Six placed on TVA board, which was almost short of quorum

Sen. Mitch McConnell and new TVA Director Wade White

The presidentially appointed board of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest public utility, has been without a quorum of permanent members since May because of a political standoff between the White House and Republicans in the Senate. Since then, President Biden nominated two more directors, including a Kentuckian who pleased Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the Senate confirmed six directors Wednesday.

The confirmation was by unanimous consent, which requires every senator to go along. Otherwise, the nominations were subject to a filibuster that requires 60 votes, and thus some Republicans, to block. The "nine-member board had been whittled down to five people, each appointed by former President Donald Trump, with two members who had been serving after their terms expired in May," reports Jonathan Mattise of The Associated Press. "The seats come with five-year terms. But when a board member’s term expires, that person can keep serving until end of the current congressional session, typically in December, or until their successors take office, whatever comes first."

Beth Prichard Geer

The new board members are Wade White, judge-executive of Lyon County, Kentucky; Al Gore Chief of Staff Beth Geer of suburban Nashville, who had offended Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst with a tweet in 2015; Huntsville, Ala., attorney Joe Ritch, who was board chair in the Obama administration; Bill Renick, former mayor and state legislator from Ashland, Miss.; Robert Klein, "a retired line foreman for the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga who also filled roles with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers;" and Michelle Moore, "who grew up in LaGrange, Georgia, and lives in Richmond, Virginia, and heads a clean-energy nonprofit after leading Obama’s sustainability team," Mattise reports. "Three of the new board members' nominations date back to April 2021. Two [including White] were nominated in June, and one was nominated in July."

The board now has a member from each of the right major states served by TVA, another Senate desire. McConnell lauded the Senate for "finally adding a Kentuckian" to the board of directors. Early in the administration, the board was chaired by George W. Bush appointee and former national Republican chairman Mike Duncan of Kentucky, who left the board in 2011.

"Three Trump-appointed board members will remain in the new year: Chairman William Kilbride, whose term expires in May 2023, and Beth Harwell and Brian Noland, whose terms expire in May 2024," Mattise reports. "Environmental advocates have urged the new Democrat-appointed board members, once installed, to move more quickly in transitioning to 100% carbon-free electricity, citing the Biden administration’s goal of a carbon-pollution-free energy sector by 2035."

Christmas on Sunday is a challenge for many Protestants; some churches cancel, change or cut back activities

Most Protestant churches will meet in some fashion on Christmas, but an increasing
number appear to be opting out. (Photo by Joanna Kulesza, The New York Times)

Part of the joy of Christmas Day is getting up, celebrating and hanging out in pajamas. It's time to relax, unless Christmas falls on a Sunday; then there's a dilemma: "Christmas is considered by most Christians to be the second-most significant religious holiday of the year, behind Easter. But most Protestants do not attend church services on Christmas Day when it falls on a weekday," notes Ruth Graham of The New York Times. "If everyone from the pews to the pulpit would rather stay home, what is a practical house of worship to do? This year, some Protestant churches are deciding to skip Sunday services completely."

Timothy Beal, a professor of religious studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, told Graham, "Christmas morning and Sunday morning are sort of in tension with each other. Most people who are churchgoers think of Christmas morning not as a religious time but as a family time: stockings and brunches and staying in your pajamas until midday or later." Beal's wife, a Presbyterian pastor, plans a "more relaxed" Sunday service in a smaller sanctuary, perhaps because she expects fewer congregants to attend, and that seems to be the approach of many Protestant congregations; others are dropping Sunday school and other activities.

"The Catholic Church considers attendance at Sunday Mass nonnegotiable, and the same goes for Christmas Day, no matter the inconvenience of the calendar," Graham notes. "Among nondenominational evangelical pastors, who tend to be informal and pragmatic in their approach to church matters, the numbers hosting Christmas Day services are significantly lower: Only 61 percent say they will do so, according to Lifeway research survey."

Some pastors disagree with canceling Christmas Day services. Kevin DeYoung, the pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, N.C., told Graham, "If anything, with an extra-special day we ought to be more eager to worship, not less eager. It’s one more time to sing those Christmas songs before they go away for a while.”

Couple fights for nature-friendly lawn and wins, prompting first such state law to rein in homeowners' associations

The yard (Photo by Jason Andrew, The New York Times)

A wise man once said, "The only thing more challenging than your lawn is your neighbor's lawn." Disputes over property maintenance are one reason some people prefer to live in rural areas; the disputes can range from quibbles to outright battle zones, but it's a rare lawn dispute that leads to a groundbreaking state law.

Janet and Jeff Crouch of Columbia, Md., had "lived on their quiet cul-de-sac harmoniously with their neighbors for years, and chose native plants to help insects, birds and wildlife thrive," reports Cara Buckley of The New York Times. Then they got a letter from their homeowners' association saying, "Your yard is not the place for such a habitat." The letter gave the Crouches "10 days to convert their front yard into a lawn that looked like everyone else’s."

The Crouches were not willing to tear up their nature haven without a fight that cost them $60,000. "They hired a lawyer and contacted every wildlife and environmental group they could think of, along with local legislators," Buckley reports. They filed a lawsuit, and two months later, "a Maryland state representative asked if they would allow their case to form the basis of a new environmental law. . . . A bill was drafted that forbade homeowner associations from banning pollinator plants or rain gardens, or from requiring property owners to plant turf grass. The measure gained bipartisan support, passed with near unanimity, and became law in October 2021."

Mary Catherine Cochran, former legislative director for Delegate Terri L. Hill, told Buckley that "Maryland law was the first in the country to limit homeowner-association control over eco-friendly yards."

"Lawns make up one-third of the country’s 135 million acres of residential landscaping," ecologist Douglas W. Tallamy told Buckley. Tallamy, whose book, Nature’s Best Hope, urges homeowners to change their yards into conservation corridors told Buckley, “This idea that humans and nature cannot coexist is destroying the entire planet, which in turn is destroying humans. The only way forward is to coexist. . . . Now people know if they fight back, they can win.”

News-media roundup: 2022 opinion and research gems, predictions and advice for journalism; Alaska weeklies die

Nieman Reports has picked its five best opinion pieces of 2022: Gilbert Gaul on the need to cover land-use decisions that worsen disasters, and how arduous rebuilding after a disaster really is; Isaac Bailey's argument that objectivity is less important than transparency, accuracy and fairness; Gary Langer on the need for better vetting of poll data; Anne Garrels on the courage of Ukrainian journalists; and the argument by Mardi Link of the Traverse City Record-Eagle that media coverage of adoption (especially in the context of abortion) lacks voices of adoptees: “Adoption is a parenting decision and abortion is a reproductive decision,” wrote Link, an adoptee herself. “For reporters to equate one as a solution for the other provides nothing of value to readers and perpetuates a false equivalency.” NR also gives its 10 most-read stories of 2022.

NiemanLab collected several predictions and advice for journalism in 2023, including: Sarabeth Berman of the American Journalism Project says nonprofit news can work in smaller markets with a network model; Sue Cross of the Institute for Nonprofit News predicts more collective action among varied interests to "save the news;" Lisa Heyamoto of LION Publishers says the "independent news industry" has a roadmap to sustainability; Pia Frey and Torsten Schlegel of Opinionary say publishers should ask more questions of users as cookies die out; Kerri Hoffman of PRX says podcasting is going local; Ayala Panievsky of the University of Cambridge says "It's time for PR for journalism;" and Julia Beizer of Bloomberg says news and subscription fatigue should make publishers "focus on the value we provide our users. We must learn everything we can about who they are and what they need. And then we provide it through journalism that helps them navigate their world."

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, which does research in the U.K, the U.S. and other countries, says 22 of the findings from its research in 2022 are still relevant for 2023. They include: Many people see misinformation and harassment as big problems for digital platforms; they make snap judgments about trustworthiness of sources; people who know more about the news media use social media differently; young people increasingly use TikTok for news; and newsroom leaders are still betting on more revenue from readers.

Citing losses, Wick Communications has stopped printing the Anchorage Press and two other area weeklies, The Arctic Warrior and the Chugach Times. The anchoragepress.com website will continue, as will the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, a big weekly in an area north of Anchorage.

On-farm slaughter growing in rural Vermont, but depends on services of itinerants; USDA rejects requests to relax rules

Itinerant slaughterers load a quartered beef carcass after an on-farm slaughter.
The meat will be taken to a slaughterhouse to be processed and packaged.
(Photo by Alex Driehaus, Report for America/Valley News)

Since the intense meat shortages and processing-plant closings of the early pandemic, itinerant slaughterers in rural Vermont have become an increasingly popular way for farmers to kill animals for personal consumption, reports Frances Mize of the Valley News of West Lebanon, N.H., and White River Junction, Vt. Now, as a means to ease backlogs in those abattoirs, Vermont livestock producers are looking for ways on-farm slaughter meat could be sold more broadly.

Last year, Vermont's farm and ranch community asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture "to allow meat from on-farm slaughters to be sold in small 'animal shares,' which would operate like community-supported agriculture," which lives on annual subscriptions from consumers. USDA declined, "but before the refusal, and with renewed force since, Rural Vermont, a Montpelier-based nonprofit focused on bolstering community-scale agriculture, has continued advocating that the rules be relaxed so consumers and farmers alike have more choices," Mize reports.

Mize gives readers an up-close description of on-farm slaughter. She attended a kill at the home of farmer who had hired an itinerant slaughterer, and wrote: "Tom Havill’s herd of cattle watched from a hillside as one of their own — secured in a holding pen — lost its life to a single shot fired by Chet Miller," Mize reports. Havill told Mize that he still can’t watch his animals being killed.

Miller told Mize he also has mixed feelings about his work: "It’s not a glorious occupation. I have a lot of people who appreciate me, and my calendar is full of people that need my help. But sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and what I’m doing lays heavy on me.” Mize writes, "Some are advocating that the service Miller offers farmers through his work — doing the difficult job, which many of his customers couldn’t do themselves, of killing the animal that they’ve raised — should be reconsidered as a tool toward a more versatile, modernized food economy."

Caroline Gordon, Rural Vermont’s legislative director, told Maze, “People are feeling that the need for more resilient food systems has become apparent. The trust and transparency of our current economic system was called into question during the pandemic. . . .On-farm slaughtered meat allowed to be sold as a product, even within a small market, could alleviate some of the stresses on the slaughterhouses, some of which are booked up for many months."

Entries sought for Hillman Prizes for 'investigative journalism and commentary in service of the common good'

The Sidney Hillman Foundation is accepting entries until Jan. 30 for the 2023 Hillman Prizes honoring excellence in investigative journalism and commentary in service of the common good.

The prizes celebrate investigative reporting and deep storytelling that exposes social and economic injustice and leads to meaningful public policy change. They are awarded in these categories:
Book (nonfiction)
Newspaper Reporting (print/online)
Magazine Reporting (print/online)
Broadcast Journalism (story/series/documentary, with at least 20 minutes in total package length)
Web Journalism (story, series or multimedia project, which appeared online and may include text, photo, video, graphics); and
Opinion and Analysis Journalism (commentary and analysis in any medium)

Entries must have been published or broadcast in 2022 and have been made widely available to a U.S audience. Your material and a cover letter explaining how the entry meets the requirements can be submitted here. There is no fee to enter.

Winners will receive a $5,000 honorarium and a certificate at an event to be held in New York City, on May 9. The judges are Jamelle Bouie, columnist, The New York Times; Maria Carrillo, former enterprise editor, Tampa Bay Times and Houston Chronicle; Ta-Nehisi Coates, bestselling author and former national correspondent, The Atlantic; Alix Freedman, global editor for ethics and standards, Reuters; Harold Meyerson, editor at large, The American Prospect; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher, The Nation.

“The Hillman Prizes go to watchdog journalists who bring us the stories of the marginalized and voiceless and hold power to account,” said Alexandra Lescaze, executive director of the Sidney Hillman Foundation. “Investigative journalism is a cornerstone of a well-functioning democracy and has the potential to initiate the public policy changes that move societies forward. The Hillman Prize is an acknowledgment and a token of gratitude for their essential work.”

Since 1950, the Sidney Hillman Foundation has honored journalists, writers and public figures who pursue investigative journalism and public policy for the common good. Sidney Hillman was the founding president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, a predecessor of the Service Employees International Union. An architect of the New Deal, Hillman fought to build a vibrant union movement extending beyond the shop floor to all aspects of working people’s lives.

K.C. Star investigation lays out the dangers of railroads and their unwillingness to fix things without taxpayer money

Wreckage of Billy Barton's dump truck (Kansas City Star photo)

On June 27, 2022, an Amtrak train approached a crossing near Mendon, Missouri, pop. 271. The crossing was "like other crossings across the country; it had no gates or lights; brush along the tracks reduced visibility; and a steep approach could bottom-out a truck or trailer," reports The Kansas City Star. "On the tracks that day was a 2007 Kenworth dump truck driven by 54-year-old Billy Barton II of Brookfield, Missouri. . . . The high-speed collision killed Barton and three passengers on board the Amtrak and about 150 people were injured."

After the collision, the Star began investigating railroad safety, a major concern in rural areas. It found that many people had told railroad companies about dangers, and that the rail lines had refused to act unless improvements were funded by taxpayers. It also revealed:

Dangerous crossings: What happened near Mendon is not unique. Hundreds of unprotected crossings across the country have raised the fears of residents and been put on lists for safety improvements that, tragically, sometimes come too late. The Star spoke with families of victims. 

Blocked crossings cost lives: Trains don’t have to be in motion to cause deaths. States can’t limit how long a train can block motor vehicle and pedestrian traffic at public crossings, the courts have said. The results have been deadly for people like Gene Byrd, who died after a train blocked EMTs’ access to his Oklahoma house. The problem is only getting worse.

Workers endangered on the job: Railroad workers, in the news lately because of a possible strike, worry that changes in the industry are making their jobs even more dangerous. Companies have slashed their workforces and in their pursuit of profits have cut back on safety training and, employees say, equipment maintenance. Trains have gotten longer and crews smaller. Employees share their stories.

Worry about rail companies' merger: In towns up and down rail lines where a merged Kansas City Southern-Canadian Pacific Railroad would operate, residents fear the increased traffic and longer trains the deal would bring. The merger, which could come early next year, forever change the way of life in small towns like Camanche, Iowa, along the Mississippi River, the Star reports.

Who probes suspicious deaths? It may not be who you think

(Photo by Mathew Schwartz, Unsplash)

A chronically underfunded system riddled with egregious conflicts of interest. That's one way to describe the state-by-state system that governs U.S. coroners, reports Samantha Young of Kaiser Health News. The meshwork is so sticky, one physician shared this observation with Young: "If you ever want to know when, how — and where — to kill someone, I can tell you, and you’ll get away with it. No problem."

Nancy Belcher, chief executive officer of the King County Medical Society in Seattle, told Young that in Washington, "A coroner doesn’t have to ever have taken a science class in their life. These are the people that go in, look at a homicide scene or death, and say whether there needs to be an autopsy. They’re the ultimate decision-maker."

How suspicious death is investigated varies from state to state, and even within states. "The job can be held by an elected coroner as young as 18 or a highly trained physician appointed as medical examiner," Young reports. "Some death investigators work for elected sheriffs who try to avoid controversy or owe political favors. Others own funeral homes and direct bodies to their private businesses. . . . It’s a disjointed and chronically underfunded system — with more than 2,000 offices across the country that determine the cause of death in about 600,000 cases a year."

The cost to hire medical examiners or properly train coroners is disproportionately difficult for rural areas, Young reports: "Many Illinois counties also said they would shoulder a financial burden under legislation introduced last year by state Rep. Maurice West, a Democrat. His more sweeping bill would have replaced coroners with medical examiners. Rural counties, in particular, complained about their tight budgets and killed his bill before it got a committee hearing. West told Young, “When something like this affects rural areas, if they push back a little bit, we just stop."

Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen, a former medical examiner for Milwaukee, told Young, “When you try to remove them, you run into a political wall. You can't kill them, so you have to help train them." Young notes that a 2011 study by the National Association for Medical Examiners "found that 82% of the forensic pathologists who responded had faced pressure from politicians or the deceased person’s relatives to change the reported cause or manner of death in a case."

Lawmakers have made some progress by allowing counties to "pool their resources and hire shared contract coroners in exchange for ending the dual role for prosecutors by 2025," Young writes. Belcher told Young, “We were just trying to figure out a system that I think anybody would agree needed to be overhauled."

Minnesota town of 1,500 passes sales tax to fund childcare

Lindsey Buegler at the Little Sprouts child-care center
in Warren, Minn. (Photo by Dan Gunderson, MPR)

What was once a childcare challenge is now a crisis, with rural families feeling more of the pinch to secure affordable, healthy childcare. 

Warren, Minnesota, pop. 1,500, was one city that decided to address its shortage of childcare with innovation. In November, Warren voters became the first to approve a local sales tax dedicated to supporting a childcare center. The approval was unexpected since the tax is for a service many Warren citizens won't use, reports Dan Gunderson of Minnesota Public Radio.

Lindsey Buegler was a Warren parent who needed childcare. She told Gunderson: "It was either get involved and beg and plead with people to somehow keep the daycare open or we would have had to move. There were seven of us directly involved with the center that would have had to move. . . . I would say that's huge for this small city of Warren to lose seven families."

City officials "partnered with the First Children’s Finance Rural Child Care Innovation Program" and found "a shortage of 187 childcare slots within a 20-mile radius of Warren," Gunderson reports. "The research also found more than 30 percent of survey respondents had turned down a job, or withdrawn from the workforce because of childcare issues."

Map from City-Data.com

Using those facts, the city proposed a half-cent sales tax, and to the surprise of many, voters approved it, making Warren the only city in Minnesota with a tax for that purpose. "Business leaders pushed hard for the tax. They understood how a shortage of childcare was limiting economic growth," Gunderson reports.

Construction for a new childcare center will begin in the spring 2023 with funding coming from the new sales tax proceeds, community fundraising efforts and a low-interest loan from the Department of Agriculture, Gunderson adds. "The childcare building will be owned by the city and operated by the Little Sprouts nonprofit. City leaders expect that arrangement will help make childcare more affordable."

For flood victims, Ky. looks at reclaimed strip mines, but faces obstacles: coal firms, infrastructure, subsidence

This subdivision on a reclaimed strip mine has had no problems with home foundations because they were properly engineered, the developer said. (Photo by Ryan C. Hermens, Lexington Herald-Leader)

Reclaimed strip mines may become new neighborhoods for some Eastern Kentucky residents whose homes were destroyed or ravaged by record flooding this summer, but obstacles remain.

"There has been relatively little residential development on old surface mines in Eastern Kentucky. The projects being contemplated could hold several hundred houses, dwarfing prior development on mined land in the region," reports Bill Estep of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "It can be expensive to develop such sites, however, and in one case local and state officials have not been able to work out a deal to buy an attractive piece of land from a land-holding company. . . . Coal companies, or companies that hold land to lease for mining, are among the largest landowners in the counties most affected."

Another obstacle: The sites are largely removed from utilities and major roads. “If you’ve gotta run infrastructure very far it’s gonna get really expensive really fast,” Scott McReyolds, executive director of the Housing Development Alliance, which builds affordable housing in Perry, Knott, Breathitt and Leslie counties and does home repairs, told Estep. “Roads and water are expensive.”

Also, some buildings on reclaimed mines have been damaged by subsidence, or settlement of underground layers. Estep notes a 2018 Virginia Tech report that said, “Modern reclamation rarely prepares mined areas for building-support purposes.” He reports, "State and local officials said they’ll make sure any mined land used to develop subdivisions is stable enough to support the houses and other structures. Kristin Voskuhl, spokeswoman for the state Public Protection Cabinet, said in an email, “Extensive geotechnical testing will be conducted to determine the safety and stability of potential building sites at appropriate times in the planning and construction process.”

Gov. Andy Beshear announced Tuesday that a 75-acre site in Knott County will soon be developed for housing. "Beshear said the Knott County project is the first of several communities that are part of his administration’s long-term housing plan," reports McKenna Horsley of Kentucky Lantern. 

Big bill's rural-health items touch Medicaid money, telehealth rules, mental-health hotline, drug treatment, Native care

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks with reporters as he
walks to a vote at the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Francis Chung, Politico)

The whopping 4,155-page omnibus spending bill is whipping its way through Congress. The $1.7 trillion measure is crammed with public-policy changes and funding provisions.

Here are some items with rural resonance that made it in, starting with several health-related provisions:

• An earlier end to Covid-era state Medicaid funding and rules. Additional funding will end on April 1, 2023, instead of June 30. The change will end rules that effectively barred any state from dropping people from the rolls if the state wanted to get the 6.2% bonus.
  
• An extension of rules that supported telehealth options through 2024, which "falls far short of a push from some lawmakers who wanted to make that flexibility permanent," Politico notes. The pandemic ushered in telehealth as accepted medical care.
• Almost $502 million, a nearly $400 million increase, for the new 988 national hotline for mental-health services. "The ultimate goal is to be able to dispatch mobile crisis teams immediately to anyone in need, no matter where they live," The Washington Post reports.
• Easier access for health-care providers to prescribe buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction. They would no longer have to get a separate waiver from the Drug Enforcement Administration.
• More stable funding for the Indian Health Service, a result of perhaps the largest effort by Native American groups "to provide more funding certainty to the federal health agency that helps serve roughly 2.6 million American Indians and Alaska Natives," the Post reports.
• A limit for tax breaks on land-conservation purchases: "The provision would automatically disallow any deduction that is 2.5 times more than what investors put into a partnership that is making the deals — an indication that easement organizers artificially inflated the value of conserved land to get more tax savings," reports Benjamin Guggenheim of PoliticoPro.
• "Maine lawmakers successfully included a pause on new regulations they warned would cripple their state’s lobster industry," Politico reports. "The provision delays new rules by six years, which critics argue will allow fisheries to put off actions that would prevent fishing gear from harming and even killing endangered whales."
  
• UPDATE: The bill funds a program that gives poor families $40 per month per child for summer groceries, and "allows schools and nonprofits in rural areas to deliver meals or offer pick-up options to families during those months," The New York Times reports.

The bill would also amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to make clear that the vice president, as presiding officer of the Senate, plays only a ministerial or ceremonial role in the counting of electoral votes from the states. The law's vagueness contributed to the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The bill would also raise the threshold for challenging electoral votes to one-fifth of both the House and Senate, from the current one member of each chamber.

Put that phone down. You're missing something. Be present.

By Zonelle Rainbolt

Executive Editor, Wesner Publications, Cordell, Okla.

At a recent celebratory gathering of young, middle-aged and older adults, I was interested to watch as the different groups interacted. One of the most surprising things I noticed was one man who was constantly on his cell phone. He wasn’t one of the younger set; as a matter of fact, he was one of the oldest ones in attendance. He wasn’t talking or texting, he was mostly reading, occasionally pausing to click on a few keys. I suspect he was going over emails, but the work day was long over and the party was just before a major holiday, so I can’t think there was anything so urgent it should take precedence over a celebration he was hosting.

Zonelle Rainbolt

At one point, he took an empty chair beside me, but we never exchanged a word, as he didn’t once look up from his screen. I so wish I had tapped him on the arm and said, “Be present.” He was actively missing a milestone event in the life of someone very important to him. My guess is the next morning he couldn’t recall who had been at the party, or maybe even what was so important in his “In” box. And those were moments and memories he wasn’t going to get back.

Our jobs in the ever-changing, often chaotic world of news reporting keep us hyper-aware there is quite likely something going on in the world that could, legitimately, claim our attention. It is so easy to think we can just take a quick glimpse at our email, text or social media and see what is happening, then get back to being with our family and friends. That is frequently a trap, however, as that quick glimpse often turns into a time-consuming trip through multiple online resources that draw us away from the moment.

It has happened to all of us at one time or another, yet, thinking back, it is hard to pinpoint a time when the public wouldn’t have been as well served if I had waited a bit later to do my work. Although the work we do is vital, we all need to consciously “Be Present” when we have time to be with friends and loved ones. I know that is easier said than done, and I have often been the poster child for putting family on simmer while I work just a little bit longer, go in a little bit earlier, stay a little bit later. And like the man at the party, those are moments and memories I won’t get back.

So, as we celebrate the Christmas season and race toward the start of a new year, I urge all of you to “Be Present” at every opportunity you have with those you love — and even with those you like and maybe even with those you are pretty sure you aren’t crazy about. What we are living right now is the real thing — not a dress rehearsal — and the moments we lose are gone forever. I promise, if you follow my advice, you will thank me later.

Rainbolt is president of the Oklahoma Press Association, which originally published this article.

'Adam is with us.' A genealogist finds DNA from first man

William Noel has DNA that links back to the first
man. (Photo by Tristan Lorei, The Free Lance-Star)

According to Wikipedia, "a haplogroup (haploid from the Greek: ἁπλοῦς, haploûs, 'onefold, simple' and English: group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single-nucleotide polymorphism mutation."

Very science-ish. Also, very exciting for participants in Virginia genealogist Paula Royster's research, which was "conducted into the origins of some of Fredericksburg’s oldest Black families—and for William Noel [a study participant] in particular," reports Adele Uphaus of The Free Lance-Star. 

Uphaus shares Royster's research announcement: “Mr. Noel, you are the only person living in these United States with this particular DNA type. You have the same haplogroup as the first human man. Adam is with us today.” 

Noel's DNA results "were so exciting that they kept her awake at night," Royster told Uphaus. Royster is a scholar of the African diaspora and founder of the Center for African American Genealogical Research, a nonprofit whose mission is to reunite African-descended Americans with their distant African relatives.

Mr. Noel's "DNA is part of a group known as A000, which predates modern humans and has as its common ancestor the man from whom all other human men are descended—a person genealogists call 'Y-line Adam,'" Uphaus writes. Royster explained to the group: "That type of DNA is extremely rare outside of Africa and was not even known to exist until 2012, when it was discovered in a South Carolina man. [Mr. Noel's] DNA is 40,000 years older than his. . . . We all have these ideas about who came first. You, Mr. Noel, represent the beginning of all creation.”

According to Uphaus, Royce referred to the slave auction block that stood at the intersection of William and Charles streets in Fredericksburg before it was moved to the Fredericksburg Area Museum, saying “You can see that our history didn’t begin with that 1,000-pound block on the corner."

News-media roundup: Local journalism aid not in must-pass bill; Oregon study faults local news; 2022's best corrections

As expected, neither bill aimed at helping local journalism were included in the omnibus spending-and-policy bill that Congress must pass by the end of the year and hopes to pass by Friday.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act lacks the proposed Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which would have established a tax credit for newsroom salaries, or the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would have created a temporary anti-trust exemption for news publishers to negotiate with Google, Facebook and other tech platforms for compensation for use of content.

Dean Ridings, CEO of America's Newspapers, which lobbied with the News/Media Alliance for both bills — told Editor & Publisher, "This is certainly disappointing for us all! Either bill would have been very significant for our members and to the industry. We will need a different strategy for the 118th Congress," when Republicans will control the House.

The Agora Journalism Center in the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication "found that Oregonians are unequally served by local news media and that some communities have few places to turn for local news," the university reports. "The report also describes how journalists and civic leaders are deeply worried about the state’s ability to confront its challenges at a time when the number of news outlets is declining, news audiences are shrinking, and misinformation is on the rise." What would a similar study in your state show?

Axios offers its "Best corrections of 2022:"
Jan. 11, New York Times: "The clue for 47 Across in the Monday puzzle may have implied incorrectly that coal is a viable source of clean energy. While it is possible to capture and sequester some of the greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants, the technology has never been used on a large scale because of its high cost."
Jan. 22, Deadspin: "We learned after the publication of this article that 49ers OC Mike McDaniel, whom we describe as a 'white guy,' is in fact biracial. The article’s original text remains below. We regret the error."
Oct. 23, Washington Post: "The crossword in the Oct. 23 Washington Post Magazine included an incorrect clue for 95 across ('Fictional graduate of Springfield High School during the 1970s'). The answer, HOMER, refers to Homer Simpson, who didn't graduate from high school in the 1970s because, during that time, he didn't pass Remedial Science 1A, as seen in a Season 4 episode of 'The Simpsons.'"
Oct. 25, NYT: "An earlier version of a photo caption with this article misidentified the performer shown with James Corden in a 'Carpool Karaoke' segment. She is Nicki Minaj, not Cardi B."
(Like this? Here are Axios's best news media corrections of 2020 and 2021.)

Shortage of beds for sick children 'not simply the result of a deluge of sick children' but hospitals' desire for money

(Washington Post graph from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data)

The surge of children with respiratory syncytial virus, influenza and Covid has left hospital emergency rooms and pediatric floors scrambling for beds and staff, report Christopher Rowland, Dan Keating and Daniel Gilbert of The Washington Post. These deep shortages are exposing decades of cuts in pediatric beds at hospitals, especially those serving rural areas, the Post reveals.

The experience of Segura Nino, 29, is playing out for parents nationwide: "Segura Nino had spent 10 sleepless hours in a suburban Houston emergency room with her 3-month-old son Maleek when she boarded a medical helicopter to Corpus Christi, 200 miles away," The Post reports. "Nino was told that Houston, a city renowned for its world-class health system, did not have a bed for one more baby with RSV." After Maleek had come home, recovered, Nino told the Post, "It's crazy to have to go to another city to get care for your child."

The Post rpeorts, "Instead of finding inpatient care at community hospitals near their homes, parents often must travel to larger children’s hospitals that have the most beds. Not only are those facilities farther away, but they also are thronged by patients from an entire region — and even from neighboring states."

The problem is not just acute, but chronic: "The shortage of beds across the United States is not simply the result of a deluge of sick children. Over the past two decades, hospital systems across the country have whittled down the supply of pediatric beds, which lose money because they often are unoccupied," The Post reports. "Even when they are occupied by sick children, pediatric beds generate less revenue for hospitals than do adult beds, medical experts say."

“The major driver is economics,” said Daniel Rauch, a pediatrician at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, which "cut 41 pediatric beds, citing market pressures," this year.

Nancy Foster, the American Hospital Association's vice president for quality and patient safety policy, told The Post, “These surges in RSV and flu have reminded us that we need surge capacity beyond what we might have expected for all, including children, and I don’t know we have the perfect solution yet. We’re going to have to MacGyver our way through the next few weeks to meet the surge."

Should you stay or should you go? How sick is too sick?

Image by NIAID on Unsplash

The dilemma: You have holiday dinner plans, but your nose starts to run and you have a shaggy cough. Now what? Even if your Covid-19 test is negative, what about the other 200 different viruses that are known to cause cold symptoms?

Situations like these have a lot of Americans asking, "How can we spend time together safely? How sick do you need to be to sit out the holidays a third year in a row?" writes Caroline Mimbs Nyce for The Atlantic.

She uses an episode to suggest an approach: "Paul Sax is a Harvard infectious-diseases specialist who likes to play poker. Every few weeks, he plays with friends in Boston. Recently, when it was Sax’s turn to host, one of the game’s regulars came down with a cold. The player tested negative for Covid but offered to stay home anyway. . . . Sax took him up on it. “Why go through the hassle of getting a cold?” he told Nyce, offering some practical advice: “If you’re going to the house of an infectious-disease doctor, don’t come with a cold.”

Flu season started early this year with Covid, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). And while testing can take out some of the guess work: "At-home Covid rapid tests are thought to be a good measure of infectiousness; some experts recommend that you can leave isolation by testing out," Nyse notes. "That’s not an option for the flu, RSV, or a cold."

Getting back to should you stay or go, Nyce writes, "For starters, pretty much everyone agrees that one symptom is an absolute no-go: fever. A temperature equals stay home, for at least 24 hours. (And no cheating with ibuprofen: You should be fever-free without pain meds.) Two other 'red flag' symptoms some experts mentioned are vomiting and diarrhea."

After fever and red flags, deciding how sick is too sick gets stickier. “Your individual health status is going to have an impact on how long you’re contagious,” Donald Milton of the University of Maryland told Nyce, citing flu data suggesting that children and people with obesity stay contagious for longer.

Sax told Nyse, “On average, a bad cold lasts 10 to 14 days. And yet people seem to have almost amnesia about that fact.”

Milton told her, “Basically, you need to ask people, ‘If you’ve got cold or flu symptoms, please stay home.’ If people who are recovering from a virus do come to the gathering, they should wear a mask.”

Then there's the curse of the lingering cough. "Once a person is past the initial phase of being sick, some coughs will continue to be caused by the virus, while others will be from irritation to the airways—almost asthma-like. And sorting out which is which is impossible," Sax told Nyse. Either way, “you’re not going to be very popular at a party if you're coughing a lot."

Food prices will remain high through the holiday season; market analysts see chance of relief in about six months

(Photo by Alison Marras on Unsplash)

"Sticker shock" is one way to describe grocery shopping this past year. Shoppers are not imagining the pain: "The Consumer Price Index shows inflation cooling but food prices — particularly for some holiday staples — remain high," reports Casey Quinlan of States Newsroom. "The CPI increased 0.1% in November, which was lower than some economists expected. Over the last 12 months, it rose 7.1%. Food went up 0.5% last month after an increase of 0.6% in October. The food index climbed 10.6% over last year."

While U.S. inflation has dipped in general, grocery prices have not relented. David Ortega, associate professor at the department of agricultural food and resource economics at Michigan State University, told Quinlan, “Grocery prices are still 12% higher than they were a year ago. . . . The good news is that food price increases and grocery price increases peaked in August. They’re just slowly starting to come down."

The war in Ukraine, supply-chain backups, agricultural-output decreases due to climate change and the deadliest bird flu in U.S. history have all contributed to increased food prices, Quinlan reports. Ortega told Quinlan that although it’s hard to say when food prices will begin to come down, he expects that it could happen in the next six months or so.

Donna McCallister, an assistant professor at at Texas Tech, told Quinlan that prices always increase this time of year, compounding the problem. Quinlan notes, "According to Bankrate’s Nov. 23 analysis of the cost of holiday essentials, six of 10 of the most inflated prices were for food, including turkey, bakery items, eggs, flour and prepared mixes."

McCallister gave Quinlan some suggestions for trimming grocery costs by "cutting down on food waste by going to stores more frequently for specific meals, buying some items in bulk, or switching from name brand to store brand to save money this holiday season."

Electric firms in Alabama, Florida fund conservative sites that play the news their way, and sometimes play hardball

Terry Dunn, a Tea Party activist, lost his seat on the Alabama Public Service Commission in 2014 after he was targeted by a smear campaign on news sites funded partly by electric companies. (Floodlight photo by Joe Songer)

"In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics." That's the headline on a long and complex story by NPR media reporter David Folkenflik and Mario Ariza and Miranda Green of Floodlight, which the story identifies as "a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action."

The story focuses on Matrix LLC, an Alabama consulting firm that has had Alabama Power and Florida Power and Light as clients, and six largely conservative news outlets that received at least $900,000 from Matrix, "its clients, and associated entities between 2013 and 2020. All of the media organizations deny their coverage was shaped by those payments and deny they acted unethically." Matrix founder Joe Perkins said the firm only paid for ads and other standard services; in a lawsuit, he says former CEO Jeff Pitts acted without his knowledge or consent. Pitts has countered that "Perkins knew everything" and he left due to Perkins' "unethical practices," NPR reports.

The story's object example is Terry Dunn, a Tea Party activist who was elected to the Alabama Public Service Commission in 2010 after promising "to hold a formal rate hearing at which Alabama Power executives would have to open their financial books and answer questions, under oath and in public. That hadn't happened for nearly three decades," NPR reports. When he pushed for the hearing, "He found himself the target of a political pressure campaign, replete with character assassinations and online smears." In 2014, Dunn lost by 19 percentage points in 2014 "to a catfish farmer who had previously served as a county commissioner. Floodlight and NPR have not been able to independently verify whether Alabama Power directed or had prior notice of the sharply critical coverage aimed at Dunn." However, "Alabama has still not held a rate hearing on electricity prices," and the relatively poor state has some of the highest rates in the nation.

More broadly, readers of the sites "have been unknowingly immersing themselves in an echo chamber of questionable coverage for years," the story says. Matrix shrewdly took advantage of the near collapse of the local newspaper industry and a concurrent plunge in trust in media in propelling its clients' interests. Matrix sought to ensure much coverage was secretly driven by the priorities of its clients. Payments flowed as the utilities in Florida and Alabama fought efforts to incorporate more clean energy in electric grids — a fight they are still waging. . . . An analysis by Floodlight and NPR of the three Alabama news sites with links to Matrix finds overwhelmingly positive coverage of Alabama Power."

UPDATE, Dec. 23: A freelance producer for ABC did dirty work for Matrix, NPR reports.

States' cuts in higher-education budgets wind up limiting rural students' opportunities at small-town universities

Emporia, Kansas, was once a busy railroad and cattle hub. Many residents today work in beef-packing or pet-food plants or the commercial bakery. The local university is suffering. (Photo by Ji Stribling, The Hechinger Report)

Four-year educational institutions that have served rural students are cutting and downgrading programs citing low enrollment and state budget cuts, reports Jon Marcus of The Hechinger Report. His object example: Aida Witherspoon of southwest Kansas discovered computer coding at Emporia State University, which then said, "because of budget and enrollment problems, it was canceling her program and cutting, merging or downgrading" lots of other programs. “If I was still a high school senior,” Witherspoon told Marcus, “I wouldn’t come here.”

Marcus cites another example: "Henderson State University in Arkansas in May dropped 25 degree programs in disciplines including geography, history, political science, public administration, criminal justice, biology, studio art, communication, theater arts, English and Spanish. Several states are merging universities, many of which serve rural students."

For generations, the path out of rural poverty has been through higher education, but fewer rural young people attend college compared to their counterparts, Marcus notes. "That means the already limited options available to rural students are being squeezed still further, forcing them to travel even greater distances to college than they already do or give up on it altogether."

Andrew Koricich, an associate professor of higher education at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and executive director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges, told Marcus, “This is just the next in a long line of issues where rural folks are told by people who are not rural what they’re going to have and not have."

Many states with large rural populations "have steadily reduced their higher education funding. Spending on higher education fell in 16 of the 20 most rural states between 2008 and 2018 when adjusted for inflation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities," Marcus reports. "Higher-education funding per student declined by more than 30 percent in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. In Kansas, it went down by nearly 23 percent."

Many institutional leaders claim "they’re trying to preserve and even expand choice, mostly by creating majors that rural students can take fully or partly online — including many that were never available on their local campuses," Marcus reports. However, "Advocates for rural students are critical of this trend — most notably Koricich, who called it 'cover' for deep program cuts. Another problem: Nearly 1 in 5 people in rural places don’t have access to high-speed internet, compared with about 1 percent in cities, according to the Federal Communications Commission."

Rural Canadian town that once rejected immigrants by local law now embraces their contributions. What changed?

Habiba Hmadi, a native of Tunisia, lives in Hérouxville.
(Photo by Nasuna Stuart-Ulin of The New York Times)

Fearing further dilution of French culture, Quebec has been the outlier in broad Canadian support for immigration. In 2007, Hérouxville, Quebec, pop. 1,300, set a code of conduct that caused a national buzz with its bold message: Immigrants and their traditions were not welcome, and there would be no "stoning women to death in the town square," Christmas was celebrated, and Halloween was the only time citizens could cover their faces, reports Norimitsu Onishi of The New York Times.

Ten years after Hérouxville's code was established, Canada adopted a sweeping pro-immigration policy, Onishi writes. Now the shift has made its way into Quebec, including Hérouxville. Bernard Thompson, the mayor of Hérouxville, Quebec, a one-time supporter of the town’s anti-immigrant code, told Onishi, "We now want as many immigrants as possible."

New York Times map

Hérouxville's cultural attitude shift "stemmed from a combination of factors, including an aging population, a low birthrate, the need to fill an acute labor shortage," Onishi reports. "But also profound shifts in views among younger generations and the personal journeys of individuals like Mr. Thompson.

“If we’re unable to respect each other’s culture, whether it’s religious or not, I think that’s a mistake,” Thompson told Onishi. “We have to show an openness.”

Canada's his continuing its pro-immigration policy: "Canada’s federal government has announced plans to welcome record numbers of new immigrants over the next three years, with the goal of adding 1.45 million immigrants to the country’s population of 39 million," Onishi reports. "In contrast to other Western nations, where immigration has cleaved societies and fueled the rise of political extremism, there is a broad consensus in Canada over the value of immigration."

They're sort of friendly. But kill them immediately.

A spotted lanternfly adult and nymphs. (Photo by Stephen Ausmus, USDA)

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) is an invasive insect from China that was discovered in Pennsylvania in 2014. "The spotted lanternfly remains a problem in Pennsylvania and has become a growing concern in neighboring states as the invasive leafhopper migrates, and hitchhikes, south (noted here)," reports Dan Sullivan of Lancaster Farming. "Efforts by entomologists, extension agents, farmers and the general public to stay ahead of the curve through studying the insects' behavior have yielded some surprises."

Sullivan provides some expert spotted lanternfly knowledge and tips:

• They don’t bite people; they’re actually kind of friendly, according to one extension agent (but they do cause damage and present a nuisance, so don’t go adopting one for a pet; in fact, it is widely recommended that they be dispatched upon sight).
• They’re not killing landscape trees, but they will kill tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), a rapidly growing deciduous tree native to East Asia and a widespread invasive species across North America that is the spotted lanternfly’s favorite host plant.
• They damage grapevines by sucking out nutrients, thus reducing the plant’s ability to make energy through photosynthesis and starving it of the starch typically stored in roots for survival through winter.
• While they have not been shown to kill or damage stone fruit or nursery stock, they have presented additional tasks for commercial nurseries due to the inspections required to ensure that plants are free of spotted lanternfly before they are shipped.
• Contrary to initial alarm bells indicating they were impervious to controls, insecticides, including “softer” insecticides such as insecticidal soap, have been shown to be effective in dispatching spotted lanternfly.
• Their population numbers fluctuate from year to year.
• Beneficial predators — such as praying mantises, spiders, wheel bugs and birds — offer a biological control.
• Certain naturally occurring beneficial fungi, such as Beauveria bassiana, offer another biological control, especially in rainy seasons.
• For now, Pennsylvania regulatory measures will remain in place, e.g., businesses and agencies, especially those that transport materials, are required to obtain a permit indicating employees have been trained on identification and removal, and that items have been inspected to remove spotted lanternfly.
• Individuals may still assist in spotted lanternfly control and are asked to do so by inspecting items, especially those that have been stored outside, before moving them and to destroy any egg masses and spotted lanternfly nymphs or adults upon discovery

Delicious, nutritious and nutty, Low Country heirloom Carolina Gold rice has been revived and is again for sale

South Carolina's St. Helena Island offers a glimpse into our country's
crop heritage. (Photo by David McLain, National Geographic)

Ingredients for dishes like smoky collards and New Year's favorite Hoppin’ John were introduced to American tables by enslaved Africans. The West African diet has "a long tradition of eating plant-based whole foods—so-called blue-zones-type foods—has been handed down from generation to generation," reports Dan Buettner of National Geographic. "The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of enslaved West Africans captured in places such as Senegal and Angola and brought to the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia to cultivate Carolina Gold rice."

Carolina Gold is "a unique heirloom grain. A West African strain, it was first grown, cultivated, and cooked on American soil by enslaved peoples on plantations," Buettner writes. "In the 19th century, it became the dominant rice in the U.S. market, only to all but completely disappear after the Great Depression. Though you couldn’t find it on grocery store shelves for decades, it was legendary in the Low Country for its unique starchiness and earthy, nutty flavor."

BJ Dennis, a South Carolina chef, told Buettner he was on a mission to bring back the cuisine of his rice-growing ancestors. “We took the rustic soul of the Africans and the Native American techniques and made this special mash-up,” Dennis told Buettner. "The resulting cuisine is uniquely American, explosively delicious, and as I’ve been discovering, it draws from ingredients that support longevity."

In Savannah, Georgia, Buettner met "Roosevelt Brownlee, a 75-year-old dreadlocked Gullah chef who has cooked for the likes of Stan Getz and Nina Simone," Buettner reports. "In a backwoods kitchen, he and his cousin Rollen Chalmers whip up 'pink-eyed soup,' hoecakes and red peas—all accompanied by Carolina Gold cracked rice. As his T-shirt proclaims, 'Rice Is Life.'"

Thanks to the efforts of people Dennis and Chalmers, Buettner writes, "You can now find Carolina Gold rice again on grocery store shelves and online."