Appalachian program helps people in recovery find a new life in construction work

Lindsey King works on a new home.
(Photo by J. Glendenning, IRJ)

Lindsey King is rebuilding her life by building homes in Kentucky. Her new career is a testament to a successful trifecta of efforts from the Hazard-based Housing Development Alliance's Hope Building Program, the Perry County Drug Recovery Court, and King's determination, reports Jenni Glendenning of the Institute for Rural Journalism. King will celebrate four years of recovery on Aug. 18.

Like many people in recovery circles, King experienced a "moment of clarity" when she "was only able to see her children once during her six-month stay," Glendenning writes. "She praised Perry Circuit Judge Alison Wells, who sent her to treatment after her arrest. King told Glendenning, “She seen things in me far before I’ve seen them in myself, and she pushed me to get there.”

King attributes part of her ongoing successful recovery to community support. She told Glendenning, "There’s no stigma over recovery anymore around here." Glendenning writes, "When King entered the Hope Building Program as a trainee, she and her children, now 8 and 7, lived in a one-bedroom apartment with one twin bed and a small closet. She moved up to a two-bedroom apartment and now owns her own home, where they all have a bedroom, and the kids have a place to play outside."

King likened recovery to building a home, which starts with a solid foundation and goes up from there. "She knew she wanted to be a carpenter after about a month of being involved in the Hope Building Program, even though she had never done construction," Glendenning explains. "King said that she has not been treated differently on the job because she was a woman. . . . Her advice for women looking to enter the trade is, 'Even if it’s something you think you can’t do, do it, go for it!'"

To become a carpenter, King attended Hazard Community and Technical College and "is the first person in her immediate family to attend college," Glendenning reports. "After King completed the program, the HDA hired her as a temporary assistant trainer for a year. Now she is a full-time assistant to lead trainer Josh Boyd; they work with a crew of four in the program."

King with her children, Waylon and Iris
(Photo by J. Glendenning, IRJ)

The Hope Building Program is primarily funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Just Transition Fund for coal counties. "It aims to increase the long-term success rates of people in recovery while also rebuilding the local housing market," Glendenning writes. Shannon Gabbard, who runs the Hope Building Program, told Glendenning, “Ultimately, our goal is to help them transition into the workforce full-time. They must consistently pass random drug screenings, and the feedback we can provide helps to ease the minds of employers who may otherwise hesitate to hire employees who are in recovery.”

A criminal record can make it hard for people in recovery to find employers willing to give them a chance. Glendenning explains, "The Hope Building program does a background check, but Gabbard tells trainees, 'I don’t want them to stress about it because we haven’t seen anything yet that we haven’t been able to work through.' This offers a sense of relief, but once they are hired, 'they cannot have any new criminal charges after they begin the program.'"

Mindy Miller, HDA’s director of development and communications, whose own family has seen hardship from the drug epidemic, told Glendenning, “It's stories like Lindsey’s that give people hope. Her story is a lighthouse, a beacon shining in the night for every addict and for every person out there who loves an addict." Glendenning adds, "King considers the folks at the HDA her family and loves knowing that through her work she is giving back to her community by building something that is going to be someone’s home."

A webinar briefing on potential election threats and how reporters can cover them will be held on Aug. 6

Cait Conley

If you're a journalist looking for help to cover security threats and other issues in this year's election cycle, The Journalist Resource is offering a free webinar, "Election Security: Threats and Mitigations," on Tuesday, Aug. 6 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., E.T. The session is open to the public. Register here.

Cait Conley, senior advisor to the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, will lead a practical briefing on known and potential threats to the 2024 elections, how election stakeholders are mitigating those threats, and advice on how journalists can prepare to report on them.

Attendees will learn:

• The landscape of threats to the 2024 U.S. elections.
• What those threats mean practically to the security or integrity of the election process.
• What election officials, vendors and the federal government are doing to protect the security and resilience of the U.S. election infrastructure.

A question-and-answer discussion will follow Conley's presentation.

The webinar will be available on journalistsresource.org after the event.

About the speaker:
Conley's role supports CISA’s election security efforts. She leads CISA’s work in partnering with state and local election officials to manage and reduce risk to the nation’s election infrastructure.

Policymakers and legislatures work to contain the harm AI and deepfakes could do in this year's elections

(Graphic by Sean Westwood/DALL-E artificial intelligence
via Dartmouth)

AI and deepfake political ads are easy to disseminate and pose a threat to U.S. elections. Policymakers have been hard at work trying to get ahead of the problem. "The Federal Communications Commission announced it would move forward with a proposal to require that TV and radio advertisements disclose on air when AI is used," reports Chris Teale of Route Fifty. "The timeline for the rule’s implementation is unclear, but it is expected to go into effect by November."

The proposal's green light wasn't unanimous. Teale writes, "Commissioner Brendan Carr said in a statement that the FCC’s proposal, which will be subject to a vote later this year, is a 'recipe for chaos' that can 'only muddy the waters.'. . . 'Suddenly, Americans will see disclosures for AI-generated content on some screens but not others, for some political ads but not others, with no context for why they see these disclosures or which part of the political advertisement contains AI."

One deepfake trick is to generate robocalls to voters. Before the "New Hampshire presidential primary election, a robocall purportedly featuring President Joe Biden discouraged voters from going to the polls, and instead told them to wait until November’s general election to vote," Teale explains. "The call turned out to be a deepfake generated by artificial intelligence."

The FCC's rule is "one of many efforts in recent weeks to get ahead of the potential threat deepfakes pose. State and local election offices have already seen how AI-generated content could be used to spread misinformation and disinformation," Teale reports. "President Joe Biden has already been the subject of much AI-generated content, including a video on Facebook that made it look like he inappropriately touched his granddaughter’s chest after they voted in the 2022 midterms."

AI leaves voters unsure of who's saying what and possibly defaulting to believing nothing anyone says. In response, policymakers and legislatures are working through the best ways to help create clarity where there could be chaos. Teale writes, "Already, several state legislatures have passed laws requiring disclosure of AI’s use in elections and campaigns, with only Minnesota and Texas outright banning it. More than three dozen states are in various stages of considering similar disclosure bills."

Battle over mining in Arizona is about U.S. green energy needs, religious rights and land use

A view of Palabora, a South African copper mine, which was partially developed by Rio Tinto. Palabora's mine crater is roughly 1.24 miles across. Resolution's crater is expected to be 2 miles across. (Adobe Stock photo)

Resolution Copper wants to dig 5,000 to 7,000 feet into Arizona's Oak Flat desert to mine the region's vast copper-molybdenum deposit. The resistance to the project by Native American tribes and religious groups goes just as deep.

The Resolution Project has been under development by mining behemoths Rio Tinto and BHP Group since 2002. The companies and project supporters insist extracting the region's copper deposit is vital to shore up the mineral competition with China and for the U.S. transition to renewable energy. The opposition sees the mine and its expected 2-mile-across crater as exploitation of tribal holy ground.

Overall, the project has powerful backers: "It has generally been supported by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, though the latter has asked for more study as it seeks to balance its desire for clean-energy supplies with protections for the environment and the interests of Native Americans. The project can’t advance until that study is completed," report Phred Dvorak and Rhiannon Hoyle of The Wall Street Journal. "Many state and local officials [also] back the project."

Resistance to the project centers on Oak Flat, a stretch of land many Apaches consider sacred ground. The entrance to the mine is on Oak Flat, with the copper thousands of feet below. The main Apache opposition group, known as Apache Stronghold, was formed by the Apache San Carlos tribe and is represented by the Becket Fund, "a high-powered Washington, D.C., law firm known for championing conservative causes," Dvorak and Hoyle write. "Becket said it is planning to take its fight to the Supreme Court, where it has an 8-0 record."

Once Apache Stronghold and Becket joined forces the cause gained "a host of new religious allies. . . . Scores of religious groups have also submitted amicus briefs supporting Apache Stronghold’s suit," the Journal reports, "including organizations representing Mennonites, Seventh Day Adventists, Sikhs and Muslims."

Meanwhile, Resolution developers say "they have invested in an extensive monitoring network for groundwater, springs and other bodies of water that will be checked by regulators and a community working group," Dvorak and Hoyle add. "Resolution’s owners are trying to honor that commitment by consulting and joining with local tribes in good faith for the duration of the project, said Gare Smith, a lawyer who focuses on human rights and advises the project’s owners."

Not all regional tribes oppose the mine. "Other local tribes are attracted by potential economic benefits in a state where the tribal poverty rate is 29%," the Journal reports. "Among the ones with ties to Oak Flat, most have at some time officially opposed the mine."

To read more about U.S. copper needs, click here.
To find out more about the animals and plants that are native to Oak Flat, click here.

Top U.S. colleges are trying harder to recruit and retain rural students; admission offers rose by 12.9% over last year

The STARS College Network works to help rural students get into
selective colleges and succeed as undergraduate students. (Adobe Stock photo)

Rural students often graduate from high school with better grades and test scores than their suburban and urban counterparts, but that rarely leads to them graduating from top U.S. college programs. To address this disparity, the STARS College Network has been working to engage and support rural undergraduates "to feel more at home at selective colleges," reports Rebecca Koenig of EdSurge. 

The STARS program brought together "16 public and private institutions committed to improving their efforts at attracting and retaining students who grew up in rural communities," Koenig writes. "Programs at member colleges include hosting summer learning opportunities and on-campus recruitment events for high schoolers and sending more admissions staff out to high schools in small towns."

The network began in 2023 and has flourished. "The consortium announced that it is doubling its membership — to include 32 colleges and universities," Koenig explains. "This growing interest is a recognition of the fact that although federal data shows 90 percent of students from rural regions graduate from high school, only about half go directly to college."

During middle school and high school, many rural students are less likely to be exposed to higher education opportunities. Historically, more selective colleges did not actively recruit in smaller communities. "Students at rural high schools may lack access to adequate counseling about college options and financial aid," Koenig reports. "Or they may not be offered classes that selective institutions look for among applicants, such as calculus."

Rigorous recruitment efforts by STARS College Network schools created a substantial increase in college offers to rural students. Koenig adds, "STARS schools extended more than 11,000 offers of admission to the Class of 2028, which was a 12.9% increase over the number of admissions offers made to rural students in their applicant pools last year."

STARS colleges see rural student retention as equally important to admission. Each school has a structure designed to help rural students transition to bigger city and school life. Avery Simpson is a STARS mentor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She told Koenig: “Coming from a rural community, sometimes we forget we’re capable of doing what other people can do. . . . I can see the impact I’m making on these students, and I can see myself in these students.”

To view the STARS College Network list of participating institutions, click here.

Flora & Fauna: Bee slaps ant off the plank; grasshopper sparrows are back; boars aren't boring -- they're dangerous

This bee has had enough of ants trying to sneak into
her hive. (Popular Science photo)

Humans aren't the only ones who reach maximum tolerance and get slap-happy -- animals do it, too. How about this real-life wing-drop-swing-swipe maneuver a bee puts on an unsuspecting ant? The Night at the Museum's smack-it-out scene between Capuchin monkey "Dexter" and Ben Stiller's night guard character is a play-by-play theatrical version of living creatures being frustrated. We all get frustrated. For people, humor and possibly catharsis can help.

A steer and a cow crossed the road to munch on grass on the other side. The traveling adventure of two curious bovines from rural western New York may sound harmless. It wasn't. When they "strayed from their pasture, they set off a chaotic chain of events involving death threats, chicken rustlers and Joaquin Phoenix," reports Christopher Maag of The New York Times. "The town of Newfane, N.Y., hasn’t been the same since."

Very hungry spined sea urchins 'clean' coral by eating
harmful algae growth. (University of Florida photo via Hakai)

A spiky sea animal is helping Caribbean coral reefs recover from an onslaught of smothering algae. "Long-spined sea urchins (Diadema antillarum) play a vital role in Caribbean coral ecosystems," reports Lisa S. Gardiner of Hakai magazine. "Dark and rotund with spines radiating in all directions, some as long as knitting needles, the urchins eat massive amounts of algae that would otherwise smother corals or prevent coral larvae from affixing to rocks and growing into colonies." Some experts call these busy creatures the "janitors of the reef because they're so efficient at cleaning reef surfaces."

Birds can be incredibly resilient, but in the case of Florida's grasshopper sparrow, scientists intervened. "Numbers of the Florida grasshopper sparrow, seen only in prairies in central regions of the state, dwindled so severely by 2015, mostly through habitat loss, that authorities decided to remove remaining breeding pairs into captivity," reports Richard Luscomb of The Guardian. "Their gamble was rewarded." Experts released their 1,000th bird back into the wild . . . "adding to an increasingly stable population that researchers believe has turned the tide towards the species’ survival."

Feral pigs are fierce and carry diseases.
(Graphic by Adam Dixon, Ambrook Research)

Worried about shark season? Maybe another animal is a bigger danger. "Scientists determined feral pig attacks are more than three times deadlier to humans than sharks worldwide," reports Emma Glassman-Hughes of Ambrook Research. "That, coupled with feral hogs’ capacity for carrying disease, has raised their profile from farm pest to existential threat. But not enough people seem to understand the gravity of the situation, according to experts — and municipalities are struggling to control it."

Silver carp jump in the Fox River in Illinois.
(Photo by Ryan Hagerty, Fish  & Wildlife Service via the Louisiana Illuminator)

Winner, winner, Asian carp for dinner. Sound yummy? Midwesterners working to keep the invasive fish from establishing itself in the Great Lakes hope so. "Silver carp particularly represent a huge threat to the fisheries in the Great Lakes. . . . One way to get the silver carp population under control seems relatively simple – eat the carp," reports Elise Plunk of the Louisiana Illuminator. Americans aren't convinced Asian carp is a great dinner entre, but marketers are working to change consumer opinion. "Creative cooking, such as making carp burgers with dill pickles and cheddar or New Orleans-style carp po’boys, when paired with the knowledge that eating carp helps the environment, could be more palatable to Americans."

A look at how a local newspaper in Pennsylvania covered Trump's rally and the attempted assassination

When Donald Trump went to Butler to deliver his election message to the state's western supporters, journalists from the local newspaper, the Butler Eagle, were prepared to cover a political rally, but they ended up reporting on a shocking attempted assassination.

Covering a national event with a small newspaper's resources is a tall order for any newsgroup, and journalists at The Associated Press wondered how the Eagle would manage the reporting and scrutiny. To discover how it all went down at the Eagle, AP photographer Matt Slocum, media reporter David Bauder and video journalist Joe Frederick traveled to Butler to interview the paper's journalists, managers and staff. AP's perspective looks at a tragic event in a small town through the eyes of the local newspaper working to cover it. 

When AP explored the Eagle's newsroom responses, another story came to light. "It revealed not only the news organization’s professionalism but the emotional toll the story was taking on young staffers," AP reports. "One was moved to tears as she recounted how the crowd turned on her after the shooting. But, she said, the story taught her that in being a journalist, she had made the right choice."

AP's approach "enabled them to interlock strong human stories and look at the American local news industry as a whole. Particularly noteworthy was how this story managed the 'ladder of abstraction' and represented a strong crossover story that could appeal to multiple audiences — those looking for political news, local news, media news and simply a human story about the faces behind the journalism," AP reports. "The story offered a compelling on-the-ground tale that also linked it up with the struggles that newspapers and local news are having."

To dig into this coverage, watch the video here.

A first-of-its-kind in the South, 'Bike Tennessee' offers breathtaking views from the state's rural towns

'Bike Tennessee' offers stellar views of the state's rural towns and endless scenery.
(Tennessee Department of Tourist Development photo)

For bike enthusiasts craving more paths, climbs and views, Tennessee opened 52 "newly-curated" road cycling routes, dubbed "Bike Tennessee" for cycling enthusiasts of all ages and levels. The development is the "first of its kind in the South," reports Jacob Beckwith of The Tennessean. It aims to encourage more people to vacation in the volunteer state while "bringing cycling to rural communities. . . . The initiative is so new, it's only offered in one other state, Oregon."

Given the state's topography, Tennessee is a great place to ride a bike. The routes' developer, Shannon Burke, is a cycling tourist expert who chose off-the-beaten-path locations that were still safe. He told Beckwith, "The state has every type of mountain, and you can also ride in all seasons. . . . I would ask myself, ‘If I put this on a bike tour, would they get their money’s worth? The result is a mix of escaping civilization, while still making sure people are comfortable.”

Of course, there's an app for these routes. Tennessee "partnered with Ride with GPS, a navigation platform used daily by thousands of cyclists, for the program," Beckwith explains. "The state's 52 Bike Tennessee routes are accessible to users of the app and are all designed as a loop to simplify parking, while still varying distance and difficulty, officials explained."

Tennessee Department of Tourist Development Commissioner Mark Ezell points to Bike Tennessee as a way for the state to sustainably support smaller rural communities. He told Beckwith, "In 2022 alone, the state welcomed 141 million visitors, who spent a record $29 billion. A big part of that is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is still the most visited national park in America. This initiative gives tourists just another reason to visit our beautiful state."

Wild pigs are a seemingly unstoppable pestilence, but their threat could become exponentially more dangerous

Feral pigs eat crops and degrade water quality wherever
they invade. (Photo by Adam Dixon, Ambrook Research)

When feral pigs invade the countryside, they go hog wild eating farm crops, tearing up the ground, prolifically reproducing and spreading diseases to other animals and humans. As if that scourge wasn't enough, federal officials are preparing for the possible arrival of African Swine Fever in wild hogs and its possible spread to domestic pigs and maybe even humans. The concern is so viable that officials and stakeholders have completed simulations to prepare for ASF, reports Michael Crowe of Ambrook Research. "For two days, groups discussed the ins and outs of emerging pig diseases like African Swine Fever and the potential for feral hogs to help spread them."

Highly contagious and deadly for all pig breeds, ASF cannot spread to humans yet, but its travels across the globe make it a human health and pork industry concern. "Researchers have warned the animals can serve as a reservoir that can spill over into domesticated herds. This makes feral pigs not just a damage concern, but a food security issue," Crowe writes. "It’s one of the top threats to U.S. pork production, which exported $7.7 billion of product in 2022."

Should ASF be detected in the United States, the protocol is simple: shut all pig operations down. Crowe explains, "A single infected domestic or wild pig could lead the Department of Agriculture to pause all live pig and semen shipments for 72 hours to try and contain it, a massive stoppage considering we have a million hogs on U.S. roads every day. And being shut out of international trade, even temporarily, is a serious concern."

Kevin Morgan from the Office of Health Security, part of the Department of Homeland Security, told Crowe, "We need to get better at shared awareness across borders because these types of emerging pathogens — there’s no line on a map that they respect. . . . We need to be on the same page on surveillance and early warning." Crowe reports, "Beyond building connections, officials are also looking to help producers protect their herds at a local level."

Currently, the USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service is "running active ASF surveillance across 12 states — the entire U.S./Mexico border and the Florida Gulf Coast," Crowe reports. But there is no way for officials or scientists to predict how people will react. 

Consumer response to eating beef during the mad cow disease crisis serves as an example. Pig farmer Paul Klingeman Jr. asked Crowe, "How many people are going to think they might get this if they eat pork?"

Rural towns face public-sector worker shortages that will only increase; some residents are doing the work of many

To fill service gaps, some older rural residents have
multiple jobs. (Adobe Stock photo)

Small towns across the United States are short on people, money and a younger workforce, which leaves many older rural residents doing the work of two or three people. When older residents retire, rural communities are hard-pressed to "find and afford" new workers for a range of public-sector positions, reports Jon Kamp of The Wall Street Journal. "The challenge. . . faces small governments scattered around the U.S., and often leaves those still there to pick up the slack."

The rural labor conundrum affects states as big as Texas and as small as Maine. "In Texas, roughly two-thirds of cities with 3,000 to 5,000 residents are missing a finance director. . . . Other city employees who might not have financial-management experience often end up filling in, said Bennett Sandlin, the Texas Municipal League's director," Kamp writes. "Cities [may then] go without audits, raising the chances of uncorrected bookkeeping errors, he said." In tiny Ashland, Maine, one 65-year-old resident "runs the town’s sports programs, drives Little Leaguers to away games, cleans the town office, takes seniors out for meals. . ."

Since rural populations tend to be older, the pressure to attract and keep younger residents will only increase as baby boomer employees age into retirement. "Local officials and government associations in many states say they face a persistent challenge to find qualified employees who want to work in a small town’s office," Kamp explains. "Small-town officials say they face particular hurdles when it comes to offering competitive salaries to compete for workers."

Rural labor shortages can mean loads of work for older residents still wanting to work, but it can also mean services close or consolidate. "Limestone, Maine, is a small town abutting Canada’s New Brunswick border, closed its ambulance service many years ago, contracting it out to the nearby city of Caribou for less money. Last year, the police department closed," Kamp reports. "Limestone's interim town manager, Alan Mulherin, said that without police regularly nearby, there is more speeding and drug activity." Maine state and county police now answer calls in Limestone.

More modern cheesemaking was created by rural folks; the steps to make it are delicious dairy science

Even though cheesemaking history formally dates back to 2500 BC, the more traditional cheesemaking we know today was invented by French peasants. If you know how rural communities work, you're probably not shocked that farming folks from centuries ago were brilliant and creative in using milk for delicious ends.

Fast forward to the present day, and we now know what rural cheesemakers used to develop cheese is pure science, writes John A. Lucey for The Conversation, a journalistic platform for academics. Lucey, a food scientist who has studied cheese for 35 years, takes readers through the cheese-making process from milk to mozzarella. A few edited steps are shared below.

First off, cheese has delightfully few ingredients. "It’s made with milk, enzymes – these are proteins that can chop up other proteins – bacterial cultures and salt. Lots of complex chemistry goes into the cheesemaking process, which can determine whether the cheese turns out soft and gooey like mozzarella or hard and fragrant like Parmesan," Lucey notes. "All cheesemakers first pump milk into a cheese vat and add a special enzyme called rennet. . . . The cheesemaker is essentially turning milk from a liquid into a gel."

Churning milk and rennet into gel can take 10 minutes or more depending on the cheese. The cheesemaker will then cube the gelled "curd" and work to remove moisture from the smaller blocks. "To do so, the cheesemaker might stir or heat up the curd, which helps release whey and moisture," Lucey explains. "Depending on the type of cheese made, the cheesemaker will drain the whey and water from the vat, leaving behind the cheese curds."

Master cheesemaker Gary Grossen cuts a vat of cheese with a cheese harp. Cutting helps release
whey during the cheesemaking process. (UW Center for Dairy Research photo via The Conversation)

Cheesemakers add different ingredients and steps depending on the type of cheese being made. Hard and soft cheeses require different treatments. For example, "mozzarella, [is placed] in a salt solution called a brine. The cheese block or wheel floats in a brine tank for hours, days or even weeks," Lucey writes. "During that time, the cheese absorbs some of the salt, which adds flavor and protects against unwanted bacterial or pathogen growth."

As cheesemakers go through each step "several important bacterial processes are occurring," Lucey adds. Even as a finished product, cheese is "a living, fermented food. . . .Cheesemaking is a milk concentration process. Cheesemakers want their final product to have the milk proteins, fat and nutrients, without as much water. . . .There are hundreds of different varieties of cow’s milk cheese made across the globe, and they all start with milk. All of these different varieties are produced by adjusting the cheesemaking process."

To read more about the science of making cheese, click here.