Food banks benefit from Trump's trade-aid program for farmers, but have trouble refrigerating all that milk

Food banks all over the country are stocked with fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and beans because of a federal program that helps farmers hurt by the trade war with China.

Most of last year's $12 billion Department of Agriculture program was for farmers, but it included $1.2 billion to buy surplus commodities and distribute them to food banks, schools, and other places that serve low-income people. The program was expanded and extended this year, for a total of $16 billion in aid with $1.4 billion of that going to food banks, April Simpson reports for Stateline.

Food-bank leaders say the program has helped them provide healthy food for their clients, but said maintaining and distributing fresh food has meant unexpected expenses. A huge increase of liquid milk donations, for example, has triggered headaches for food banks as they try to figure out how to keep it refrigerated. And "critics say donating food to the needy is merely a beneficial side effect of the aid program and won’t put a substantial dent in food waste or hunger," Simpson reports.

"That combination of trade war and additional food for food banks is not the policy mix I would have recommended," Tufts University food economist Parke Wilde told Simpson. "It’s better to have a fairly well-functioning trade policy and less need for mitigation for food banks."

The federal government, along with some state governments, are trying to increase farmer donations to food pantries in other ways. The 2018 Farm Bill designated $20 million over the next five years to create a farm-to-food bank program, and at least eight states give farmers tax credits for donating agricultural products to food banks, Simpson reports.

Dems want to see USDA data behind plan to let pork plants do some of their own inspections and lift line-speed limits

Inspector at a hog slaughterhouse (Photo from Pinterest)

House Democrats are balking at a Department of Agriculture plan to shift some safety inspections from federal inspectors to pork-plant employees and lift all restrictions on speeds of processing lines.

During an Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday, Democrats ordered USDA's inspector general to investigate data used when the agency developed the new program. An investigation "could delay the proposal by months and, depending on the findings, could lead to changes or a withdrawal of the proposal, experts said," Kimberly Kindy reports for The Washington Post. But before that could happen, the Republican-controlled Senate would have to go along, because the order is an amendment to the USDA appropriations bill for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

The plan, which USDA proposed in February, was expected to be finalized this summer. It would reduce the number of federal inspectors on slaughter lines by about 40 percent and would save the agency an estimated $6 million annually; eliminating the cap on line speeds, now 18 hogs a minute, would increase meatpacker profits by more than $2 million a year.

Democrats on the committee cried foul."I believe it would endanger food safety, worker safety and animal welfare," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. She introduced the order, which "calls for an investigation into all data used by the USDA to develop the proposal, including worker-safety data that was not publicly disclosed until after the closure of the public review and comment period for the proposed rule," Kindy reports. "It also said no federal funds should be used for the new system unless any problems identified by the inspector general were first addressed."

Kindy notes, "The proposed rule is based on a study that began 20 years ago, ultimately including five large test plants. Efforts to expand the program have sputtered under past administrations, but Trump administration officials have said for months that they expect the system to be in place soon. The agency said that 40 of the 612 hog plants want to use the proposed system; those seeking to opt in would collectively account for 90 percent of the pork consumed in the United States."

Coyotes spread nationwide, filling voids left by hated wolves

Canis latrans (AP photo by Karen Nichols)

Coyotes have spread all over the country from their native Southwest and are showing up in increasingly populated areas because of government-sanctioned programs that killed most red and gray wolves, their main competitors.

"As the Trump administration seeks to strip away legal protections for the last remaining wolves, state officials are contending with the consequences of a massacre carried out without regard to science," Darryl Fears reports for The Washington Post.

Coyotes are widely acknowledged as a nuisance: they rarely kill pets, but the voracious omnivores happily dine on fruit, deer, rodents, and small barnyard animals like chickens or even turkeys. They're hard to get rid of, too, Fears writes: "Coyotes have a unique response to population pressure: They make more coyotes. Kill half a million one year, experts say, and that many will pop up the next."

Federal and state agencies are trying to reduce coyote populations with incentives such as cash bounties and hunting contests, but it's not really working. "All told, 500,000 coyotes per year are killed by hunters, state agencies and federal wildlife services. The reason why they still come back is because of their body size. They can survive on just about anything," Jonathan Way, founder of Eastern Coyote/Coywolf Research in Massachusetts, told Fears.

Logging safety issues examined in academic journal

An academic journal has devoted a special issue to the dangers in the logging and forestry industries.

It's a big problem: "The United States is the top timber-producing nation in the world, but that distinction comes with a cost: Harvesting timber is America’s most dangerous occupation. Over the past decade, an average of 66 loggers died each year, at a fatal injury rate more than 30 times the all-industry average," Scott Heiberger writes for the National Farm Medicine Center. "Loggers’ work is physically demanding. It is carried out in remote locations amidst unpredictable weather and rough terrain. Loggers deal with massive weights and irresistible momentum of falling, rolling, and sliding trees and logs. Most injuries involve trees and other falling objects."

The current issue of the Journal of Agromedicine is all about health and safety issues in the timber and forestry industries. That includes immigrant workers, technology, injury data collection, regional logging systems, firefighting, tree planting, and pruning, Heiberger writes. Read the 13 articles here.

GOP lawmakers consider blocking Trump's tariffs on Mexico, say U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade treaty is at risk

Congressional Republicans are considering blocking President Trump's planned tariffs on Mexico because they increasingly agree that the tariffs would cost American businesses and consumers more money, according to people with inside knowledge, Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim, and Damian Paletta report for The Washington Post. "Trump has said he would put in place 5 percent tariffs on all Mexican goods as of June 10, rising by another 5 percent a month until October, unless Mexico stops all illegal migration into the United States," they note.

The U.S. has a free-trade agreement with Mexico, so Trump must declare a national emergency at the border to enact the tariffs. Congress can override the declaration by passing a resolution that Trump could veto; a two-thirds vote of both houses would be needed to override the veto, and that would be the biggest rebuke ever by this Republican Congress to this Republican president.

"Congress passed such a resolution in March after Trump reallocated the border wall funds, but he vetoed it. Now, as frustration on Capitol Hill grows over Trump’s latest tariff threat, a second vote could potentially command a veto-proof majority to nullify the national emergency, which in turn could undercut both the border-wall effort and the new tariffs," the Post reports. "The vote, which would be the GOP’s most dramatic act of defiance since Trump took office, could also have the effect of blocking billions of dollars in border-wall funding that the president had announced in February when he declared a national emergency at the southern border."

On Monday, lawmakers from both parties urged Trump to abandon the tariffs, and threatened not to pass the pending trade deal with Mexico and Canada. White House officials said they still planned to impose the tariffs, which they said are unrelated to the trade deal, the Post reports.

Montana journalism school project and Canadian inquiry put spotlight on violence against Native American women

University of Montana School of Journalism graphic illustration for this year's Native News reporting package

In the past three years, 671 Native American women have gone missing and/or been murdered in the U.S., according to an impressive news package from the University of Montana School of Journalism. The real number is likely much higher, since the data is often poorly collected by federal, state and tribal governments.

The disappearances and deaths "are not just numbers or data to be formed into graph lines, but women’s lives ended or hanging in the limbo of disappearance. The 2019 Montana Native News Project investigates the complex crisis of Native American women disappearing in Montana, who they leave behind and how communities are trying to address the issue," write the project editors and advisers. The school covers the Native communities in the state and produces an annual report.

Women, especially women of color, continue to suffer worldwide because of trauma and inequality, but Native American women are on the forefront of confronting the issue, the editors write. The Sovereign Bodies Institute, which worked with the journalism students on the project, began raising awareness about it by creating a database of missing and murdered indigenous women.

The issue is receiving increasing attention in Canada, too. Human rights abuses against indigenous women and girls have led to violence that amounts to genocide, according to a years-long government inquiry that released its findings Monday. The report of more than 1,000 pages also highlights violence against LGBT+ indigenous people, is "the conclusion of more than two years of research involving at least 2,380 people who shared their stories or artwork with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls," Merrit Kennedy reports for NPR.

The report recommends many actions to end the violence. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who ordered the inquiry, promised to develop a plan for meaningful action, Kennedy reports.

Unfavorable weather puts U.S. corn planting at slowest pace on record, says USDA; soybeans are way behind too

Historically bad weather in the Midwest has slowed corn planting to the slowest pace on record. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported on Monday that corn planting was 67 percent complete, well behind the five-year average of 96%.

"As of Sunday, Iowa farmers had 80% of that state’s corn crop planted vs. a 99% five-year average. Illinois farmers have 45% of their corn seeded, behind a 98% five-year average. Indiana has 31% planted vs. a 94% five-year average. In the eastern Corn Belt, Nebraska farmers have 88% of their corn planted vs. a 98% five-year average," Mike McGinnis reports for Successful Farming.

Soybeans are way behind, too. The report estimated that 39% of the U.S. soybean crop has been planted, compared to a 79% five-year average. "Iowa has 41% of its soybean crop in the ground compared with an 89% five-year average. Illinois has 21% of its crop seeded, compared with an 84% five-year average. Indiana soybean growers have 17% of their crop in the ground vs. an 80% five-year average," McGinnis reports.

In a win for rural areas, high court nixes Medicare reductions to hospitals whose patients are disproportionately poor

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Department of Health and Human Services improperly changed the Medicare reimbursement formula for "disproportionate share hospitals," which receive more money because they treat a disproportionate share of poor people. That's good news for rural hospitals, which are overall more dependent on so-called DSH payments.

"In a 7-1 decision, the justices said HHS needed a notice-and-comment period for the Medicare DSH calculation change," Susannah Luthi reports for Modern Healthcare. "Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the decision that HHS' position for not following the procedure was 'ambiguous at best.'"

Gorsuch wrote that, because Medicare is such a large program, even small changes can make a big difference in millions of lives and need to be considered carefully. "Because affected members of the public received no advance warning and no chance to comment first, and because the government has not identified a lawful excuse for neglecting its statutory notice-and-comment obligations, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the new policy cannot stand," he wrote. 

"Disproportionate Share Hospital cuts have been delayed several times since first scheduled in 2014, but had been set to take effect in 2020 — beginning with a reduction of $4 billion and increasing to $8 billion by 2025," Dana Elfin reports for Healthcare Dive.

Virginia governor plans special session on gun control

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam will call the legislature into session this summer "to take up a package of gun-control legislation he said is urgently needed to prevent killings like Friday's mass shooting in Virginia Beach," reports Alan Suderman of The Associated Press.

Northam's legislation includes a ban on silencers and high capacity magazines like those used in the shooting at the Virginia Beach city hall, and would broaden "the ability of local governments to limit guns in city buildings," AP reports. It would also require background checks of all gun buyers, limit handgun purchases to one per month and "allow authorities to temporarily seize someone's guns if they are a shown to be threat to themselves or others."

Virginia has a strong, rural-based gun culture. However, "Polls have shown that Virginians increasingly favor tightening the state’s gun laws, which are among the most permissive in the nation, notes Gregory Schneider of The Washington Post. AP notes, "The governor . . . made the issue a top priority of his 2017 gubernatorial campaign, drawing from his experience as a pediatrician and Army doctor who has treated children and soldiers wounded by firearms."

"The topic is especially sensitive in an election year when all 140 seats in the legislature are on the November ballot," Schneider notes. "Republicans are nursing two-seat majorities in both the Senate and the House of Delegates, and Democrats are hoping to inspire bigger-than-usual turnout to change the balance of power."

AP notes, "Friday's shooting has been Northam's first major test since a scandal over a racist photo in his medical school yearbook nearly drove him from office four months ago. . . .Republicans have previously rejected Northam's gun control bills out of hand," but House Majority Leader Tommy Norment told Williamsburg's Virginia Gazette, "I think there ought to be a meaningful discussion legislatively and in the community about gun control."

Rural hospitals are hiring more foreign-born workers

"The U.S. faces a massive shortage of health-care professionals over the next decade, including up to 120,000 physicians by 2030, according to data by the Association of American Medical Colleges," Ramon Taylor reports for Voice of America. "With an aging U.S. population and workforce, immigrant doctors and nurses are playing a growing role in health care, especially in rural areas where staff shortages are most severe. But . . . their help alone may not be enough to end the crisis."

 

Berkshire Eagle in rural western Massachusetts is thriving after group of local investors bought it back from a chain

UPDATE, June 19: Alexandra Olson of The Associated Press reports in a 2,700-word story, "The Eagle is still struggling, and its survival is far from assured. Readers are trickling, not flocking, back. But if it does fail, it won’t be for lack of effort. The Eagle’s owners, editors and staff are waging an all-out campaign to revitalize local journalism in the Berkshires and southern Vermont."

Fred Rutberg (Boston Globe
photo by Nathan Klima)

A daily newspaper in rural western Massachusetts has experienced a revival after locals bought it back from a chain in 2016.

The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield was a "once-great daily whose staff, circulation, and prestige all declined dramatically during two decades of corporate ownership," Mark Shanahan reports for The Boston Globe. Until recently, it was owned by Colorado-based MNG Enterprises (formerly known as Digital First Media), a hedge fund subsidiary that owns dozens of papers and has been derided as "vulture capitalists."

In 2016 a retiring local district court judge, Fred Rutberg, decided to buy the Eagle back. "Backed by a group with local ties and deep pockets, Rutberg bought the moribund paper in May 2016 and began investing in it, hiring reporters and editors, adding new sections, revitalizing its website, even spending money on better-quality newsprint," Shanahan reports.

Under Rutberg's leadership, "So far, the results are promising. Print subscriptions, which had been dropping for years, are holding steady, and the Eagle’s digital subscriptions are growing — by an impressive 60 percent since June 2018," Shanahan reports. "Last year, the Eagle received the New England Newspaper & Press Association’s award for general excellence, and its daily and Sunday editions swept the Newspaper of the Year awards for papers of its size. And not coincidentally, there has been an increase in furrowed brows among local officials who are now being confronted by a more active press." The Eagle also won the 2019 John F. Kennedy Commonwealth Award for "demonstrating the enduring civic value of community journalism."

Rutberg said he was inspired to buy the paper after a 2014 lecture by political journalist Joe Klein. "At some point, [Klein] said, offhandedly, 'Democracy requires citizenship and citizenship requires a town square'," Rutberg told Shanahan. "And when he said that, I whispered to my wife, 'The Berkshire Eagle'."

Newspaper analyst Ken Doctor told Shanahan that the paper's new ownership was a boon to the community: "People in the Berkshires won the lottery when [Rutberg’s group] bought the Eagle . . . It’s rare to see local people with the willingness, the capital, and the stamina to step up and do the really heavy lifting to transform an old newspaper in the digital age."

Rutberg remains modest. "I wanted to do something useful," he told Shanahan. "I wanted to try to do some good around here."

Someone must pay for journalism, and journalists need to explain that on social media, to reach readers they need

Dan Mackie

Journalists and their paymasters increasingly remind readers (and hopefully potential readers) that someone has to pay for journalism. It's good to see a contributor banging that drum, as retired journalist Dan Mackie does in an op-ed for the Valley News in West Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt.

Mackie writes that he has noticed several "cranky non-subscribers" complaining that Valley News content isn't free online. But, though internet advertising can be lucrative, it's not "a brilliant business plan" for a newspaper to depend on that to pay the bills. "Subscriptions are the ticket," Mackie writes.

Propaganda, press releases, and fluff are readily available for free online, but quality journalism is worth paying for. "Reporting, consulting multiple sources and fact-checking stories test the brain and intestinal fortitude. Journalism might seem like a fun hobby, but it is difficult to get hobbyists to show up every day, or for night shifts," Mackie writes.

"It’s good to see contributors, not just editors and publishers, pointing out that someone has to pay for journalism, and increasingly, that is the audience, not advertisers," says Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog. "But unless it’s shared on social media, and not behind a paywall, they’re preaching to the choir."

Scientists suggest converting methane to CO2 as short-term way to reduce effect of greenhouse gases

Capturing atmospheric methane, which comes mainly from agriculture, could have an outsized and more immediate impact on mitigating climate change, argues a newly published paper.

In the short term, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. "Its warming effect doesn’t last nearly as long, but molecule-for-molecule it traps 84 times more heat during the first two decades, James Temple notes in MIT Technology Review.

The paper argues that if we could capture methane and converting it to carbon dioxide, we would "reduce short-term warming much more than we would by removing far more carbon dioxide." Lead author Rob Jackson, a professor of earth system science at Stanford University, writes, "Methane removal would buy us considerable time to address the problem of carbon-dioxide emissions."

Livestock and other agricultural elements are the largest source of human-caused methane emissions,  Efforts to cut methane emissions in agriculture haven't progressed much beyond the experimental level, and Temple notes that oil and gas producers, another significant source of atmospheric methane through pipeline leaks and flaring, have resisted efforts to tighten regulations.

The idea of converting methane (CH4) into CO2 has been floated before, Temple notes, but the paper takes a closer look at using "zeolites, a class of minerals with very tiny pores, which are commonly used as industrial catalysts. . . . While it would likely be necessary to remove hundreds of billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide to return to preindustrial levels, you’d only need to eliminate 3.2 billion tons of methane to get back to earlier levels of that gas. Doing so would reverse one-sixth of the total warming effect of all greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, the study found."

Dead man's files suggest citizenship question for census has political motive; could cost immigrant-heavy areas

Recently discovered computer files reveal that a proposed census question about citizenship may have been added to benefit the Republican party. Such a question could lead to undercounting in many rural areas with large Latino populations, such as agricultural communities, and cause them to lose federal and state appropriations. "The disclosures represent the most explicit evidence to date that the Trump administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests," Michael Wines reports for The New York Times.

The matter came to light after the estranged daughter of legendary Republican strategist Thomas Hofeller went through his files after his death. She discovered evidence that he had played a critical role in adding the question to the 2020 census. "Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats," Wines reports. "And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the citizenship question in the next few weeks. Opponents of adding the question cited Hofeller's files in a federal court filing last Thursday. They say the question would cause fewer immigrants to be counted and give more political power to Republican areas, Wines reports.

The Justice Department said the accusations in the filing were baseless and meant to "derail" the Supreme Court's consideration of the case. It also said that the decision to add the citizenship question to the census was not influenced by Hofeller's 2015 study, Wines reports.

Feds allow year-round sale of fuel mix that's 15% ethanol; boon for farmers, bad for Big Oil, which says it will sue

"Farm groups are celebrating the Trump administration completing actions to allow for year-round sales of 15 percent ethanol blends or E15," AgDaily reports. "The final rule from the Environmental Protection Agency eliminates the outdated barrier that required retailers in many areas of the country to stop selling E15 during the summer months by allowing E15 to receive the same summer volatility adjustment EPA permits for E10," fuel that is 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol.

President Trump is "keeping a campaign promise to farmers suffering from the trade war with China but drawing a legal threat from the oil industry," Reuters reports. "In a nod to the oil industry, the agency also issued new rules to improve transparency in the market for biofuels credits that refiners must acquire under the nation’s biofuel law, but the steps stopped short of what many refiners were seeking."

“Corn farmers have been long-time advocates of higher blends of ethanol such as E15, touting its benefits to both the farmer and the consumer,” National Corn Growers Association President Lynn Chrisp told AgDaily. “Farmers are facing some tough times which makes this announcement particularly welcome.”

Ag Daily says "Higher blends of renewable fuels such as E15 reduce fuel prices for drivers by three to 10 cents per gallon and result in lower emissions, improving air quality and providing greater greenhouse-gas reductions. Blending additional ethanol replaces some of the most harmful components in gasoline, and cleaner ethanol results in 43 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline."

The the oil industry "views biofuels as competition for its petroleum-based fuels and has threatened to sue the Trump administration," Reuters notes, quoting Chet Thompson, the president and CEO of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers: “EPA has left us no choice but to pursue legal action to get this unlawful rule overturned.”

'Orphan counties' complain about rules that mean their 'local' television news comes from other states

Map of TV markets shows Durango, and La Plata and
Montezuma counties, in Albuquerque-Santa Fe market

Many rural counties around the country complain they can't get broadcast news with sports and public affairs from their state because their "local" news comes from another state, under market boundaries determined largely by television station locations, signals and audiences.

La Plata County, in southwestern Colorado, is one of these so-called "orphan counties." Their "local" broadcast, cable and satellite TV news comes from Albuquerque, N.M., over 200 miles away. Residents have complained about it for years. But "La Plata has been in Albuquerque’s Designated Market Area for decades because that’s where Nielsen put it. Nielsen, the private data-analytics company, creates DMAs nationwide, which help set advertising rates and determine the nation’s top media markets," Corey Hutchins notes for Columbia Journalism Review.

In 2016, La Plata County (seat, Durango) became the first local government in the country to petition the Federal Communications Commission for a "market modification," which would allow satellite providers to carry programming from Denver. Albuquerque broadcasters balked because they didn't want to lose viewers, and objected to the petition. They told the FCC that proximity is more important than state lines for determining what viewers need in terms of local programming, Hutchins reports.

La Plata residents submitted hundreds of public comments to the FCC supporting the modification. "We are in desperate need of Denver programming in La Plata County," wrote paralegal Jill Fischer. "How are we expected to be educated voters if the only information we receive comes out of New Mexico?!? We need Colorado news to know what is going on in our state!"

As residents of Durango and the surrounding county wait for the FCC to rule on the petition, some "have found awkward workarounds, from lying to their satellite provider about where they live to taking home a digital antenna from the local public library," Hutchins reports.

USDA predicts sharp decrease in ag exports to China in fiscal year 2019, mostly because of falling soybean sales

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest trade forecast posted Thursday: "American farmers and ranchers are expected to send just $6.5 billion in exports to China in fiscal 2019, accelerating a downward slide over the past two years because of the U.S.-China trade war," Catherine Boudreau reports for Politico. "Last year, the U.S. shipped $16.8 billion in agricultural products to China, and in fiscal 2017 exports totaled $21.8 billion."

The decrease is mostly because of falling soybean sales. In fiscal year 2019, U.S. soybean exports are estimated to total $17 billion, down from $21.6 billion in fiscal 2018, which ended Sept. 30. China has historically been America's top customer for soybeans, but bought far less last year because of the trade war and because African swine fever, which devastated China's hog supply, reduced its need for animal feed, Boudreau notes. 

During trade talks earlier this year, China promised to buy an extra 10 million tons of U.S. soybeans, but put that on hold after President Trump imposed more tariffs on Chinese goods. 

GateHouse and Gannett considering merger

Gannett and GateHouse Media, the largest newpaper publishers in the U.S., are considering a merger, according to The Wall Street Journal. If the deal goes through, "about 1 of every 6 daily newspapers in the United States would be owned by a single company. Totaled up, 267 dailies would fall under a single ownership and management," Ken Doctor reports for Nieman Lab at Harvard University. "That’s an unprecedented concentration of control in the history of the American press."

Both companies have been struggling: Gannett, which has the largest audience by circulation, laid off around 400 journalists in late January, the latest in a series of staff reductions. And GateHouse, which owns the most newspapers, just made its second round of major layoffs this year. Merging could save the companies millions by consolidating distribution, printing and ad sales into regional hubs. That kind of "regionalization" is a continuing trend as publishers try to spend less on print and more on digital, Doctor reports.

There's more to it than just money, though, Doctor writes: "This move — like the other consolidations batted around so far this year — is financially strategic. It is not journalistically strategic. Both these companies have been executing various editorial strategies — some patchwork, some earnest, some with real community-serving potential — and both are severely hobbled by declining editorial budgets. This kind of consolidation would buy some time. How that time, and the money saved, gets reinvested into a longer-term solution to local journalism’s woes remains a hanging question. Still required: More capital and a better vision."

Study: young adults like living in cities significantly more than previous generations at same age

A key to vitality of rural communities is keeping rural young adults or attracting their urban-born counterparts. But that's an increasingly uphill battle, according to a new research: "A new peer-reviewed study . . . finds that not only have young people been a driving force in the urban resurgence of the past two decades, but they favor living in central urban neighborhoods significantly more than previous generations did at the same stages in life," Richard Florida reports for CityLab.

Using census data, the study tracked the net migration of young adults in the top 20 urban areas in the U.S. between 1980 and 2010, and tracked where four demographic cohorts chose to move: ages 20-24, 25-34, 35-44 and 45-64. They found that, over the three decades studied, young adults became progressively more urban, and that that has largely driven the urban resurgence of the past two decades, Florida reports. Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers showed a far greater preference for the suburbs as young adults. The increased preference for cities over suburbs among young adults began with late Gen Xers in the 1990s and has continued with Millennials.

Young adults' reasons for preferring cities differ by generation. The 20-24 group has the strongest preference for amenities (retail, entertainment, recreation, and food-service employment), but amenities have played an increasing role in attracting 25-34s over time. The biggest factor for the 25-34 and 35-44 cohorts is access to transit, probably because of work commuting, Florida reports.

It's not news that urban and suburban areas attract more people. But rural areas don't need to win a numbers game: It doesn't take most young people moving back to rural areas after college to improve local economies -- just more of them. And it helps to understand what drives where they choose to live.

China stops 'goodwill' purchases of American soybeans

"China, the world’s largest soybean buyer, has put purchases of American supplies on hold after the trade war between Washington and Beijing escalated, according to people familiar with the matter," Bloomberg News reports. "State grain buyers haven’t received any further orders to continue with the so-called goodwill buying and don’t expect that to happen given the lack of agreement in trade negotiations, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private. Still, China currently has no plans to cancel previous purchases of American soybeans, the people said."

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in February that China had pledged to buy an additional 10 million tons of U.S. soybeans, but those purchases have stopped, Bloomberg reports: U.S. Department of Agriculture data "also showed that China is yet to take delivery of about 7 million tons of U.S. soybeans that it has committed to buy in the current marketing year."

Bloomberg notes that the move strikes at President Trump's political base: "In the the 2016 election, Trump carried eight of the 10 states with the largest soybean production, all of them in the Midwest. Iowa, the country’s second-largest soybean producer after Illinois, swung from Democrat to Republican in 2016 and could swing back again in 2020."

FDIC sees increase in past-due farm loans in early 2019

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s quarterly banking report found an increase in the share of farm loans that are past due. "It’s the latest data point in the broader trend of worsening conditions in the farm economy, which is grappling with Trump’s trade wars, a five-year drop in income and the highest levels of farm sector debt since the 1980s crisis," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico.

The rate of farm loans that are more than 90 days behind in payments at FDIC-insured lenders was 1.26% in the first quarter of 2019, the highest rate since 2012. According to Diane Ellis, director of FDIC's insurance and research division, community banks in the Midwest are seeing slightly higher rates of past-due loans than the national average, at 1.28%, McCrimmon reports. The Midwest has been beset by historic flooding for the past several months.

"Farmers have been able to borrow against their property, and farmland values have held steady, but FDIC officials warned that won’t always be the case," McCrimmon reports. "The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank last month said there’s 'potential for lower farmland values moving forward.'"

'News' that is really fake is likely to become more common; news media need to promote, and shore up, their reliability

Mike Allen of Axios wrote in his morning briefing yesterday, "Welcome to our sad, new, distorted reality — the explosion of fake: fake videos, fake people on Facebook, and daily cries of 'fake news.'
This week, we reached a peak fake, with Facebook saying it had deleted 2.2 billion fake accounts in three months, a fake video of Speaker Pelosi going viral, and Trump going on a fresh 'fake news' tear. A Pew survey last year found that two-thirds of tweeted links to popular websites came from non-human users (bots or other automated accounts). . .. Misinformation about vaccines has led to an alarming number of measles outbreaks."

And it's going to get worse, Allen says: "It's only going to get easier to generate fake audio, fake videos and even fake people — and to spread them instantly and virally. Fake polls, fake experts, fake fundraisers and even fake think tanks are proliferating. Fake influence has become the result of an internet that's filled with fake measurement and personas. More than half of internet traffic comes from bots, not people, Axios media trends expert Sara Fischer writes in this astonishing tour of our fake world: Dozens of content farms and internet hacks make money selling or amplifying fake video views or follower accounts to politicians and influencers. Distorted images can make any crowd size look bigger or smaller than reality. Around the world, fake polls are being set up to distort elections."

Allen acknowledges, "Fakes and personas have existed on TV, radio and print for years," but as New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg notes: "Legislators have failed to stay on top of social media platforms, with their billions of hard-to-track users from all over the world."

So, more than ever, journalists and their paymasters need to emphasize their essential role as reliable sources of information, and do all we can to be trusted. That can vary from platform to platform, market to market and outlet to outlet, but we must differentiate the news from entertainment, news media from social media, and fact from opinion. We must be different, or we will die. --Al Cross, director and professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

Forest Service may follow lead of states in Southeast and do more controlled burns to stave off wildfires

Federal spending on fire suppression vs. prescribed fires 

(Climate Central map)

Wildfires have been increasing in frequency and intensity in recent years, partly because of climate change and partly because many forest managers have tried too hard to suppress fires. In the Southeast, managers are trying to stave off or mitigate wildfires by setting controlled fires, Maya Miller and Samantha Max report for Southerly, in partnership with The Telegraph in Macon, Ga., and research group Climate Central.

"In 2018, Georgia, Florida and Alabama prescribed burns to more than 4 million acres of land, while the remaining 47 states and territories burned about 2 million acres combined, according to data collected by the National Interagency Fire Center and analyzed by Climate Central, Miller and Max report. "Experts warn this data may undercount prescribed burning, but a country-wide survey by the National Association of State Foresters and the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils similarly found that, in 2017, the Southeast was responsible for two-thirds of the nation’s prescribed burns."

The federal government may follow their lead. "Staff at the U.S. Forest Service, which treated only about 1% of the nearly 200 million acres of land it manages with prescribed burns in 2018, are alarmed by their own agency’s lack of burning. For the first time in history, they’re considering restructuring the agency to facilitate more prescribed fires," Miller and Max report. However, federal funding to research controlled burns has declined for the past five years.

Even if the Forest Service wants to use prescribed burns, some steps will need to be taken first. Some forests haven't burned in so long that logging and other forest thinning tactics will need to be employed before they can set a relatively safe, productive fire, Miller and Max report.

Report: Food-stamp spending boosted rural economy during Great Recession more than other safety-net programs

Darker counties had larger SNAP redemptions in 2010 than 2008. (Base map by The Daily Yonder from USDA data)

From 2008 to 2010, during and immediately after the Great Recession, federal food stamp spending had a much larger impact on rural economies than spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and unemployment insurance combined. That's according to a new report by the Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. The report marks the first time that the impact of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program spending was estimated with statistical methods, according to the ERS; past research predicted impact using economic simulations.

For every $10,000 in food-stamp benefits spent between 2001 and 2014, employment in non-metropolitan counties increased by 0.4 percent, the report found, but barely moved the needle in urban counties. SNAP payments nearly quadrupled in that time, partly because of Obama administration policies meant to stimulate the economy.

SNAP benefits had an outsized impact in rural areas because they're paid directly to low-income people who are more likely to redeem those benefits quickly instead of saving them, which drove local demand for food and other goods, the report said.

Native American and non-native rural residents team up to defend lands from what they see as threats to environment

Zoltan Grossman's examples of environmental alliances between Native Americans and non-natives

Rural areas tend to be conservative, but in places with Native Americans who are empowered by treaty rights, they "are beginning to shift the values of their white neighbors toward a populism that cuts across racial and cultural lines to challenge large corporations," Zoltan Grossman writes on The Conversation. "By teaming up to defend the place they all call home, they are protecting their lands and waters for all."

Grossman is a geographer who wrote about the relationships between tribes and rural non-Native farmers, ranchers, and fishers in his book Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands. The two were once mostly at odds. "Ever since Native Americans began to reassert their treaty rights to harvest fish, water and other natural resources, starting in the 1960s in the Pacific Northwest, a far-right populist backlash from some rural whites has sparked racial conflicts over those resources," Grossman writes. "But starting in the late 1970s, some Native nations across the country joined with their rural white neighbors — including people who had been their adversaries in treaty conflicts — to block threats to rural lands and waters, such as mining, pipeline, dam, nuclear waste and military projects."

That partnership has shown up this decade in groups such as the Cowboy Indian Alliance, which opposed the Keystone XL oil pipeline. More recently, fishing groups and Native nations in the Pacific Northwest are teaming up to oppose coal and oil export terminals and advocate for restoring fish habitats damaged by development. "The mostly white working-class residents of former logging towns in the area, who have strongly opposed timber industry regulations, have worked more easily with local tribes than with urban environmental groups to protect their local economy from fossil fuels," Grossman reports.

Non-native rural residents have found that sovereign tribal nations can more easily take fights to the federal level in a way that state and local governments can't. And Native Americans may be more motivated to fight because the survival of their cultures depends on winning. "They can’t simply move away from environmental hazards, because they have harvesting rights only within their treaty territory, and their identities and cultures are rooted in a particular place," Grossman reports.

Rural residents are more likely than those in large cities to think about, plan and/or attempt suicide, study finds

Percentage of past year suicidal attempts by county type from 2010-2016 (University of Kentucky chart)

People in rural areas are much more likely to think about, plan and/or attempt suicide than people in large cities, according to a newly published study by the Rural and Underserved Health Research Center at the University of Kentucky. It analyzed responses from adults in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2010-16, divided counties into three categories: non-metropolitan (any county outside a metropolitan statistical area), small metropolitan (up to 1 million people), and large metropolitan (more than 1 million). 

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., and the odds of someone in any county considering or attempting suicide didn't change much between 2010 and 2016. Rural residents have been especially susceptible to suicide in the past two decades: a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found that people in non-metropolitan areas were far more likely to die by suicide than their urban counterparts from 2001 to 2015.

The study also found that rural military veterans were less likely to consider or attempt suicide. The researchers weren't sure why, but theorized that people who had served longer in the military tended to have more education than their rural peers; higher education is associated with a lower risk of suicide. However, they also acknowledged that veterans were more likely to die after attempting suicide. So veterans who died by suicide couldn't be counted when assessing how many people in a county are suicidal, and data on suicide deaths is confidential, so the researchers can't access it.

The researchers recommend that policymakers develop and implement suicide prevention initiatives that meet the unique needs of rural residents.

Study explores risk of rising sea levels to rural coastal areas

A "ghost forest," trees killed by saltwater intrusion (Photo from Virginia Institute of Marine Science)

A new study highlights the probable impact of rising sea levels on rural coastal areas. "The paper—based on research funded by the National Science Foundation—is the first effort to synthesize the growing number of studies of land conversion driven by sea-level rise. One of the clearest signs of this conversion are 'ghost forests'—stands of dead trees with new marshlands lapping at their bleached trunks," David Malmquist reports for Phys.org.

Ghost forests are one of the most noticeable signs of climate change, according to lead author Matt Kirwan, an associate professor at The College of William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Moreover, he writes, "Recent research shows that submergence of rural land—marked by ghost forests and abandoned farm fields—is widespread, ecologically and economically important, and globally relevant to the survival of coastal wetlands."

All over the world, forests are turning into ghost forests more quickly than they once did. In the mid-Atlantic, it's happening more than twice as fast as even 150 years ago. More than 150 square miles of forest have turned into marshland since the mid-1800s, the study notes.

"Kirwan and his co-author, Keryn Gedan of George Washington University, note that the scientific community's emerging recognition of this issue has generated widespread interest in better understanding the many factors that influence the extent and pace of upland-to-wetland conversion," Malmquist reports. "These include the rate of sea-level rise, slope of the upland, tidal range, amount of sediment available for vertical marsh growth, salt tolerance of different tree and grass species, and—critically—the presence of levees and other human barriers both large and small."

Flood-defense strategies could help protect forests from rising sea levels, the authors write. They recommend that researchers study the effectiveness of local and privately owned barriers and the probability and consequences of their failure, to help landowners, government officials and environmental groups decide how best to protect the land or whether it wouldn't be feasible to save it. They also recommend studying whether stopgap solutions, like planting salt-tolerant crops and harvesting susceptible timber, will help private landowners preserve some of the value of their land.

Finally, the researchers recommend lawmakers study how policy incentives could influence future transitions from upland to wetland. "They suggest that offerings such as U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program, in which farmers are paid to remove environmentally sensitive land from production, could be re-purposed as instruments for adapting to sea-level rise. They also recommend that policymakers use regional predictions of wetland gain or loss to set incentives for prioritizing wetland migration or upland protection," Malmquist reports.

Report ranks states on average prescription spending

States with top 10 average yearly per-capita
expenditure on prescriptions. (The Senior List)

A new analysis shows how much the average resident in each state spends on prescription drugs. Delaware took the top spot, with an average annual per-capita expenses of $2,331, and California came in last with $1,034, according to The Senior List. The data came from the Kaiser Family Foundation, GoodRx and the National Conference on State Legislatures. 

The top 10 states (see chart at left) ranged from some of the poorest, where health conditions also tend to be poor, to some of the wealthiest, where ability to pay for more expensive brand-name drugs may be a factor. 

Whatever the cause, Americans are spending far more on prescriptions these days than in years past. In 2017, the average American spent $1,025 per year on prescriptions, a 1,000% increase over the average $90 (adjusted for inflation) Americans spent in 1960. An aging population factors into this: almost half of Americans take at least one prescription medication, but for seniors it's nearly 90%.

Drug costs are taking a financial toll on some; about one in four Americans say they're having a hard time affording their prescriptions. Part of the problem is that the U.S. pays more for the same drugs than other countries do. A month's supply of the popular blood thinner Humira, for example, costs $882 in Switzerland, $1,362 in the United Kingdom, and $2,669 in the U.S.

Closure of syringe exchange in Kanawha County, West Virginia, increased health risks, study concludes

Intravenous drug users in Charleston, West Virginia, and the rest of Kanawha County are at a higher risk of bloodborne diseases and overdoses after the local health department stopped providing clean needles and other "harm reduction" measures, according to a study from Johns Hopkins University. Their increased risk raises the risk of an outbreak of HIV and hepatitis C in the wider population.

The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department opened the program in December 2015, and provided a syringe exchange, doses of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and testing for infectious diseases associated with intravenous drug users like HIV and hepatitis C," but the politics shifted, Ashton Marra reports for 100 Days in Appalachia. "Restrictions were placed on the syringe services . . . and local politicians began criticizing the health department in the media, claiming the city was experiencing a spike in crime because of the syringe program." It closed in early 2018.

The researchers interviewed 27 adults who had used the program. Most participants were homeless and had used intravenous drugs within the past month. They said they had engaged in riskier behavior since the program closed because it's now more difficult to access clean needles. "One participant said he found used needles on the street and would bleach them before use," Marra reports.

Female participants said they believed they were at a greater risk of contracting HIV since the program's closure, and both genders said they were less likely to seek testing for HIV and other infectious diseases. Many said they knew testing was available elsewhere, but said they had been treated poorly at other clinics or nearby hospitals. They preferred the Charleston program, they said, because staff there treated them with respect and compassion.

"The study attempted to fill a gap in the research about how these programs affect rural areas, but existing studies showed that a syringe exchange program reduces the rates and spread of HIV and other infectious diseases in a place, which leads to not just healthier communities, but also cost savings," Marra reports. "The programs also provide access to overdose-reversing drugs that save lives and allow for greater access to information that can lead to rehabilitation and recovery."

The researchers urged rural policymakers to "take a stand against inaccurate and misleading reports" about syringe exchanges and "ensure access to sterile injection equipment and overdose prevention resources." Ignoring the evidence that exchanges work "not only presents an ethical and moral dilemma, but also sets the stage for an HIV outbreak and worsening overdose epidemic."

Bad weather delays soybean, corn planting and sprouting

Midwest farmers are significantly behind in planting due to heavy rains and flooding, and that means the nation's corn and soybean crops are significantly behind schedule.

As of Tuesday, corn planting nationwide is only 58% complete, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest Crop Progress Report. The five-year average for this time of year is 90%. "Soybean plantings in the 18 states that represent 95% of the 2018 soybean acreage are only 29% complete, vs. the five-year average of 66%," Bill Spiegel reports for Successful Farming.

"As of Sunday, corn planting was just 35%, 22%, and 76% complete in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, respectively – three states that account for the bulk of the nation’s corn crop," Spiegel reports. "In the last five years, the crop in those states was 95%, 85%, and 96% complete by this time, signaling that farmers have a long way to go to get the 2019 crop in the ground."

Planting is one thing, emergence is another. According to five-year averages, by this time 69% of the nation's corn crop has sprouted; this year, it's 32%. "Emergence in Illinois, Indiana. and Iowa are 20%, 10%, and 42%, compared with the five-year averages of 84%, 65%, and 77%," Spiegel reports.

Soybeans, which are usually planted later, are farther behind. "Iowa has 32% of its crop planted, well off the five-year pace of 77%," Spiegel report. "Illinois has just 14% of its crop planted, compared with 70% from 2014-18; and Indiana is just 11% complete, vs. its five-year average of 63%." The five-year average for emergence of soybeans at this point in the season is 66%, but this year it's 11%.

Rural share of population has declined partly because fewer counties are 'rural' but a demographic transition point is here

The percentage of America's population that is defined as rural has been declining for decades, but one of the reasons has been overlooked: reclassification of rural counties as "metropolitan" because their population has grown or their workers increasingly commute to the metro center. That phenomenon has become less important a factor in the declining percentage of rural population, but it needs to be remembered, Andrew Van Dam writes for The Washington Post.

"It distorts how we see rural America. It skews our view of everything from presidential politics to suicide to deaths caused by alcohol," Vn Dam writes. "Culturally, newly urban areas often have more in common with persistently rural places than with the biggest cities. Most notably, in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have won only the counties defined as urban when the metropolitan classification began in 1950, while Donald Trump would have won every group of counties added to metropolitan after the initial round."

“What might be described as rural culture and values will have faded some, but they’re more alive in places that have recently urbanized than in places that have been more highly urbanized for longer,” University of California at Davis legal scholar Lisa Pruitt told Van Dam.

He writes: "If rural Americans complain of being left behind, it might be because they literally are. In government statistics, and in popular conception, rural is defined as what’s left after you have staked out all the cities and their satellites. It makes rural areas look poorer, whiter, older and more prone to alcohol-related death or suicide than under broader definitions." And why should rural Americans care about these definitional issues? "Policymakers’ disdain for rural people has prevented them from seeing and solving the challenges rural Americans face, Pruitt said."

Graphics by The Washington Post

The statistical classifications can also conflict with Americans' definition of where they live, Van Dam notes: "About six in 10 U.S. adults who consider themselves 'rural' live in an area classified as metropolitan by standards similar to those used above, according to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in 2017. And three in four of the adults who say they live in a 'small town'? They’re also in a metro area."

Van Dam's article is based in large part on a preliminary study presented at last year's meeting of the Rural Sociological Society by Kenneth Johnson of the University of New Hampshire, Robert Lichter of Cornell University and John Cromartie of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The decline in the rural percentage of the U.S. population no longer results from reclassification, the researchers conclude: "It also includes a component that represents the loss of demographic vitality, a pattern of rural population change—depopulation—that is now transforming many rural communities and reducing the prospect of growth for the foreseeable future."

They write, "Today, rural America is once again at an important demographic transition point. In the past . . . for nonmetropolitan counties 'left behind' by reclassification, on-going net out-migration historically was more than offset by natural increase—the difference between births and deaths. ... This historical pattern is no longer true today."

Rural-urban political split driven by design of our democracy and polarization of two-party system, Stanford prof argues

Much has been written about the rural-urban divide in American politics, which has been growing for two or three decades, but the trend is driven in part by the design of American democracy, Emily Badger writes for The New York Times, citing a new book by Stanford University political scientist Jonathan Rodden, called Why Cities Lose.

Because the Constitution gives every state two senators, “That’s an obvious problem for Democrats,” who have become concentrated in urban areas, Rodden told Badger. “This other problem is a lot less obvious.”

New York Times chart

Democrats' "other problem" is that they "tend to be concentrated in cities and Republicans to be more spread out across suburbs and rural areas," Badger writes. "The distribution of all of the precincts in the 2016 election shows that while many tilt heavily Democratic, fewer lean as far in the other direction. As a result, Democrats have overwhelming power to elect representatives in a relatively small number of districts — whether for state house seats, the State Senate or Congress — while Republicans have at least enough power to elect representatives in a larger number of districts. Republicans, in short, are more efficiently distributed in a system that rewards spreading voters across space."

Citing the 2018 congressional elections, in which Democrats won moderate, suburban districts from

Republicans, Roden told Badger that Democrats need moderate “blue dogs” to overcome their geographic disadvantage.

Rodden also attributes Democrats' disadvantage to the two-party system, which in recent years has become polarized on social issues. "Today the urban party is also the party of gay marriage and gun control. The more rural party is also the party of stricter immigration and abortion restrictions," Badger writes. "We keep adding more reasons to double down on geography as our central fault line, and to view our policy disagreements as conflicts between fundamentally different ways of living."

Glyphosate (Roundup) use soars in recent decades, especially in Midwest, as weeds grow more resistant

Glyphosate use in the U.S. Click the image to enlarge it, or click here for the interactive version.
(Map by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)

Nationwide use of the controversial pesticide glyphosate has skyrocketed over the past 30 years, even as it becomes less effective against weeds and is increasingly the target of health-related lawsuits. According to U.S. Geological Survey estimates, use of glyphosate on crops rose from 13.9 million pounds in 1992 to 287 million pounds in 2016. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup.

"A review of the agency’s data by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting shows that farmers across the Midwest used an estimated 188.7 million pounds of glyphosate in 2016 – nearly 40 times more than in 1992 when they used a total of 4.6 million pounds. The data for the year 2016 is the latest available," Christopher Walljasper and Ramiro Ferrando report for the center. "Farmers in those 12 states – including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska – grow most of the country’s soybean and corn crops. Glyphosate is now the primary way farmers manage weeds that would otherwise reduce the amount of grain they can produce. The Midwest accounts for 65 percent of the nation’s use of glyphosate for crops, according to the center’s analysis."

Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, introduced glyphosate in 1974, but the pesticide became much more popular after Monsanto began selling genetically modified Roundup-resistant seeds. Usage increased even more in 2000 after the patent expired and other companies could sell it. There were at least 40 generic glyphosate-based herbicides on the market by 2007, Walljasper and Ferrando report.

However, as weeds evolved to resist glyphosate, farmers have had to use more of it. James Benham, a longtime farmer in southeastern Indiana, told the center that farmers are in a tough place financially because they have to spend more money on seed and chemicals without seeing more profit. "Sometimes if you timed it just right, you could get away with just one spraying. Now we’re spraying as often as three or four times a year," Benham said. "That puts the farmer in that much more of a crisis mode. Can’t do without it, can’t hardly live with it."

Forest Service giving rural Job Corps program to Labor Dept., which will close nine centers and outsource 16

The Trump administration announced last week that it will shutter a U.S. Forest Service program that provides vocational training to disadvantaged rural teens and young adults. About 1,100 employees will lose their jobs starting in September, in what is believed to be the largest single layoff of federal employees in a decade, Lisa Rein reports for The Washington Post.

"The Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers enroll more than 3,000 students a year in rural America," Rein writes. "The soon-to-close centers — in Montana, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Virginia, Washington state, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oregon — include hundreds of jobs in some of President Trump’s political strongholds. In Congress, members of both parties objected to the plan."

The Labor Department will assume control of the program, and plans to close nine centers and hand over 16 to state governments or private companies. It will continue operating urban Job Corps programs, Rein reports.

Federal officials said the revamp was necessary because many of the rural programs are inefficient, low-performing, and costly. "Job Corps has been a troubled program, with student safety issues, staff turnover and, in some centers, a poor record of job placement," Rein reports.

Program encourages rural millennials to return after college

Madeline Moore at a rural farmers' market
booth in 2012. (Photo by Damian Mulinix)

Many rural millennials are told that success means leaving their hometowns for college and staying out. But three young women in Washington state have launched a program aimed at encouraging millennials to come back home after college, and create a national network of rural adults who want to strengthen their communities.

Rethinking Rural kicked off in March 2018: "We invited 50 millennials who were active in rural communities across nine states for two days of conversation in Port Townsend. We focused on why our communities matter and how we can work together to make them better," Madeline Moore writes for The Daily Yonder. "By the end, many tears were shed. These were people like me, who wanted to fight hard for their town but, more often than not, felt as if there were banging their head against a brick wall. But maybe if we started working together as like-minded young’uns, we could get more done and affect more than just our individual communities."

From that meeting, the program now has a three-year plan that includes symposia in other rural towns. In 2020, the meeting will be in Nauvoo, Alabama; in 2021 it will take place somewhere in Native American lands in the Pacific Northwest; the 2022 location has not been decided. Rethinking Rural has partnered with the Rural Assembly, a national nonprofit, to broaden its reach and is launching a crowdfunding campaign in hopes of raising $40,000.

Moore writes that the program is more important than ever to her now, as a mother. She hopes her young daughter will be able to succeed in life and go to college. "But I also hope that one day, she decides to move back and invest in the place that raised her," Moore writes. "Rethinking Rural is about making sure there is something for this generation and the next, and the next, to move back to. And that rural America is a thriving, culturally diverse, healthy place for people to set roots."

What word does your state have the most difficulty spelling?

Map image copied from The Washington Post; for a clearer version use the link below.

"Why are people from so many states searching 'How to spell beautiful' on Google?" asks Herman Wong of The Washington Post, reporting on the search company's annual report of the word that people in each state ask it 'how to spell.'

"Beautiful" has "been a common top word in the past three years," Wong reports. "In 2019, a 'beautiful' belt runs from Virginia through the Carolinas and Georgia into Florida." The word is also tops in Texas, California and Illinois, states with large numbers of immigrants.

Google "does not say when the searches were made, nor provide additional context for the searches," Wong writes. "The company did not immediately respond to an email inquiry Friday, so we are left to our own imagination." OK, why is "Hawaii" the most-searched-for spelling word in Hawaii? We suspect because of tourists using the internet there.

What about "bougie" in New York? We had to, well, Google it. The definition is "a thin, flexible surgical instrument for exploring or dilating a passage of the body," but UrbanDictionary.com says it means "aspiring to be a higher class than one is; derived from bourgeois - meaning middle/upper class." USA Today's Sophia Tulp wrote in 2017, "It’s an equal-opportunity jab at anyone from hipsters and the coastal elite to the suburban or basic. The 'boujee' variation (used by Migos in 'Bad and Boujee') commonly refers to middle-class or upwardly mobile black people."