Telemedicine providers can’t catch senior citizens when they fall. But health services delivered over broadband can make it possible for seniors to live independently for longer periods of time. [node:read-more:link]
The cost of being shut out of overseas markets for soybeans, beef, pork, chicken and more will be in the billions. Once those markets are gone, they will be difficult to recover. Commodity prices continue to drop, and good weather suggests an excellent crop is in the making, which will drive prices further down. Brazil is ready to step in with increased soybean production, and China has already shifted its purchasing power there. Rural America is about to undergo a major demographic shift. [node:read-more:link]
On the east side of Detroit, 42-year-old Roquesha O’Neal is one potential target of cuts to SNAP. She relies on the program to take care of herself and her disabled, teenage son. She receives a monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) check worth $750 for her son and makes an additional $150 a month babysitting and doing odd jobs for neighbors. After rent and utilities, her family is left with about $500 a month to live on. Even with SNAP, putting food on the table can still feel like a full-time job: SNAP recipients only receive on average $1.40 a meal. [node:read-more:link]
On July 2nd, a month after the Trump Administration imposed a twenty-five-per-cent tariff on steel imported from Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, Stuart Speyer sent a carefully worded letter to his customers. Speyer is the president of Tennsco Corporation, a “storage and filing solutions” manufacturer based outside of Nashville, in Dickson, Tennessee. ”Ninety-nine per cent” of the steel that Speyer buys, he recently explained to me, is manufactured by domestic suppliers, including Nucor. [node:read-more:link]
Parents raising concerns over the number of child cancer cases in Johnson County are now getting attention from local, state and federal officials following the release of environmental testing results. The results showed high levels of TCE, PCE and radon in some homes near two sites in Franklin raising concerns about environmental contamination, and are causing worry for some families about their own health. [node:read-more:link]
Greenfield is the first city in Iowa to warn residents against drinking its water, fearing contamination from toxic blue-green algae. But it won't be the last, environmentalists say.Dozens of Iowa cities and towns rely on lakes, rivers and reservoirs at risk for cyanobacteria — or blue-green algae — to source their drinking water.Tests on Greenfield's water came back clean for toxins Wednesday, enabling officials to lift a bottled-water order. [node:read-more:link]
Over just three days this week, they lost thousands of acres of wheat. “The thing you have to remember, this is our neighborhood,” she said. “It’s not a subdivision, you’re not close together. You don’t have close neighbors like you might in a city.”The amber wheat was on the cusp of harvest, and the Kortges said it looked like their best crop yet. Now they have barren land covered in a layer of smoldering, black ash.“There’s a huge economic loss, loss of history,” said Brad McManigal, Cynthia’s brother.He’s spent much of this week fighting fire alongside his friends and neighbors. [node:read-more:link]
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is hoping to help rural areas of the state through an executive order. Reynolds signed the order Wednesday that creates the Governor’s Empower Rural Iowa Initiative, according to a release. They say the initiative will identify legislative, regulatory and policy changes through a partnership with the Iowa Rural Development Council. with co-chairs Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg and Sandy Ehrig of the Iowa Rural Development Council. [node:read-more:link]
Rural households across the United States spend a disproportionately high share of their income on energy bills — about 40 percent more than their metropolitan counterparts, according to a new report released today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and the Energy Efficiency for All (EEFA) coalition. The problem is most glaring in the East and Southeast, and among low-income households across all regions. [node:read-more:link]
In cities we know how to keep houses from burning. We have to relearn that in areas where human developments mingle with forests. It will need to be a local task, not just a federal one. So far, the 2018 fire season has produced a handful of big fires in California, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado; conflagrations in Oklahoma and Kansas; and a fire bust in Alaska, along with garden-variety wildfires from Florida to Oregon. Some of those fires are in rural areas, some are in wildlands, and a few are in exurbs. [node:read-more:link]
