Rural News
Help Wanted: More Jobs for America
The New York Times | Posted on December 6, 2016Why are there so few constructive responses to America’s unemployment and underemployment problems? Many individuals who were once members of the middle class or who grew up in solidly middle-class families are justifiably dissatisfied with current political and economic realities. This dissatisfaction partly accounts for Donald Trump’s election. Although corporations are creating jobs for robots, computers and offshore employees, little is being done to create well-paying jobs for Americans. The private sector either is no longer able or no longer willing to do so. Isn’t it time to demand that political and business leaders effectively address unemployment and underemployment? Our infrastructure is in a deplorable state. President-elect Trump, to his credit, has proposed that public-private partnerships address this issue. Shouldn’t the federal government do more? Shouldn’t it create something like a public-private version of a Works Progress Administration? Such an agency could coordinate public-private efforts to create well-paying jobs and facilitate job training. And let’s consider public-private undertakings that employ young adults in community service projects such as teaching, aiding the handicapped and homebound, mentoring disadvantaged youth and aiding disabled veterans. Should we even consider “drafting” all able-bodied young adults into some form of national service? So many young adults, even those with advanced degrees, are currently unemployed or underemployed. Isn’t this a huge waste of human capital?
Rural meatpacking town a model for diversity, study finds
Meatingplace (registration required) | Posted on December 5, 2016A recent University of Kansas (KU) study concludes that Garden City, Kan., home to a Tyson Foods beef packing plant, sets a positive example for how a community can help new immigrants and refugees assimilate. Tyson’s Finney County complex, as it is called, employs 3,200 workers
After 118 years in business, rural Nebraska retailer is closing up shop for good
The Grand Island Independent | Posted on December 4, 2016When it comes to small-town businesses, Lukasiewicz Furniture, Flooring and Appliances has always been the exception. As the bank, the grocery store and even the gas station closed up shop in this Polish farm town of 122 people, the furniture store thrived and even expanded over the decades.At its peak, the business employed a dozen people and occupied 12 storefronts on both sides of the main street in town. “The Farwell mall,” it was called. Five generations of the Lukasiewicz family drew in customers with the promise of quality merchandise, competitive prices and good service. They came from as far away as Burwell, 60 miles to the north; Broken Bow, 50 miles to the west; and Grand Island, 30 miles to the south.But soon, a business that has called Farwell home for 118 years will lock its doors.Those who work with rural communities and main street businesses have heard this sad story before.As farms became bigger and fewer, as rural areas lost population and saw young people move away, as it became easier to commute and shop in bigger cities, small town retail stores have died off. Now, sales over the internet, which often go untaxed, are adding to the woes of main street and mall businesses.“The Amazons of the world are huge,” said Jim Otto, Nebraska Retail Federation president.“I call it ‘bricks versus clicks,’” Otto said, referring to brick storefronts and clicks of a computer mouse.
New lawmaker hopes to improve technology infrastructure in rural Idaho
Capital Press | Posted on December 4, 2016New Idaho lawmaker Megan Blanksma hopes to shine a spotlight on the lack of technology infrastructure in rural Idaho, which she says places farmers and ranchers at a competitive disadvantage. “I want to try to see what we can do to push out this technological infrastructure into rural areas and improve it,” said Blanksma, a Hammett farmer. “We have to have good, solid internet for us to compete.”Blanksma is one of four new farmers or ranchers that will serve in the Idaho Legislature when it convenes in January.She said improving internet access and other technology infrastructure in rural parts of the state will be her top priority.Farmers and ranchers rely on reliable internet access to do things like run irrigation pivots and soil moisture sensors and file reports required by USDA and industry, she said.
Ohio leads nation in overdose deaths
The Columbus Dispatch | Posted on December 1, 2016n a grim statistic that surprises no one close to the problem, Ohio leads the nation in opioid overdose deaths, a new report shows. Along with the overall category, Ohio also had the country's most deaths related to heroin: One in 9 heroin deaths across the U.S. happened in Ohio. The Buckeye State also recorded the most deaths from synthetic opioids: About 1 in 14 U.S. deaths. In all the categories, Ohio easily surpassed states with larger populations.
Bass connection team finds untold stories of rural development
Duke.edu | Posted on December 1, 2016From shuttered textile mills and furniture factories to dormant tobacco fields, the traditional industries of North Carolina’s Appalachian region have drastically declined. But new areas have emerged, says Lukas Brun of Duke’s Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness, who set out to show that the Appalachian economy is more than a tale of decline: “There are great stories that are not being told.” In 2015-16, a new Bass Connections team focused on using the value chain framework in one part of the state. “The framework hadn’t been applied to a region before,” Brun noted, “and we wanted to understand what industries were taking root in a disadvantaged rural area. We picked Appalachia because the traditional industries of North Carolina—furniture, tobacco, textiles—all had a historic presence in the region, but had largely gone away. And we had connections with people at the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina who were interested in better understanding the economy of that region.”
General Mills joins effort to support bee and butterfly habitats
Minneapolis Star Tribune | Posted on December 1, 2016General Mills has made its largest contribution to help save pollinators, announcing a $2 million commitment that will add more than 100,000 acres of bee and butterfly habitat on or near existing crop lands. The five-year agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Xerces Society, the world's oldest and largest pollinator conservation group, will focus its efforts in Minnesota, North Dakota, California, Nebraska, Iowa and Maine. The USDA and Xerces will match this donation with another $2 million toward the project.
Students have trouble judging the credibility of information online, researchers find
Science Daily | Posted on November 30, 2016When it comes to evaluating information that flows across social channels or pops up in a Google search, young and otherwise digital-savvy students can easily be duped, finds a new report from researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education. The report, released by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), shows a dismaying inability by students to reason about information they see on the Internet, the authors said. Students, for example, had a hard time distinguishing advertisements from news articles or identifying where information came from. "Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally perceptive about what they find there," said Professor Sam Wineburg, the lead author of the report and founder of SHEG. "Our work shows the opposite to be true."
Reconnecting Rural & Urban America
PR Newswire | Posted on November 30, 2016As we've seen long before the election, there is a clear, and growing, wall being built between urban and rural America as a result of the recent and ongoing media consolidation that RFD-TV has been witnessing now for the past several years. If it's not a drought, a disaster, or something bad happening in rural America, there is no longer national news coverage of any kind. There is also a total disconnect by many executives in major cities who now really do view this as flyover country. In May 2014, after RFD-TV was dropped by Comcast Cable in Colorado and New Mexico, I was invited to testify before the House Judiciary Sub-Committee regarding the proposed Comcast/Time Warner merger and the possible impact of continued urban-media consolidation to the public interest. On January 28, 2016, as a last resort, RFD-TV took out full page ads in both the Washington Post and New York Times newspapers against an unresponsive Verizon FiOS TV after they removed only rural themed programming – Outdoor Channel, Sportsman's Channel, The Weather Channel, and RFD-TV – from their channel lineups despite the strongest possible protests from Verizon's own customer base.
K-9 Dogs Overdose on Fentanyl
NBCnews.com | Posted on November 30, 2016Primus, a Florida police dog, is normally a spirited animal. But after assisting in a federal drug raid early one morning last month, he seemed out of sorts. "He wouldn't drink water. He would release his toy very easily. And he was looking lethargic, almost sedated," said Detective Andy Weiman, the head of dog training for the Broward County Sheriff's Office."We knew something was wrong."Primus was rushed to a local animal hospital. By the time he arrived 10 minutes later, the German short-haired pointer was in serious distress — his tongue was hanging out of his mouth, his breathing had slowed dramatically and he seemed to be staring off into the distance. These were classic signs of a drug overdose, and it turned out that while Primus and two other dogs sniffed their way through the suspect's house, they were exposed to unseen fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin sold on the street. Fentanyl, much of it coming from Mexico and China, has killed hundreds of users, including music legend Prince, since its availability spiked in 2013. But the Drug Enforcement Administration says it also poses a "grave threat" to first responders and law enforcement officers — human and canine.It's so potent that a few grains can be deadly. It can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin and mucous membranes.