EPA finally says changes in the environment show climate change is intensifying, partly because of human activity

"The destruction of year-round permafrost in Alaska, loss of winter ice on the Great Lakes and spike in summer heat waves in U.S. cities all signal that climate change is intensifying," the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday in a report that languished under the Trump administration for three years," The Washington Post reports, noting that this is "the first time the agency has said such changes are being driven at least in part by human-caused global warming."

The report joins "a growing body of evidence that climate effects are happening faster and becoming more extreme than when EPA last published its 'Climate Indicators' data in 2016," Dino Grandoni and Brady Dennis report. "EPA Administrator Michael Regan said he wants to make clear to the entire country the dangers of rising temperatures in the United States."

“We want to reach people in every corner of this country because there is no small town, big city or rural community that’s unaffected by the climate crisis,” Regan said. “Americans are seeing and feeling the impacts up close with increasing regularity.” Along with the report, EPA updated its climate webpage to inform the public on how climate change is affecting communities.

Low-income households can get $50 federal discounts on home broadband, $100 on computer purchases

The Federal Communications Commission is offering a $50 discount on your home broadband bill, reports Mike Snider of USA Today.

The benefit is "part of the roughly $900 billion Covid-19 relief package passed by Congress in December," Snider writes. It gave the FCC $3.2 billion for the program, in which more than 800 wireless and broadband providers are participating.

You qualify "if you also qualify for the Lifeline program, the program that helps low-income Americans purchase broadband access. You also qualify if you are on Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP," Snider reports. "Any household with income at or below 135% of the federal poverty guidelines is eligible, as are those in the free and reduced-price school lunch program and school breakfast program. Also eligible: those who had a substantial loss of income since Feb. 29, 2020 and are at or below $99,000 for single filers and $198,000 for joint filers."

The program offers a discount of up to $50 a month toward broadband, up to $75 a month on tribal lands. Snider reports, "Eligible households also can receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to buy a laptop or desktop computer or a tablet from participating providers if they contribute more than $10 and less than $50 toward the purchase." Signup for the program opened Wednesday.

"Internet connectivity has been vital during the coronavirus pandemic as more Americans worked from home and more students attended school at home," Snider notes, quoting acting FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel: "We all know that Internet access is essential for modern life. This pandemic has made it abundantly clear that broadband is no longer nice to have, it’s need-to-have, for everyone, everywhere."

Rep. Greene chases, taunts Rep. Oscasio-Cortez

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Rome, Georgia, "aggressively confronted Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wednesday and falsely accused her of supporting 'terrorists,' leading the New York congresswoman’s office to call on leadership to ensure that Congress remains 'a safe, civil place for all members and staff'," The Washington Post reports.

Two Post reporters "witnessed Ocasio-Cortez exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene, who shouted 'Hey Alexandria' twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them 'terrorist' groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her 'radical socialist' beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia."

“You don’t care about the American people,” Greene shouted. “Why do you support terrorists and antifa?” The object of her taunts didn't stop, "only turning around once and throwing her hands in the air in an exasperated motion. The two reporters were not close enough to hear what the New York congresswoman said, and her office declined to discuss her specific response."

Bipartisan postal-reform bill includes provision to let papers send many more sample copies in their home counties

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and U.S. Rep. James
Comer, R-Ky. (Photo from Government Executive)

After a decade or so of fits and starts, Congress may be ready to pass a postal-reform bill, and a bipartisan measure introduced by key committee leaders has a provision that would help rural newspapers.

A three-line section of the bill, labeled "Rural newspaper sustainability," would let papers mail many more sample copies to non-subscribers in their home counties at the same rate they pay the Postal Service to deliver papers to subscribers. The current limit is 10 percent of annual home-county circulation; the bill would make it 50%.

The 10% limit has been in federal law "for more than a century," said the National Newspaper Association, which lobbied for the change as part of a broader reform of the Postal Service. NNA Chair Brett Wesner, an Oklahoma publisher, said the provision would help small newspapers recruit subscribers.

As newspaper circulation has declined, papers reach the sample-copy limit sooner, said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, which publishes The Rural Blog. He said the higher limit would make papers more attractive vehicles for advertising and public service, as some have done with sample-copy editions in the pandemic.

NNA said it was "cautiously optimistic that the Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 would finally clear the many hurdles to enactment." It thanked the sponsors "for recognizing the need of community newspapers to regain subscribers lost to poor postal service and the effects of the pandemic."

The bill is sponsored by the leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which has postal issues in its jurisdiction. The chair is Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York; the ranking Republican is Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who pushed for the sample-copy provision. Comer said the bill, combined with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's 10-year plan, 'will help put USPS on the road to fiscal stability, make it more efficient and sustainable for generations, and ensure continued service to the American people."

UPDATE, May 13: The committee approved the bill without amendments, then moved on to a related bill with more contentious issues such as mailed ballots. Comer told the panel, "In this bill, Republicans have ensured rural Americans continue to have access to their local newspapers and not be forced to pick up a national paper because the local paper went bankrupt." The committee is scheduled to mark up the bill Thursday, a session that may reveal dissension in both parties over issues that have long been contentious. The bill is co-sponsored by Government Operations Committee Chair Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and member Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.).

The bill would continue the mandate for six-day delivery, a major concern in rural areas. It would require the Postal Service to have an online, publicly available dashboard to track its performance. Maloney said that adds "transparency to ensure the Postal Service provides the high quality of service Americans expect and deserve." NNA had hoped for specific measurement of on-time rural mail delivery, but it said the dashboard would allow "any person could look up a specific address to determine service performance to that address," so research could measure rural delivery times. 

The bill's major financial boost to the Postal Service would be elimination of the "2006 mandate to fund retiree health benefits well into the future, a significant cost for USPS, at least on paper. The agency has defaulted on billions of dollars in annual payments to the retiree health fund," Jory Heckman of Federal News Network reports. "The legislation would require postal employees to enroll in Medicare when they turn 65. The bill wouldn’t require current retirees to enroll, but would give them a three-month grace period from late-enrollment penalties if they opt to do so."

UPDATE: NNA issued a news release in which Wessner said, "“This bill does not give us everything we want, nor one thing we really need, which is some assurance of postage rate stability,” Wesner said. “But it does open the door for much-needed postal reform and it sets us on a path for refinements as a bill moves through Congress. What is most important to us is that Congress acts and acts quickly to shore up universal service. The very real effects of the delays on Capitol Hill are being felt in our business, as we lose subscribers to poor service and we are forced to recognize that the mail system has become much less dependable than in the past. To the extent this deterioration is because of USPS’s financial weakness, it is incumbent upon Congress to get moving to help fix it.”

Commercial fishers push back against mask mandates

Commercial fishing crews are fighting mask mandates they say are impractical and unsafe. 

In February the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention required that anyone on public transportation wear a mask, and the Coast Guard applied that to all vessels, including small commercial fishing crews, Paige Winfield Cunningham reports for The Washington Post. 

In a hearing with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked CDC director Rochelle Walensky to change the rule. "Not only is a wet mask dangerous out on the open water — these guys are used to relying on sign language on the boat, and with the mask it’s a real safety issue," Hassan said. Murkowski said fishermen had told her they only wore masks because they worried about getting caught by the Coast Guard and fined or otherwise penalized.

"Walensky seemed aware of the issue during yesterday’s hearing but didn’t give any specific answers. She said the agency is working on new agency guidance," Cunningham reports.

United Fishermen of Alaska executive director Frances Leach told Cunningham that most operations are small and family-owned, which means people mostly interact with those inside their bubble. Leach said the group supports mask mandates for larger boats like ferries.

Some rural areas in East run short of gasoline from panic buying after cyberattack on major pipeline

The Clinton County News in Albany, Ky., ran these photos of lines at local gas pumps.

Rural areas, which are more likely to be at or near the end of fuel-truck routes and have many long commuters who fill their tanks more than once a week, have seen panic buying due to the shutdown of a major fuel pipeline from a Russian cyberattack, and some are running short.

"More than 1,000 gas stations in the Southeast reported running out of fuel," The Associated Press reports. "Government officials acted swiftly to waive safety and environmental rules to speed the delivery of fuel by truck, ship or rail to motorists and airports, even as they sought to assure the public that there was no cause for alarm."

"Gasoline has been in short supply at stations in several Southern Kentucky towns," reports Lexington's WKYT. "It started Monday in Clinton County, then spread to Wayne County." Both are on the Tennessee border and get most if not all of their wholesale fuel from Tennessee. The Clinton County News headlined, "Out of gas: Monday's run at local pumps leaves tanks empty."

Recent problems may have made motorists more wary of supplies. Darrell Smith of Priceless Gas in Monticello said that in recent weeks his station has "had rolling outages because there’s no drivers to drive the trucks to bring the gas in. It’s a two-fold problem right now."

New rural coronavirus infections fell 12% last week, to lowest level since July 2020, when surges began

Rate of new coronavirus infections, by county, May 2-8
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version

Last week, there were 27,502 new coronavirus cases in rural areas, a 12 percent drop from the previous week's total of 42,462 — the lowest level seen since July. Likewise, additional deaths related to Covid-19 fell 14% to 677 from the previous week's 734 deaths.

"The declines in cases and deaths came as rural counties surpassed 4.5 million total cases of Covid-19 and 90,000 Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic early in 2020," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder.

Click here for more data, charts and analysis from the Yonder, including regional analysis and an interactive map with county-level data.

Water wells at more risk of drying up; researchers have recommendations to help

As drought grips much of the Western U.S., farmers and municipalities increasingly rely on groundwater wells. But many are in danger of going dry, Debra Perrone and Scott Jasechko write for The Conversation. Both are assistant professors at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Perrone and Jasechko write: "We are a water resources engineer with training in water law and a water scientist and large-data analyst. In a recent study, we mapped the locations and depths of wells in 40 countries around the world and found that millions of wells could run dry if groundwater levels decline by only a few meters. While solutions vary from place to place, we believe that what’s most important for protecting wells from running dry is managing groundwater sustainably – especially in nations like the U.S. that use a lot of it."

In previous studies, Perrone and Jasechko estimated that as many as 1 in 30 wells are already going dry in the western U.S., and as many as one in five are going dry in the southern Central Valley and southeastern Arizona. Wells are also running dry in states such as Maine, Illinois and Oregon.

They recommend several tactics for households whose wells have run dry, including:

• Dig a new, deeper well
• Sell the property if digging a new well is unaffordable
• Divert or haul water from alternative sources like a nearby river or lake
• Reduce water use to slow or halt groundwater level declines
• Limit or abandon activities that require a lot of water, such as irrigation

Perrone and Jasechko also recommend proactive steps households and communities can take to keep wells from running dry. Read more here.

Farmers seek specifics from Biden administration on carbon-cutting agriculture measures, which could be pricey

A White House goal to slash U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions hinges in part on farmers and agriculture companies changing the way they manage fields and feedlots," Jacob Bunge reports for The Wall Street Journal. "The Biden administration effort outlined in April has drawn support from agribusiness giants including Tyson Foods Inc., JBS SA, Cargill Inc. and CF Industries Holdings Inc., which have been pursuing their own environmental commitments. Individual farmers, whose participation is critical to meeting the administration’s goals, are weighing the potential costs and benefits to their bottom lines, and say government support will be needed."

Farms produce about 10 percent of the nation's greenhouse-gas emissions, especially from fertilizer application and livestock operations. President Biden wants to cut emissions in half by 2030, and has said farmers can both help achieve the goal and benefit from it. But such practices can be pricey. One Oklahoma farmer told Bunge that he's followed carbon-reduction practices for years, and while his harvests have increased, so have his expenses. 

"With often-thin profit margins, individual farmers have tended to be wary of regulations that add costs and complexity to their operations," Bunge reports. "Concern about tighter environmental rules was one reason some farmers said they backed Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections." Andrew Walmsley, director of congressional relations at the American Farm Bureau Federation, told Bunge that farmers generally support emissions-reduction efforts, but they need more specifics before they can get behind it. The Agriculture Department "has been seeking input from farmer and food groups on potential new programs, and the process of developing those remains in early stages, an agency spokesman said," Bunge reports.

Residents in a rural Maine community—including a veteran journalist—pitch in to save the local monthly paper

Harpswell is in Cumberland County, Maine,
across Casco Bay from Portland. (Wikipedia)

Here's a heartwarming story out of Harpswell, Maine, pop. 4,740, where locals recently banded together to save their beloved monthly paper, Jim Iovino reports for The NewStart Alliance, a West Virginia University program that aims to find, train and support buyers for community newspapers.

Fisherman Bob Anderson ran the Harpswell Anchor for 22 years, mostly as a one-man operation. He never had to solicit ads because people usually brought them to him. "Sadly though, after the pandemic arrived and most happenings in this fishing community on Casco Bay were put on hold, Anderson decided to stop the presses," Iovino reports. "That was in October. But by the end of 2020, a group of residents felt the loss of their community news source was too big of a blow, and started working on a way to bring the Anchor back to life."

One big help was nearby resident Doug Warren, who grew up nearby and retired there after a 32-year career at The Portland Press Herald, The Miami Herald, and The Boston Globe. "In a short amount of time, Warren and this group of concerned residents were able to put together enough funds [about $30,000] to purchase from Anderson the name, archives, website and other pieces of the now-defunct Anchor, and are planning to revive it as a nonprofit publication by the end of this month," Iovino reports.

The group plans to fund the publication through ads, donations and grants, and is revamping the website. In an effort to secure more community support, they also sent a survey to every household in the area to ask what kind of stories they want to see the Anchor cover. Meanwhile, they're looking for a full-time editor, though Warren is pinch-hitting for now. Read more here.

Covid roundup: FAQs about Pfizer vaccine for tweens; stories from all over rural America about vaccine hesitancy

Here's a roundup of recent news about the pandemic and vaccination efforts:

The Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has just been approved for ages 12 and up. It was once more difficult to obtain in rural areas than other vaccines, but recent shipping adjustments have helped make it more accessible. Read more here.

During the pandemic, poor infrastructure and medical access exacerbated mental-health problems in rural Colorado. Read more here.

Kentucky adults who get vaccinated at a participating Kroger or Walmart can get a free lottery ticket. Read more here.

Montana's state government will offer free vaccines to Canadian truck drivers from Alberta who regularly travel to the U.S. Read more here.

Hospice and long-term care organizations are in talks with the Biden administration to expand palliative care Medicare coverage for long-haul Covid-19 patients. Read more here.

Anderson County, Texas, has the lowest coronavirus vaccine rate in the state, with only 15 percent of residents age 16 and up vaccinated. A local doctor and former mayor has spent months trying to get her rural neighbors vaccinated, but it hasn't been easy because of widespread suspicion. Read more here.

Rural Georgia sees vaccine hesitancy as supply outweighs demand. Read more here.

As vaccine demand dips, community health centers take the lead. Read more here.

Vaccine hesitation drives lower rates in rural Missouri. Read more here.

Families and communities are divided over the vaccine in rural Montana. Read more here.

Rural community colleges could get a financial boost from restoration of Pell grant access to prisoners

Newly restored federal funding for prison education could benefit not only prisoners, but rural colleges and the communities around them (since prisons are disproportionately in rural areas).

Higher education programs in prison have been scarce for the past 16 years "because the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (commonly referred to as the 1994 crime bill), which was sponsored by then-Sen. Joe Biden and achieved bipartisan support, prevented incarcerated people from accessing Pell Grants, which was the primary funding source for prison education," Anya Slepyan reports for The Daily Yonder. President Obama began and President Trump expanded a program to restore Pell Grant access to select prisons, including dozens in rural areas, and in December Congress voted to restore full access by 2023 to an estimated 463,000 eligible prisoners.

Prisoners and taxpayers benefit from such programs in multiple ways: The presence of the programs reduces violence within prisons, and a college education could help create upward mobility for the former prisoners' families and break generational poverty cycles. Also, "participants are 48 percent less likely to return to prison after being released, and the Vera Institute estimates that providing postsecondary opportunities to incarcerated people could reduce state prison spending around the country by $365.8 million annually," Slepyan reports. "Other studies show that as an investment, 'prison education is almost twice as cost-effective as incarceration,' and that taxpayers save $4-5 for every $1 spent on prison education. This is partially because earning a college degree in prison open opportunities for returning citizens who are often locked out of employment and further educational opportunities through background checks and other hiring policies that discriminate against the formerly incarcerated."

Rural colleges benefit because prisoners' tuition gives them much-needed funding, which could enable them to not only stay open, but possibly expand programs or hire new instructors. That means more jobs and educational opportunities for non-incarcerated locals too, an appealing prospect for rural community colleges where enrollment has tanked during the pandemic.

Now that funding is restored, "rural colleges around the country are gearing up to provide higher education opportunities to incarcerated students," Slepyan reports. "Many of the colleges are focusing on providing degrees that will lead to practical career paths for incarcerated students."

Package looks back on meatpacking workers through the pandemic, what's happening now, and what's next

The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting has done an outstanding job reporting on the meatpacking industry over the past year. Now, they've published a large package that looks back on the pandemic's effect on workers, what's happening now, and what they predict for the future. 

The package includes a timeline, stories from workers in their own words, first-person retrospectives from the reporters, and more. It's a worthy read.

Rural N.C. publisher starts journalism nonprofit to cover issues in four poor counties, gets $495,000 grant

Les High (photo provided)

A rural North Carolina newspaper publisher has founded a nonprofit journalism organization that will begin reporting on regional issues this month, Teri Saylor reports for the National Newspaper Association. Les High publishes The News Reporter in Whiteville, a Pulitzer Prize-winning twice-weekly with a circulation of more than 8,100. The new nonprofit is called The Border Belt Center, and will begin publishing online as the Border Belt Independent.

"Using a $495,000 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust over the next three years, High will build a team of journalists who will publish in-depth stories about issues facing Bladen, Columbus, Robeson and Scotland counties in southeastern North Carolina, one of the poorest areas in the state," Saylor reports. "On the Border Belt Independent’s website, High explains that the new organization will focus primarily on the challenges faced by rural North Carolina counties, such as education, poverty, health, mental health and issues that adversely affect individuals based on age, race and the economy."

The Border Belt (NNA map)

Saylor's article features an in-depth interview with High about the new initiative, how it came about, and how the Border Belt Indepdent will collaborate with other rural papers that cover the four-county area. High may be familiar to rural journalists as a frequent example in the studies of Penny Abernathy at the University of North Carolina. Read more here.

Rural health journalism workshop online June 21-23

The Association of Health Care Journalists will host a free, virtual summit June 21-23 that aims to help journalists find and cover health stories in rural America. Attendees will get access to health-care and health-policy experts who focus on rural needs, and can attend various breakout sessions. Recordings of the sessions will be available afterward.

The workshop is open only to AHCJ members, but it's easy to register, and memberships are $60 a year for most. "Judging from past such workshops, it will be worth the price of membership," says Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of The Rural Blog, and editor and publisher of Kentucky Health News. Click here for more information about the workshop and how you can sign up.

Small size of most local law-enforcement agencies makes police reform harder for them, say experts

Police reform is a hot topic. Metropolitan police departments have gotten most of the attention, but most police forces serve smaller communities, and the smaller size may make reform more difficult.

"Experts say that while smaller departments have their benefits, including being able to adapt to their communities and hire officers with local ties, these agencies also are typically able to avoid the accountability being sought as part of the national movement to restructure and improve policing," Mark Berman reports for The Washington Post. "These departments’ often limited resources and the decentralized structure of American law enforcement complicate efforts to mandate widespread training and policy changes, experts say."

Smaller police departments are the norm: Almost half of local police departments have fewer than 10 officers, and three-quarters have fewer than 24 officers. Smaller departments often find it more difficult to schedule officers for training to learn newer practices or tactics because there are so few officers on the streets to begin with, according to former Charlotte police chief Darrel Stephens. "I don’t want to denigrate them, because there’s a lot of good people doing things in the right way for the right reasons," Stephens told Berman. "But their capacity is just limited."

Another issue that hampers change is the "remarkably localized nature of American policing," Berman reports. "Policies and practices can vary significantly from department to department. These differences can include how departments approach the use of force as well as the levels of training and specialization involved." Many other developed nations have national standards for policing, but policing in the U.S. is decentralized and has no national standards, according to Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based group that works with police departments. That fragmentation means it can take a lot longer for recommended changes in training or policies to reach smaller departments.

Tuesday, May 11 webinar to go over twice-yearly update of commodity price estimates

At 3 p.m. May 11, the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service will host a free webinar to go over the newly released Commodity Costs and Returns estimates. From the website: "Updated twice a year, these estimates are useful for informing stakeholders, including policymakers, agribusiness, and researchers, of current and historical costs and returns associated with major U.S. commodities. The estimates are also featured in numerous ERS reports and serve as the basis for research."

During the webinar, ERS economist Samantha Padilla will provide an overview of the Commodity Costs and Returns data and walk participants through accessing and using the data product. Click here for more information or to register for the webinar.

Eula Hall, one of the best friends the poor in E. Ky. ever had, dies at 93; one of the region's saints, congressman says

UPDATE, May 17: The New York Times obituary gives a more complete view of Hall's life.

Hall is the subject of this book, published in 2013. In the cover
photo, she stands in her clinic's ruins after a fire destroyed it.
For an Appalshop film about Hall and her clinic, chick here.

Eula Hall, who founded a clinic to serve the poor in one of the poorest parts of the nation, the heart of Central Appalachia, died Saturday. She was 93.

An anti-poverty worker in the 1960s, Hall founded the Mud Creek Clinic, Kentucky's first rural clinic for low-income families, with $1,400 in donated money in 1973. It is now named for her.

“Nothing comes easy up on Mud Creek,” Hall’s longtime friend and ally, former Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo, told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “It was always a fight.”

Hall was also president of the Kentucky Black Lung Association and "fought for better water service and free lunches for schoolchildren," reports the Herald-Leader's Karla Ward. "Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Hall Funeral Home in Martin. Visitation will begin after 6 p.m. Sunday will continue all day Monday at the funeral home."

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article251262069.html#storylink=cpy

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called Hall a "one-of-a-kind Kentuckian . . . She was among the toughest women I’ve ever met, overcoming one challenge after another to serve those who had nowhere else to turn. Even after a fire burned down the clinic, her team didn’t miss a single day. Slowing down was simply never an option. When we spoke on the phone just a couple of weeks ago, Eula’s entire focus remained on those she could help.”

Hall's congressman, U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, said in a release, “Eula Hall was one of Eastern Kentucky’s greatest saints. . . . Driven by her own experience with poverty, Eula dedicated her life to ensuring every person had access to medical care, regardless of their ability to pay for services or prescriptions. She pioneered hope on Mud Creek and far beyond the borders of Floyd County. When I called Eula on her 90th birthday, she was doing what she loved most: working at the clinic that she transformed from a home-grown operation into a modern facility with state-of-the-art equipment. She will always be a legend in Kentucky’s Appalachian region and an inspiration to never stop serving those around us.”

UN says methane emissions need a 40-45% cut by 2030; The Economist says it's the big, low-hanging fruit for climate

Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez for The Economist

A United Nations assessment of methane says the world needs to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas almost in half by 2030 to avoid warming Earth by another half-degree Fahrenheit.

Methane in the atmosphere warms the planet about 10 times as much as carbon dioxide, on a per-unit basis, but accounts for only a fourth of global warming because it is produced in smaller amounts and stays in the air for about 10 years; CO2 can remain for up to 1,000 years. Axios reports, "Methane [CH4] concentrations have been increasing at an alarming rate in recent years," due in part to the growth in U.S. oil and gas output from hydraulic fracturing, and UN environment director Inge Andersen says CH4 must be cut to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature targets.

"Without tackling this, we cannot hit 1.5°C and we will certainly overshoot" the 2°C target of the agreement, Andersen told reporters. Her report calls for a cut 40 to 45% by 2030 and says about 30% of that could come from specific measures such as finding and fixing leaks in gas pipelines; another 15% "would come from broader efforts to decarbonize the economy," Axios reports.

Chart by The Economist; for a larger version, click on it.

Stephen Comstock, head of corporate policy for the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement, "API is focused on working with the Biden administration in support of the direct regulation of methane for new and existing sources and building on the significant progress our industry has made in reducing methane emissions through technological advancements." Leaky pipes are easy to fix, compared to cutting methane emissions from coal mines and agriculture, especially animal agriculture, mainly ruminants such as cattle and sheep, which are estimated to account for 30 percent of global methane emissions.

Methane is the big, low-hanging fruit for slowing climate change, The Economist said in last week's edition: "Few people in those parts of the world made rich by carbon-dioxide-emitting enterprise are going to volunteer for a cut in living standards. And it is hard to ask those from parts of the world that are not yet rich to sacrifice the chance to become so." So, "It makes sense to concentrate on doing things which affect neither the comforts of the former nor the aspirations of the latter. Technological change that shifts economies away from using fossil fuels as their principal energy sources may be able to achieve this in the long term. But some sort of effective action is also needed now . . . and the methane problem looks a lot more tractable in the short term than does the carbon-dioxide one." In an earlier editorial, The Economist calls on governments to set goals for reducing methane emissions.

Rural telecoms, others ask FCC to delay T-Mobile's killing of Boost Mobile, a 3G service many rural residents use

Seven public interest groups, including the Rural Wireless Association, have asked acting Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel to delay T-Mobile from shuttering an older wireless network many rural customers depend on, Kelly Hill reports for RCR Wireless News.

The network is Boost Mobile. It was once a Sprint service, but was sold to Dish Network so T-Mobile and Sprint could begin merging last year without running afoul of anti-trust laws. As part of the merger, T-Mobile agreed to help set up Dish as an independent wireless carrier, but now T-Mobile wants to shut down the 3G network that many Boost/Dish customers rely on by early next year, Allison Johnson reports for The Verge. In essence, T-Mobile was forced to create a future competitor, and is now kneecapping that competitor. 

That will likely hurt many low-income rural residents. More than half of Boost's 9.4 million customers use its very low-cost prepaid service, which allows them access to older, slower 3G wireless. Boost customers using the 3G service "are likely doing so not because they prefer it, but because they can’t afford a new phone. In less than a year, they’ll be forced to choose between making that purchase or losing their current cell service altogether," Hill reports. "Bearing disproportionate effects of the pandemic and related economic fallout, it’s likely not a great time for these customers to be shopping for a new phone. Dish also points out that the global chip shortage makes it an especially bad time to try to secure a large number of new devices for customers."

Wind farms bring rural schools new tax money, but state laws often steer it to facilities rather than cutting class sizes

Wind turbines loom over Okarche Elementary in Oklahoma. (Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman)

Property-tax revenue from wind farms has benefitted many rural schools, but "because of the complexity of how schools are financed, the impact on student achievement is limited, according to a new study that we conducted as researchers in public finance, education economics and energy policy," Eric Brunner, Ben Hoen, and Joshua Hyman write for The Conversation. Brunner is a University of Connecticut economics and policy professor, Hoen is a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory research scientist, and Hyman is an Amherst College assistant economics professor.

Wind power is increasing. In 2020, more than 1,600 farms with nearly 68,000 turbines generated over 100 gigawatts of electricity—about 7 percent of U.S. energy needs. "The industry is continuing to grow rapidly, with another 200 gigawatts of projects applying for grid connections as of the end of 2020," Brunner, Hoen and Hyman report. "With all this rural development come property tax revenues. Wind projects paid an estimated $1.6 billion in property tax revenues to states and local jurisdictions in 2019."

The money is welcome in cash-strapped rural school districts, but Brunner, Hoen and Hyman wanted to find out how much it was really benefitting schools. Their research found a mixed bag: "Wind energy installations led to large increases in local revenues to school districts," they write. "Schools dramatically increased spending on capital outlays, such as buildings and equipment, but made only modest increases to their operating budgets, like hiring more teachers to reduce class size."

The authors note that smaller class sizes improves student achievement, and wanted to know why many districts spent new revenue on building or repairing facilities instead of hiring more teachers to reduce class size. They discovered that local and state tax laws often give schools a strong financial incentive to put new revenue into construction and renovation instead of teachers and operations. Read more here.

Quick hits: Black Appalachian music; cicada cooking; long-term agricultural issues; longing for your hometown

Want a snack? Cicadas could be on the menu.
(Washington Post photo by Allison Dinner)

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

President Biden has a 23 percent approval rating among white evangelicals, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. In general, Biden's approval rating among various religious affiliations is nearly the reverse of former President Trump's at the same point in his presidency. Read more here.

Insects could be the wave of the future for cheap protein in animal feed. But if you want to give it a whirl yourself, here's how to catch and cook cicadas (which will soon be plentiful as the Brood X batch surfaces after 17 years). Read more here.

A new study evaluates how laws banning tobacco-product sales to people under 21 have affected electronic cigarette use in rural and urban youth. Read more here.

The Agricultural Economic Insights team lists of the top 10 "front burner" issues that could affect the farm economy for years to come. That includes the pandemic, lingering effects of African swine fever, child nutrition policy, and immigrant-related farm-labor issues. Read the rest here.

A lawsuit by doctors who advocate plant-based diets claims Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines are driven by meat and dairy marketing concerns, not nutrition. Read more here.

More small towns are offering cash bonuses and more to attract new residents. Read more here.

Kids with a desk and a quiet place to study do better in school, research shows. Read more here.

Research shows that California's carbon-credit system actually allowed polluters to add millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Read more here.

The Smoky Mountain Air podcast is kicking off a new series exploring Black Appalachian music. Listen to the first episode here.

Apply for one of these science, health and environmental reporting fellowships by 6 p.m. ET May 10.

New author Rainesford Stauffer reflects in The Atlantic on how she couldn't wait to move away from Owensboro, Ky., pop. 55,000, when she was a teenager, but has found herself longing for it ever since. Many small-town natives move to big cities in their 20s, she writes, but wonders if they might find just as much fulfillment from staying home. Read more here.

The Justice Department says the federal government never instructed Tyson Foods to keep its plants open in the early months of the pandemic. That's according to documents in a federal lawsuit against the department from four relatives of meatpacking workers who died from Covid-19. It many have broad implications for similar lawsuits elsewhere. Read more here.

Covid roundup: Low vaccination rates among police risk public health; some places offering kooky freebies with a jab

Here's a roundup of recent news about the pandemic and vaccination efforts:

Many police are refusing to get the coronavirus vaccine, and departments aren't making them. The low immunization levels could put public health at risk, experts say. Read more here.

Fully vaccinated seniors are 94 percent less likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19, according to newly released findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more here.

White House officials and public-health experts recently held an online focus group aimed at better understanding what motivated former vaccine skeptics to get immunized. Read more here.

Real-world data from 385,000 vaccinated people in Qatar shows that the Pfizer vaccine offers strong protection against key variants of concern. Read more here.

Cities and states are using oddball incentives in an effort to get more people vaccinated, offering freebies that range from alcohol, donuts and marijuana to free target practice at a shooting range. Read more here.

The Daily Yonder reports on efforts to deliver vaccine information through extension offices. 

Rent debt 'is significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels,' analysis says; see interactive state- and county-level data

"Renters across the U.S. are facing increased rent debt, with 14 percent of all renter households behind on payments. That is significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels based on an analysis released by the National Equity Atlas and Right to City Alliance," Brent Woodie reports for Route Fifty. "Among those who have fallen behind on rent payments, 76% are people who lost employment during the pandemic. Plus, 78% of low-income households making less than $50,000 per year have struggled to keep up with rent payments along with 63% of renters of color. This makes renters more vulnerable to eviction and a rise of other forms of debt like credit cards, utilities and car payments, according to the report."

More than 5 million Americans are behind on rent, owing an estimated $3,400 in renters' debt per household, or $19.75 billion nationwide. "When examined by state, renters in Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Alaska and Georgia have the highest percentage of housing debt. On the other hand, Utah, Maine, Ohio, Idaho and Kansas are states with the lowest," Woodie reports. The share of renters with debt appears to be declining as the nation reopens.

You can see regularly updated national-, state- and county-level data for the project on an interactive data visualization tool called the Rent Debt Dashboard.

The December stimulus-and-relief package had $25 billion to help pay up to a year of back-rent, and the recent $1.9 trillion package gave the Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to help people pay one month's utilities and mortgage or rent to help prevent evictions and service cut-offs.

Elise Stefanik, likely Cheney successor in House leadership, has rural district but questionable rural bona fides

Rep. Elise Stefanik

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the likely House Republican leadership successor to Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, represents the rural 21st District in upstate New York, but she's been focused on moving up, Brian Mann of North Country Public Radio reports in a series of tweets with links to his years of reporting on her:

"In 2014 she presented herself as a moderate and her past career suggested as much - including her writings at Harvard and her work with Democrats . . . She also worked closely early in her career with moderates and people who've emerged as never-Trumpers . . . had a remarkable resume in 2014 and a strong track record working in Washington, D.C. Not the typical resume for someone seeking an Upstate N.Y. House seat. . . . Reporting at @ncpr found, however, that she was eager to downplay her D.C. cred and her identity as a political insider. She claimed to have grown up in a rural Adirondacks community in NY-21. I couldn't find anyone there who knew her." Stefanik lives in the Hudson River village of Schuylerville, near Saratoga Springs.

New York U.S. House District 21 (GovTrack map, adapted)

Mann goes on to report that Stefanik "was a skilled campaigner, disciplined, dogged, fierce. She got better and better, dismantling Republican and Democratic challengers. Stefanik made it clear that she wanted a national profile in the GOP, but her rise was complicated by the victory of Donald Trump in 2016. At first [she] was wary of Trump, criticizing him often but in careful ways. During the Trump years however [she] executed a complete pivot, embracing Trump using the impeachment to build her national profile, securing more Fox News appearances, endorsing him fully in 2020."

Having fully branded herself as a Trump ally, "She secured this position more fully by embracing and amplifying Trump's lies about the election and downplaying his role in the 1/6 insurrection," Mann writes. "Throughout the process [she] showed steady ambition, an ability to adapt and evolve her politics, and a willingness to shed old loyalties and allies while amplifying factual untruths when necessary. Her brand may be a perfect match for the modern GOP."

Stefanik "has regularly echoed Trump’s falsehoods" and made false claims about the Senate runoff elections in Georgia, reports Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post.

Small-town leaders say some tech practices for constituent service adopted during the pandemic are here to stay

In a recent survey, local government leaders from mostly small and midsize communities said they believe the coronavirus pandemic "will have a lasting impact on the way they deliver services to constituents. But the day-to-day work of municipal governing probably won’t change forever," Kate Queram reports for Route Fifty.

The New Normal Survey, conducted online from March 24 to April 7, asked local government officials to share their predictions about how public services will evolve because of the pandemic; 599 officials completed it. They were asked about their government's priorities and how those changed, the pandemic's impact on the local economy, adoption of new technology, and general questions about the future, Queram reports. The survey is a collaborative effort from organizations that work with local governments: The Atlas, Engaging Local Government Leaders, CivicPulse, CivicPlus and Route Fifty. It's a follow-up to a similar survey from last summer that asked about initial changes in service delivery during the early months of the pandemic.

"According to the results, priorities in local government agencies have shifted dramatically since 2020. Last July, for example, 43 percent of survey respondents said they were prioritizing 'work from home and workflow management;' by last month, that number had dropped to 28%. By contrast, 44% of respondents this year said they were focused on community engagement, a 14% jump from last year," Queram reports. "Despite those shifts, most respondents said they expected their governments to continue to prioritize pandemic-related issues up to a year from now, including community engagement (50%), small business support (38%) and public health and wellness (33%)."

Respondents said the daily changes, such as shifting from paper to digital services, won't likely remain permanent, and that local governments will probably only continue to use some of the digital platforms they've embraced during the pandemic, Queram reports.

"For example, 81% of survey participants said they conducted board meetings virtually during the pandemic, but only 54% of them expect to continue that practice indefinitely. But  . . . 90% of respondents expect forms to remain digital, while 87% predict that residents will continue to be able to pay fees and bills online. Other likely permanent adoptions include digital permitting (84%), community engagement (83%) and citizen requests (81%)," Queram reports. "Those results line up with citizen expectations, according to the survey, which found that 53% of respondents expect residents to demand faster response times moving forward, up from 38% last year. Seventy percent of governments expect to adopt more technology to meet those needs, while 33% said they would rely more on “external partners” and 29% pledged to continue to work to remove silos within their organizations."

Rural chef is 'queen of the food scene' in Kentucky and recognized nationally; webinar tonight to discuss cookbook

Ouita Michel (Photo by Rob Bolson)

One might expect to head to a major city for nationally recognized restaurant food, but Central Kentuckians are lucky enough to have Ouita Michel nearby. Michel, who owns eight restaurants in and around Lexington, has been nominated multiple times for James Beard Foundation awards ("Oscars of the food world")for Outstanding Restauranteur and Best Chef in the Southeast.

She earned those nominations by serving up locally sourced cuisine with home-cooked flair, reflecting her childhood in rural Wyoming and New Orleans and her life in Kentucky since 1972, Rob Bolson reports for Kentucky Monthly. Using local products has a dual purpose, hen reports: "As stated on her website, her use of local foods helps sustain Bluegrass-area family farms and provides her customers with the freshest, best-tasting fine cuisine. Her restaurants reportedly have purchased more than $3 million of Kentucky-grown meats, dairy products, fruits and vegetables over the past 20 years."

Michel gives back in other ways. "She is a board member of Lexington’s FoodChain, a nonprofit food incubator, and founder of FEAST (Food Equity and Access Sustains Tomorrow), a fundraiser for FoodChain that celebrates women chefs. FoodChain’s mission is to forge links between the community and fresh food through education and demonstration of sustainable food systems," Bolson reports. "Michel also is an alumna of the James Beard Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change, a collaborative for chefs who work to improve the world’s food systems. She was recognized earlier this year on Nation’s Restaurant News’ 2021 'Power List' for how she is building community among businesswomen in the industry."

Michel will discuss her newest cookbook, Just a Few Miles South, in a free webinar tonight hosted by the Kentucky Book Festival. The hour-long event will begin at 7 p.m. ET. Click here to read more or register.

Biden's 30x30 conservation plan is not as extreme as some Republicans claim, Tennessee agricultural economists write

A Biden administration conservation plan has some conservative politicians and farming stakeholders concerned, but it's not as extreme as it may sound, and may be important to preserving America's agricultural capacity in the future, write Harwood Schaffer and Daryll Ray of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee in their latest "Policy Pennings" column.

President Biden's 30x30 plan aims to conserve at least 30 percent of the nation's lands and waters by 2030. Rep. Tracey Mann, R-Kansas, said in a tweet that the plan is an "egregious" "land grab." Schaffer and Ray write, "While 30 percent seems like a large number, we need to put it into perspective. Currently, 12 percent of the land in the US is permanently protected. At the same time 'approximately 60 percent of land in the continental US is in a natural state.' That suggests that the remaining 18 percent will not have to come from agriculture alone but could involve activities on other lands as well."

And, they note, climate change could significantly harm farmers and ranchers with flooding, droughts, and more: "There is a significant possibility that farmers, ranchers, and orchardists could be at greater risk from the results of climate change than from the 30×30 plan."

A little moderation on masks could go a long way in rural areas, Kentucky writer tells a national audience

Writing from Anderson County, Kentucky, population 23,000, for The Washington Post, columnist Teri Carter says some advocates of mask wearing go too far for rural areas like hers.

Teri Carter

"Even as Americans are getting vaccinated, we are still fighting about masks," she writes. "Because thanks to dangerously bungled messaging from the former president and his mask-snubbing administration, as well as conflicting messages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fights about masks are long past being about safety. Many of my neighbors stopped thinking about the coronavirus pandemic a long time ago. But they may never be finished arguing about it."

Carter writes about politicians, pastors and churches, and also about national news media.

"When I hear politicians and national media organizations saying that vaccine hesitancy is due to the pause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine or because rural people in Trump country don’t believe in science, I wonder how many people they’ve talked to in towns like mine," Carter writes to introduce her key anecdote:

I live on a small lake. On Sunday afternoon, my next-door neighbor (a Trump supporter) came over to help us back our boat trailer into the woods. The first thing he said was, “I’m vaccinated! I can hug you now!” After we finished with the trailer, as we talked about coming out of the pandemic and having an outdoor party to celebrate, he said, “Okay, what’s this whole thing about wearing masks outside — outside! — after the shots? It’s such complete bull----. For crying out loud, if they want people to trust the vaccine, they need to give people a reason to get the vaccine besides how much it will help everybody else.”

Carter concludes, "From where I sit — out here where neither I nor anyone I know has ever worn masks outside — vaccine hesitancy and debates over masks are not about people needing more information, but about the need to get local leaders that people trust, like their preachers, Republican club heads and volunteer firemen, to do the talking. They would be a significant improvement over national politicians who continue to knowingly spread falsehoods about everything from the coronavirus to the 2020 election results."

White House refocusing efforts to raise rural coronavirus vaccination rates; see latest rural infection and death rates

Percent of rural population completely vaccinated
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version

The federal government will put more focus on rural communities "in an effort to get more Americans vaccinated by July 4, the White House announced Tuesday," Liz Carey reports for The Daily Yonder. "The announcement says the Biden administration is raising the goal for vaccinations to get at least one shot into the arms of 70 percent of American adults, and for 160 million U.S. adults to be fully vaccinated by July 4." About 95 million of Americans 18 and up, or 45%, were fully vaccinated as of May 1; metropolitan counties have a 29.7% vaccination rate, compared to 26% in other counties.

"To raise the rural vaccination rate, the administration will send vaccines directly to rural health clinics in underserved communities and provide $100 million in American Rescue Plan funding for 4,600 rural health clinics to use for vaccine outreach in rural communities," Carey reports. "Additionally, the Health Resources and Services Administration will provide rural health clinics and rural hospitals with $860 million to broaden Covid-19 mitigation efforts. The funding amounts to about $100,000 for each of the rural health clinics and $230,000 for each of the 1,730 rural hospitals.

The administration also plans to direct pharmacies to begin offering walk-in vaccinations, and tell he Federal Emergency Management Agency to work with local leaders to vaccinate the hardest-to-reach individuals with more mobile clinics, pop-up clinics, and smaller community vaccination sites, depending on local needs. "The president announced nearly $250 million in two funding opportunities for community-based organizations to ramp up personal outreach by hiring community outreach workers, community health workers, social-support specialists, and others," Carey reports.

New rural coronavirus infections fell by 5% last week from the week before, but metropolitan counties  dropped 15%. See the Yonder for the latest rural coronavirus infection and death rates, including an interactive, county-level map and regional analysis.

Finalists announced for Livingston Awards for outstanding work by young reporters; four have rural resonance

The University of Michigan has announced the finalists for its 2021 Livingston Awards, which honor outstanding reporting and storytelling by young journalists. Here are some with rural resonance:

• Samantha Hogan of The Maine Monitor and ProPublica's Local Reporting Network for "Defenseless: Investigating the Only State Without Public Defenders." Hogan noted in a tweet that she was the Monitor's only full-time reporter when they pitched a series on Maine's lack of public defenders to ProPublica. "I'm still humbled by their belief in small, local newsrooms and the outcome it can have," she wrote. Hogan received a rural computer-assisted reporting fellowship from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
• Elizabeth Dias of The New York Times for "America's Soul," a three-part series about the intersection of faith with politics and the pandemic. One story, about the "complete fusion of evangelical Christianity and conservative politics," was excerpted on The Rural Blog.
• Jessica Contrera of The Washington Post for "The Pandemic's Human Supply Chain," which illustrated pandemic supply-chain problems by following a restaurant hamburger on its journey from a cattle rancher to the plate.
• Joshua Sharpe of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for "The Imperfect Alibi: The forgotten suspect, the DNA, and the church murders that haunted a detective," a two-part series about a pair of murders in rural Georgia and the man wrongfully convicted for them.

Opioid epidemic accountability trial begins; states try to block Purdue Pharma owners from legal immunity

The opioid epidemic has hit Appalachia particularly hard, so it's perhaps fitting that the first federal trial against drug companies in the epidemic began Monday in West Virginia. "Cabell County and its seat, Huntington, will test a legal claim made by thousands of cities, counties, Native American tribes and other plaintiffs that drug companies ignored red flags and flooded their communities with addictive pain pills, causing a 'public nuisance' and fueling an epidemic of substance abuse, overdoses and deaths," Meryl Kornfield reports for The Washington Post. "The landmark trial in West Virginia against drug distributors known as the 'Big Three' — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — comes after an 11th-hour settlement averted an Ohio trial in October 2019 and coronavirus-related delays stalled opioid cases across the country."

In the trial, described as the most complex civil case in the nation, "Thousands of local governments and jurisdictions are arguing that the companies had a responsibility to ensure that the billions of pain pills pumped into their communities were not diverted for illegal use," Kornfield reports. "The distributors say they complied with the law, delivering drugs approved by the government to pharmacies." The verdict could lay the groundwork for settlements in other such cases.

There's only been one other opioid epidemic trial: in 2019 in a Cleveland courtroom, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $465 million after the other defendants, Teva Pharmaceuticals and OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma settled, Kornfield reports.

Speaking of Purdue, attorneys general from 24 states and Washington, D.C., are trying to block the Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, from gaining legal immunity from future opioid lawsuits. "In exchange for what amounts to a legal firewall for the Sacklers and their remaining empire, members of the family have offered to forfeit control of their bankrupt drug company and pay $4.2 billion from their private fortunes," Brian Mann reports for NPR.

Though such a settlement could prevent years of expensive litigation and get struggling communities financial aid more quickly, "a growing group of public officials and activists is mounting a last-ditch effort to derail the plan, describing it in legal briefs as an unethical, and possibly unlawful, use of the bankruptcy court's power," Mann reports.

Nation's school chiefs offer advice for how to help students make up for pandemic learning loss

After more than a year of classroom disruptions due to the pandemic, a paper highlighting ways states and educators are accelerating student learning was released by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers," Brent Woodie reports for Route Fifty. "The preliminary analysis shows ways states and school leaders have helped K-12 students make up for gaps in learning. Available state plans, websites, media reports and gubernatorial State of the State addresses for most states were reviewed."

The report highlights four major steps some states are taking to accelerate learning:

• Getting organized and understanding what needs to happen. States and educators are encouraged to communicate their plans and engage key stakeholders.
• Start or enhance summer programs to help students catch up.
• Provide more overall support to help students better learn. That includes using new federal funds to strengthen learning time, both during and after school, to address students' academic and overall needs.
• Strategically use one-time federal funds to address future issues that will crop up because of pandemic-related learning loss. That includes recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers at the schools that need them most, and identifying and supporting struggling students.

U.S. chicken shortage due to pandemic and fast-food demand

You may have difficulty getting chicken in grocery stores and restaurants these days; pandemic supply-chain problems and a nationwide craze for fast-food fried chicken have caused a nationwide shortage.

"Chicken has for years been the most popular meat in the United States, and experts and analysts have cited several reasons for the current deficit," Reis Thebault reports for The Washington Post. "Some are related to the coronavirus — pandemic-spurred disruptions in the market and supply chain and an increased demand for a comfort food that is takeout- or delivery-friendly. Others, industry watchers say, include increased competition, volatile feed prices and even the deadly winter storms that swept over the South in February, halting the work of chicken processors."

Fast-food trends are partly responsible for the shortage, after some major chains increased their chicken-sandwich offerings in 2019. But pandemic pressures on meatpacking plants are another major cause. "Nearly 60,000 meatpacking workers have tested positive for the coronavirus and at least 291 have died, according to data compiled by the Food and Environment Reporting Network," Thebault reports. Industry lobbying kept poultry plants open, but increased line-speed limits meant to boost production made social-distancing more difficult for workers and appears to have accelerated coronavirus spread.