Lawsuits allege Monsanto forced farmers to buy dicamba-resistant seeds, and that dicamba damaged crops

A North Dakota farm filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Monsanto Co., alleging that farmers are forced to buy its expensive patented dicamba-resistant seed if they don't want their crops to be damaged by dicamba powder drifting from nearby farms.

Forest River Farms' complaint, filed Feb. 1 in Missouri, says "Monsanto’s monopolization and attempted monopolization of the seeds market stymies competition, hurts producers, and harms the public at large," and alleges a class of "all individuals and entities who directly purchased seeds containing Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant trait," Eleanor Tyler reports for Bloomberg Law.

University of Missouri map; click on the image to enlarge it.

Dicamba is a herbicide notoriously prone to vaporizing into a powder and drifting to other fields. A study indicated that it damaged an estimated 3.6 million acres of soybeans in 2017 — about 4 percent of all soybeans planted in the U.S. Several states have banned its sale and use or limited when it can be sprayed. Monsanto responded to widespread complaints by introducing a new version of dicamba it says is less likely to drift. But scientists, who weren't allowed to fully vet the new product before its launch, say it's still too volatile. The new product will be available in 33 states in 2018, and on Feb. 1 Monsanto announced it will provide free mandatory training sessions for farmers on the use of dicamba in 26 of those states.

Also on Feb. 1 a federal judicial panel consolidated nine lawsuits against Monsanto filed in four states, all alleging crop damage from dicamba, into the same eastern Missouri court where the Forest River Farms suit was filed. "Those cases allege that Monsanto marketed dicamba-resistant seeds knowing that would tempt farmers to use dicamba — which has proven destructive to neighboring crops — before Monsanto had regulatory approval to market its low-drift version of the pesticide," Tyler reports.

Agriculture secretary says rural economy is 'fragile'; Tenn. farmer says opioids may be as big a threat as anything

In a hearing on the "State of the Rural Economy" before the House Agriculture Committee yesterday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue acknowledged that farmers are having a tough time these days. "I wish there were better news but there is a lot of stress and a lot of duress on the farms today," Perdue said. He went on to praise the resiliency of American farmers, but said that "the state of the rural economy is fragile," Andy Eubank reports for Hoosier Ag Today.

"I’m very concerned that if prices continue to fall and we have any kind of an average year or below average year that we could be in some real trouble," said Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the committee's ranking Democrat and former chair. "This is one of the reasons if I had my way I’d like to see a Farm Bill that had an improved safety net going into this situation. But, with no new money, I don’t know how we’re going to do that."

Perdue said part of the stress was because of the "trade environment," and noted that U.S. sorghum prices fell after news surfaced that China is investigating U.S. sorghum exports. The investigation is a warning shot after President Trump imposed high tariffs on solar panel imports, which mostly come from China. The Chinese may also investigate U.S. soybean imports.

While Perdue was talking, the American Farm Bureau Federation was publishing a warning from a farmer about another big issue facing rural America: the opioid epidemic. "Our focus on national regulations and global trade are real issues that need to be addressed, but the future of farming and ranching may be just as dependent on our awareness of curbing the opioid dependency in our grassroots communities where individuals influence national changes," Matt Niswander of Lawrenceburg, Tenn., writes.

"We need rural America’s farmers and ranchers to unite and remove the stigma and veil of shame surrounding opioid use and addiction, and we need additional training for rural healthcare providers to be empowered as strong advocates for non-opioid treatment options," Niswander writes. If we choose to ignore the problem, this epidemic will continue to spread, leaving a devastating impact that will undermine the current state of agriculture in rural America. Rural America’s opioid crisis is here right now."

Lack of healthy grocery choices may be more about demand than supply; healthiness of purchases mapped by county

Common wisdom has held that people buy less healthful foods because they can't afford them or can't find them in nearby groceries, but new research has found that some may simply be less interested in buying healthy foods than others. "According to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, those groups include consumers who make less money, have less education, possess lower levels of nutrition knowledge and live in certain geographic areas," Caitlin Dewey reports for The Washington Post.

The four unhealthiest counties were Menominee County, Wisconsin; Turner County, Georgia; McNairy County, Tennessee; and Musselshell County, Montana. All four are rural. The three healthiest three counties were New York County, N.Y. (Manhattan); Pitkin County, Colorado (Aspen); and Iroquois County in east-central Illinois (Watseka, pop. 5,000).Pitkin County has one of the highest median incomes and highest life expectancies in the country.

Washington Post map; click on it for a larger version.

It's already known that high-income families tend to buy healthier foods than the poor, but that can't be explained entirely by cost or availability of healthy food. The paper, which hasn't completed peer review, analyzed 12 years of Nielsen grocery-purchase data from 100,000 households across the U.S. The researchers studied what happened to a household's food purchases when a new grocery opened nearby, or when the household otherwise was no longer in a "food desert" without easy access to fresh produce.

They found that such changes had a limited impact on the foods those households bought, so it may have been more about demand than access. However, the researchers stress that there were factors the study didn't consider, including the time to plan and cook meals, exposure to food marketing, and stress levels. Lead researcher Hunt Allcott, an economist at New York University, "hypothesizes that a region’s dominant cuisine, be that barbecue or avocado toast, informs the meals that people eat as children. That, in turn, has a large effect on their lifelong food preferences," Dewey reports.

Washington state's political divide, long west-east, now more rural-urban, driven by rural resentment of elites

Color depth shows percentage ranges for Trump, Clinton (Wikipedia)

"For decades, pollsters have called it the Cascade Curtain, the apparent voting-habit divide between Western and Eastern Washington. Eastern Washington votes Republican, the idea goes, while the state’s Pacific coast and Puget Sound counties tilt liberal. . . . But it might be time to shove aside that curtain for good, political scientists say. Recent voter polls, election results, and economic data reveal that Washington’s divide now is urban and rural, not east-west," Mike Lewis reports for My Northwest.

Longtime Washington state pollster Stuart Elway "said the shift became abundantly clear in the 2016 elections and more so with every poll he’s done since. Coastal counties that had not voted for a Republican since Herbert Hoover voted for Donald Trump," Lewis writes.

Hillary Clinton carried the state, on the strength of votes from the four counties around Puget Sound, where 54 percent of voters live. Three of those counties are "net donor" counties to the state, meaning they give more in taxes than they get back in spending, but rural voters think it's their counties that are getting the short end of the stick, Elway has found in his polling. "Only 12 percent correctly answer that their county gets more back than they put in," Elway told Lewis. A similar phenomenon was noted in rural Wisconsin focus groups by University of Wisconsin Professor Katherine Cramer for her book, The Politics of Resentment.

W.Va.'s free-college deal would come with a drug test

West Virginia legislators are moving a bill to "create a last-dollar benefit to cover the outstanding costs of tuition and mandatory fees not covered by Pell Grants or other grant aid," Adam Harris reports for The Chronicle of Higher Education. But there's a catch: prospective students would have to pay for, and pass, a drug test to qualify for the scholarship.

That's kicked up some controversy in a state hard-hit by the opioid epidemic. Sponsor Mitch Carmichael, president of the Senate, which passed his Senate Bill 284 unanimously, said "From a state perspective, it helps us say to the world that our work force is drug-free, trained, educated, and ready to go to work." He also says it provides an incentive for people to be drug-free.

Critics say it's unclear how the state will carry out the testing, and whether a student would be excluded for taking legally prescribed painkillers or medication-assisted treatment drugs, which are opioids that prevent an addict from going through withdrawal.

Minnesota holding workshops for law enforcement on farmers' mental-health issues; high suicide rate noted

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture launched a six-week workshop series last week to educate rural law enforcement and the public about mental-health issues affecting farmers. A 2017 University of Minnesota study found that suicide rates among farmers are three to five times higher than all other occupations.

"The 'Down on the Farm' sessions, sponsored by the university's Cooperative Extension Service, will teach people in farming communities to recognize the warning signs of mental and emotional distress and provide information about resources that are available to farmers," Katrina Pross reports for the Minnesota Daily.

Minnesota Sheriffs' Association Deputy Director of Professional Development Randy Willis will present the workshops. He says sheriffs need to known about mental-health issues because they're the primary law enforcement in farming communities, and he hopes they'll learn more tools to help farmers before a mental health problem becomes a crisis.

Farmers in tight-knit communities often don't feel like they can trust health care professionals, and often don't feel like they can take the time out of their busy schedules to go to counseling, according to agriculture-department Director of Mental Health Outreach Ted Matthews: "The planting and harvest system is not easy for them, and the uncertainty that comes with farming can cause a lot of stress and anxiety." Last October the department launched a 24/7 mental-health help line for farmers, which Matthews said has been successful.

Rural broadband will get $2 billion over 10 years, but Trump's infrastructure plan appears unlikely to help

The Federal Communications Commission "has taken the final steps toward finally opening its long-delayed Connect America Fund II, which will disburse $2 billion in federal money over 10 years to support new broadband infrastructure in rural areas throughout the country," Devin Coldewey reports for Tech Crunch.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has made rural broadband expansion a priority, but he's tried to declare an easy win with failed attempts to redefine what counts as broadband: first he tried to lower the threshold for broadband to include service with a download speed of 4 megabytes per second, instead of the current 25 Mbps. Then he tried to conflate smartphone data plans with broadband. Both those proposals would make it look as though much more of rural America receives broadband access than actually does.

President Trump promised more attention to the nation's infrastructure in his State of the Union address, but Blair Levin of The Brookings Institution writes that his infrastructure plan isn't likely to help with rural broadband expansion.

For a comprehensive look at the current state of rural broadband, check out this article by Sharon Strover, an academic who has been out front on the issue for more than a decade.

Trade tensions rise: China probes imports of U.S. sorghum

Less than two weeks after President Trump imposed steep tariffs on solar panels, most of which come from China, and two months after his administration's decision to investigate trade in Chinese aluminum-alloy sheets, China launched a probe into U.S. sorghum imports -- a pointed reminder that U.S. farmers are likely to suffer in a trade war.

"On Sunday, the Ministry of Commerce launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation, potentially leading to hefty tariffs on imports of the ingredient used in livestock feed and the fiery Chinese liquor baijiu," Dominique Patton and Michael Martina report for Reuters. "Taking aim at sorghum at a time when the global grain market is in surplus and growers around the world are scrambling to find homes for their products hits at Trump's core political base while avoiding damaging supplies of a product critical at home."

The U.S. imported more than $1 billion worth of sorghum to China last year, making up more than 90 percent of the total sorghum China imports. Most of it comes from Texas and Kansas. A trade war would likely hurt U.S. soybean growers too. Soybeans are the U.S.'s most valuable agricultural export, valued at more than $12 billion last year.

"They believe that if they ratchet up the heat in key red states where there's a large agricultural community that's voted for Donald Trump that it will somehow change the situation," Paul Burke, Asia director at the U.S. Soybean Export Council, told Reuters.

As Trump appointees reconsider new mine-dust rules, researchers find largest cluster of advanced black lung ever

"Epidemiologists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health say they've identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever reported, a cluster that was first uncovered by NPR 14 months ago," Howard Berkes and Adelina Lancianese report for NPR, saying it reflects "a kind of mining disaster in slow motion" in the Central Appalachian coalfield.

Edward Brown of Harlan, Ky. , 55, is a former coal miner with
complicated black lung. He told NPR, "I can't breathe, you know.
 . . . all I got to look forward to is to get worser and worser."

"In a 'research letter' published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, NIOSH confirms 416 cases of progressive massive fibrosis, or complicated black lung, in three clinics in southwestern Virginia from 2013 to 2017." The clinics also treat miners from Kentucky and West Virginia, for a disease that gradually takes away the ability to breathe. "Lung transplants are the only cure, and they're possible only when miners are healthy enough to qualify," NPR reports.

"We've gone from having nearly eradicated PMF in the mid-1990s to the highest concentration of cases that anyone has ever seen," Scott Laney, a NIOSH epidemiologist on the study, told NPR, which says it has found "that the likely cause of the epidemic is longer work shifts for miners and the mining of thinner coal seams. Massive mining machines must cut rock with coal and the resulting dust contains silica, which is far more toxic than coal dust." Another reason, NPR reports, is "layoffs and retirements brought on by the decline in coal mining. Miners who put off getting checked for black lung earlier began streaming into clinics, especially if they needed the medical and wage replacement benefits provided by black-lung compensation programs."

Norton, Va., lawyer Joe Wolfe said the federal government needs to declare a public-health emergency for the 50,000 miners still working. "New federal regulations that are supposed to limit exposure to dangerous levels of coal and silica dust were fully implemented in 2016, a few months before NPR first reported the PMF epidemic," Berkes and Lancianese report. "The Trump administration recently announced a 'retrospective study' of the new regulations, which has mine safety advocates concerned, especially given the epidemic of the disease caused by mine dust."

Court gives EPA until May 1 to require livestock producers to report waste emissions

In a victory for the Environmental Protection Agency, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency has until May 1 to begin requiring livestock farmers to report animal-waste emissions. The mandate was scheduled to take effect Jan. 22, but the EPA filed a motion on Jan. 19 arguing that farmers weren't ready to meet its requirements.

"The delay follows a court decision in April that the EPA must force farms to report air pollution for animal waste emissions. The decision invalidated a previous policy under then-President George W. Bush that exempted most farms from such reporting requirements," Miranda Green reports for The Hill. Most facilities are required to report emissions to federal, state and local authorities, "but the EPA, under Bush, decided that it could not do anything to reduce or mitigate emissions from animal waste and that requiring reporting would not be useful."

Measuring emissions can be tricky, especially for large-scale feedlots. The EPA promised to start keeping tabs on feedlot emissions 11 years ago, but hasn't been able to do so effectively because it hasn't settled on a consistent method of measuring data. It's difficult to get meaningful data if feedlots aren't measuring their emissions the same way.

Nominations for SPJ's Black Hole Award, which spotlights government secrecy, are due by Friday, Feb. 16

The deadline for nominations for the Black Hole Award is Feb. 16. The award was established by the Society of Professional Journalists to draw attention to the worst violations of the public's right to know about a news story. Nominations can be from local SPJ chapters, SPJ members, other journalists or private citizens. Click here to read more and to see a list of previous winners.

Nominations should meet the following criteria:

1. Violation, in spirit or letter, of any federal or state open-government law. This means either a clear violation of the statute governing access to public records or public meetings, or using an ambiguity or loophole in the law to avoid having to comply with the law. For example: conducting multiple meetings with small groups that do not constitute a quorum, email discussions outside the public view, or charging unreasonable amounts to copy documents.

2. Egregiousness. In order to maintain the effectiveness of the Black Hole Award, it should not be given for just any openness violation. Recipients should know they are trampling on the public’s right, placing personal or political interests ahead of the public good or endangering public welfare. Examples might include an agency or official who attempted to keep information secret to avoid embarrassment or hide misdeeds.

3. Impact. The case should be one that affects the public rather than an individual. The award should not be used to settle vendettas against recalcitrant bureaucrats. Withholding information should hurt the general public rather than an individual.

Nominations should include supporting documentation where possible, including:

• News coverage of the violation.
• Public records chronicling the dispute.
• Legal papers if there was a lawsuit or other legal action involved in the matter.
• Any expert opinion from an attorney, official or open-government expert that the violation occurred.
• Contact information for the parties involved to allow the committee to obtain more information if needed, including from the government official.

Submit nominations by emailing FOI Committee member Mike Farrell at farrell@email.uky.edu or mail to him at the School of Journalism and Media, 144 Grehan Building, University of Kentucky,
Lexington, KY 40506-0042.

Chapter of new book explores the news media's failure to recognize rural America's power in the 2016 election

A book published today by Routledge — The Trump Presidency, Journalism and Democracy — includes a chapter about Donald Trump, rural America, its issues and the national news media’s failure to recognize the power Trump drew from rural voters.

Written by Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog, the chapter digs deep into the issues at play in rural America and how some of them influenced rural Americans to vote for Trump. Rural America has a declining population, a slow rebound from the Great Recession, higher divorce rates, poorer health, and higher mortality rates -- especially from drug overdoses, suicide and alcohol. "Also in rural America, there is a documented resentment of urban elites, including the news media, reflecting a feeling that rural areas aren’t getting a fair shake from government and its trade deals, and that they are looked down upon," Cross writes. And rural voters resent feeling like city folks view them as ignorant racists.

By validating this rural resentment, Trump captured the hearts of rural Americans to an extent that Cross, a columnist and former political writer for the Louisville Courier Journal, says he hadn't seen in 40 years of covering politics. Trump got 39 percent more of the working-class vote than Hillary Clinton, and he did best in the rural areas where people were the worst off. Cross dives into polling data and anecdotal signposts to divine what attracted voters to Trump.

Research showed that Trump voters were more likely motivated by issues of race, ethnicity and immigration than economics. A poll showed that Trump voters were much more likely to agree that white people can't find jobs because employers are hiring people of color; another poll showed that rural voters were worried that they're losing their culture because of immigrants.

But economics was important for some Trump voters: 60 percent of working-class Americans believe that free-trade agreements are mostly harmful because they send jobs overseas and drive down wages. Another poll showed that jobs were not likely to be a big motivator for supporting Trump.

Respect for an authoritarian leader was the biggest indicator of support for Trump. That especially applies to white evangelical Christians, who tend to view the world through an authoritarian religious lens, and white working-class Americans who don't have a college degree. Trump won 81 percent of the votes of white evangelicals.

Trump also picked up a lot of pro-gun votes, as well as a much-needed $30 million from the National Rifle Association. In addition to campaign money, the NRA helped Trump by stoking voters' fears that gun rights were in peril.

Rural outreach and media dominance was another big reason for the vote turnout. Clinton dedicated little time or resources to rural outreach, though she issued a relatively detailed rural policy platform. But Trump won out on the rural media battle with anti-elite talking points and a huge media push on rural-centric RFD-TV in the last weeks before the election. His campaign also made a deal with the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is the nation's largest owner of TV stations: in exchange for more access to Trump and his campaign, Sinclair agreed to shoot and distribute extended interviews with Trump to other stations, often rural, to run without commentary. Sinclair said Clinton declined the same deal. 

National news media were slow to realize the extent of Trump's rural dominance, though it was a major source of navel-gazing on election night and afterward. Chuck Todd of NBC News looked at a map of counties going red and said, "Rural America is basically screaming at us, 'Stop overlooking us!'" Some major media outlets have responded with a variety of efforts to take the pulse of rural America.

Governor frets about coverage of big races; says papers have 'a lot fewer assets' and voters have dubious sources

Tennessee's Bill Haslam (AP photo)

The outgoing Republican governor of Tennessee told the state's newspapers Thursday that he worries the race to succeed him, and other big elections in the Volunteer State this year, "won't be covered in the detail they traditionally have" because "there are a lot fewer assets in your world to work with."

"This is going to be a really important political year," Gov. Bill Haslam said at the Tennessee Press Association convention in Nashville. "This is a real governor’s race. We have a Senate race that’s really important, not just for the state, but the country, right? And a number of congressional seats in play. . . . Not just a free press, but an active and engaged press, matters." He said that is even more important than usual because "You're going to see unheard of outside money pouring into the state."

Andy Sher reports for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, "The governor said that 'as a candidate, you don't always like' the news coverage, but he believes it ultimately makes 'the process of running so much better. And the media is really an incredible part of the process.' Haslam, who noted he reads five print newspapers daily, also voiced concerns about what he hears from people he talks to, particularly those under age 35, about where they're getting their news."

"Haslam said when he asks most people where they get their news, many name dubious sources without editors," Jordan Buie reports for the Nashville Tennesseean. The governor said, "The answers are really discouraging to me." After his term as governor, "Haslam said he would be interested in doing 'something that helps people understand their state and local news in a better way,' and to facilitate an unbiased national conversation. "I think there is something interesting there," he said.

Iowa editor says state Freedom of Information Council was key to reporting and editorials that won him a Pulitzer Prize

Storm Lake Times Editor Art Cullen said his weekly newspaper in Iowa wouldn't have won the Pulitzer Prize without help from the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. Speaking at the Iowa Newspaper Association convention Friday in Des Moines, Cullen also warned that newspapers must appeal to younger readers with accountability journalism and editorial leadership to survive.

Cullen's Pulitzer-winning editorials were based on the paper's reporting on nitrate pollution of streams and "prairie pothole" lakes in northwest Iowa, which helped prompt the Des Moines Water Works to sue three area counties for failing to control the pollution. The counties' insurance policies didn't cover such claims, and officials wouldn't reveal how they were going to pay the legal bills, so Cullen got help from the Iowa FOI Council, which demanded the names of donors under threat of a lawsuit. The records were heavily redacted, but showed that the counties had agreed with the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Agribusiness Association of Iowa to keep the donors secret. Cullen said the AAI was subject to the state open-records law because it was acting as an agent for the counties, and the paper knew that representatives of Monsanto Co. and Koch Industries had met with AAI to discuss setting up the defense fund. The paper's investigation provided grist for Cullen's editorials.

Cullen said "a few" readers canceled subscriptions, saying the paper was "anti-farmer," but he said the Des Moines Register poll found that most rural Iowans agreed with the position of the water works, that agricultural fertilizer is primarily responsible for the nitrate pollution. He said the paper's circulation has increased, and "I think people want to see a fighter." He also said accountability journalism and editorial writing "is the future because people want to be told the right way to go."

But to survive, newspapers must use those tools to appeal to younger readers, Cullen said. "All our readers are dying," he said. "We have to figure this out in the next five years or it's goodnight, Irene."

Rural journalists win awards from Iowa Newspaper Assn.

Several rural journalists won top awards from the Iowa Newspaper Association Friday at its Des Moines convention, perhaps the largest of any newspaper association in the United States. Two publishers and a newspaper co-owner were named master editor-publishers, an award based on hard work, sound judgment, unselfish influence and an honorable life. Two editors received distinguished service awards for their contributions to their newspapers, their communities and/or the newspaper industry.

Doug Burns interviewed Barack Obama in 2007.

Doug Burns, co-owner of the Carroll Daily Times Herald and other papers, is “active in all aspects of his family’s newspapers,” his citation said. “He is well known as an outspoken advocate for rural Iowa  . . . few politicians pass through Iowa without being interviewed by him, and he is not known to throw softballs . . . He has acted as a mentor to countless young journalists.”

Paula Buenger, publisher of the Spencer Daily Reporter, was a reporter, “a sports editor in a male-dominated field,” and finally a regional publisher for Rust Communications of Cape Girardeau, Mo. “She is known for her penchant for innovation, commitment to community and her stable, reassuring voice in what can be a volatile business.”

Dodie Hook, publisher of the Akron Hometowner, “embodies the ethos of the quintessential small-town family newspaper,” her citation read. After 20 years at her hometown paper, she started a competing paper and “quickly became successful.” She has “a great relationship with City Hall” but “does not hesitate to remind her local public offices of the state’s open-meeting laws.”

Scott Spurgeon of the Bloomfield Democrat received a distinguished service awrad for his “involvement with athletic and extracurricular events,” and being “an active and passionate advocate for young people.” Don Dauterive, who is retiring from the Iowa Falls Times Citizen, got a DSA for “growing a newspaper division from representing one state to more than 15 states, all without a background in the industry.”

In the INA’s annual contest, general excellence awards went to the Carroll paper (small dailies), the N’WestIowa Review of Sheldon (large weeklies), the Dickinson County News (smaller weeklies) and the Prairie City News (smallest weeklies).

Gish Award for 2017 is presented to Cullen family of Iowa; nominations for 2018 award are being sought

Art Cullen, left, and brother John hold the award after receiving it from Institute for Rural Journalism Director Al Cross.

The Cullen family of the Storm Lake Times received the 2017 Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity in rural journalism Friday at the Iowa Newspaper Association convention. The award, named for the crusading couple that published The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for more than 50 years, recognizes the Cullen family's perseverance in covering and commenting on water-pollution issues in Iowa, often to the dislike of agribusiness interests that are sources of much of the pollution. For more on the Cullens, click here.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which gives the award and publishes The Rural Blog, is seeking nominations for the 2018 Gish Award, with a deadline of April 1. Nominations should measure up, at least in major respects, to the records of previous winners, which are detailed at www.RuralJournalism.org. For example, the Gishes withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas, and were the first winners of the award named for them.

Other winners have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian (Tex.) Record, in 2007; James E. Prince III and the late Stanley Dearman, current and former publishers of The Neshoba Democrat of Philadelphia, Miss., in 2008; Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian in 2010 for her work as editor of the Corbin, Ky., Times-Tribune and managing editor of the Jacksonville (Tex.) Daily Progress; in 2011, Stanley Nelson and the Concordia Sentinel of Ferriday, La.; in 2012, Jonathan and Susan Austin of the Yancey County News in Burnsville, N.C.. in 2014, the late Landon Wills of Kentucky's McLean County News; in 2015, the Trapp family of the Rio Grande Sun in Española, N.M.; and in 2016, Ivan Foley of the Platte County Landmark in Missouri.

Nominators should send detailed letters to Institute Director Al Cross, explaining how their nominees show the kind of exemplary courage, tenacity and integrity that the Gishes demonstrated in their rigorous pursuit of rural journalism. Detailed documentation does not have to accompany the nomination, but is helpful in choosing finalists, and additional documentation may be requested or required. Questions may be directed to Cross at 859-257-3744 or al.cross@uky.edu.

A liberal entrepreneur set out to help West Virginia and got a lesson in humility

Rural areas are fighting uphill battles on multiple fronts: job creation, opioids, infrastructure, health care, and more, and there are no easy solutions. A wealthy urban entrepreneur found that out the hard way after he decided to try to "fix" a small town in West Virginia. Though Joe Kapp has become a staunch and seasoned advocate for the area's blue collar population, he got off to a rocky start with locals who felt his efforts were condescending and hamfisted. It's a long story but well worth the read. Check it out here.

Defining 'small town' in Wyoming, the least populous state

The Casper Star Tribune recently kicked off its year-long "Out Here" series on Wyoming's rural areas with a thorny question: what qualifies as a small town in the country's least populous state?

The word "rural" doesn't have one simple definition: the Census Bureau doesn't define it directly, but it does define "urban clusters" as areas with at least 2,500 people. Less populated areas might be considered rural by that definition. Another federal definition says a county is rural if it doesn't have a city with at least 50,000 people, the requirement for a metropolitan area. Wyoming has 99 incorporated towns, but only two were larger than 50,000 as of the 2010 census: the capital city of Cheyenne at 59,466, and Casper at 55,316. Wyoming has a different legal standard for smallness: any town with a population of at least 4,000 is a "first-class city."

"In a recent online survey, Star-Tribune readers were split on how many people live in a Wyoming 'small town'," Arno Rosenfeld reports for the Star Tribune. "Twenty-seven percent thought it was any place with fewer than 20,000 people, while nearly 22 percent thought a small town in the Cowboy State had no more than 1,500 people."

Ken Johnson, a University of New Hampshire professor and rural expert, said people in rural America have different standards for what qualifies as a big or small town, such as the presence of a Walmart, courthouse or a hospital.

Gale Gunzenhauser, who lives in the 3,000 person town of Bar Nunn, has a more practical definition: "It's not crowded. I know my neighbors and my neighbors know me, but nobody bothers nobody," he told Rosenfeld, adding that he moved there to escape the sound of beer bottles breaking on the sidewalk outside his apartment in Casper. "In Bar Nunn, Gunzenhauser said, you couldn’t hear the bottles breaking: the sidewalks were made of dirt."

Recent accidents prompt more debate about whether children should operate heavy farm equipment

Kholer Schachtschneider, 8, operates a skid steer on his family farm.
(New York Times photo by Alyssa Schukar)

Kids helping their parents on the family farm is an age-old tradition, but a string of grisly injuries has sparked intense discussion among farm safety groups and in rural communities about when and whether it's safe for children to operate or play near heavy equipment such as tractors or skid steers.

A child younger than 16 dies every three days in an agriculture-related accident, and lack of age restrictions on farm equipment are a key factor, according to the National Center for Rural Agriculture Health and Safety. That's a higher number of youth fatalities than in all other industries combined.

President Obama's administration proposed a law to keep kids from operating heavy equipment, but farmers and rural lawmakers decried the move as a nanny state overreach, though the proposal would have exempted children working on their parents' farms. Federal law says children of any age can do any job on their parents' farms at any time.

Farming parents say teaching their children the family business "is a way of passing on lessons about hard work, responsibility and the pulse of the land that their children will some day take over," Jack Healy reports for The New York Times. And with so many family farms barely making a profit, the whole family has to pitch in to help make ends meet.

But an accident can cause financial problems for farmers too, as it did for the Schachtschneider family when 6-year-old Cullen shredded his left leg in a skid steer last year. The Wisconsin family had to apply for a low-income health insurance program for him, and faces a mountain of bills. But Cullen's 9-year-old brother Maric and his 8-year-old brother Kholer are still driving the skid loader because the work still needs to be done.

3 states and a province back plan to keep carp out of Great Lakes; key site is in Illinois, which isn't on board yet

Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and the Canadian province of Ontario are teaming up to help keep invasive Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. Other states and provinces on the lakes (Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Quebec) have not joined.

"The initiative would support upgrades to the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Ill., a key choke point between the carp-infested Mississippi River watershed and Lake Michigan," John Flesher reports for The Associated Press. "A $275 million draft plan released last year by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would attempt to block the carps' path toward the lake with a gauntlet of devices, including an electric barrier, noisemakers, and water jets." Illinois has resisted the plan, fearing that it would disrupt freight shipping.

If the carp make it into the lakes, they could out-compete native species and destroy a $7 billion fishing industry. One adult carp was found last June in the Little Calumet River in Chicago, just nine miles from Lake Michigan.

The Brandon Road plan could begin construction as soon as 2022 and be completed three years later. It calls for the federal government to pay for 65 percent of the $270 million projected cost of the project and for "partners outside the federal government to pay about $8 million a year for operation and maintenance once the system is up and running. Coalition members would share those costs for five years while seeking other long-term sources," Flesher reports. Each state and province's contribution would be proportional to the amount of Great Lakes area it contains. Michigan has more than 40 percent of the lakes' surface area so it would pay the most, followed by Ontario with 36 percent, Wisconsin with 10 percent and Ohio with 4 percent.

Environmental group says it will sue coal plant owner for toxic waste from coal ash leaching into Illinois river

Toxic coal ash waste leaks into the Vermilion River (Prairie Rivers Network photo)

In a case that could be repeated all over the country, a nonprofit environmental organization announced this week that it will file suit against a coal company for violating the federal Clean Water Act. Prairie Rivers Network alleges that Dynegy Inc. allowed toxic waste from one of its now-shuttered coal plants to seep into the state's only National Scenic River. PRN said it will sue because federal and state regulators haven't addressed the pollution from the plant, which is located on the banks of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River near Oakwood, about 25 miles east of Urbana.

Chicago Tribune graphic; click on the image to enlarge it.

The Vermilion Power Station was built in the mid-1950s by Illinois Power and was later purchased by Dynegy. "Before Dynegy closed the plant in 2011, the two companies deposited more than 3.3 million cubic yards of coal ash into pits next to the river — enough to fill the Empire State Building nearly 2½ times. Testing by Dynegy and the Prairie Rivers Network shows the multicolored waste oozing into the water contains dangerous levels of heavy metals found in coal ash, including arsenic, chromium, iron, lead and manganese," Michael Hawthorne reports for the Chicago Tribune.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency cited Dynegy for pollution at the site in 2012; the case is still open. Because the plant has been closed for so long, the ash pits are exempt from Obama-era federal coal ash disposal regulations. President Trump reconsidered the regulations partly because of lobbying from Dynegy and other energy companies, Hawthorne reports. Dynegy has proposed capping the waste pits to prevent rain and snowmelt from washing coal ash into the water, but the river banks are eroding up to three feet per year, making that plan unlikely to work.

A green light for work requirements may trigger expansion of Medicaid in conservative Republican states

"Republican lawmakers in a half-dozen states are launching fresh efforts to expand Medicaid, the nation’s health insurance program for the poor, as party holdouts who had blocked the expansion say they’re now open to it because of Trump administration guidelines allowing states to impose new requirements that program recipients work to get benefits," Jeff Stein reports for The Washington Post.

That includes efforts in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, North Carolina, Virginia and Kansas, though it's unclear whether enough conservatives will support expanding Medicaid at all, or whether Democrats will support doing so with work requirements attached. Ten states have already filed requests for work requirements; Kentucky was the first state to have them approved. 

Republican-friendly versions of the program could increase Medicaid's reach into the 17 conservative Republican states that didn't expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, albeit with reduced benefits.

Rural projects to make up a quarter of Trump's infrastructure plan; other details scant

In his State of the Union address, President Trump asked Congress to write a bill that would fund at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure development. A fact sheet released yesterday provided some insight into the long-awaited plan, calling for an unspecified amount of increased federal spending over the next decade to spur additional spending from cities, states and private companies on major projects. "A week ago, a leaked document said the administration would seek $200 billion in grants over 10 years. The federal government now pays a larger share of the cost of infrastructure work," Chuck Abbott reports for Successful Farming.

Though the fact sheet is short on details, it lays out some parameters for the plan. Half of the new infrastructure funds would go toward incentivizing state and local investments, and one quarter of the funds will go to rural infrastructure projects such as "rebuilding roads, providing clean water to rural families and businesses, expanding broadband access, and supplying affordable, reliable power."

The increased infrastructure spending would be offset by as-yet unspecified budget cuts. "Officials would not detail where those cuts would come from, or how the proposal would effectively leverage at least $6.50 in additional infrastructure spending for every dollar spent by the federal government, a ratio many infrastructure experts consider far-fetched," Jim Tankersley and Julie Hirschfeld Davis report for The New York Times. The plan leaves it up to Congress to figure out the details; that may make for an uphill fight, considering the strained relationship between Congressional Republicans and Democrats these days.

'Waters of the U.S.' rule dead; EPA says it will consult with states, farmers, environmentalists about replacement

Today Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt concluded the formal process of suspending the most controversial Obama-era water regulation for the next two years, and said he plans to release a different version of the rule later this year. His order takes effect Tuesday, Feb. 6, and lawsuits are expected shortly thereafter.

The 2015 "Waters of the United States" rule defined the scope of the Clean Water Act, and would have limited the use of pollutants like fertilizers that could run off into small streams. It also defined waterways more broadly, which caused expensive headaches for farmers. At the behest of farmers, rural landowners and real estate developers, eighteen states challenged the rule, and in October 2015 it was blocked by a federal appeals court pending further court challenges, Coral Davenport reports for The New York Times.

"The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been racing to pause [WOTUS] since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a nationwide ban on the regulation Jan. 22," Amena Saiyid reports for Bloomberg Environment. "The Supreme Court could issue its final order to enforce its decision as early as Feb. 15, which means the rule would have taken effect across most of the country. A district court has already blocked the rule in 14 states."

Pruitt said the rollback he signed today will avoid confusion and uncertainty that could be caused by the ruling. The attorneys general of California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia have signaled that they will consider suing the administration over the suspension, Saiyid reports.

It's unclear when Pruitt will share his replacement plan. He promised to rewrite it no later than May and have it in place by the end of 2018, but the EPA's regulatory agenda says the final rewrite won't be out until June 2019, Saiyid reports. The EPA and the Corps plan to consult with state water, environmental and agriculture officials this month about the scope of the Clean Water Act.

Critics say new insurance policy denying 'non-essential' ER visits expects patients to diagnose themselves

Cloyd with her daughter
(Vox photo by Luke Sharrett)

Anthem, one of the country's largest health-insurance companies, is increasingly denying coverage for emergency-room visits it concludes were not true emergencies. The policy, which has been implemented in Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia and Missouri, exempts patients younger than 15, weekend visits, and patients who live 15 miles or father from an urgent care center. Other patients can be left on the hook with huge ER bills, though, Sarah Kliff reports for Vox.

That was the case with Brittany Cloyd of Frankfort, Ky., after she went to the ER for severe abdominal pain that she thought could be appendicitis. She was diagnosed with ovarian cysts, and was prescribed pain medication and told to make a follow-up appointment with her gynecologist. Anthem refused to pay the $12,596 bill because it deemed pelvic pain not severe enough for immediate care. In the refusal letter, Anthem listed "stroke, heart attack, and severe bleeding" as examples of acceptable medical conditions for an ER visit. Anthem denied Cloyd's bill twice, but approved it after Kliff asked the company for an interview.

"Anthem’s new policy mirrors similar recent developments in state Medicaid programs, which increasingly ask enrollees to pay a higher price for emergency room trips that the state determines to be non-urgent," Kliff reports. "Indiana implemented this type of policy in 2015, and the Trump administration recently approved a request from Kentucky to do the same. Beginning in July, Kentucky will charge Medicaid enrollees $20 for their first 'inappropriate' emergency room visit, $50 for their second, and $75 for their third." 

Anthem argues that it's trying to cut health-care costs and keep people from using the ER inappropriately. But critics say the policy effectively forces patients to practice medicine and diagnose themselves. "It’s not fair to expect the patient [to come] in knowing their diagnosis. If they did, they wouldn’t come in and wait for ours," said Renee Hsia, a practicing physician and professor of health policy studies at the University of California San Francisco.

National Rural Teacher of the Year is a hunting and fishing teacher in upstate New York

Scott Jordan

The National Rural Education Association has named Scott Jordan the National Rural Teacher of the Year. Jordan teaches fisheries and wildlife technologies in the Cuba-Rushford Central School District in upstate New York. It took a while for the NREA to find Jordan to tell him the big news, because he and his students were hunting in New Zealand. Trips like that are what made Jordan a candidate in the first place, said NREA executive director Allen Pratt.

"It was the impact on the kids," Pratt told Tom Dinki of the Olean Times Herald, "and, I think, the hands-on approach and that he could reach the highest academic student to the student that may not be at the highest level." Jordan also teaches the kids with hands-on activities close to home; he built a fish hatchery, log cabin and deer enclosure on the school grounds. The students have a nationally televised show (which they edit) called "CRCS Outdoors" that airs on the Pursuit Channel.

"Hunting and fishing lets kids gain confidence that you don’t see in a lot of other things," said Jordan, whose program teaches almost 60 high school students. The award includes about $3,000 for Jordan to use in the program.

Senators want to let health-care providers use telemedicine to prescribe drugs to treat addiction, to help rural areas

"Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Alaska's two Republican senators -- Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan -- are requesting the Drug Enforcement Administration issue a new regulation that would let certain health-care providers obtain a special registration letting them use telemedicine to prescribe medication for an opioid addiction," Rachel Roubein reports for The Hill.

Doctors can't prescribe medication for an opioid addiction without an in-person medical evaluation, but rural residents increasingly rely on telemedicine, and few live near a dedicated addiction treatment center. Medication-assisted therapy is the most effective known treatment for opioid addiction.

In their letter, the senators note that President Trump specifically supported expanding telemedicine services in fighting the opioid crisis, but the DEA has not yet authorized a special registration process for doctors to prescribe controlled substances via telemedicine.

The DEA is taking some steps to address the crisis, though: it announced last week that nurse practitioners and physician assistants will now be authorized to prescribe and dispense buprenorphine from their offices.

Fact-checking rural issues in the State of the Union address

In his first State of the Union address last night, President Trump struck an optimistic tone heavy on American exceptionalism, with conservative crowd-pleasers like faith, family, gun rights, and supporting police and the military. He also included some tough language on America's competitors and enemies. Here are some highlights of the speech that touched on rural concerns, along with fact-checking and commentary. For further reference, see the annotated scripts of the speech by The Washington Post, NPR, and Politifact.

"We have ended the war on American energy — and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal. We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world," Trump said. There is no such thing as clean coal, and efforts to make it a reality have stalled.

Trump touted the nation's economy, noting that the stock market is at an all-time high and that unemployment claims are at a 45-year low. Both are true, though rural unemployment continues to lag and most of the world is in a bull market.

The president said the U.S. has created 2.4 million new jobs, with 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. NPR's Scott Horsley notes that this total includes job gains from November and December 2016 as well as January 2017, when Barack Obama was still president, and that job gains were 2.7 million in the last 14 months of Obama. But the past year's slowdown in job growth isn't a slam on Trump; Horsley writes: It means the economy is nearing full employment.

Trump also said the U.S. is finally seeing rising wages after years of wage stagnation. However, Politifact says this is mostly false: "By the most common measure, wages did go up for the first three quarters of Trump's presidency, but they fell in the fourth, wiping out all the gains on his watch and then some."

Trump also talked about the recent tax cuts, which he said were the biggest in American history. But when gauged by their share of the gross domestic product, 0.9 percent, they're only the eighth biggest since 1918 (the income tax was imposed in 1913), Fact Checker Glenn Kessler reports for the Post. And though the cuts may benefit the middle class and small businesses in the short term, Politifact notes that the wealthy will enjoy a disproportionate share of the cuts.

The president touched on international trade, saying "We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones" and that he wants "fair" and "reciprocal" trade relationships. But his protectionist tendencies have hurt agriculture and meatpacking, as when he pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And failing to reach a compromise on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is in its sixth round of negotiation, would likely hurt agriculture and many rural counties, especially in the South. And Trump's tough talk on China, coupled with the new solar panel tariffs, may spark a trade war that would hurt soybean farmers even as it helps coal.

Trump also vowed to keep fighting the opioid epidemic, saying "We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge." Paige Cunningham of the Post found it troubling that he cast the crisis as mainly a law-enforcement problem. He said in passing that better addiction treatment is needed, but offered no details.

The president called on Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investment. Politifact disputed Trump's claim that a minor road-building permit can take 10 years: "Recent government studies say the permit approval time ranges from 4.6 to 6.6 years. The only study we found that claims a 10-year approval is common comes from an anti-regulation group, which raises questions about its reliability."

Libraries step in where local news presence declines

In some places where local news presence is declining, public libraries are stepping in to fill the vacuum. "It makes sense that librarians would get it right. Librarians understand the value of accuracy. They are familiar with databases. Americans by and large trust librarians, actually much more than they trust journalists," David Beard reports for The Atlantic. "And in a nation where traditional local news outlets are cutting back, their advertising coffers drained by Google and Facebook, their ownership increasingly by hedge funds or other out-of-town enterprises, where else can a citizen go? In some communities, the questions are basic: Who will sift through and list the best events so residents could decide whether to participate? Who would understand what makes an area distinctive and would get its history right?"

Sometimes a library's role is informal, as happened after a 2012 school shooting in a small town outside Cleveland. Author Marilyn Johnson said the town library's Facebook page was the best place to find detailed breaking news on the shooting. Sometimes it's more formal, like when Weare, N.H., librarian Mike Sullivan volunteered to write a weekly newsletter after residents complained that nobody knew when local events were happening. And some libraries are partnering with established local news sources to create and distribute news.

"To be clear, libraries are no silver bullet to everything that ails local news. Sullivan's New Hampshire weekly won’t break investigations like The Washington Post," Beard writes. "Libraries, with most of their funding dependent on local officials, aren’t a natural source for government-accountability stories. But library-backed efforts can help restore the foundation and appetite for local news—the love of community, curiosity about it, confidence to participate in it."

U.S. poet laureate launches reading tour of rural places

Smith

U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith has launched a pilot project to visit rural areas, where she says book festivals don't often take her. "I'm tasked with raising the conversation about poetry . . . What I'm interested in within that larger framework is talking about poems and poetry in places where those conversations don't often happen," Smith told Andrew Travers with The Aspen Times in Colorado. "I've been excited about going into small, rural communities that don't necessarily have access to those kinds of regular programming."

Smith, who was appointed last year by the Library of Congress, kicked off her tour earlier this month with a visit to New Mexico. On Jan. 13 she held a reading at Cannon Air Force Base outside Clovis, an agricultural town on the eastern plains of the state. On Jan. 14 she visited Santa Fe Indian School, and the day afterward visited Santa Clara Pueblo, a Native American community north of Santa Fe, Mary Hudetz reports for The Associated Press. She is expected to visit rural Kentucky and South Carolina in the coming months, Travers reports.

A creative writing professor at Princeton University, Smith won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for her work Life on Mars. Her memoir Ordinary Light was a National Book Award finalist in 2015.

Average age of American farmers is increasing partly because they can't afford to retire, farmer-columnist writes

Art Thicke, 66, and his wife Jean, of LaCrescent, Minn., were
featured in a recent story in the Winona Daily News about aging
farmers in Minnesota. (Daily News photo by Andrew Link)

The average age of American farmers keeps going up, and one big reason is that older farmers can't afford to retire, Richard Oswald reports for The Daily Yonder. Declining prices for grain, oilseeds and cattle, combined with high input costs and rent, make it hard for farmers to make a profit. So a farmer who wants to retire can often only make money from selling machinery and land. That leaves farmers with no retirement fund if they pass that land and machinery on to the next generation. And farmers get hit with taxes either way, Oswald writes: "Everything Granddad owns is subject to local taxes and debt repayments if he keeps it, or capital gains and income taxes if he sells it."

The situation is especially bleak for small farmers, who tend to be most in debt. A family farm with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's reported average 12 percent debt-to-asset ratio owes about $200,000. And those who don't have debt likely make far too little profit to benefit from the increased inheritance tax exemptions in the recent tax overhaul, which were touted by Republicans as a boon to family farmers.

"It’s a problem that’s likely to continue until a money-following, PAC-driven Congress obsessed with problems of the ultra-rich finally sees the problems real farmers face," Oswald reports.

Thursday is deadline for weeklies' editorial writing contest

Feb. 1 is the deadline to enter editorials or staff-written opinion pieces in the 58th annual Golden Quill Award Contest of the
International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

All newspapers that publish fewer than five days per week are eligible, and entries must have been published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2017. Entries should identify local issues that are or should be of concern to the community, offer an opinion, and support a cause of action.

You can nominate someone else's editorial(s) or send your own, and you can enter two editorials per person. The cost is $20 per person for ISWNE members or $25 for non-members. If two people are entering from the same newsroom, the cost is $40 for ISWNE members and $50 for non-members.

Click here for more information about the contest, and click here for a printable entry form with more specifics about how to enter.

Grassroots Editor, ISWNE's quarterly journal, will republish the 12 best editorials in the Summer 2018 issue. The Golden Quill winner will be invited to ISWNE's annual conference in Portland, Ore., July 11-15, 2018. The winner will receive a conference scholarship and travel expenses up to $500.

'Day of action' Wed. focuses on student journalists' rights

The Student Press Law Center is observing the first-ever Hazelwood Day of Action on Wednesday, Jan. 31 -- 30 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that student journalists lose some of their constitutional rights at the school door. Because of the Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision, school administrators can remove material from student publications that they don't like, or even de-publish an entire publication.

The observance will kick off a year of activities and collaborations meant to raise awareness about the importance of a free student news media and the need for legislation, like that advocated by the group New Voices, to protect student journalists' rights.

Planned events for tomorrow include Facebook Live discussions on the SPLC page, coordinated Twitter blasts, and an Instagram selfie challenge.

Rural journalist rushed to the scene of school shooting and discovered her son was the suspect

Marshall County students at a prayer vigil the day after the shooting.
(Courier Journal photo)

A rural newspaper editor recently had a horrific connection with the news she was covering. When Mary Garrison Minyard, the editor of the online-only Marshall County Daily, arrived at the scene of last week's school shooting in Benton, Ky., she soon discovered that the alleged shooter was her son.

Her colleague Ann Beckett said she went to comfort Minyard and take over the story, Andrew Wolfson reports for the Louisville Courier Journal, which published suspect Gabe Parker's yearbook photo; his name has not been officially released, and the Daily has not published it.

Two students were fatally shot and 14 others wounded at Marshall County High School on Jan. 23. Parker, 15, has been charged as a juvenile with two counts of murder and 12 counts of assault. Prosecutors plan to have him tried as an adult.

A neighbor told the CJ that Minyard does not keep guns in her home. Minyard shared custody with Gabe's father, Austin Parker. Gabe's stepmother, Jennifer Lynn Parker, who divorced Parker following a domestic violence incident in 2016, said the elder Parker was "controlling and a bully" and has "always had a short fuse."

Classmates described Gabe as a quiet boy who was well-liked by others in the school band, but said he was "snappy" after Christmas break, and had talked about violence and and an interest in joining the Mafia. Other students said on social media that he may have been bullied, the CJ reports.

Fund redevelops rural and small-town properties to help fund nonprofits in Appalachian Kentucky

Community builder Lora Smith is working to help Eastern Kentucky with a first-of-its-kind fund to boost to nonprofits serving the area. The organization also invests directly in communities on Kentucky's 54 Appalachian counties through real-estate acquisition and development to improve dilapidated small-town downtowns.

Smith

"Smith co-founded the Appalachian Impact Fund with Louisville philanthropist Brook Smith (no relation) in 2016; the organization opened its doors in January 2017 in a former hardware store the fund purchased on Main Street in Hazard," Kathie Stamps reports for The Lane Report, a Kentucky business-news outlet. "The three-story building serves as headquarters for the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, Appalachian Food Summit, Appalachian Arts Alliance and other nonprofits." They offer lunchtime yoga on Mondays to locals, and will soon offer co-working space and venue rental space.

Smith formerly oversaw grants in Central Appalachia for the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and worked with three other organizers to found the annual Appalachian Food Summit in 2013, which focuses on sustainable agriculture and regional food systems. "Sustainable agriculture and local food businesses are incredibly important to creating a sense of place, supporting healthy communities with good food access, and can be a real economic driver in Kentucky," Smith told Stamps. "It’s community and culture that holds us together and sustains us during difficult times . .  . And it’s our unique natural and cultural assets that are creating an exciting and bright future in the mountains."

The Corbin native has family stretching back seven generations in Whitley County, on the Tennessee border. She studied anthropology at New York University and folklore and documentaries as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, but came back home, saying she "could never stay away too long from Kentucky and the mountains." She, her husband and their two children live on a 120-acre organic farm in Jackson County, near the northwest salient of the East Kentucky Coalfield.