Giuliani's head-cracker image helps him overcome social-issue stands, especially among rural voters

Rudy Giuliani, shown here in Iowa (in photo by Jeff Mermelstein for The New York Times) is the leading Republican presidential candidate. He supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, and is on his third marriage, so how is he leading in a party in which the largest voting bloc is social conservatives? As mayor of New York, especially in the post-9/11 spotlight, he gained an image of cracking heads to keep order, and Republicans think he can do that with terrorists and illegal immigrants.

That is especially apparent in Giuliani's appeal to rural voters, as two New York journalists have written in long articles recently. First, in a 16-page piece in The New Yorker titled "Mayberry Man," Peter J. Boyer wrote: "It is also possible that the rest of the country knows all it wishes to know about Giuliani. It was Giuliani who was depicted in the Times as imposing 'the mores of Mayberry' on the city." (Read more)

In the Times Magazine today, Matt Bai explores Giuliani's attitude toward terrorism: "More than any other Republican candidate, with the possible exception of John McCain, Giuliani has rooted his campaign in the grand and foreboding notion that America is now engaged in a civilizational struggle." Bai's 8,232-word piece has repeated references to Giuliani reprising the historic roles of Winston Churchill against the Nazis and Ronald Reagan against Soviet communism, and glimpses of his ability to appeal to voters in rural Iowa:

"It’s hard to imagine the slashing mayor of New York getting on famously with the people of Sloan, Iowa, a one-strip farming town of about 1,000 people. (Motto: 'A Good Place to Grow.') But Rudy out of his element turns out to be a surprisingly deft campaigner. Ever the prosecutor, he retains a talent for explaining complex concepts, flipping his round spectacles on and off his face for emphasis and rubbing his forehead as if deep in thought. He has a penchant for talking to voters as if he were their tough-love therapist, frequently invoking words like 'reality' and 'denial.' Vowing to end illegal immigration during one town-hall meeting in Iowa, Giuliani told the crowd, “Every other country does it, and we can do it.” Then he clutched his heart and spoke softly. 'It’s O.K. to do it.' You could almost hear a collective sigh among the Iowans, who didn’t consider themselves bigots just because they wanted to seal the borders, and who now felt validated by America’s mayor. They lined up for autographs."

But what about social conservatism and its lifeblood, religious faith? "At a family restaurant in Le Mars ('the ice-cream capital of the world'), Giuliani was asked about his religious beliefs. 'I believe in God,' he said haltingly. 'I pray and ask him for help. I pray like a lawyer. I try to make a deal: "Get me out of this jam, and I’ll start going back to church."' Then he wandered off into a discourse that somehow ended up with an assessment of Times Square and how good he feels that there are so many 'functioning theaters' there. It’s not an especially convincing routine, but it may be good enough. Conservatives desperately fear another Clinton presidency and may embrace anyone who seems likely to blunt Hillary’s advantage in moderate swing states. (A button I saw in Iowa proclaimed, 'I’m helping Rudy stop Hillary.') And old assumptions of what an evangelical voter actually wants may no longer be operative. There is a sense among the Christian right, says the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who isn’t working for any of the candidates, that beating back the global onslaught of radical Islam may be a more pressing religious issue than stomping out liberal judges at home."

Paxton Media Group buys another Northern Indiana paper, getting monopoly on dailies in county

Kentucky-based Paxton Media Group is continuing its recent expansion in northern Indiana by purchasing the LaPorte County Herald-Argus from the Small Newspaper Group, an Illinois firm with no other papers in Indiana. (The selling firm's name comes from the family that owns it, not the size of its papers.)

Paxton already owned The News Dispatch of Michigan City, about 10 miles from LaPorte in northwestern Indiana's LaPorte County, population 104,000. The city of La Porte's population is 22,000, Michigan City's 33,000, but the La Porte paper has a larger circulation -- 12,488, to the Michigan City paper's 10,702. LaPorte is centrally located in the county, while Michigan City is on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Terms of the sale, which is expected to be effective Oct. 1, were not disclosed. It will be Paxton's third purchase of an Indiana newspaper in five months, giving it 11 papers in the state and 32 overall, with 370,000 circulation. It bought The Herald-Press of Huntington in April and the Chronicle-Tribune of Marion in July. Paxton owns seven dailies in North Carolina, four in Arkansas, three each in Georgia and Kentucky (including The Paducah Sun, where the family-owned chain started), and one each in Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Tennessee. Its Michigan newspaper is in St. Joseph, 40 miles up the lakeshore from Michigan City.

Paxton President and CEO David Paxton said the firm would combine "the strengths of the Herald-Argus with other Paxton newspapers in the area" to improve service. Officials of the Small group said "the sale was desirable to help the group make the transition in a multimedia age," The Herald-Argus reported. (Read more)

Bill Moyers updates story on mountaintop removal and evangelicals with news of proposed new rule

Last fall, Bill Moyers reported on PBS about evangelical Christians who were implementing their faith to fight the mountaintop-removal strip mining of coal. "Bill Moyers' Journal" updated the report last night, letting viewers know we are in a 60-day comment period on a regulation proposed by the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, aimed at eliminating legal barriers to the controversial practice.

Both reports focused on West Virginia and quoted Judy Bonds of Coal River Mountain Watch: "I wonder which one of these mountains do you think God will come down here and blow up? Which one of these hollers do you think Jesus would store waste in?" Moyers reported, "Bonds was a raised a Christian, then strayed from the church. This fight, she says, has brought her back to God. . . . Allen Johnson is part of the same campaign. He co-founded an advocacy group Christians for the Mountains." (Photo of Johnson from the Journal)

Johnson said, "Some people say that churches are in the pockets of the coal company. And maybe they want to build a picnic shelter, so the coal company helped -- give a nice donation. I think there are some pointed questions we can ask these churches. And we can ask them, now 'Are you gonna say nothing because you're getting some money?' Or, are you gonna say, 'We don't wanna say anything because somebody in our church is getting their job is connected with the polluters?' And so, you don't . . . say anything. What does that say? Now, justify that scripturally." For a transcript of the report, click here. To watch it, click here.

The Office of Surface Mining, part of the Interior Department, has posted a detailed "fact sheet" responding to news reports and environmentalists' criticism of the agency and its proposed rule. To read it, click here. The agency's news release and "How to Comment" section does not list the deadline for filing comments, but the federal Web site www.regulations.gov lists the deadline as Oct. 23.

Iowa Republican Grassley is optimistic about a Senate vote to cap commodity payments

As the Senate tackles the Farm Bill, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, want its version to include "a firm cap on commodity program payments of $250,000," Dan Look of Successful Farming magazine writes on Agriculture.com. Looker reports that Grassley is optimistic he will have the votes to have the limits included in the bill.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Grassley said getting limits in the final House-Senate conference version should be helped by the Democratic takeover of the House, reports Tom Steever of Brownfield Network. "I believe that the philosophical approach of (House Agriculture Committee) Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) is much different than it was for the Republican chairman," Grassley said. (Read more)

Grassley and Dorgan say their payment limits, which would be much lower apply more broadly than current limits, would help younger farmers. Philip Brasher of The Des Moines Register quotes a letter they sent the Senate Agriculture Committee: "The current payment limits promote farm consolidation, artificially increase land prices, and create barriers for a new generation of farmers eager to enter the industry." (Read more)

In an op-ed piece in the Fargo Forum, Dorgan writes that "a new farm bill must end the practice of providing giant payments to giant corporate farms that have nothing to do with family farming." He continues, "The purpose of a farm bill is to help family farmers through tough times. It was never meant to be a set of golden arches for big corporations that want to farm the farm program."

David Mercer of The Associated Press reports that Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns wants the limit lowered from the House bill's figure of $1 million. Current law sets a limit of $2.5 million. (Read more)

Tallahassee Democrat series on springs, Roanoke Times project on mountaintop removal win awards

The Society of Environmental Journalists announced the winners of its Awards for Reporting on the Environment this week, and two extensive series on rural environmental problems won the top prizes in the Small Market category.

The Tallahassee Democrat's team of Bruce Ritchie, Glenn Beil, Jennifer Portman and John Roberge won first place for their series "Saving Our Springs." The three-part series details the problems of the area's Wakulla Springs (above in a photo by Glenn Beil of The Democrat), whose clear blue waters had been "dulled by a tangle of supercharged aquarium weed and algae, tamed only by an annual dose of weed killer that allows about 150,000 people a year to enjoy the park's popular river boats and swimming hole." In describing the piece, the judges said,"The goal of top quality environmental journalism is to present a clear, balanced case to educate the community and inspire action to correct a harmful problem. The Democrat pulled out all the quality journalistic stops and its community won."

For The Roanoke Times, Tim Thornton took second place for his series "Moving the Mountains: An Exploration of Mountaintop Removal Mining." The series offers a comprehensive look at the debate surrounding mountaintop removal, and its online version includes photo galleries, graphics and video that tell the story from a variety of angles. Thornton offers descriptive portrayals of life before and after mountaintop removal, and he explores the various ways former mining sites have been reclaimed. He displays solid research and reporting, especially in his work with the residents of the affected communities.

"This is what environmental reporting is all about," the SEJ judges write. "Mr. Thornton takes a complex topic of importance to the region, clearly explains it with balance and enhances the package with graphics and the testimony of experts and ordinary residents of the affected area." For a complete list of the winners, go here.

Israeli-Australian virus is chief suspect in collapse of U.S. bee colonies

"Scientists have found a virus associated with the destruction of a large fraction of American commercial bee colonies, but they have not been able to prove that it is the cause of the mysterious disease that has wreaked havoc on the bee industry," reports Thomas H. Maugh II of the Los Angeles Times.

"The virus, Israeli acute paralysis, may have been introduced by bees from Australia whose importation was first permitted in 2004, about the same time that the disease, Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, began appearing in the United States," Maugh reports. "Australian bees do not suffer from the disorder, leading researchers to speculate that the virus interacts with chemicals in the environment or with another infectious agent, such as the varroa mite, which is not common in Australia." Investigation is continuing.

Maugh offers useful background: "Although the United States has experienced other bee die-offs, the latest episode has been one of the worst, affecting about 23 percent of beekeepers. Typically, 50 to 90 percent of a keeper's colonies are affected as worker bees fail to return to their hives, leaving the queen with a handful of newborns. Agricultural experts view the deaths with alarm because bees are required to pollinate about a third of the nation's food crops, including almonds, cherries, pears, blueberries, strawberries and pumpkins."

"We don't have a great deal of buffer" for dealing with bee losses, because the U.S. has 2.5 million bee colonies, half as many as in the 1940s and '50s, entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State told Maugh. Another researcher reported that about 30 percent of bees he studied in Israel incorporated the virus into their genes and had become resistant to it. "If the virus is shown to be the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, it may be possible to replace current bee colonies with hives of resistant specimens," Maugh writes. (Read more)

Small Kentucky weekly solicits, gets 'big ideas' from readers for community progress

The Todd County Standard of Elkton, Ky., has a circulation of about 2,500, but it does a better job than many larger weeklies of putting items on the public agenda. On May 17 we noted its four-story package about the need for broadband Internet service in the county, part of the paper's year-long "Focus on the Future" series, which continued with "Some BIG Ideas" for the county of 12,000 people, which we noted July 11.

The paper presented ideas without regard to what they might cost, but none were outlandish. "Let's just talk about what might be possible and perhaps someday someone with the resources or the drive might just succeed," said the staff-written story. The paper planted seeds, giving them a first dose of water and hoping others will agree to take over. Then it invited readers to submit their own ideas, published this week.

The ideas included a Corvette raceway and resort, linked to the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, where the sports car is made; improvements in the current Jeff Davis Days festival (the Confederate president was born in the county) and making sure that visitors know that the county is also the birthplace of Robert Penn Warren, America's first poet laureate. The Standard has no Web site, but click here to see the story.

Confederacy museum, struggling to find a new site, plans to split into three

Struggling from "image and financial problems," the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., is making another attempt to preserve its collection with a plan to create exhibits at three battlefield sites in Virginia, reports Neely Tucker of The Washington Post. (Photo of "The White House of the Confederacy" by Steve Helber, Associated Press.)

The $15 million plan would divide the collection of the 117-year-old museum among rural sites at Chancellorsville, Appomattox and a third battlefield to be determined, Tucker writes. The battlefield exhibits would open by 2011, while the current museum would close, officials told Tucker. The "White House of the Confederacy," the home and headquarters of CSA President Jefferson Davis during the Civil War, would stay open. But funding for the project has not been secured.

"Our mission is to use our artifact collection to educate the public, and you have to get people to see the stuff in order to do that," S. Waite Rawls III, the museum's executive director, told Tucker.

Earlier this year, the museum sought to move its entire collection to a new location, and looked at 10 sites, all of which remained confidential except Lexington, Va., where the city council approved the idea 4-2 after hearing opposition from African Americans. The Rockbridge Weekly writes that "opponents of the Museum of the Confederacy locating in Lexington must be breathing a sigh of relief this week." That article goes on to say that "substantial opposition developed" as Lexington sought to lure the museum.

The museum's current site, next to the "White House of the Confederacy," has been surrounded by a new medical complex, and it is large enough to display only 10 percent of the museum's total collection of about 14,000 artifacts, The Roanoke Times reports. With the change in the neighborhood and the completion of the more politically correct American Civil War Center, attendance has dropped from a peak of 91,000 annually to 44,000 last year, the Associated Press reports. An audit also revealed the museum's endowment had been drained to cover operating costs, The Washington Post reports.

In need of workers, American farmers move operations to Mexico

Since American farmers now risk serious legal troubles if they are caught with undocumented workers, some are taking their crops to a place where they know the workers are legal -- Mexico. (Photo of American-run broccoli farm in central Mexico by Janet Jarman)

In an article from The New York Times, Julia Preston reports from Celaya, Mexico, and describes American farmers who have taken their operations here. She points to signs that it might be a growing trend. She reports that the Western Growers, an association representing farmers in California and Arizona, surveyed members over the phone and found that 12 large agribusinesses "acknowledged having operations in Mexico reported a total of 11,000 workers here."

“It seems there is a bigger rush to Mexico and elsewhere,” Tom Nassif, the Western Growers president, told Preston, adding that that Central American countries also are drawing American farms. Although there are no official stats on American farms in Mexico, Preston reports that U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has "displayed a map on the Senate floor in July locating more than 46,000 acres that American growers were cultivating in just two Mexican states, Guanajuato and Baja California." There, American growers have a steady and cheap workforce, which they pay about $11 per day, instead of $9 an hour back in California.

Of the 2.5 million farm workers in the United States, an estimated 53 percent are illegal immigrants, according to the Department of Labor. Preston reports that growers and labor unions say "as much as 70 percent of younger field hands are illegal." With illegal immigration targeted by authorities, farmers must find a way to maintain their workforce, here or abroad.

“I’m as American red-blood as it gets,” Steve Scaroni, one of those American growers, told Preston, “but I’m tired of fighting the fight on the immigration issue.” (Read more)

Hugoton, Kan., welcomes first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant

Late last month, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and other state officials, along with representatives of the transnational energy corporation Abengoa descended upon the small town of Hugoton. They had big news to announce for the town of less than 4,000: It would be the site of the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the country. (Encarta Maps)

According to a story in The Garden City Telegram, the facility will use plant fiber or other biomass to produce renewable fuel and cover about 400 acres west of Hugoton, and should be completed by late 2010. Once operational, the biomass biorefinery could produce as much as 13 million gallons of ethanol annually "using 930 tons per day of cellulosic crop residue from plants, including switch grass, cornstalks, milo and wheat straw," The Telegram writes. The plant also will produce about 88 million gallons of ethanol annually from grain. The Telegram reports that the part of the funding for the plant will come from a $77 million Department of Energy grant to Abengoa as a result of President Bush's energy initiative.

The Telegram also explains that Hugoton was not at the top of Abengoa's list originally, but one of the town's residents, Walter Beesley, made contact with the company when he heard about the grant. Beesley, a local farmer, made a visit to another of the company's plants and helped spark interest in Hugoton as a natural site for the plant's 125 jobs and $5.5 million payroll. (Read more)

'Music of Coal' chronicles the history of Appalachian mining in song

With 48 songs on two CDs and a 76-page hardcover book, the "Music of Coal" offers a comprehensive look at "labor struggles, union organizing, unemployment, economic depression, environmental impacts, mining lifestyles and the heritage of mining," reports The Coalfield Progress in Norton, Va.

Hannah Morgan writes that the compilation came from three years of work across the region that began in 2005 when Paul Kuczko, executive director of the Lonesome Pine Office on Youth, had students collect information about local coal camps for a book to celebrate the 150th birthday of Virginia's Wise County.

Morgan reports the process identified the desire for such a CD. A group of about 20 people from the nearby regional arts center Appalshop, the Ralph Stanley Museum, the Heart of Appalachia Tourism Authority and other agencies "joined with county officials, historians and various colleges and foundations to form a committee to turn the idea into a reality," she writes.

Along the way, the group found the songs were born from sorrow. "We were all about ready to commit suicide because they were so depressing," Kuczko told Morgan. To balance the blues, she writes, the group added some upbeat tunes as well as some work from current local artists. The "Music of Coal" is available at $35 each, and Kuczko said he profits from the project will go toward helping local youth record their own music, Morgan writes. (Read more)

In another piece, Morgan continues to explore the music of Appalachia, this time as she finally learns to play a mandolin that had been sitting in her home for a year. (Read more)

Cheryl Truman of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader wrote a review of the collection called "Mountain songs in a miner key," which includes audio clips of a few of the songs.

A source for social change in perhaps an unlikely place, the Highlander Center turns 75

Starting in 1932, the Highlander Folk School (now the Highlander Research and Education Center) brought leaders to the mountains of Tennessee to learn and share methods for improving social justice in America. On its 75th anniversary, author Jeff Biggers highlights the role the school played in the civil rights movement. (At left: Photo of Martin Luther King, Pete Seeger, Charis Horton, Rosa Parks and Ralph Abernathy at Highlander's 25th anniversary in Monteagle, Tenn.)

In an essay at NewAmerica Media.com, Biggers calls the school "an extraordinary American institution that recognized the ability of mountaineers and Southerners to determine their own fate in volatile times." It overcame many obstacles, including trumped-up charges that forced it to close. It relocated from Monteagle, Tenn., and reopened on Bays Mountain east of Knoxville, as founder Myles Horton said, "You can't padlock an idea."

He writes of the impact the school had on many prominent figures in the movement, including Rosa Parks, who attended a workshop at the school in 1955 just months before refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Biggers quotes from a Studs Terkel interview in which Parks recalled how the Highlander experience was a first for her: "We all were treated equally and without any tension or feeling of embarrassment or whatever goes with the artificial boundaries of racial segregation."

Biggers describes his essay as an attempt to excavate the Highlander School's legacy "from the rubble of our increasingly sanitized history lessons," and it offers a clear but succinct discussion of what the school, its leaders and participants meant to the movements for civil rights and social justice in the United States.

Hungry bears prompt warnings for hunters, hikers from W.Va. officials; rabid bruin shot in Md.

UPDATE: A rabid bear was shot near Grantsville, Md., in the far western part of the state, on Aug. 29, Joe Holley of The Washington Post reports. (Read more)

After late-spring frosts reduced a staple of bears' summer diets, the bruins have gone looking for food in backyards and other populated spots in West Virginia, reports Tara Tuckwiller of The Charleston Gazette. With bear-hunting season beginning soon in West Virginia, and campers and hikers hitting the trails, too, the state's Division of Natural Resources is warning people to take caution to avoid bears.

Bear-alert signs greet visitors and trash cans have been moved to cages in the Monongahela National Forest, where more bears have been reported than usual, Tuckwiller writes.

“The bottom line is that people enter the natural habitat of black bears when they go into the woods in West Virginia,” Dick Hall, supervisor of game management for the DNR’s wildlife resources section, told Tuckwiller. “We can focus on removing problem bears from campgrounds if necessary, but people need to recognize how to keep themselves safe as they enjoy the wild lands of the state." (Read more)

Some tips from the DNR include keeping food in an airtight container and never storing any food in a tent, carrying special bear pepper spray (the human type is not effective on bears), slowly backing away if a bear approaches, or shouting and waving a shirt or other object to look bigger if the bear continues to draw near. For more tips, go to the DNR's Web site or to http://www.bebearaware.org/. For information about Tennessee's black bear hunting season, go here. For Virginia's, click here. Kentucky has no bear season.

Joel Wilson retires after 50 years of service to the Glasgow (Ky.) Daily Times

In his time at the Glasgow (Ky.) Daily Times, Joel Wilson, right, served as editor for more than 40 years and spent the last four as editor emeritus, and throughout it all all, "He practiced community journalism long before the term was in fashion," writes Ronnie Ellis of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.

Such longevity and loyalty are rare these days, and Wilson deserves recognition and the gratitude of his community, Ellis writes.

Ellis, who worked for Wilson at the Daily Times before staffing CNHI's Frankfort bureau, writes that, "neither the paper nor the community will ever seem quite the same" now that Wilson has retired. To read the entire column, go here.

North Carolina's biotechnology boom is an example of why U.S. manufacturing is still strong

"As lawmakers pursue legislation aimed at softening the blow from factory closures, and as the downside of trade emerges as a talking point in the 2008 presidential campaign, it might seem that manufacturing is a dying part of the U.S. economy," writes Peter Goodman of The Washington Post. "But ... the United States makes more manufactured goods today than at any time in history, as measured by the dollar value of production adjusted for inflation -- three times as much as in the mid-1950s, the supposed heyday of American industry."

Goodman says "North Carolina encapsulates the forces remaking American manufacturing," because it is replacing traditional factory jobs with high-tech work in such fields as biotechnology. In the last few years, North Carolina has suffered the shriveling of two traditional industries, textiles and furniture. But big changes in the state's other traditional industry, tobacco, are helping the state become a leader in biotechnology.

When the national settlement with cigarette manufacturers signaled big changes in tobacco, leading to the end of federal quotas and price supports, North Carolina set aside half its settlement money for the long-term economic advancement of the No. 1 tobacco state. The largest area of investment has been in biotechnology, primarily in programs at North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University and the state's community colleges. Here is the annual report of the Golden LEAF Foundation, which makes the grants. (Here is our comparison of settlement spending in North Carolina and Kentucky, which had the most tobacco farmers, earmarked half its settlement for agriculture and has given most of it to improve its cattle industry.)

Goodman writes about North Carolina's biotechnology program, which "seeks students from declining areas of manufacturing," and some of its graduates, such as former Yadkinville textile worker Regina Whitaker, in photo by Goodman. She's a lab technician at Targacept, "a biotech start-up in Winston-Salem that was spun off from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Where the tobacco giant had researched the use of nicotine to make people crave cigarettes, Targacept is focusing on the nicotine receptors in the brain to develop drugs for Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. Whitaker said her salary is 'significantly more' than the $13.40 an hour she made at the yarn factory." She told Goodman, "I'm not struggling now. Before, it was paycheck to paycheck." (Read more)

Kansas papers ask if subsidies, at issue in farm bill debate, have led to rural economic decline

Have federal farm subsidies hastened the consolidation of farms, and thus the decline of population and small towns, in rural Kansas? Some experts there think so, Harris News Service reports in the first installment of a six-part series examining the effects of agricultural subsidies on rural Kansas. The service is part of Harris Newspapers, seven papers in Kansas and The Hawk Eye in Burlington, Iowa.

"Subsidies are at the heart of the debate as Congress works to write a new farm bill this fall. Among the provisions sought by President Bush and many lawmakers are limits on federal commodity subsidies paid -- especially to the biggest farms," Mike Corn writes. "The massive scale of federal farm payments further perpetuates an ever-increasing growth in the size of farms," in the view of Jon Bailey, director of research and analysis at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb.

Bailey said subsidies allow large farmers to raise rents, bid up land prices and expand. Corn writs, "Subsidies encourage farms to grow because farmers can obtain additional payments by further increasing their acreage, he said. When the size of farms grows larger, there are fewer farms for individuals to work on, leaving fewer opportunities in farming, he said. As a result, there are fewer business opportunities directly linked to farming. Bailey told Corn, "People who don't have the resources then are sort of left out of the equation."

Bailey also also said there is evidence that larger farms "they take their business to larger, regional hubs instead of locally owned shops," Corn writes. Mary Fund, communications director at the Kansas Rural Center, told him there is evidence in the harm of subsidies in a 2005 study done by economist Mark Drabenstott for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. (For the text-only version of the study, click here.) "In many of the counties whose farmers receive the most in subsidy payments growth in employment and new businesses is the weakest. Cornelia Butler Flora, an Iowa State University professor of agriculture and sociology, concurs. She said it is essential that the biggest subsidies be capped because they are contributing to the decline of rural of communities." (Read more)

Harris has posted columns on the farm bill here. For the chain's special-projects page, click here.

Roanoke reporter, who ranged to the coalfield and the far tip of Virginia, calls it a career

Paul Dellinger, at left with photographer and fellow Roanoke Times retiree Gene Dalton, retired Friday after 44 years as one of the hardest and longest working reporters in Appalachia. His career illustrates changes in the region and newspapers over four decades.

Dellinger (pronounced with a hard "g") hired on at the Times' Southwest bureau in 1963. He was 25. "For the next four decades, Dellinger covered Southwest Virginia like a blanket -- in the beginning with reporter Hazel Brown (now deceased), and in later decades alone. One of his rare criticisms of his longtime employer is that it cut back coverage of the far southwest in the 1990s. "The Roanoke Times got all sorts of accolades for its coverage" of coal in the late 1980s, he said. "The next year, they stopped covering anything out there." But Dellinger still lives in Wytheville, site of the now-closed bureau.

When Dellinger was nearing 62, the age at which he could begin collecting limited Social Security benefits, his wife, a former reporter, asked him what he might do after newspapers. "He said, 'What I'm doing,' " she told Times writer Kevin Kittredge, who summed it up this way: "Translation: There was no 'after newspapers.'

"Seven years later, changes in the newspaper world, and recent inducements offered to older workers to retire, have convinced him otherwise. All newspapers face a murky future these days, as they try to balance the print edition with the Internet, and The Roanoke Times is no exception. Ask Dellinger what he thinks about such changes, and his answer is succinct: "I think it's time to retire." And what does a man who has written news stories for 44 years do when he retires? He keeps on writing, of course." Dellinger writes science fiction, and has written radio scripts and a play. (Read more) For a video showing Dellinger at work, and reflecting on his career, click here. For his farewell piece, click here.

Paper mills long gone, town in northern N. H. banks on prison, ATV park for economic revival

In northern New Hampshire. the town of Berlin once relied on paper mills, now long gone. "Plagued by high unemployment, vacant buildings and a recent string of fires, Berlin (pronounced BUR-lin) is trying to reinvent itself, betting that a new 1,280-bed federal prison and New England’s first all-terrain vehicle park will be the economic shot in the arm it desperately needs," Katie Zezima wites in The New York Times today.

State and federal prisons (Berlin's will be the latter) have become an important element in the rural economy, and ATV tourism is becoming more and more popular in mountainous areas. "But there is concern about the direction the city is taking. Berlin already has a state prison, and there is opposition to the federal prison," Zezima writes. "A more controversial but much smaller project is a proposal to build a 50-megawatt power plant that would run on wood chips on a mill site in downtown Berlin."

The ATV park will cover 7,500 acres and "is expected to hold about 136 miles of trail and numerous campgrounds when it is completed in the next five years. About 20 miles are open now," Zezima writes. The state bought the land from a timber company for $2.1 million and projects the park's annual revenue will be almost $700,000. “For the first time in years there’s hope,” said Mark Belanger, manager of the Berlin office of the New Hampshire Department of Employment, told the Times. (Read more)

Coal industry as a whole should share blame for mine-safety shortcomings, Ky. weekly says

Utah mine owner Robert E. Murray's "recklessness" and the Mine Safety and Health Administration's "failure to rein him in" are to blame for the recent tragedy, but others should face congressional inquiry next week: "Murray's co-conspirators in the coal industry," opines The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky.

In the latest in a series of detailed, hard-hitting editorials on the safety issues raised by the disaster, the Eagle declares, "We continue to be haunted by the still largely unexamined story of how the industry fought -- successfully -- to keep MSHA from requiring modern mine communications technology in underground coal mines," the Eagle writes. MSHA's excuse, from the Federal Register: "Since technology is constantly changing, newer systems that may be as, or more, effective than [current technology] may be developed."

"We've never seen a worse excuse for fatal inaction or a better example of what's wrong with the coal industry and mine safety enforcement," the Eagle editorial concludes. (Read more)

The Cullman Times, a small Alabama daily, makes Web video part of the routine

While many smaller newspapers only have just begun to use the Web, The Cullman (Ala.) Times has started posting daily video updates on its site. The 10,000-circulation daily drew praise for its innovation from Editor & Publisher's Pauline Millard, who said the paper showed the new technology could be used on a budget. (At right: An image from one of the recent Web videos available daily on the paper's site.)
In her column, Millard writes that the staff uses "simple equipment, such as cheap work lights from Wal-Mart, a light diffuser made from PVC and clearance-rack fabric, and an ancient Macintosh computer that serves as a TelePrompTer" for a studio, while the images and sound are captured with "a $300 consumer video camera and a $100 shotgun microphone."

Above all, the newscasts are "hyperlocal," Millard says, and thus give readers and viewers want they want. Called "The Update," the video follows the format of a TV news program, complete with an opening tease of the day's top stories followed by a montage of the newspaper's staff in action and a nod to The Update's sponsor. After the top stories, The Update divides the remaining time among feature and sports stories. In all, it is concise 11-minute video that does far more than the "talking head" format of some newspaper Web video.

To view a recent Web video update from The Cullman Times, go here.

Following legal victory, Florida papers post database of FEMA's hurricane aid

Gannett Co. Inc. newspapers and television stations in Florida had sought Federal Emergency Management Agency records on the distribution of hurricane relief money since filing a lawsuit in 2005. The records were made public in June and are now published in a searchable database.

The Web site of The News-Press in Fort Myers has posted the database, which includes information from the four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004 (Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne). The database is searchable by the addresses of those who registered for aid and includes the date of application and approval, any amount approved and ownership status of the applicant. The database appears alongside a collection of analysis of the FEMA aid and stories of the legal battle over the information.

National poverty rate is down, but not in rural areas, where it has increased among children

The Census Bureau's annual poverty report says 15.2 percent of rural Americans lived in poverty in 2006, a rate "statistically unchanged" from 2005, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the national poverty rate declined for the first time this decade, down to 12.3 percent from 12.6 percent in 2005, the census report says.

At the same time, the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire reports that "in 37 states, a higher percentage of rural children live in poverty today than in 2000." The South has the highest rate, 27.2 percent, while the national rural child poverty rate is 22.2 percent, the study says. States with the highest rates are Mississippi (34.7 percent), Louisiana (34.4 percent) and New Mexico (30.1 percent). The Southwest trails only the South in terms of rural child poverty. Connecticut (9.1 percent) has the lowest rate.

The stagnant overall rural poverty rate stands in contrast to economic growth, especially in agriculture. "According to the Agriculture Department, net farm income, a gauge of the financial health, was a strong $60 billion in 2006, buoyed by rising grain and soybean prices and the boom in fuel ethanol production," Reuters reports. To explain the disparity between the rural and national rates, the Reuters story cites economists who say "rural residents tend to be older, a lower-earning age group, than the national average."

According to the Carsey Institute, there was a "significant decline" in poverty for people over 65 but no significant decline in poverty for children or adults aged 18 to 64. "Research has shown that good policy and programs can alleviate that poverty – programs that provide early childhood education, making work pay for parents, decent schools, and access to health care," said Cynthia "Mil" Duncan, director of the Carsey Institute. "We shouldn't be going backwards on addressing child poverty in the 21st Century."

Casino measure passes after recount in county that includes Charleston, W.Va.

More than two weeks after a slim majority in Kanawha County, W.Va., voted to allow table games at the Tri-State Racetrack & Gaming Center, a greyhound track, the special election's results have been certified following a recount today, reports WSAZ-TV in Charleston and Huntington, W.Va. (Continuing coverage available here.)

The Aug. 11 referendum went through a ballot canvas on Aug. 24, and the measure was determined to have passed by a margin of 343 votes (of more than 46,000 cast), reports Rusty Marks of The Charleston Gazette. Gaming opponents, who don't want to see table games added to the slots and dog racing at the track, then began raising funds for a recount, Marks writes. Officials counted ballots in just 44 of the county's 175 precincts today, because "that's all we could afford," gaming opponent Mia Moran Cooper told Marks. Tri-State officials had the option of continuing the recount if they chose. (Read more)

The recount found 14 additional uncounted votes, bringing the margin of the measure's passage to 339 votes, WSAZ-TV reports. An official breakdown of the pre-recount results is available here. The county was the last of four to hold referenda on casinos at racetracks -- which already had slot machines -- under a law passed to compete with Pennsylvania's approval of slots statewide. Two tracks in the Northern Panhandle will get casinos, but voters in a more prosperous Eastern Panhandle county voted not to allow a casino there.

Computer mag looks at rural broadband; contest asks how it changes life

The problem of broadband access in rural America takes center stage at Computerworld.com, as the site devotes a large article and a smaller sidebar to a discussion of this important facet of the digital divide.

In the main story, Robert L. Mitchell highlights two key statistics: only 17 percent of rural households use broadband (source: the Government Accountability Office), and that the U.S. ranks 15th in broadband penetration (source: a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

Mitchell stresses that broadband is key to keeping rural Americans involved in the “New Economy” — without that access, he says, they will be left out. “Rural areas need broadband,” he writes. “But deregulation has freed carriers from any real obligation to offer it. The market will never provide universal broadband access without regulation or subsidies, but the U.S. lacks both a coherent policy and the political will to address the issue.” (Read more)

In an accompanying piece, Mitchell reports that the absence of high-speed connections hampers the operations of larger retailers who have stores in rural areas. He points to Trans World Entertainment, which uses DSL to communicate among its 1,000 Coconuts and f.y.e. music stores. Mitchell quotes a TWE executive as saying access is unavailable in 17 percent of store locations, and even where it was available it was often painfully slow. (Read more)

In an effort to promote the spread of broadband access to rural areas, the Alliance for Public Technology is encouraging people to tell their stories about what high-speed Internet has meant to them. The campaign is called “Broadband Changed My Life,” and the best stories will earn prizes of “up to $1,000.” The deadline for submission is Oct. 1, 2007. To submit a story, go here.

Congress needs to define legal strip mining, New York Times editorial says

Following Friday’s proposal from the Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining to create new regulations allowing mountaintop removal for the surface mining of coal , The New York Times called for Congress to step in and have its say.

The Times says this is the latest example of the Bush administration to protect the practice "from legal challenge. But since the net result is likely to be more confusion and more courtroom wrestling, the situation cries out for Congressional intervention to define once and for all what mining companies can and cannot do."

The editorial also points to legislation from Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., and Rep. Christopher Shays, D-Conn., as a possible means to address the issue of mountaintop removal and its wastes. (Read more) The Times says the bill has more than 60 co-sponsors; the advocacy group I Love Mountains lists 93.

Earlier this month, Mary Jo Shafer reported in The Mountain Eagle and other newspapers that foes of mountaintop removal were focusing on Washington after being rebuffed at the local and state levels. Shafer, now an assistant city editor at The Anniston (Ala.) Star, did the story during an internship with the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues as part of earning a master's degree in community journalism from the Knight Community Journalism Fellows program of the University of Alabama.

Demand for water brings search, and then conflict, to rural areas

As San Antonio and its workforce have grown, so have their need for more water, so water company officials have been forced reached farther out into rural Atascosa County, where communities often have opposed any use of "their" water, reports Jerry Needam for the San Antonio Express-News. His story is a good case study of the history of a local problem that is occurring on the rural fringes of many metropolitan areas.

The San Antonio Water System met opposition again recently when it proposed to build a desalination plant in Atascosa County, and Needam says it is not the first time SAWS has battled with rural residents to bring more water into San Antonio. "Water creates conflicts, there's no doubt about that," William Mullican, deputy executive administrator for the Texas Water Development Board, told Needam. "The history of San Antonio is a very good example of that. Anywhere they start to look, local entities will do whatever they can to try to put in place barriers to that exportation occurring."

Needam says rural residents worry that if the water is used elsewhere, it might not be available if their community's demand grows. On the flip side, one SAWS official argues that sprawl and the spike in commuters mean thousands aren't "paying their water bill to SAWS, but they're using a whole lot of SAWS water" at work. Clearly, it is a difficult balancing act, with the needs of a growing regional hub one side and the concerns of a rural community on the other. Or as another SAWS representative put it, "I don't know that there's any source of water that can be tapped without irritating someone." (Read more)

Edwards focuses on rural voters; one adviser says they will be pivotal in Nov. 2008

In an effort to gain ground in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, John Edwards has styled himself as the candidate most in touch with rural America, reports Anne Kornblut of The Washington Post.

She reports that the former North Carolina senator has peppered his speeches with quips such as, "You don't make a hog fatter by weighing it," an attack on the notion that more testing is all that is needed to improve education. The agricultural analogy highlights his campaign's subtext,"that he is the sole Southern Democrat and cultural conservative in the Democratic presidential field, making him the only top-tier candidate in his party who can appeal easily to white men," Kornblut writes.

Kornblut explains the goal of the rural recasting is to contrast Edwards with Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and make the case that Edwards can "attract culturally conservative voters in states such as Virginia, voters who consider gun ownership an important right and aren't thrown by his drawl."

Virginian David "Mudcat" Saunders, an Edwards adviser, told Kornblut that rural voters will help decide the election. "Rural America is pivotal," he said. "Rural America is saying, 'To hell with the Republicans.' But you've got to have the right candidate, one who can get through to the culture." (Read more)

Wealth-transfer studies, environmental concerns among ideas for rural philanthropic development

Continuing to heed the call of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., attendees at a recent Council of Foundations conference in Montana spent time in small groups creating "working drafts" to shape the "philanthropic agenda for rural America," reports Suzanne Perry of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. The ideas included more than "30 items in areas including the arts, economic development, education, the environment, health, housing, technology, and efforts to increase the financial assets of individuals and families."

Perry reports that members recommended that "transfer of wealth" studies be conducted, by state and by county, to show "how much money will be passed on to heirs over the next 50 years." Conference members also said these reports should coupled with guides as to how communities might "tap into that money," she writes. This is of key concern for rural communities, as much of that of wealth is in rural land and assets. If that wealth can be reinvested in those communities, there is great potential for economic development.

According to Perry, the small groups also recommend encouraging "grant making that marries environmental protection to economic development," as well as those grants that take interest in the issues of locally-grown food and the expansion of rural access to technology. By "marrying" large issues, these grants can tap into a deeper pool of resources and gain more attention than narrow examples.

In another suggestion, the conference members emphasized "research on ways foundations can support arts and culture in rural areas and distribute the findings broadly," Perry writes. This recommendation seeks the help of newspapers and other local media, as those would be the natural sources for the public distribution of such findings. Click here to read more; subscription or one-day pass required.

The latest report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy looks to discover ways to bridge that divide in giving between rural and urban nonprofit groups. It suggests that rural nonprofits must combat “grantmakers' perceptions of rural life, geographical isolation and capacity-building needs” to attract more philanthropic investment to rural America.

Pennsylvania's plan to put tolls on mainly rural Interstate 80 could be wave of future

If a current controversy in Pennsylvania is any indication, rural residents may have to start paying tolls to travel interstate highways in order to fund transportation improvements in urban areas.

Gov. Ed Rendell proposed, and legislators agreed, that tolls be imposed on Interstate 80, which runs from east to west through the middle of the state and is used mainly by people from other states, mostly truckers. The congressmen from mainly rural northwestern Pennsylvania are trying to block the apparently unprecedented move, but they are unlikely to be successful because the state's two senators don't agree with them, The New York Times reports today.

Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas, which has studied the impact of toll roads, told Times reporter Sean Hamill, “I think most states will eventually have to move to the user principle. Tolls are going to be the wave of the future.” (Read more)

"This kind of regional populism seemed to be out of style," researchers Terry Madonna and Michael Young wrote last Sunday. In recent years, "Country-city clashes have been more about values and ideology than about money and economics. . . . The I-80 proposal has violated the tacit modus vivendi between urban and rural Pennsylvania. Rural residents around I-80 don't expect to pay road taxes to subsidize urban Pennsylvania. But that's how they perceive it. As such, it threatens to unsettle the crucial economic questions once thought to be decided -- who gets what, when, and how." Madonna is a professor of public affairs at Franklin and Marshall College and Young runs Michael Young Strategic Research in Harrisburg.

Julie Ardery of The Daily Yonder, beating the Times to the story, wrote that the controversy illustrates the increasing responsibility of state and local governments for infrastructure. She concluded, "We hear a lot about the cultural divisions between rural and urban Americans, but culture doesn't explain Pennsylvania's toll road 'slugfest.' This battle isn't over "values" but money – the money needed to pay for federal highways that the feds can’t or won’t provide." (Read more)

Kentucky passes synfuel incentives for coal industry, amid warning of a reckoning

The Kentucky General Assembly this week passed new incentives for plants to make synthetic fuel from coal, over objections of Appalachian residents who said the bill, among other things, would lead to more strip mining of coal through mountaintop removal. But their pleas did find some receptive ears, writes Ronnie Ellis, the Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. correspondent in the state capital of Frankfort.

"Tom Fitzgerald of the Kentucky Resources Council . . . warns a day of reckoning is coming when mandated reductions in carbon emissions which are warming our planet will dramatically increase the costs of coal-generated electricity. Lawmakers respect Fitzgerald, courteously listen to him, and then vote against his counsel. At least they listen. And this week, it appeared others got through to lawmakers about the devastation of coal mining. Members of the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth were eloquent and moving in their condemnation of coal and its effects on their lives and the environment – eloquent enough that several lawmakers asked to go and see for themselves."

Ellis gives the pro-industry arguments from coalfield legislators, and sums up with a song lyric from a friend: "As a flatlander who has never depended on the livelihood provided by coal mining nor lived near its destruction, I don’t possess any answers. There seems a high price for coal but its backers promise a high return. Still, the debate this week reminded me of a lyric in a song Mitch Jayne wrote for The Dillards: 'Promises are words for things they never do. Mountains are promises come true.'" (Read more)

In face of immigration crackdowns, farmers turn to inmates for labor in Southwest

For $2 an hour, low-security inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes harvest watermelons in Arizona, where farmers have been using prison labor for almost 20 years. The demand for the inmate workforce is growing as state and federal governments crack down on the use of undocumented workers, writes Nicole Hill of The Christian Science Monitor (who took the photo).

Hill reports that a similar program has begun in Colorado, another is being considered in Iowa, and the Arizona program has never been more in demand, especially since farmers there face state fines for employing undocumented workers. The program allows cleared prisoners — about 3,300 of the state’s 37,000 prisoners — to work on private land for a minimum of $2 per hour, Hill writes. The requests for labor far outnumber the ability of the Arizona Department of Corrections to fill them, Hill writes, so “the ADC is considering innovative solutions – including satellite prisons.”

The program has detractors, such as the United Farm Workers of America and the Western Growers Association. Hill reports that the UFWA sees a food-safety concern in the use of prison labor, while the WGA says the situation points to an even greater need for a “legal, stable workforce.” (Read more)

Coal operator Murray has a history of conflict with regulators

Robert E. Murray has become a household name since the accident at his Murray Energy Co.’s Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah on Aug. 6, and with that recognition has come increased scrutiny from major newspapers. We hope smaller newspapers and broadcast stations in or near the coalfields do likewise.

In The New York Times, Susan Saulny and Carolyn Marshall explore Murray’s record as a mine owner, and they found a history of “run-ins” with government and others over climate change, labor disputes and safety.

The article points to a 2003 conviction of one of Murray’s companies, Ken American Resources, in Western Kentucky. In addition to the company, the federal court jury “four current or former employees on charges of conspiracy, lying and violating safety laws pertaining to dust levels at a mine in western Kentucky from 1996 to 2000.” Saulny and Marshall write that the employees “faced fines of up to $1.4 million, but the company appealed and paid roughly $300,000.”

The article also disputes Murray’s claim that none of his miners ever died in an accident, by highlighting the case of Thomas M. Ciszewski, who bled to death in the Powhatan No. 6 mine in Alledonia, Ohio. Murray’s Ohio Valley Coal Co. was fined $15,000 since there “was not adequate first aid” to treat Ciszewski after his arm was cut off by a conveyor belt. (Read more)

In the Los Angeles Times, Jon Harmon examines the public relations maneuvers of Murray after the accident. (Read more)

Meanwhile, miners also die at surface mines. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration has fined Tri-Star Mining $180,000 for violations that contributed to an accident in Barton, Md., on April 17 that resulted in the death of two employees, according to an MSHA release. The two miners were trapped under about 93,000 tons of rock and material when a highwall collapsed in the pit where they were working, an accident that could have been prevented, the agency said.

New rule aimed at removing legal barriers to mountaintop-removal strip mining for coal

Mountaintop removal — the practice of using explosives to blast away the tops of mountains to expose coal for strip mining — has been used controversially in Central Appalachia "under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion" for decades, and now has found the support of the White House, reports The New York Times.

The Bush administration will approve a new regulation that will allow mountaintop removal to continue and expand, in an effort to encourage mining companies to increase output to meet increased demand, reports John M. Broder. The new rule, drafted by the Office of Surface Mining in the Interior Department, would require only “that mine operators minimize the debris and cause the least environmental harm, although those terms are not clearly defined and to some extent merely restate existing law,” Broder writes.

That “environmental harm” is at the forefront of the mountaintop-removal debate, since the mining generates tons of waste that must be deposited somewhere, usually in valleys and headwater streams near mines. The new rule limits the protection of these areas from dumping. “Environmental activists say the rule change will lead to accelerated pillage of vast tracts and the obliteration of hundreds of miles of streams in central Appalachia," Broder writes.

Broder's story is a good summary of a complex issue, but he slips on at least one point, saying that the environmental impact statement for the rule says that under it, "another 724 river miles will be buried by 2018." The streams that are buried don't come close to being rivers. (Read more)

Likewise, an otherwise good graphic with the story says, "Coal companies are supposed to reclaim land, but native trees have trouble growing on disturbed topsoil." That implies that only restoration of forest would accomplish reclamation. The law requires only "vegetative cover," and that typically is grass -- although recent research has found that with less soil compaction, trees can be more easily grown on mined land.

Coal industry could have prevented mine deaths with investment in devices, weekly's editorial says

As the rescue effort at the Crandall Canyon Mine of Murray Energy Corp. in Utah remained halted, leaving six miners trapped and probably dead, The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., continued to offer some of the sharpest criticism about the current state of mine safety in the United States.

In this week’s edition, an editorial listed the names of the 63 miners killed nationwide since Jan. 1, 2006, as well as the six miners still missing in Utah. “It's a terrible toll -- 70 miners in all -- and one that should be unacceptable, because fatality-by-fatality reviews show that most of these deaths could have been prevented by a combination of systematic risk assessment, conscientious mine management, diligent regulatory enforcement, and adoption of technologies that are taken for granted elsewhere,” the editorial said.

The editorial suggested key links between recent coal mining deaths: a lack of advanced emergency breathing and communication devices in mines. The Eagle said miners aren’t given adequate training with breathing devices, called Self-Contained Self-Rescuers, and that the models in use in these mines have been rendered “obsolete.” In addition, the editorial said miners lack a system for two-way communication in mines. Legislation passed after the Sago Mine disaster of January 2006 has mandated the installation of such systems, but not until 2009, and the editorial said progress has been slow on that front. (Read more)

Meanwhile, a friend of one of the miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine confronted mine co-owner Bob Murray yesterday at a funeral for one of the three rescue workers killed at the mine, The Associated Press reports. The man "handed Murray a dollar bill" and said, "This is just to help you out so you don't kill him." AP reports, "Murray's head snapped back as if slapped." Here is CNN video.

The episode "revealed more than just the frustration of people in this mining community in central Utah's coal belt, where most still speak in whispers when criticizing the officials whose businesses pay their bills," AP reports. "Critics are now openly calling the mine a disaster waiting to happen and pointing fingers at Murray Energy Corp. and the federal government as the agents of the tragedy." (Read more)

Today, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Murray and the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration made a risky change to the mining plan of the previous owner, contrary to statements by Murray. MSHA approved Murray's proposal in only seven business days, Robert Gehrke reports. (Read more)

W.Va. county narrowly approves adding table games to slots at racetrack; foe seeks recount

A dog-racing track near Charleston, W.Va., which already has slot machines, hopes to add casino table games following apparent, narrow approval by voters in a countywide referendum -- the third and last such vote in the Mountain State this year, and part of a regional trend that could encourage casinos in Ohio and Kentucky.

The outcome of the Aug. 11 referendum was in doubt for another week, as a recanvass widened the 33-vote margin to 343. The final tally was "23,192 in favor of allowing poker, craps, roulette and other casino-style games at Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center, and 22,849 against," reported Tara Tuckwiller of The Charleston Gazette. (Read more) Opponents split on a recount; the West Virginia Family Foundation said it wouldn't change the results, but the West Virginia Council of Churches said it would pay for a recount, reports Mike Waterhouse of WSAZ-TV. (Read more)

The state's four tracks, which have had slots for several years, won legislative approval for table games this year, after Pennsylvania authorized slots statewide and Maryland continued to discuss allowing slots at tracks. The only West Virginia county to reject table games was prosperous Jefferson, at the state's eastern tip. The other two approvals came in the Northern Panhandle, close to Pennsylvania.

The expansion of gaming in the two states is expected to increase pressure for it in Ohio, where voters have twice rejected casinos, and Kentucky, where Democratic gubernatorial nominee Steve Beshear is pushing for a statewide referendum and leading in polls against Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher. After Beshear won the primary, the governor dropped his hands-off stance on the issue and said he would fight casinos. This week he launched a television ad campaign built around a recent tour he made to states with casinos.

Television chains rushing to create Web sites for high-school sports, invading local media province

Coverage of high-school sports has long been a staple, and an important audience-builder, for local news media. Now local outlets are getting more competition from national media chains, and they could have an impact in rural areas.

"Within days of each other, three media companies . . . launched Web brands aimed at high school sports," writes Katy Bachman of MediaWeek, reporting on the latest site to be announced, by Hearst-Argyle Television, highschoolplaybook.com. "Emmis Communications, partnering with the Indiana High School Athletic Association launched a statewide brand, IHSAAsports.org. Belo [Corp.] launched hsgametime.com in six of its markets, with plans to roll out the site out to all the company’s markets by the end of this month."

Hearst-Argyle plans to launch the site in all 25 of its markets and "to syndicate the site in markets where it doesn’t own stations, with the goal of reaching 100 markets by August 2009," Bachman reports. "One of the main signatures of Playbook are the specially trained student sideline reporters, at least 10 in each market, who will not only contribute video coverage but serve as the face and voice of the community . . . equipped with Canon HV20 high-definition camcorders, provided by Canon, the first sponsor of the site. The site is also heavy on social networking with MySpace- and Facebook-like community tools including personal profile pages, team pages, school pages, SMS voting and other 'mashable' content." (Read more)

Bush administration crackdown on illegals raises nationwide concern about labor for harvests

The Bush administration, under political pressure to show toughness after failure of its immigration bill, says it is cracking down on employers of illegal immigrants. That has helped spread worries about lack of farm labor to harvest crops this year to all corners of the country, including the apple orchards of the Hudson River valley in New York. "There are new fears in New York and around the nation over whether there will be enough hands to pick the crop," Lisa Foderaro of The New York Times reports from Hamptonburgh, N.Y, where Jonamac apples are being harvested in the photo by the Times' Joyce Dopkeen.

"Nationwide, growers’ associations estimate that about 70 percent of farmworkers are illegal immigrants, many of them using fake Social Security numbers on their applications. Under the new rules, if the Social Security Administration finds that an applicant’s information does not match its database, employers could be required to fire the worker or risk being fined up to $10,000 for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant," Foderaro writes. "Growers say that only 2 percent of farmworkers nationwide come from the current guest-worker program, which, they say, is plagued by red tape, low capacity and delays." (Read more)

The Department of Homeland Security "first proposed the regulations in June 2006 but then failed to implement them while an immigration-overhaul made its way to the Senate floor," reports June Kronholz of The Wall Street Journal. "That bill collapsed in part because of a public outcry over the administration's lax enforcement of immigration laws already on the books." (Read more)

The American Farm Bureau Federation, after first saying that it welcomed the new regulations, had a conference call for its leaders with administration officials last Thursday, Bob Meyer of Brownfield Network reports. "There have been concerns in agriculture that the latest rules will cause an even greater shortage of farm labor, especially in fruit and vegetable-growing areas," Meyer reports. "Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation president, Bill Bruins says that concern came up in the conference call and while the White House acknowledged the problem, they have every intention to push-ahead with the enforcement." (Read more)

As feds focus on fighting terror, Indians and Seattle P-I say fight against drugs on reservations suffers

"While the FBI turns its attention to preventing another 9/11, drug traffickers are exploiting the vacuum. The result: A drug epidemic and related crime wave are plaguing Indian communities," report Paul Shukovsky and Daniel Lathrop in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "White House cuts to the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration have been disastrous for tribes -- in part because the bureau in Indian Country acts like a local police department, making the felony arrests," the P-I reports. "Tribal police don't have legal authority to arrest non-Indians or charge anyone with felonies. And the maximum term in reservation jails is one year." The big problem drug: methamphetamine.

Justice Department records studied by the P-I show that the FBI has had 27 percent less investigative activity on Indian reservations since Sept. 11, 2001 -- "mirroring the transfer of more than 2,000 agents nationwide to counterterrorism duties, and a related sharp decline of investigations into white-collar crime, police abuse and civil rights violations," Shukovsky and Lathrop report.

"Officially, the FBI maintains that the number of agents assigned to Indian Country has increased by 7 percent, and that the number of indictments handed down has remained steady. But special agents in the field, former FBI administrators and federal prosecutors say the real picture is bleak. They say agents who would normally respond to reservation crimes aren't doing it as much because of a domino effect of the FBI being saddled with homeland security matters. And they say federal investigations on most reservations have failed to keep pace with burgeoning crime." (Read more)

Number of gun dealers down 79% since 1994; laws led many small ones to close in rural areas

"The number of federally licensed firearms dealers has fallen 79 percent nationwide since 1994, when Congress passed " new gun-control measures that still spark fiery debate," reports Michael Doyle of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service.

"In 1994, there were 245,628 U.S. residents holding federal licenses to sell firearms," Doyle reports from Washington. "Now, there are 50,630 of the so-called Type 1 federal firearms licenses nationwide. "The decline in licenses began after Congress approved in 1993 the so-called Brady Bill, named for former White House press secretary James Brady, who was wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan. The 1993 law, and a subsequent 1994 anti-crime law, imposed new restrictions."

Firearms licenses now cost $200 for three years, not $10 for one year, and "applicants now must submit photographs and fingerprints and inform local police of their plans. In many cases, those losing licenses were so-called 'kitchen table' dealers, who operated from their homes rather than from formal storefronts."

"Smaller shops simply can't afford some of that," National Rifle Association spokesperson Ashley Varner told Doyle. "People in rural areas have a harder time getting firearms if they aren't near a large store." Still, "Justice Department records indicate total firearm sales have remained roughly even." (Read more)

Rural providers recruit local citizens, get outside help to fill gaps in health-care workforces

"Frontier and rural health care providers looking for innovative ways to solve increasing workforce shortages are sometimes finding that help is as near as their own backyards: by recruiting and training local people to be health care professionals in their communities," reports Candi Helseth in the Summer edition of The Rural Monitor.

The story cites examples from Nevada, Alaska and Maryland. In the photograph, Dr. Christine Alarcon, left, and assistant Lisa Windsor treat a three-year-old patient at the only dental clinic for low-income children in Dorchester County, on Maryland's isolated Eastern Shore. Community groups "negotiated a deal with Alleghany College in western Maryland to reserve two spots for Eastern Shore students in its dental hygiene program. . . . Students were required to commit to practicing at least two years on the Eastern Shore."

The University of Nevada "developed a medical student rotation program to introduce students to rural practice and, at the same time, provide more services to those communities," and directors of a frontier hospital in Alaska "picked up the bill for hospital employees to become registered nurses," Helseth writes. (Read more) The Rural Monitor is published by the federally funded Rural Assistance Center, a collaboration of the University of North Dakota Center for Rural Health, the Rural Policy Research Institute and the Office of Rural Health Policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Rural intersections in Wisconsin deadlier than busy ones in urban areas, newspaper study finds

Intersections in northeastern Wisconsin were deadlier "than more congested urban intersections in recent years," Karen Lincoln Michel and Ben Jones report for Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers after studying state records for a 10-county area and the rest of the state from 1994 through 2005. About 80 percent of the 422 crashes at intersections were on roads the state classifies as rural. "Statewide, 70 percent of all fatal crashes at intersections occurred on rural roads," Lincoln and Jones report.

Two reasons seem to be two kinds of speed: faster driving in rural areas, and fast suburban growth. "The speed at which traditionally rural areas are transitioning to far-flung suburbs, boosting travel pressure on narrow country roads, is outpacing government’s ability to make upgrades," they write. "Although the majority of deadly crashes happen on local roads, they get a minority of the federal funds aimed at preventing deaths."

The story, which points out several problem intersections, can be done by any reporter in any state, using data collected by state transportation agencies and the U.S. Department of Transportation. (Read more)