AHCJ annual conference offering several fellowships, including for rural health journalists

The Association of Health Care Journalists is offering a number of journalism fellowships for its annual conference, scheduled from April 7-10 in Cleveland. One fellowship is for rural health journalists, "intended for reporters and editors working in rural towns and counties or who work for outlets serving a predominately rural population," states AHCJ. The fellowship includes: conference registration fee; one year's membership in AHCJ (new or extended); up to four nights in conference hotel; and up to $400 for travel assistance within the continental U.S. The deadline to apply for the rural health journalists fellowship is Feb. 19.

Other fellowships are for: Missouri journalists; College journalism students and college journalism instructors; Journalists in the ethnic media; Journalists on non-health beats; Colorado journalists; California journalists; Rhode Island journalists; and New York journalists. Journalists can apply for multiple fellowships. For more information on the conference, click here.

Alternative homeschool programs growing in popularity in rural remote Alaska

A growing number of students in rural remote Alaska are switching from traditional schools to alternative homeschooling programs such as Interior Distance Education of Alaska (IDEA), Kelly Sullivan reports for the Peninsula Clarion. The program, which has grown five percent annually the past five years, allows families to determine instruction.

Suzanne Alioto, field representative for the Kenai Peninsula region, said "there is no mandated curriculum, although, because it is a public school, students are required to take the Alaska Measures of Progress and state-required standardized tests," Sullivan writes. Alioto said "for some families, the trip to their nearest school is too far to comfortably travel in the state’s harsh winter temperatures, and IDEA offers a flexibility other public schools don’t have."

"Enrollment is also increasing in other areas of the IDEA program, such as the iGrad High School Recovery Program," Sullivan writes. Kristie Miller, a coach with the program, said more than 230 students are enrollment in the program, up from 170 in 2014-15.

Report: Undocumented numbers lowest since 2003; border security key in Republican debates

The number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. continues to decline, says a report by the Center for Migration Studies, Jerry Markon reports for The Washington Post. Numbers have fallen each year since 2008, going under 11 million—10.9 million—for the first time since 2003. The main reason for the decline is fewer illegal immigrants' entering the U.S. from Mexico, South America and Europe, despite rising numbers from Central America.

"A key—but largely overlooked—sign of these ebbing flows is the changing makeup of the undocumented population," Markon writes. "Until recent years, illegal immigrants tended to be young men streaming across the Southern border in pursuit of work. But demographic data show that the typical illegal immigrant now is much more likely someone who is 35 or older and has lived in the United States for a decade or more."

Immigration has been one of the main focuses of the presidential debate, with Republicans calling for stricter border security and Democrats saying the border has never been more secure, Markon writes. "While it doesn’t take a political position or name a party, the paper uses 2014 Census Bureau data to essentially argue that the Republican portrayal is inaccurate." The report states: “One reason for the high and sustained level of interest in undocumented immigration is the widespread belief that the trend in the undocumented population is ever upward. This paper shows that this belief is mistaken and that, in fact, the undocumented population has been decreasing for more than a half a decade.”

Map shows the massive size of the nation's most densely populated rural counties

Highlighting exactly how rural the U.S. is, The Washington Post has created a map that shows that the 462 least densely populated counties in the U.S. consist of 42 percent of land and only one percent of the population, Christopher Ingraham reports for the Post. None of the 462 least densely populated counties has more than 7.4 people per square mile, and 65 counties have less than one person per square mile. Alaska's Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, which is more than 145,000 square miles, is home to only 5,547 people, a population density of fewer than four people for every 100 miles.

For example, New York's Bronx and Queens, which are considerably smaller than any of the 462 counties, are home to 3.8 million people, more than the entire total in the 462 rural counties, Ingraham writes. "Geographically speaking, we are a nation of mountains, forests and farmland surrounding tiny islands of urbanity."

Oregon governor proposes raising minimum wage higher in urban areas than rural ones

Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown introduced a plan to raise the state's minimum wage, setting the wage hike higher in the Portland metro area than in the rest of the mostly rural state, Denis Theriault reports for The Oregonian. Under the plan Oregon, which currently has a state minimum wage of $9.25—$2 higher than the national figure—would raise minimum wage in Portland to $15.52 in 2022 and $13.50 in the rest of the state. The first increases, taking place in January 2017, would raise Portland's minimum wage to $11.79 and to $10.22 in the rest of the state.

For the bill to pass, Brown will need support from Democrats in rural areas, where the minimum wage hike is not popular among businesses and some Republicans, who say raising the minimum wage will force businesses to close or move out of state, Theriault writes. Supporters of raising the minimum wage say waiting six years for the plan to take its full effect is too long for workers who need the increased wages now.

"Brown has been clear since last fall that she supports a higher statewide wage that goes easier on rural economies but that also reflects the expense of living and working in Portland," Theriault writes. "But she repeatedly declined to give any numbers or say how she thought lawmakers should separate the state from its largest city." Brown said in a statement: "The costs of essentials such as food, child care and rent are rising so fast that wages can't keep up. Many Oregonians working full-time can't make ends meet, and that's not right." (Read more)

New American Farm Bureau president says immigration reform is No. 1 issue

Vincent Duvall

The new president of the American Farm Bureau said "immigration reform would be the first issue he would choose to testify on before Congress if he were given the option," Chris Clayton reports for DTN The Progressive Farmer. Vincent "Zippy" Duvall, who was elected to the position last week, "said immigration needs to be addressed immediately." He told reporters, "There is a crisis across this country of having a stable workforce to be able to get the crops out of the field. Americans no longer want to do the work that we do with the cows and the chickens and the fields anymore. It is absolutely vital that sometime soon in the future we find a solution to that. It is a moral issue. It's a sensitive issue, but it is a business issue."

Duvall, who has been president of the Georgia Farm Bureau for the past nine years, said in his first press conference as president that he "will be dealing immediately with issues such as EPA's waters of the U.S. rule, trade and biotechnology labeling," Clayton writes.

"Duvall stressed that farmers are overburdened by regulation and challenged by the lack of labor for farm jobs," Clayton writes. "A Farm Bureau member since 1977, Duvall is a beef, poultry and hay producer near Greshamville, Ga. He has a 300-head cattle herd and produces about 750,000 broilers every year. Duvall grew up mostly in the dairy industry until he converted the dairy to a beef herd about a decade ago. Duvall talks frequently about the diversity of agriculture in his state, ranging from fruits and vegetables to cotton, dairy and poultry." (Read more)

Ultra low quality North Dakota crude oil re-priced at $1.50 per barrel, up from negative number

Flint Hills Resources LLC, owned by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, originally asked producers in North Dakota's Bakken formation to pay the company to take shipments of a certain type of low-quality crude, Dan Murtaugh and Javier Blas report for Bloomberg. The company, which last week posted a price of -$0.50 per barrel, said the negative price was incorrectly posted and raised the price to $1.50 per barrel. The crude is down from $13.50 per barrel a year ago and $47.60 in January 2014.

"While the near-zero price is due to the lack of pipeline capacity for a particular variety of ultra low quality crude, it underscores how dire things are in the U.S. oil patch," Murtaugh and Blas write. "U.S. benchmark oil prices have collapsed more than 70 percent in the past 18 months and fell below $30 a barrel for the first time in 12 years last week. West Texas Intermediate traded as low as $28.36 in New York. Brent, the international benchmark, settled at $28.55 in London."

"Different grades of oil are priced based on their quality and transport costs to refineries," reports Bloomberg. "High-sulfur crudes are generally priced lower because they can only be processed at plants that have specific equipment to remove sulfur. Producers and refiners often mix grades to achieve specific blends, and prices for each component can rise or fall to reflect current economics." While negative prices are rare, they aren't unheard of. "Oil refineries sometimes pay people to take away low-demand products such as sulfur or petroleum coke to free up space."

Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group annual conference Jan. 27-30 in Lexington, Ky.

The Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SAWG) annual conference is scheduled Jan. 27-30 in Lexington, Ky. SAWG, which operates in 13 states in the South—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia—"was founded in 1991 to foster a movement toward a more sustainable farming and food system, one that is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane," states the organization's website.

The conference consists of courses, field trips and information and educational sessions, including an event called "Voices in the Field: 25 Years in the Field," featuring special guests Wendell Berry, author and farmer (Ky.); Alex Hitt, Peregrine Farm (N.C.); Janie Simms Hipp, University of Arkansas School of Law (AR); and Andrew Williams, The United Christian Community Association (AL). Online registration is closed, but registration will be accepted at the door. (Read more)

Covering suicide can raise awareness, help people seek care; social media have altered news policies

Suicide rates are 70 percent higher in rural areas than urban ones, according to 2013 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, rural newspapers usually shy away from stories about suicide. Bradley Martin of the Hickman County Times in Centerville, Tenn., 50 miles west of Nashville, takes a different approach, tackling the subject head on in an attempt to raise awareness about suicide. In an article for the Daily Yonder, Martin describes how writing about a difficult issue has helped changed the community.

Brad Martin

"I woke up to the depth of the problem in my community in 2003 when, during the first four months of that year, six persons had taken their lives, all by firearms," Martin writes. "It’s hard for a reporter who tracks police activity to ignore that, even if you don’t report it. By the end of the year, Hickman County, Tennessee (population 23,000 at the time) had experienced 13 suicides, all of them violent. That’s a rate of 56 per 100,000."

Working with the state-funded Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network, Martin helped form the Hickman County Suicide Prevention Task Force in 2003 to organize training sessions, he writes. "In the years since, the group has become a fixture at community events, supplying prevention information; an annual remembrance is focused on victims and families, highlighted by a balloon release. The local task force chair has been the statewide chair, too; and a second group has been created to bring together surviving family members who are struggling with their losses. All of it has added awareness."

"In Tennessee, it has been helpful that teachers must go through suicide prevention training each year, since young people are of major concern for suicide," Martin writes. "A year ago, because of the task force’s work here, the statewide group was permitted to bring grief counselors to one of our high schools when a 15-year-old girl took her life. . . . No link to the local task force can be directly made, but I know that the number of suicides here have decreased on an annual basis since that awful 2003. The worst since then has been eight, in 2010; in 2013, there were 4, which was a rate of 16.5 per 100,000. That’s almost even with the Tennessee rate, which was 14.4 that year. Both are better than the U.S. rate—but there’s still more suicides that murders here." (Yonder map)

Rural newspapers' policies for reporting suicides vary widely but lean toward privacy. In a recent discussion on the emailed Hotline of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, Paul Keane, editor and publisher of the Wayne County News in Waynesboro, Miss., gave a typical policy: "The general, basic rule we've followed here is that is the death/suicide takes place in the public, then we cover the story and try to handle it as gently as possible out of respect to the family."

Publisher Robert M. Williams Jr. of The Blackshear (Ga.) Times posted his detailed policy: "If a person takes their own life in a private manner, in a private place such as their home, property, etc., and the police do not become a part of the situation until after the person is found by someone with access to that private place, we carry no news story. If the person chooses to take their life in a place that would not be considered private, such as on neighboring property or any place where someone who would not have access to their home may find them, we print a discreet news story. If the police become involved, such as in a hunt, then it is a news story from beginning to end. We have had people break into their workplace after hours to commit suicide."

Newspaper consultant Jim Pumarlo said his small daily in Red Wing, Minn., tried to report "the causes of all deaths which are other than by natural causes. . . . But the definitions are not always so clear. Think about a bank president who has served on almost every community board imaginable, found dead in a car in a city lot. As an alternative, consider if he commits suicide in the privacy of his home. Reflect on the same circumstances, but now substitute a retail clerk as the suicide victim." Giving other cases, Pumarlo asked, "Is any one of these deaths less newsworthy? . . . It’s common practice today for communities to have formal responses to youth deaths whether the cause is an accident or a suicide. Grief counselors often come into the schools and meet with students. The kids come home, and it’s a dinner topic. Can you really ignore reporting the suicide and still promote yourself as the premier source of information?"

The rise of social media has made several papers change their policies. Allan Burke, publisher emeritus of the Emmons County Record in Linton, N.D., said that paper reports every suicide, partly because the investigation of it involves law enforcement, and because "When facts are not reported, people make up the stories. . . . In the world of social media, newspapers are left with the burden, or privilege, of reporting the facts."

Managing Editor Paul Goetz of The Mountain Mail in Salida, Colo, noted a good guide for suicide coverage, ReportingOnSuicide.org. It notes research showing that heavy or sensational coverage of the topic "can increase the likelihood of suicide in vulnerable individuals." But it also encourages the kind of reporting that Brad Martin does in the Hickman County Times, about suicide as an issue.

Martin said in the email discussion, "Yes, people will be mad at you. First time for that? In my community, I no longer get any flak for it. Actually we give more ink on an annual basis to the prevention group, which also has a 'Do you know the signs?' training component that does a major service by not only raising awareness but providing an approach to preventing it."

Female farmworkers, mostly immigrants, suffering high rates of sexual abuse

A large portion of the 400,000 women working in agriculture—mostly immigrants—have been subjected to sexual violence, José Padilla and David Baco report for The New York Times. "The reasons behind this epidemic aren’t hard to fathom. Fields are vast and sparsely monitored; workers are often alone. It’s particularly bad for immigrant workers: The Department of Labor estimates that about half of farmworkers don’t have legal immigration papers, which makes them especially vulnerable."

A 2010 study from the University of California, Santa Cruz found that of the 150 female farmworkers interviewed, 60 percent said they had suffered some form of sexual harassment, Padilla and Baco write. A 2012 Human Rights Watch report of 52 female farmworkers found that most of them had experienced sexual violence or knew someone else who had. An Iowa immigrant farmworker told her lawyer, “We thought it was normal in the United States that in order to keep your job, you had to have sex.”

Sexual violence in agriculture is not a new trend—20 years ago the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with California Rural Legal Assistance, a legal service program that promotes the interests of migrant laborers and the rural poor, created a joint project to concentrate on sexual harassment in the fields," Padilla and Baco write. The problem is that each instance has to be tried case by case, making it a long, arduous process.

"When women do file complaints, investigations can takes months, even years, which can discourage other women from speaking up," Padilla and Baco write. "And even when a case is won, criminal prosecution of the harasser or rapist rarely follows. Still, many employers do know—and use threats and intimidation to keep their workers quiet."

"The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has few offices in rural areas; they’re usually open only when women are working; and the staff often don’t speak Spanish, much less indigenous languages," Padilla and Baco write. "What’s more, many government agencies require complaints to be filed online. Many farmworkers do not have access to computers. The commission could make filing complaints easier by setting up a 24/7 hotline in multiple languages, with an actual person answering the phone, instead of automated messages." Another problem is that "federal regulations forbid legal aid organizations like California Rural Legal Assistance from directly representing undocumented people, and the illegal nature of their work situations makes it difficult for them to come forward."

Iowa governor says caucus-goers should defeat Cruz because he opposes ethanol subsidy

Branstad urges Cruz defeat (DMR)

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has called on his fellow Republicans to defeat Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Feb. 1 presidential caucuses because Cruz is the only major candidate who opposes the Renewable Fuels Standard, which "sets the amount of ethanol and renewable fuel that must be blended into gasoline," The Des Moines Register reports.

The standard is a key to Iowa's ethanol industry and the corn growers who supply it. Branstad said of Cruz, "He’s heavily financed by Big Oil. So we think once Iowans realize that fact, they might find other things attractive, but he could be very damaging to our state." Branstad's son, Eric, heads a super PAC that has been attacking Cruz, along with other elements of the ethanol lobby.

CNN correspondent Jeff Zeleny, who started out in Iowa, said he hadn't seen Branstad do anything like this, and while the governor is popular, Cruz could also flip the issue to his advantage by saying he's running against the Republican establishment.

Shift in power from rural to urban Oregon has left isolated counties with few economic opportunities

Harney County (Wikipedia map)

Some residents in isolated rural Harney County, Oregon—where an armed protest continues at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge—blame the government for losing their once thriving economy to urban areas and rural counties located near urban centers, Kirk Johnson reports for The New York Times. A study by nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics found that half of Oregon jobs are in three counties in and around Portland. "Counties like Harney—with 7,126 people in an area about the size of Massachusetts—are too far from those urban centers to catch the economic uplift, the study said. So the population grows ever older, poorer and less educated, and opportunities continue to dry up."

Harney County, which has 10 percent fewer jobs today than in 1979, is part of a national shift in poverty, Johnson writes. Since the last 1960s "poverty rates fell or remained stable across the Northeast, South and Midwest—but rose significantly across the West, a Pew Research Center study said in 2014 . . . Harney County has lost 4 percent of its population just since 2010, according to U.S. census figures, even as the state’s population, especially in and around Portland, has surged."

"What happened was a steep downturn, especially in the timber industry, which has all but disappeared," Johnson writes. "Oregon lost about three-fourths of its timber mills between 1980 and 2010; Harney County lost all seven. Changes in the wood industry were clearly also having an effect over those years, with more wood buyers shopping in Canada and more mills becoming automated, but many people here also said they thought the U.S. Forest Service did not fight back to save the mills and jobs."

In Harney County, 60 percent of the pay earned in the county now comes "from the public sector—including schools and federal management jobs at the 188,000-acre wildlife refuge—this was the most government-dependent county in Oregon in 2013, according the most recent analysis by the state," Johnson writes. "But the sense that government—not just federal but state as well—no longer hears the voice of places like this echoes through the community, even among those who wish (the armed protesters) would go home." (Read more)

Mistrust of government medicine among African Americans in Alabama blamed for rural TB outbreak

A tuberculosis outbreak mostly among African Americans in rural Perry County, Alabama—a state that did not expand Medicaid under federal health reform—is being blamed on "generations of limited health care access, endemic poverty and mistrust—problems that are common across the rural South," Alan Blinder reports for The New York Times. Dr. R. Allen Perkins, former president of the Alabama Rural Health Association, told Blinder, "There’s not a culture of care-seeking behavior unless you’re really sick. There’s not support for local medical care, so when something like this happens, you have a health delivery system that’s unprepared.” (NYT map)

As of Monday, 47 cases of tuberculosis have been reported in Perry County in West Alabama, states a press release from the Alabama Department of Public Health. Officials in Perry County, which has about 10,000 residents, have tested around 800 people for tuberculosis, whose symptoms "include cough lasting more than two weeks, shortness of breath, fever, night sweats, weight loss and fatigue. A person may be infected with the TB germ and have no symptoms."

Authorities, who said they expect the number of positive cases to increase, "said the outbreak had spread so widely and lasted so long because patients had been reluctant to disclose their contacts to public health officials," Blinder writes. "Some of that is linked to suspicions that the health officials will report illegal activity to law enforcement, but it is also connected to worries of being ostracized—or at least stigmatized—in a community as small as this one."

Mistrust of government medicine in Alabama dates back more than 80 years to a 1932 Macon County medical study involving African Americans that a federal panel later ruled 'ethically unjustified,' Blinder writes. While many people in Marion, Ala. (located in Perry County), where about 63 percent of the residents are black, said they knew little about they study, "they often said their wariness of medical professionals had been passed on through generations. Some said the dire nature of the tuberculosis warnings made them feel that they had little choice but to consult heath officials."

Another problem is that "the TB outbreak has implicitly reinforced Marion’s chronic divides of race and class, particularly because of a controversial plan to compensate people if they submit to blood screenings," Blinder writes. "With money from a federal grant, health officials in Alabama are offering residents $20 for initial tuberculosis testing, $20 for a follow-up visit and another $20 for keeping an appointment for a chest X-ray, if one has been recommended. Anyone who is found to have been infected can receive $100 for completing treatment." (Read more)

Semifinalists named for $10 million competition to stimulate growth in small towns and cities

Frontier Communications and DISH Network have named the 15 semifinalists for America's Best Communities competition, a $10 million initiative to stimulate economic revitalization in small towns and cities, states Frontier. The list of 15 was narrowed from 50 communities, which all received $50,000 and had six months "to further develop and implement their comprehensive strategies to accelerate their local economies and improve quality of life." The competition was open to all towns and cities in Frontier's service areas with populations between 9,500 and 80,000. Smaller communities could collaborate on projects.

The 15 semifinalists are: Lake Havasu City, Ariz; Angola, Ind.; Tualatin, Ore.; Statesboro, Ga.; Madison, Ind.; Arlington, Wash.; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Valaparaiso, Ind.; Wenatchee, Wash.; Valley County, Idaho; Chicago Lakes Area in Minnesota; Charleston, W.Va.; DeKalb, Ill.; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Huntington, W.Va. Up to eight finalists will be named in April. Those finalists will receive $100,000 and 11 months to begin implementing plans. Winners will be announced in April 2017. The winner will get $3 million, second-place $2 million and third-place $1 million. (Frontier map: Semifinalists)

Government watchdog objects to bankrupt Alpha's plan to give executives up to $11.9M in bonuses

A government watchdog has filed objections to a proposal by Alpha Natural Resources—which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy protection—to pay executive bonuses of up to $11.9 million in 2016, Benjamin Storrow reports for the Casper Star Tribune. The U.S. Trustee, a division of the Justice Department, argues that "the bankrupt coal company cannot justify the additional pay at a time when it has recorded steep losses and sought to cut retiree benefits. A hearing on Alpha’s proposals to pay executive bonuses and cut medical and life insurance benefits for 4,580 nonunion miners and their spouses is scheduled for Thursday."

Alpha, which last recorded a profit in 2011, "has argued the bonuses are necessary to retain key executives during its Chapter 11 proceedings," Storrow writes. "But in court filings submitted Friday, the trustee’s office challenged that argument. The government noted Alpha’s request to pay bonuses coincided with a $1.3 billion loss in 2015 and a plan to save $3 million annually by cutting retiree benefits."

The watchdog wrote, “According to Alpha, these executives need these bonuses as an incentive to do the very jobs they were hired to do, that they are already highly compensated for with generous salaries, and which their fiduciary duties compel them to do. Such bonuses cannot be justified under the facts and circumstances of this case.”

Storrow writes, "Executives will receive a total of $3.4 million if they meet a 'threshold' performance level, $6.8 million if they meet a so-called 'target' level and as much as $11.9 million if they exceed expectations. The government questioned the size of those bonuses, noting they exceeded what Alpha executives received in the years leading up to its bankruptcy filing." (Read more)

Wendell Berry to receive lifetime achievement award from National Book Critics Circle

Wendell Berry

Renowned Kentucky farmer-author-poet-philosopher Wendell Berry will receive the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle, states the organization. "Now 81 and still productive, Berry is the author of eight novels, two short story collections, 28 volumes of poetry and 31 volumes of nonfiction. Set in the imaginary town of Port William, Kentucky, his fiction constitutes a cycle about themes of life in rural America. An outspoken environmentalist, organic farmer and pacifist, Berry has written about and engaged in civil disobedience against industrial agribusiness, ecological destruction and militarization."

The National Book Critics Circle also named the 30 finalists six categories—autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction and poetry—for the outstanding books of 2015. Awards will be presented on March 17 at the New School, in a free ceremony open to the public. For a complete list of finalists, as well as winners of other awards, click here.

Is your Wal-Mart closing? Here's a list and a map

Walmart announced Friday that it would close more than 150 stores in the U.S. Is one near you? The Wall Street Journal has a state-by-state list, from the supercenter in Juneau (AK comes before AL) to the neighborhood market in Waukesha. Here's the WSJ map:

Texas and Florida illustrate Obamacare enrollment contrasts; being rural poses some obstacles

Southern states are lagging in the percentage of eligible people who have bought subsidized health-insurance policies under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, with three big exceptions: Arkansas, Kentucky and Florida. Kentucky and Arkansas embraced Obamacare in ways other Southern states did not, expanding Medicaid and creating state-based exchanges to buy insurance (only for small businesses in Arkansas).

Florida didn't take either step, but "It fielded a bigger, centrally managed army of trained helpers" than Texas, the largest Southern state, reports Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News. Research indicates that's one reason "nearly 60 percent of Floridians eligible to buy policies in the online state exchange actually purchase them, only 36 percent of eligible Texans do, the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation estimates. Nationally, the take-up rate is 41 percent, it says." For state-by-state data, click here.

A recent study of Texas, Arkansas and Kentucky found that "receiving assistance in filling out the applications was the strongest predictor of successful enrollment in coverage," Garrett notes. In Texas, nonprofit-group workers wanting to provide assistance were required to pay for additional training, fingerprinting and additional background checks.

Garrett writes that's an example of the "roadblocks" Texas’ Republican leaders have erected, more so than in Florida. He also notes that state is more compact and less rural than Texas, making outreach easier.

Rural enrollment in Obamacare has lagged, and that is the case in rural West Texas, reports Enrique Rangel of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. He quotes Don McBeath of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals: “Our association does not have any hard data, but as we talk to the rural hospitals, the sense that they continue to share with us is that any increase in the number of insured under the exchanges is very minimal. This is not an issue just in Texas; it is nationwide.”

Rangel notes that rural residents often pay more for Obamacare policies because few insurance companies offer them, lacking competition that holds down prices, and a Rice University study that found most of the uninsured population in Texas is Hispanic.

Immigrants in Texas are more likely than those in Florida to be unauthorized, making them ineligible, and the Texas director of Enroll America, a nonprofit pushing signups, said families with unauthorized immigrants "often fear to sign up for Obamacare because they must provide the names of everyone in their household," Garrett reports, even though the information is confidential.

States slow to develop plans to protect bees and other pollinators; Virginia sets meetings

After the Obama administration called for a national strategy to protect bees and other pollinators, which are essential to many crops, most states agreed to develop pollinator protection plans. Few have done so, according to the Pollinator Stewardship Council, which tracks the process with an interactive map. Here's a screenshot with an example of information on one state:

In Virginia, where almost half the state's bee colonies are estimated to have died last year, seven meetings have been scheduled, in Roanoke, Warrenton, Blackstone, Charlottesville, Henrico, Suffolk and on the Eastern Shore, reports Tonia Moxley of The Roanoke Times. The state's pollinator protection plan "will focus on how officials can help users of pesticides and beekeepers communicate to prevent problems, according to Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services." That is likely to include registration of hives, which will help inform pesticide applicators where hives are located. Pollinators also include bats, hummingbirds, butterflies and other insects.

Shootdown of drone in Kentucky prompts federal lawsuit that could lead to clearer privacy rules

When a Kentucky man with a shotgun brought down a drone near his home last summer, it set off a dispute that "could settle an issue that experts say has never before been addressed by the courts: the conflict between a homeowner’s right to privacy and the federal government’s exclusive sovereignty over the skies," Andrew Wolfson reports for The Courier-Journal in Louisville.

Charges against "drone slayer" Willie Merideth of Hillview, above, were dismissed but the owner of the drone, John David Boggs, has filed suit for damages and what he calls “clarity to protect the right to fly responsibly without fear of being shot at.” He wants U.S. District Judge David J. Hale to resolve the “boundaries of the airspace surrounding real property, the reasonable expectation of privacy as viewed from the air, and the right to damage or destroy an aircraft in flight.”

Wolfson reports, "Merideth also says he looks forward to the court’s resolution of where private property ends and the open sky begins. Boggs’ Nashville lawyer, James Mackler, a former Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot who specializes in drone law, says much is at stake, including for companies like Amazon, which plans to deliver packages to customers via drones that would touch down on their lawns." Mackler todl Wolfson, “If every property owner has a right to take a shot at them, that pretty much ends that business model.”

States and local governments that want to regulate drones are clashing with the Federal Aviation Administration, which "says it has sole authority over the national airspace while Kentucky law gives landowners the right to use force necessary to prevent trespassing," Wolfson writes. "The Supreme Court hasn’t addressed the issue since 1946 when it ruled that a North Carolina farmer could assert property rights up to 83 feet in the air -- and win compensation for military aircraft that were flying so low they were disturbing his cows and chickens. But that was long before the advent of drones, which are now used for everything from law enforcement to land surveys, from search and rescue to wildlife tracking. Best Buy offers 50 models just for photo hobbyists, while more than 50 companies produce 155 models in the U.S., with wingspans ranging from six inches to 246 feet."

The Academy of Model Aeronautics, which was founded in 1936 and says it has 175,000 members, "says it welcomes guidance from the federal courts but that states already have enough laws on the books that make harassment and peeping a crime. The Muncie, Ind.,-based group says its policies already ban members from flying directly over unprotected people or houses or flying near an airport," and notes that a 2012 federal law "bars drones and model aircraft owners from interfering with other aircraft and says they must be operated within direct sight of the owner," Wolfson reports.