints and lymph nodes. They expected to find the virus in the lymph nodes based on what scientists know about similar viruses, but not in joints or muscles. But what surprised them the most, said Dan Streblow of OHSU's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, is that the virus persisted in tissue for at least five weeks, the length of the study for each animal. Typically, the Zika virus disappears from the bloodstream within six days.
PETA’s the Best—At Killing Dogs and Cats
Consumer Freedom | Posted on March 13, 2017Another year, another pile of dead dogs and cats for the crematorium, courtesy of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Late Tuesday night—almost literally at the last minute—PETA filed its 2016 animal custody information with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) admitting it had killed nearly 72% of the cats and dogs that came through the “animal shelter” at its headquarters. That’s 1,411 dead dogs and cats at the hands of PETA last year alone. Since reporting euthanasia statistics became mandatory in 1998, PETA has killed over 85%, or 36,000, of the animals at its Norfolk “shelter.” A 2010 audit by a VDACS veterinarian found that most animals were killed in their first 24 hours at the facility. A deeper look at the numbers shows even more appalling statistics: PETA’s kill rate for dogs was 16.3 times the rate of other private shelters in Virginia.
CBO: Lower Deficit, More Uninsured Under House Health Plan
Roll Call | Posted on March 13, 2017The House Republican leadership’s legislation to partially repeal and replace the 2010 health care law would reduce the deficit by $337 billion over a decade while increasing the number of uninsured by 24 million people in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday. The nonpartisan budget scorekeepers predicted that under the House GOP plan -- which was scheduled for consideration by the House Budget Committee on Wednesday and would be packaged as a reconciliation bill that would only require a majority to pass in the Senate -- the biggest savings would come as a result of decreased funding to Medicaid and cutting off subsidies for individuals to purchase insurance on the health care exchanges. It would also lower average premiums enough to stabilize the individual health insurance market, according to the “score” of the legislation. CBO, working with the Joint Committee on Taxation, estimated that by 2018, 14 million more people would uninsured than under current law. That figure would rise under the proposed legislation to more than 24 million by 2026. Compared to estimates of current law, that would translate to more than 52 million Americans without health insurance by that year.
Economic Contributions of the Off-Highway Equipment Industry
AEM | Posted on March 13, 2017For 2016, the IHS estimates there was $31.3 trillion in total sales activity in the United States across all sectors; of that total, IHS estimates that $416.2 billion in sales was supported by the o -highway equipment and ancillary products industry’s economic activity. This occurred through approximately $266.5 billion in direct industry sales activity, such as the sales of equipment like skid steers and combines, which generated additional economic activity as dollars fl owed through the equipment manufacturing supply chain. This multiplier e ect drove an additional $94.7 billion in indirect sales in the supply chain for goods and services such as steel, electronics and banking services. Further, equipment companies and their suppliers hired and compensated employees, who, in turn, used their incomes to generate additional economic activity through the purchase of consumer goods and services. These third-order or ‘induced’ e ects amount to $55.0 billion in 2016.
1 in 4 Ohio hospitals could close under GOP Obamacare replacement, Ohio Hospitals Association chief says
Biz Journals | Posted on March 12, 2017One in four Ohio hospitals could close if an Affordable Care Act replacement rescinds Medicaid expansion without a new revenue source, Ohio Hospital Association CEO Mike Abrams said, one of a growing chorus of Ohioans speaking up about the GOP health-care proposal.
New report offers insight into off-highway equipment
Farm Industry News | Posted on March 10, 2017As the new Administration gets going, understanding certain segments of the economy will gain importance. One area that many don't consider is the off-highway equipment market, which includes farm equipment. A new report released by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers shows that off-highway equipment manufacturing supports about 1.3 million jobs and has contributed more than $159 billion to the Gross Domestic Product of the U.S. in 2016. The association unveiled the report during its Conexpo-Con/Agg 2017 event being held in Las Vegas. The construction industry's premier trade show brings in more than 130,000 attendees. The new report was prepared by HIS Markit, and looks at the size and reach of three major market sectors - construction, agriculture and energy.
Omaha’s Answer to Costly Potholes? Go Back to Gravel Roads
The New York Times | Posted on March 9, 2017After living more than 40 years along a road plagued by potholes, Jo Anne Amoura was excited to see city crews shred her block of Leavenworth Street into gravel. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great. We’re going to get a new street,’” Ms. Amoura recalled. “And then we waited and waited and waited.”Fresh pavement never arrived. Only after the asphalt had been ripped out almost three years ago did Ms. Amoura and her neighbors learn that their street had been “reclaimed,” Omaha City Hall’s euphemism for unpaving a road.“It’s really kind of like living in the country in the city,” said Ms. Amoura, 74. Her neighbors sometimes hauled wheelbarrows full of scattered gravel back up the hill after big rainstorms. And her house, she says, is regularly smudged with dirt blowing in from the street.
Presentation highlights risk, solutions to West’s ‘megafires’
Capital Press | Posted on March 9, 2017Wildfires are getting bigger and hotter across the West, threatening communities and causing billions of dollars in damage as forests become more cluttered and prone to disease. That’s according to a presentation by Paul Hessburg, research landscape ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, documenting how the landscape has changed and what effect humans are having on fire behavior. Hessburg’s talk, titled “Era of Megafires,” is equal parts cautionary tale and call to action, mixing decades worth of research with short video clips to show how and why large fires erupt, the devastation they cause and what people must do to contain them in the future. Hessburg spoke March 1 before a mostly full house at Maxey Hall on the campus of Whitman College in Walla Walla. The community had its own brush with the destructive Blue Creek Fire in July 2015 that burned 6,000 acres, 12 structures and nearly crept into the Mill Creek watershed. While the prospect of megafires is a scary thought, Hessburg said it wasn’t his goal to make people afraid — quite the opposite, actually.
Monsanto starting sage grouse research at corporate ranch
Capital Press | Posted on March 9, 2017Monsanto officials say they’ll use a large corporate ranch in a phosphate-rich area of Caribou County to research sage grouse habitat restoration on land denuded for agricultural activities. Monsanto has hired a Ph.D. involved in sage grouse work and plans to collaborate with university researchers on projects at the ranch, intended to help mitigate for the company’s planned Caldwell Canyon Mine. The mine is proposed within public land classified as general sage grouse habitat under the Bureau of Land Management’s new land-use plan, though it shouldn’t affect any active leks, which are sensitive areas where sage grouse perform elaborate mating rituals.
The Rural-Urban Divide
American Farm Bureau | Posted on March 9, 2017Rural voters tended to vote Republican and urban voters Democratic in this election. The divide may have less to do with party labels and more to do with political philosophy. Rural Americans are more conservative than urban dwellers, and their priorities often differ. In an analysis after the recent election, National Public Radio said the rural-urban divide grew in 2016 from where it was in 2012 and 2008, and it was because rural counties became progressively more Republican. The NPR analysis said it was impossible to tell what is causing the widening rural-urban gap because of the number of factors related to voting patterns. One striking similarity between the election of Truman in 1948 and Trump in 2016 is that a segment of the population felt left out or passed over by the losing party. Dewey was criticized for speaking over the heads of voters. Truman, on the other hand, played upon farmers’ fears that a Republican administration would lead to another depression, especially in farm prices. The farm economy is always on farmers’ minds, but in the 2016 election they had other serious concerns. A major example was the regulatory overreach by the Environmental Protection Agency. It isn’t just that farmers abhorred the fines, paperwork and legal fees. They viewed EPA as a threat to private property rights. This issue was not a high priority with urban dwellers, who seldom face a loss of property rights or EPA intrusion in their affairs.