Obama wants EPA's air chief to head agency, MIT professor who favors fracking to oversee energy

President Obama's nominees for energy secretary and Environmental Protection Agency administrator, being annouin "would play critical roles in Obama's push to address climate change" if confirmed by the Senate, Environment & Energy News reports.

Energy nominee Ernest Moniz, a former undersecretary, is opposed by some environmental groups because he supports the use of fossil fuels and hydraulic fracturing for get oil and gas. He runs an energy program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "which draws funding from industry oil and gas heavyweights like BP, Saudi Aramco and Shell," notes Darren Goode of Politico. "Those ties have drawn opposition to Moniz's nomination from some environmental groups, but probably not enough to threaten his confirmation."

Gina McCarthy, head of EPA's air programs, is Obama's pick to head the agency. "While McCarthy has often sparred with Republican lawmakers at hearings, she also brings a bipartisan background, including stints working for past GOP governors like Mitt Romney," Goode notes. However, E & E notes she "oversaw the development of the agency's highest-profile regulations in Obama's first term," aimed at greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants, and opposed by the coal industry. (Read more)
 

Latest signs of coal getting gassed are in E. Ohio

The growing role of natural gas in American energy, and the declining role of coal, is perhaps exemplified by what is happening in the coal counties of eastern Ohio.

"Stoked by technological advances, the gas boom is transforming the United States and creating winners and losers on a national level and in far-flung small towns," Neela Banerjee writes for the Los Angeles Times. "For more than 200 years, coal has been king in Ohio, occupying a privileged position in state politics and as the fuel of choice for local power plants. Now its supremacy is being challenged. . . . Entire villages in eastern Ohio are leasing their land for gas drilling, and huge energy companies that relied on coal to generate electricity are turning to natural gas." (Times charts)

 "As gas elbows its way into coal country, disputes have started to emerge," Banerjee reports. "Here in some parts of Belmont County, drillers have to bore through shallower coal seams first to get to the gas thousands of feet below ground. Coal companies can derail the drilling if they assert that it impinges on a mine, even one that hasn't been established yet. The Smith-Goshen Landowners Group has leased 35,000 acres for gas drilling, and nearly all of it sits above seams belonging to Murray Energy, the country's largest privately owned coal company.  (Read more)

30% of community-college graduates, mainly men, earn more than average bachelor's-degree holder

Community colleges have loog been a rural route to higher education, but an assosiate's degree can often bring more money than a bachelor's degree. Almost 30 percent of Americans who hold the two-year degrees earn more than the average for those wiith bachelor's degrees, Jon Marcus notes in The Hechinger Report, an education news service published by the Teachers College at Columbia University.

The main reason, Marcus writes, "is high demand for people with so-called 'middle-skills' that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early-childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists."

Marcus reports community-college grads in Virginia and Tennessee make more on average than the states' bacehlor'sdegree holders, but the Georgetown University report that Marcus cites as his source for the national figure figure notes a big difference between men and women: "Men with occupational associate's degrees earn $49,000 annually, while women earn $35,000, compared with $41,000 for men with a high-school diploma and $28,000 for women with a high-school diploma." (Read more)

Federal prisons, overcrowded and increasingly unsafe, could become more so with budget cuts

Attorney General Eric Holder says the federal budget sequester and employee furloughs could worsen safety problems in federal prisons, most of which are in rural areas. Brian Mann of North Country Radio in Saranac Lake, N.Y., notes, "Two different congressional reports released in the last year found that inmate overcrowding at federal prisons . . . has already made it difficult for guards to maintain safety behind bars."

The Congressional Research Service said there has been a "historically unprecedented" increase in inmates, and the Government Accountability Office said the overcrowding has caused higher inmate-to-staff ratios, leading to more inmate behavior problems and threats to safety. It said some prisons are holding half again as many inmates as they are designed for, and a Bureau of prisons study  said it needs 3,200 more guards, Mann reports.

AP issues style advisory on papacy, church

If you're referring to the sede vacante (look it up!) or related matters, you might want to refer to a helpful style guide from The Associated Press, here.

Education secretary sticks by sequestration view; key senators ask him for information about it

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2013/03/arne_duncan_sequester_would_sq.html
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2013/03/top_k-12_senators_ask_arne_dun.html

CBO: Farm Bill savings over next 10 years would be about $10 billion less than first projected

The Farm Bill the Senate passed last year would save $10 billion less than projected, and a House version that never got to the floor would save $9.5 billion less, the Congressional Budget Office said today. It said the Senate plan would save $13.1 billion over 10 years, the House plan $26.6 billion.

"Long-term Farm Bill estimates are notoriously fickle given the number of moving pieces in any calculation," writes David Rogers of Politico, "but the percentage change, especially for the Senate, is striking and virtually erases any meaningful savings from the food-stamp program." (Read more)

Postal Service says newspapers would be only mailing group hurt if it cuts Saturday mail delivery

Several lobbying interests are trying to get Congress to keep the U.S. Postal Service from ending non-package Saturday delivery, but the postmaster general says the service "has identified only one group of commercial mailers that could lose by the elimination of Saturday first-class mail delivery - small newspapers that do not have their own Saturday deliverers," Elvina Nawaguna of Reuters reports.

Joining newspaper organizations in lobbying the issue are those representing greeting card makers, paper manufacturers and letter carriers. Reuters reports Rafe Morrissey, postal-affairs vice president at the card group, "said eliminating Saturday delivery could dampen people's willingness to send greeting cards while also driving away revenue for the Postal Service."

The National Newspaper Association, which argues that eliminating Saturday delivery will hurt rural areas as well as commercial mailers, has scheduled an informational and lobbying day for its members in Washington March 14. Max Heath, chairman of the group's Postal Committee, told Reuters, "It's not over until it's over." (Read more)

In the largest state, the postal crisis looms larger

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/rural-alaska-postal-service-budget-crisis-looms-large

Utah town's law encourages citizens to own guns

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-utah-guns-20130224,0,2737651.story

Inmate labor, subject to abuse, helps rural places

Program that allow local governments use inmate labor in exchange for food, lodging and medical care can be abused, but for small places like Chester County, South Carolina, it provides a hard-to-replace labor pool, the Charlotte Observer reports.

Rural Republicans see no need to stop sequester

"House Republicans — many of whom represent rural and outer suburban districts — feel little urgency to strike a deal with [President] Obama and avert the sequester" of federal funds that must come tomorrow unless a last-minute deal is reached, Philip Rucker reports for The Washington Post.

"Interviews with more than a dozen state and municipal leaders coast to coast show that the sequester would afflict big cities and military communities — because of cuts to social programs and defense — far more than middle-class suburbs or rural areas," Rucker writes. "The disparity in some ways mirrors the nation’s electoral divide between Democrats and Republicans." (Read more)

Iowan says he's high on the hog with new breed

An Iowa farmer who says he can build a motorcycle, throw someone out of a bar, wrestle a pig and program a computer, "believes he has bred the best tasting pork ever," John Eligon of The New York Times reports from Ionia, Iowa. (Photo by Sean Patrick Farrell)

Carl Edgar Blake II's new breed, the Iowa Swabian Hall, are "not universally admired," Eligon writes, but won a heritage pork contest in San Francisco and gets good reviews from the executive chef at Gramercy Tavern In New York. Monday he was on the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods," and "Blake said he has been inundated with calls from people across the country wanting pigs and bacon." (Read more)

First local health agencies, many rural, win national accreditation; is yours seeking it?

Local health departments often operate under the radar, quietly helping keep their communities healthy and safe, and they are especially important in rural areas. Until now there have been no national standards for these essential agencies, but today a national accrediting board gave its seal of approval to nine of them, several serving rural counties.

The Public Health Accreditation Board gave five-year accreditations to the Comanche County Health Department, Lawton, Okla.; the Franklin County Health Department, Frankfort, Ky.; the Livingston County Department of Health, Mt. Morris, N.Y.; the Northern Kentucky Independent District Health Department, the Oklahoma City-County Health Department, the Spokane Regional Health District in Washington, the Public Health Authority of Cabarrus County and its Cabarrus Health Alliance, Kannapolis, N.C.; the Three Rivers District Health Department, Owenton, Ky.; and the West Allis Health Department in Wisconsin. The state health departments in Oklahoma and Washington received the same accreditation.

“This is a truly historic moment in public health,” said Kaye Bender, president of the board, funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Read more)

The accreditation process includes an assessment of the community's health status, which is news in any place in America. More than 125 public health departments across the country have applied for accreditation. Is yours one of them? If not, why not?

'When it comes to guns, subtle distinctions go out the window,' editor says after de-posting gun list

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/91084/my-learning-curve-gwen-moritz-editors-note?page=all

My view: There's more to tell in Cherokee County

By Al Cross
Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues

The Cherokee Scout of Murphy, N.C., is getting a lot of journalistic grief for its abject apology to readers for seeking records of local permits to carry concealed deadly weapons. The paper and its owner, Community Newspapers Inc. of Athens, Ga., aren't saying anything about the matter beyond what is or will be in the weekly paper, perhaps hoping that their general reputation for good journalism will eventually tamp down the criticism.

Taking issue with the apology is like shooting fish in a barrel, but those outsiders who are quick to criticize the Scout and Publisher David Brown need to know that the episode was the latest in a long-running battle with the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department, which has had legal problems and created a community uproar by posting on its Facebook page its correspondence with the paper about the matter. That prompted the apology.

We don't know what the paper wanted with the records, or what it intended to publish, and until we do, it shouldn't be faulted for asking. The paper said it wasn't going to publish the names but "We thought it would be revealing to share, for example, how many residents in a specific area had gun permits." And though it has withdrawn its perfectly legal request, that shouldn't mean that the sheriff has won. Some other publication, journalist or other citizen who's willing and able to go to court should file the same request and sue the sheriff when he denies it. And this enterprise wouldn't be just about making a point; it seems there's a good story in the paper's battle with the sheriff, a story about the difficulty of doing journalism that keeps powerful local officials accountable when they think, and maybe know, that no one else will.

How the Newtown Bee covered the mass killing: one story that doesn't need to be behind a paywall

It has no grand theorizing about community journalism, but Rachel Aviv's story in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine about how the Newtown Bee covered the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings is a testament to the craft and those who practice it.

When reporter/photographer and volunteer firefighter Shannon Hicks arrived on the scene, "She saw a young officer, William Chapman, come out of the school yelling, 'Get the bus!' He had a limp girl in his arms," Aviv writes. "Hicks began calling for an ambulance, but then she saw one already approaching. Through the lens of her camera, she watched as Chapman, only a few strides from the ambulance, fell to the ground, apparently losing strength. She saw that the child's face had lost color, and knew then that she would never publish the photographs she was taking."

The photo by Shannon Hicks that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

When another reporter arrived, Hicks donned firefighter's gear and took on her other big community role. "The Bee recently submitted Hicks’s photograph of the children being led to safety for the Pulitzer Prize," Aviv writes, "but Hicks still felt conflicted about her work that day. One set of parents thanked her for the picture -- they'd seen their daughter's face online before arriving at the firehouse," where parents waited. "But Hicks also heard from two residents who said that it was exploitative, a criticism she understood." The girl in the light-blue top "appears to be crying or screaming," but "in an earlier frame, the girl had looked calm," Aviv writes, quoting Hicks: "I want to find her and tell her, 'I'm so sorry. You were just scared. I'm sorry you will remember that moment because of me.'"

Two-third of Newtown residents get the Bee, Aviv writes, "and after the shooting the editor, Curtiss Clark, found himself thinking about its purpose. He wanted the paper to draw the community together, to reclaim its routine—a task made nearly impossible by all the outsiders streaming into town. The Bee reporters talked about the deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School as if the children had been in some sort of natural disaster. They referred to 'the incident' and avoided the name Adam Lanza, which had become a kind of obscenity."

Aviv's story is behind a paywall that will charge you $5.99 to read it.

Gun-control debate is an urban vs. rural one

Pediatrician Christine Fox prepares
to shoot at a West Virginia range.
(USA Today photo by Denny Gainer)

America's debate over guns is in many ways a rural-urban debate, writes Chuck Raasch of USA Today, who cut his journalistic teeth as a rural reporter in his native South Dakota.

"The gun debate rages in two Americas," Raasch writes. "One of the biggest factors in where you stand on gun ownership and gun violence depends, literally, on where you lay your head at night.
A compilation of December Gallup polls showed that rural Americans — roughly one-sixth of the population — are more than twice as likely to have a gun in the home than those living in large cities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are six times more likely to hunt. Rural residents are also most likely to say the best way to reduce gun violence is to better enforce current gun laws rather than pass new ones, an argument echoed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups."

Raasch, who is based in Washington, went to West Virginia to talk to gun owners. His story seems designed for urbanites, but it's still a good read, here.

Take care with cold-weather killer: space heater

Warm weather isn't far away, but winter remains, and precautions should be taken to steer clear of a big cold-weather killer -- the space heater -- for the season's remaining cold days.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that each year, space heaters cause more than 25,000 residential fires and more than 300 deaths, and more than 6,000 Americans get emergency-room care for burn injuries associated with room heaters.

An Eastern Kentucky fire started by a space heater claimed the lives of one adult and four children last month. This blaze destroyed a rural house and family and was considered by authorites to be the worst the region has seen in a long time.

Using a space heater makes sense, and many people, particularly those in rural areas, use them to stay warm; but they must be used with caution. The Burn Center at Loyola University Medical Center is warning the public about the dangers of space heaters because many of the injuries they cause are preventable if the appropriate measures are taken. Here are some general safety tips from Loyola:

• Keep space heaters at least three feet away from furniture or other combustible material.
• Don't place heaters on carpets or rugs.
• Locate heaters on a hard, level surface where a child or family pet can't brush against them.
• Never leave a heater on when an adult is not present in the room.
• Never keep flammable liquids near a heater.
• Mobile homes should use only electric heaters or vented, fuel-fired heaters.

Loyola also advises to use combustion space heaters only outside your home because they release carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide. If the heater is not properly vented, high levels of these gases are deadly. Also, when using electric space heaters, be sure to plug the heater directly into a wall outlet and use a heavy duty cord. Click here for more tips.

Is there 'a farmer in all of us'? Recent episodes suggest agriculture is off the radar in D.C.

David Rogers, who has been covering the politics of agriculture for many years, sees "a real disconnect in American politics over farm policy," exemplified by Chrysler Corp.'s Super Bowl ad for Dodge Ram trucks ("For the farmer in all of us") appearing a few weeks after Congress's failure to pass a Farm Bill and days before a State of the Union speech in which President Obama made no mention of agriculture.

Writing for Politico, Rogers says Obama, after "talking a good game on the Farm Bill . . . when Iowa was in play in the presidential election," washed his hands of it at year's end, allowing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell "to pen a nine-month extension that infuriated many dairy farmers and left the two Ag committees out in the cold. . . . More than past administrations, this White House has taken a remarkably hands-off approach to farm issues."

House Ag Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., sees that as political calculation, but he "feels the same frustration with his own party leadership," Rogers writes, noting that Speaker John Boehner "blocked him from bringing the farm bill to the House floor." The problem was a battle between Lucas and tea-party Republicans who wanted bigger cuts in food stamps.

The larger problem is that fewer than 1 percent of Americans, about 2.3 million, farm, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack "has estimated that about three-quarters of the U.S. production comes from a subset of about 200,000 to 300,000 farmers," Rogers reports. "The decline of regional newspapers — which were the heart of the old farm press — contributes to this isolation. Major publications largely ignored the farm bill debate last year, while many of the most experienced ag reporters have migrated to more niche, subscriber-funded newsletters."

The narrowing of farm interests could be risky, an unnamed "Republican aide who tracks farm issues" told Rogers: “No one is thinking about the promotion of agriculture in a big and bold way. There are numerous newsletters, coalitions, websites but they’re all serving the same audience. They’re essentially all singing to the choir, but no one is bringing any new folks to the church service.” (Read more)

Drought makes USDA aggressive on climate issue

http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2013/02/26/19

Stimulus programs for rural broadband leave some places with no access, others with too much

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324503204578320341071041844.html John Hockenberry of "The Takeaway: on WNYC picks up on this.

Loss of Saturday mail would hurt most in rural places, and at some of their newspapers

http://nnaweb.org/resources?articleTitle=saturday-mail-loss-stings-worst-in-small-towns--1361811769--501--postal-editorials

Final webinar on rural dropout prevention Thursday

The last webinar in a three-session series on rural dropout prevention and recovery will be online Thursday, March 28. It will feature a center in Berrien County, Georgia, and Youthbuild of Southeast Ohio. Presenters and colleagues will discuss effective use of curriculum, building partnerships, and helping students transition to post-secondary opportunities and careers. Participants will have an opportunity to share their own strategies. While the event is designed for schoolofficials and key staff it also welcomes "community partners," according to a U.S. Department of Education and press release. For more information and registration, go here.

Latest poll of community newspaper readers finds papers tightly hold their local-news franchises

http://nnaweb.org/article?articleTitle=survey-community-papers-still-tops-for-local-news--1361822263--502--1top-story

Weekly publisher apologizes to readers for editor's request for records on concealed-carry permits

The publisher of the weekly Cherokee Scout, in the southwestern corner of North Carolina, apologized today for the editor's request to the sheriff for a list of Cherokee County citizens who have applied for or received permits to carry concealed deadly weapons.

"We had no idea the reaction it would cause," Publisher David Brown wrote. His letter said some people had made threats against Editor Robert Horne, and he filled readers in on where Horne was from ("a small town in South Georgia") and how long he had been at the paper (since 2005) -- and his own background: local high-school graduate, and "I was married and baptized here."

Media blogger Jim Romenesko notes that the Bangor Daily News in Maine got much the same reaction, but made no apology, saying its request was related to an investigative project on drug abuse and domestic violence, and it would not make the information public, as the Journal News of suburban New York City did. In his headline, Romenesko calls Brown's letter to readers "The most incredible newspaper apology ever." What do you think?

UPDATE, Feb. 26: Editor Horne, right, has resigned, telling Romenesko that Community Newspapers Inc. didn't push him out but is leaving so the paper "can move forward." The paper's story, in Romenesko's item, notes the many awards it won in the seven-plus years he was editor, and the fact that Horne is a Marine veteran.

100+ arrests made in Appalachian poaching sting

http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2013/02/25/11

Changes in Pell Grant eligibility requirements may be limiting rural students' access to higher education

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/599526/?sc=dwhn

Lawsuits claim Native Americans in North Dakota were cheated out of $1 billion in oil deals

http://www.propublica.org/article/land-grab-cheats-north-dakota-tribes-out-of-1-billion-suits-allege

Alternatives to road salt and its runoff: molasses, beet juice, cheese brine

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/23/road-salt-substitute/1939793/

American Electric Power to shut 3 coal-fired plants in Ind., Ky., Ohio as part of lawsuit settlement

http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2013/02/25/24

The Washington Post calls it "the latest sign of how the nation’s electricity supply is shifting away from coal.

Rural businesses lobbying Missouri officials to expand Medicaid

http://ksmu.org/article/despite-rural-business-health-groups-endorsement-medicaid-expansion-conservative-reps-55095

USDA report suggests solid definition of 'rural' as any place under 50K, which could be problematic

UPDATE, Feb. 28: The Daily Yonder has posted links to "critical attachments" to the report that it says may suggest how USDA would redefine "rural" for its development programs. March 1: The Yonder publishes what it says will be the first in a series of commentaries on the issue.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly issued a report Friday that recommends a standard definition for "rural" as applied to eligibility for its Rural Development programs: a population in the jurisdiction of less than 50,000. That could have the effect of making more communities eligible for the programs, and decreasing the chance that any single community would receive assistance. That could have a disproportionate impact on the most rural areas.

Peterson (left) and Lucas

The top Republican and Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee voiced such concerns in a statement this afternoon. Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and ranking member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said they were glad to see that the agency "has finally fulfilled its statutory obligation" to make the report, "but we are disappointed in USDA’s proposals to shift funding away from the most rural areas by inflating the definition across the board. This will result in smaller communities competing with larger and more urban areas for funding."

They added, "In an increasingly tight fiscal environment, careful targeting of scarce funding is critical to ensuring the communities who should benefit from these programs are given priority. Congress placed a clear emphasis on targeting the most rural areas, with eligibility criteria that emphasizes the need to carefully allocate scarce resources." (Read more)

State lists of budget cuts released; call set at 2:30

In an effort that increasingly seems futile, President Obama is trying to head off Friday's "sequester" budget cuts by focusing on areas that would be affected. Today the White House issued a state-by-sate list, and at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, "senior administration officials will hold an on-the-record conference call for regional reporters to discuss the devastating impact that the sequester will have on jobs and middle-class families across the country," as a White House release put it. For a story from The Washington Post on the move, click here.

The release didn't say if reporters will be allowed to ask questions (yes, sometimes "teleconference" briefings don't allow that), or if so, how much time will be allowed (usually not much), but if you want a chance to pose a question to Jason Furman Deputy, principal deputy director of the National Economic Council, this is it. Press Secretary for the Economy Amy Brundage will also be on the call.

The call-in number is 800-230-1074; ask to join the “White House call.” No passcode is necessary. Here are links to the state releases: Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Politics complicates governors' decisions on health reform, with big ramifications for rural America

Farm and Food File syndicated columnist Alan Guebert sums up why governors' decisions about expansion of Medicaid and establishment of state health-insurance exchanges are important to rural America: "We’re older, poorer and more dependent on government-supported health care than our urban counterparts. We’re also understaffed. Although nearly 25 percent of all Americans live in census-defined 'rural' areas, only 10 percent of the nation’s physicians are our neighbors."

Politics has complicated things, Guebert writes: "Early on, both choices became overtly political. Republican-led red states lined up against building 'bureaucratic' insurance exchanges and fought any expansion of Medicaid in their home pastures. Later, however, when state legislatures and governors began to examine the programs, a less political picture began to come into focus."

Guebert cites a Harvard University School of Public Health study concluding that for every 176 adults added to Medicaid, one life was saved, and the estimate by Dr. Wayne Myers, former director of the federal Office of Rural Health Policy, that expansion of Medicaid in all states would save 80,000 lives a year at a price of about $10,000 each.

"Ten grand is chicken feed if you or a family member becomes sick. Yet, the political leaders in 30 mostly rural states either stand undecided or decidedly against expanding Medicaid to their citizens," Guebert writes. "Why? It can’t be money, because the ACA is the law and Medicaid is almost certain to be expanded with or without these states taking the -- duh -- 93 percent federal cost-sharing offer on the table. That leaves politics or religion as the reason, so ask your local politicians which it is. And while you’re at it, ask those political leaders what kind of taxpayer-supported health care insurance they have." (Read more)

Universal preschool would help many rural areas, but Obama overstates the potential benefits

Providing preschool education to every American child would be a great boon to rural areas, which often lack it, but President Obama "exaggerates the potential benefits," FactCheck.org said this week:

• Obama says every dollar invested in "high quality" preschool can return "seven dollars later on" but that is based on an economic analysis of a small, two-year program that targeted disadvantaged youth in Michigan. Obama is proposing a one-year program for "every single child in America."
• Obama also points to the success of universal preschool programs in Georgia and Oklahoma, saying "studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own." But the oldest students from the Georgia program — the first state to offer universal preschool — are now just 20 years old, and those in Oklahoma are even younger. So proclamations about the ability to hold jobs or form more stable families, for example, are premature.

For the full analysis and background, click here.

UPDATE, Feb. 26: "Studies suggest the power of well-funded programs targeting specific communities. Still, questions remain about the ability to scale and generalize these benefits nationwide through expanded policy," concludes Journalist's Resource, a service of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

Contest invites rural teachers, students to submit videos comparing their community with another

March 15 is the deadline for teachers and students in rural America to submit videos comparing and contrasting their community with a rural community in another part of the country or the world. Discovery Education and the Foundation for Rural Service have launched the Connected Community Contest "to demonstrate the power of broadband and digital resources in bringing the world to classrooms and providing students with skills needed to be college and career ready," the groups said in a news release. The grand prize is a grant for classroom technology. (Photo: Discovery Education, a unit of the Discovery Channel)

“Rural schools are increasingly feeling pressure to keep pace with their urban counterparts, which traditionally have had better access to learning technology and high-speed broadband,” foundation President Elizabeth Crocker said in the release. “This contest serves as another way to highlight the unique challenges rural communities face in providing cutting-edge technologies to their students and provides an opportunity for us to reward the innovations that those challenges have spurred.” The foundation was created by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association.

The teacher-led contest is open to classes in grades 4-12 from schools located in rural communities of 50,000 or less as defined by the Department of Agriculture. To participate in the program, classes visit the contest website, where they will get access to Discovery Education's videostreaming service and other digital resources to identify rural communities around the world; research and explore their culture, lifestyle and economy; and create a submission that educates others about their own community and demonstrates how it is similar or different from a rural community in a different part of the country or world. Submissions can include images, video, audio, graphics or informational text and are to be in the final form of a produced video or video-captured presentation.

Are your rural schools closer to this essayist's dream, or to his nightmare?

"Low regard for education is an unfortunate part of local history for many rural communities across the U.S.," Timothy Collins writes for the Daily Yonder. "It seems we have all too often taken a minimalist and pragmatic approach to rural public schools. Vestiges of a deep disrespect for too much “book learning” and anything that smacks of intellectualism are all too common. Many rural schools operate with minimal resources. Local property tax funding mechanisms are disastrous. State funding mechanisms are often inequitable. Some communities can’t – or won’t – tax themselves for better schools."

Collins' essay begins with his nightmare about guidance counselors going for the lowest common denominator, but he wakes up and offers some hope: "By the growing light of day, I see things in a new way. For generations, rural schools – whatever their limitations – educated teachers, nurses, lawyers, physicians, and other professionals and skilled workers who helped provide community leadership. Others left and did well elsewhere. Those who decided to stay tried to do their best. Maybe they made some well-meaning decisions that turned out to be bad. Ever so slowly, their decisions – well-meaning or not – ran up against the political, economic, and cultural forces of a nation and a world that rendered their community and school into the stuff of my nightmare."

Collins, assistant director for research, policy, outreach, and sustainability at the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, concludes: "Even if we can’t overcome the financial obstacles for rural schools, we need to encourage children to do their best with high expectations that are tailored to their needs, potentials, and desires to show what they can do for themselves and their communities. Here’s my dream: We need to appeal to what’s best in children and the communities that are responsible for their future. With positive support, they can, and will, meet the challenges of high expectations. The alternative is nightmarish." (Read more)

45 years after RFK tour, poverty and grim coal industry forecast challenge Eastern Kentucky

The weekly Hazard Herald in southeastern Kentucky used the 45th anniversary of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's “poverty tour” through the region, months before his assassination, as a point of reference for the region's chronic economic problems and its more current challenges, caused mainly by closings and layoffs at coal mines.

After two days and 200 miles in the region, Kennedy spoke about what he had seen: “There is no real hope for the future amongst many of these people who work hard in the coal mines, and now that the coal mines shut down, they have no place to go. There’s no hope for the future, there’s no industry moving in." He could say much the same today, Herald reporter Amelia Holiday suggested. The region's coal industry is declining because of depleted resources, Obama administration regulations and, primarily, cheap natural gas.

Kennedy, center, walked in Hazard in February 1968. (Herald photo by Paul Gordon)

Holiday noted that poverty rates in Perry County dropped by about half from 1960 to 2011, but the rate is still 25 percent, while the Kentucky and national rates are 19 and 16 percent, respectively. And the figures for most adjoining counties and the rest of Central Appalachia are even worse. She cites Appalachian Regional Commission figures: In 1960, 214 of the counties in official Appalachia were chronically distressed, and 98 of them, or 46 percent, were in Central Appalachia. Today, only 81 are distressed, but Central Appalachia has 66 of them, or 81 percent.

Justin Maxson of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development "said he does not think things have improved in the region with any kind of equality, which might be why many living in this region may not think there has been much improvement since the '60s," Holiday writes. "He thinks there are three main things that need to be aligned in the area for things to start improving: greater investments in the right things and more effective use of funds, support and growth of small businesses, and growth of stronger and more effective local leaders."

In an editorial that also mentioned the RFK anniversary, the Herald called for some of the coal severance tax that is now divided between the state and coal counties to be placed in trust for the future: "Our region has suffered for too long from poor decisions; it’s time now to make a wise one."

Kennedy finished his film interview with sentiment that reflects today's viewpoints, writes Holiday: “It seems to me that [in] this country . . . as wealthy as we are, that this is an intolerable condition. It reflects on all of us. We can do things all over the rest of the world, but I think we should do something for our people here in our own country.” (Read more)

Male cheerleader at small rural school makes news

Male cheerleaders are common at colleges, but rare at rural schools, so it's news when one breaks the gender barrier, as Collin Hadley did at Koshkonong High School in south-central Missouri. So Jennifer Davidson, news producer, reporter and student trainer at KSMU in Springfield, did a story on him. She began: "This is a story about following your dreams, even though you might be swimming against the current." (Photo by Davidson)

Hadley was shy, but loved to tumble and do flips. His gymnastics instructor suggested he cheerlead, but he didn't bite until two girls asked him and a friend to do it. He tried out, and was not only accepted, but was nominated as an All-American and qualified for a trip to London, where he performed in a New Year's parade. His community, population 212, helped him raise the money for the trip. (Read more)

Weekly gets two reactions to front-page story on gay wedding: negative locally, positive globally

The thrice-weekly Laurel Leader-Call in southeast Mississippi lost some local support but gained a lot around the country after it published a front page story about the mock marriage of two women, one with advanced brain cancer, owner Jim Cegielski tells news-media blog Romenesko.com.

"We didn’t know the reaction was going to be as vicious and hateful and as widespread as it was," Cegielski said. "In the first week, before the backlash to the backlash, the calls were 100 percent negative," and 40 subscribers canceled and two advertisers pulled out.

Then Ashton Pittman, a student at the University of Southern Mississippi in nearby Hattiesburg, wrote about the episode on his Deep South Progressive blog and it was tweeted by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC. Cegielski said the paper has added 100 subscribers, all outside Mississippi, and a dog groomer as an advertiser. The comments in the paper's public forum reflect similar support.

Cegielski, who bought the 7,500-circulation paper's name and subscriber list after running it out of business last year with a weekly he started, told blogger Jim Romenesko that he would write about the outside support in tomorrow's paper, so this item will be updated.

Lobbying by hospitals, many of them rural, persuade GOP governors to expand Medicaid

Florida Gov. Rick Scott's surprising announcement that he would use federal health-care reform money to expand the Medicaid program to households earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level "means the dominoes are falling," says Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a consumer group that lobbied for the law. He told The New York Times, “The message is, ‘Even though I may not have supported and even strongly opposed the Affordable Care Act, it would be harmful to the citizens of my state if I didn’t opt into taking these very substantial federal dollars to help people who truly need it.’”

Seven Republican governors (of states outlined in Times map below) have said they will expand Medicaid, partly to protect rural hospitals and low-income people.

"The change of heart for some Republican governors has come after vigorous lobbying by health industry players, particularly hospitals," the Times notes. "Hospital associations around the country signed off on Medicaid cuts under the health care law on the assumption that their losses would be more than offset by new paying customers, including many insured by Medicaid. . . . Every few days, state hospital associations and advocates for poor people issue reports asserting that the economic benefits of expanding Medicaid would outweigh the costs." (Read more)

Teen pregnancy declines more slowly in rural areas

The national teen pregnancy rate is lower than ever, but "The teen birth rate in rural counties is nearly one-third higher than the rest of the nation" and is declining more slowly than in metropolitan areas, USA Today reports, citing what is says is a "first-of-its-kind analysis by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy."

"The prevailing stereotype is that teen parenthood is primarily an urban and suburban phenomenon," Bill Albert, chief program officer for the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, told reporter Michelle Healy. "The landscape of teen childbearing is more open spaces and fresh air than gridlock and high-rises." And that applies across all ethnic and racial groups, the data show.

Researchers used National Center for Health Statistics data for 2010, the most recent available (2011 figures are still being double-checked). From 1990 to 2010, the teen birth rate in rural counties dropped 32 percent, but that was much less than in major metro areas (49 percent) and suburbs (40 percent). The national rate dropped to 34 per 1,000 teenage girls from 60 per 1,000; the rural rate was 43 per 1,000.

The reasons? Availability of birth control in rural areas "lags far behind availability for teens living in urban and metro areas," said Julia De Clerque,​​ a research fellow and investigator at the University of North Carolina Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Also, "For many rural families, teen pregnancy and parenting are cultural norms, repeated generation after generation," said Josie Weiss, a nursing professor at Florida Atlantic University. (Read more)

World agency set to give U.S. virtual clean bill of health for mad-cow disease, boosting beef industry

The Scientific Commission for the World Organization for Animal Health has recommended that the U.S. beef supply be labeled at "negligible risk" for mad-cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

"This is a significant achievement for the United States, American beef producers and businesses, and federal and state partners who work in coordination to maintain a system of three interlocking safeguards against BSE that protect our public and animal health," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "Being classified as negligible risk for BSE . . . will also greatly support our efforts to increase exports of U.S. beef and beef products." (Read more)

Corn Belt expands northwest into marginal grassland, pinching perennial-crop biofuel hopes

High corn and soybean prices are driving conversion of grassland, some of it marginal, to cropland in the western Corn Belt, posing the threat of soil erosion and limiting the possibility for perennial bioenergy crops such as switchgrass, according to research recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Map shows relative change from grassland in 2006 to corn or soybeans in 2011)

The researchers at South Dakota State University used land-cover data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service to analyze changes in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska from 2006 to 2011. They found that 1.3 million acres had been converted from grass to crops. The Corn Belt is expanding northwest, and the last such shift came in "the 1920s and '30s, during rapid mechanization of U.S. agriculture," Bob Steever of Brownfield reports.

The conversion "was concentrated mostly in North Dakota and South Dakota, east of the Missouri River," Steever reports. Not only is much of the former grassland subject to erosion, it has "vulnerability to drought," the researchers write. The expansion is also "posing a threat to water- fowl breeding in the Prairie Pothole Region" (mainly in the eastern Dalotas, southwest Minnesota and north-central Iowa) and other wetlands. "Longer-term land cover trends from North Dakota and Iowa indicate that recent grassland conversion represents a persistent shift in land use rather than short-term variability in crop rotation patterns." (Read more) It appears likely to continue; today, the Department of Agriculture forecast record corn and soybean crops in 2013.

One way to follow up on this story would be to check with your local Farm Service Agency office about signups for the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers not to till marginal land.

Report faults states' funding, help for local schools

"A recent report commissioned by Congress found that states don’t fund education fairly across jurisdictions, need to do a better job intervening in struggling school districts and encouraging better-qualified teachers to enter the profession — and stay," Ben Wieder reports for Stateline. The problems are often worse in poor, rural districts.

As he released the report, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, “In far too many communities, in far too many cities, in far too many states, there are inequities.” The report " calls for tying federal aid to requirements that states adopt more equitable funding formulas, promote greater diversity within all schools, train and retain better teachers and provide quality preschooling to all students," Wieder reports.

Entrepreneurship, a key to rural development, can be greatly aided by small-business incubators

Experts agree that one way to encourage economic development in rural areas is to encourage entrepreneurship, and one increasingly popular way to do that is with a small-business incubator -- a facility where start-up can get cheap office space, share services and even share ideas.

The Ozarks Small Business Incubator in West Plains, Mo., which was started after a survey by the Small Buisiness Administration found that surrounding Howell County had one of the nation's greatest concentrations of people who wanted to start a business, reports Jennifer Davidson of KSMU in Springfield.

The incubator's director, Tony Aid, told Davidson that research shows that 80 percent of small businesses fail after five years, but those that started in incubators have a five-year failure rate of only 20 percent. And small businesses are becoming the key to rural development, he said: "Looking into the future, we don’t see that many big companies coming to rural areas. We’re not giving up on them. It’s possible, but they’re going to be hard to get. So, the way to grow our economy in the future is to grow local businesses that will create jobs, that will raise income, and that will make the whole economy more vibrant." (Read more)

More women joining ranks of rural fire units, many of which have been running short of volunteers

Women are coming to the rescue of rural fire departments that are running short of volunteers, joining a "traditionally male-dominated endeavor," reports Jayette Bolinski for the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill. (SJ-R photo by David Spencer)

Bolinski's example is KaCey Noe, above, who passed the "physically and emotionally draining" strength and agility test required by the Lincoln Rural Fire Department. "She gets mixed reactions from the public on calls," the reporter notes, quoting her: "Sometimes, yes, there are people who gravitate toward me. And also there are the ones who gravitate away. Some of them honestly don’t recognize that I am a firefighter, that I am a legit member of this department."

John Swan, president of the Illinois Firefighters Association, told Bolinski that many more women have become volunteer firefighters in the last five to 10 years: “I think women think they may not play a role in fire service, but they do. . . . The volunteer fire service around this state is really in a dire need of maintaining its staffing for volunteers in these communities. We’re getting less and less every year because of the time commitment and the economic conditions where both people [in a household] are working, and not just everybody can be a firefighter, including men.” (Read more)

Companies offer information-technology assistance from rural locations

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100470457

Last call for economic-data reporting workshop

There’s still time to sign up for a free workshop in Louisville from 2-5 p.m. on Feb. 27: Breaking Local Stories with Economic Data.

Presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, the free workshop will feature instructors Paul Overberg of USA Today and Jeannine Aversa, formerly of The Associated Press and now with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. They will provide a road map to finding at least 15 local enterprise stories from government economic data. Examples will be specific to the Louisville region, but applicable anywhere.

Click here to sign up for this free workshop, which precedes the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ CAR Conference, Feb. 28-March 3. Conference registration is not required to attend the free workshop, but conference hotel rates may still be available at $129 a night, plus tax.

Some in Appalachia have prison buyer's remorse

"Rural communities, especially in Central Appalachia, recruit prisons hoping to land jobs. But some Eastern Kentucky leaders who got prisons now question their decision, saying the jobs haven’t materialized and the prisons drain local resources," reports the Daily Yonder, introducing a story by Sylvia Ryerson of WMMT-FM  in Whitesburg, Ky.

In the 1990s, a third "of all rural prison construction nationwide occurred in four of the most economically depressed regions in the country . . . the West Texas Plains, South Central Georgia, the Mississippi Delta and the coalfields of Central Appalachia," Ryerson reports, citing Department of Agriculture research and noting three more coalfield prisons have been built since. (Click on map for larger version)

While the prisons were touted as job creators, the federal Bureau of Prisons' tough employment standards eliminated most of the unemployed and underemployed people in McCreary County, Kentucky, on the Tennessee border. "Of the 300 and something employees that work at the prison, I don’t think we have over 25 or 30 local people that are working there," former county judge-executive Blaine Phillips told Ryerson. "And the others . . . they don’t chose to live here. It was not what they were telling us at first.”

Ryerson cites research through 2004 saying "We find no evidence that prison expansion has stimulated economic growth. In fact, we provide evidence that prison construction has impeded economic growth in rural counties that have been growing at a slow pace." (Read more)

Nascar (or, if you prefer, NASCAR) tries to add younger, urban and multicultural fans to rural base

Stock-car racing, which developed from moonshine runners in the hills of Southern Appalachia and still has a base of "older, rural white men," wants "younger, urban and multicultural" fans, Stuart Elliott reports for The New York Times. Fans will start seeing that this week on social media and in a big way at Sunday's Daytona 500 (where for the first time the pole sitter is a woman, Danica Patrick; photo by Jonathan Ferrey, Getty Images).

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, which is no longer an association but keeps the name, perhaps to keep the name of the privately held company entirely in capital letters, changed advertising agencies last summer, moving from a firm in St. Louis to "a Madison Avenue giant, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, known for sophisticated work for blue-chip brands like American Express, Dove and I.B.M.," Elliott writes.

Kim Brink, managing director for brand, consumer and series marketing at Nascar, told Elliott that the agency's main office in New York is developing “a new brand direction and a new creative platform,” including Spanish-language commercials and greater emphasis on Nascar’s online offerings. "Nascar drivers are to contact fans and followers this week in social media like Facebook and Twitter to alert them the effort is coming," Elliott reports.       

Coal power plant shelved; Obama, natural gas cited

Plans to build one of "the cleanest coal-fired generators in the world" as the company put it, have been shelved. White Stallion Energy LLC blamed low natural-gas prices and the Obama administration's increased interest in fighting climate change, "But the company undermined its message somewhat and angered locals by fighting U.S. EPA limits on mercury emissions," Nathanial Gronewold reports for Environment & Energy News.

"Pronouncements by the administration -- most recently in the President's State of the Union message -- continue to indicate that additional regulatory barriers to such projects will be erected," Chief Operating Officer Randy Bird said in a statement. "In addition, even though the generation needs for the state of Texas continue to grow, the presently low price of natural gas has made the price of electricity from a new coal-fired generator uncompetitive at this time."

The 1,200-megawatt station was to be built in Matagorda County, south of Houston along the Gulf coast.

Interactive maps and graphic show drought impact

How badly were your state's crops hit by last year's drought, and how does that compare to neighboring states? New data from the Department of Agriculture, via ClimateCentral.org, shows you quickly, with interactive maps. This one shows the relative impact of the drought; on the live map, you can see how it worsened through the year in each state by clicking on the state.

The maps also allow you to compare crop to crop and see how yields compared to recent years. Here's what you get when you click on the "Corn" button and then on Missouri:

For the story and interactive map, click here.

Postal Service poll on Sat. delivery is questioned

The U.S. Postal Service says an online poll taken for it by Ipsos shows that about 80 percent of Americans, even in rural areas, favor its plan to end Saturday delivery of mail other than packages, but a close look calls the survey into question.

Because the poll was done via the Internet, it didn't include "the people who most depend on the Postal Service and Saturday delivery — those who aren’t online all the time, like seniors and people in rural areas without good broadband," Save the Post Office notes.

Unlike scientific, random-sample polls, this one used “a blended sample of panel and non-panel,” USPS said in its press release. It didn't explain those terms, but Save the Post Office does: "That means some of the people surveyed were recruited to participate. The Postal Service doesn’t provide any information about how the recruitment was done or who was selected to participate or what portion of the 1,000 people surveyed was pre-selected.  One can only imagine how the selection process might have skewed the results."

Save the Post Office also questions the questionnaire, saying it "includes questions that are framed in ways that inevitably affect how people responded.  The first question on the survey, for example, is: 'Before today, do you recall hearing anything about the financial losses that the Postal Service experienced last year, of approximately $15.9 billion?' The survey thus begins by presenting the participants with a huge deficit number, which undoubtedly inclines the average person to favor cost-cutting measures like ending Saturday delivery." (Read more)

What rural place voted for buses over highways?

The Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado's Western Slope is getting "the first bus rapid transit system in the country to serve a rural area," financed by an additional 0.4-cent sales tax residents voted to impose in 2008, Angie Schmitt reports for StreetsBlog, published by a nonprofit that supports mass transit and transportation systems friendly to bicyclists and pedestrians.

"About 32,000 people are interspersed throughout the valley in small towns like Basalt, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs, but the local economy revolves around the nearby resort town of Aspen," Schmitt writes. "Aspen’s hotels and restaurants attract workers from around the region, but people who toil in local service industry jobs have mostly been priced out of the housing near Aspen."

MapQuest image shows principal route of Roaring Fork Transit Authority

“People who wash pots and pans at the hotels in Aspen were driving 75 miles one way for the privilege of doing that,” Roger Millar of Smart Growth America said at the "New Partners for Smart Growth Conference" last week in Kansas City. Scmitt notes that Highway 82, the main route into Aspen, was widened to four lanes 20 years ago but is Colorado's most congested highway.

Now those folks will be able to take the bus. "The $40 million project will run buses every 10 minutes at rush hour, stopping nine times along the lengthy journey — a commuter express route," she writes. "It will also feature heated waiting stations with bathrooms." Schmitt's story mentions other examples of rural mass transit.

National parks prepare for sequestration cuts

As the March 1 federal sequestration draws closer and more likely, national parks are preparing to feel the sting of federal spending cuts. They would mean reductions in operating hours and services of national parks across the country, writes Lisa Rein of The Washington Post.

"The prospect of dirtier restrooms, sporadic grass mowing and litter pickup, and a shortage of rangers to answer questions and patrol, has set off a furious campaign by a coalition of park advocates, tourism officials and businesses from Maine to Wyoming," Rein said, adding that many argue cuts will hurt both conservation efforts and local, mostly rural  economies that are tied to the parks.

Rein provided examples: Yellowstone would delay its opening by three weeks, campgrounds and visitor centers along the Blue Ridge Parkway would close, and Washington, D.C., would see cuts in law enforcement, tree maintenance and rangers right before the substantial tourist draw of cherry blossom season.

Park advocates argue that the park system only accounts for one-fourteens of 1 percent of the national budget, while others call the concern "overblown" and argue that parks will simply suffer their share of federal cuts that are far-reaching enough to affect many national services. “The Obama administration likes to scare people and say, ‘We won’t be able to go to the parks,’ ” Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Rein. “It’s hogwash. There’s no reason we have to open the parks later. They’re going to have to do more with less.”  (Read More)

Kentucky fishing tournament will use nets and $20,000 in prizes to catch invasive Asian carp

Silver carp jump! (Photo: Chris Young, AP)

An unusual fishing tournament will be held in Kentucky next month to target an increasingly problematic influx of Asian carp. The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources has announced that it will hold the first such competition March 12-13, offering cash awards to fishers who catch the most carp with nets on Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. There will be no entry fee and the $20,000 purse will be distributed among the top five finishers.

"The reason for this tournament is to remove as many Asian carp as possible; therefore, fishermen must harvest at least 2,000 pounds of Asian carp to qualify for a prize," the announcement said. Kentucky's tournament is a reaction to the much larger national problem of invasive Asian carp, which can kill native species and hurt fishing and boating industries. Read more here on the threat posed by Asian carp in the Mississippi River system.

"Asian carp are a threat to our native species and habitats because they compete with other fish for the plankton which forms the base of the good chain," state Fisheries Director Ron Brooks told Gary Garth for The Courier-Journal's outdoors column. Brooks explained that Asian carp can grow to be quite large--in one Missouri case, 111 pounds--and that they are prolific. "This is the first tournament, but we hope to have several this year," Brooks said. "We're trying to remove as many Asian carp as we can out of these lakes."