Western ranchers say resurgence of gray wolves is putting livestock at risk

A resurgence of gray wolves in Western states has put livestock in harm's way, Elaine S. Povich reports for Stateline. "As gray wolves multiply and come off endangered species lists in Western states, a new problem has emerged: Packs of wolves are harassing ranchers, their sheep and cattle. And states are trying to walk the line between the ranchers, who view the animals as an economic and physical menace, and environmentalists, who see their reintroduction as a success story." (National Geographic photo)

Donny Martorello, wolf-policy chief in the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told Povich, “It really is about having a large carnivore back on the landscape that has been absent for decades. If you are in a rural community, there is that uncertainty that it will threaten your way of life and how you support your family. The larger society has made the call that they value wildlife and our job is to steer [wolves] toward recovery. Wolves are doing quite well. Is there an option not to have wolves in Washington? That is not in our foreseeable future.”

Gray wolves, which have been listed as endangered or threatened in many states, have been de-listed in Montana, Idaho, the eastern third of Washington and Oregon, and north-central Utah, Povich writes. "In Montana and Idaho, wolves may be hunted, within tight restrictions and seasons. In the other states, there is no legal hunting of wolves. But in the parts of Oregon, Utah and Washington where wolves have been de-listed, states are empowered to eliminate wolves that have been proven to be a menace to livestock, dogs or humans, and to provide compensation for lost livestock."

Some ranchers complain that an increase in wolves has negatively affected numbers in other ways, Povich writes. Washington rancher Len McIrvin said an increase in wolves has made his cows "more skittish and haven’t calved as often since the wolves have been around." He said "when wolves harass cattle, 20 percent of the cows don’t calve in the spring, compared with a normal 2 to 3 percent." Sheep herders say the same can be said for their numbers. (Read more)

One of world's largest food suppliers says it will make global switch to cage-free eggs by 2025

Paris-based Sodexo, one of the world’s largest food suppliers, announced today that it would switch to cage-free eggs and egg products in the U.S. by 2020 and worldwide by 2025, Karin Brulliard reports for The Washington Post.

"The announcement by a major international company is a sign that the rapid shift in the U.S. to cage-free eggs, led by consumers but long championed by animal-rights activists, is going more global," Brulliard writes. The decision "will affect both liquid eggs and the 250 million shell eggs the company purchases annually for use at 32,000 schools, hospitals, corporations and other sites it services in 80 countries. . . . Battery cages—small wire enclosures whose floors are smaller than a piece of letter-sized paper—are banned in the European Union, and Sodexo said in a statement that it already uses only cage-free eggs in Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium." (Read more)

Selection of Kaine leaves open to question how hard Clinton will compete for rural votes

In choosing Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate, Hillary Clinton has left open to question how hard she will be competing this fall for rural votes, which increasingly have gone Republican in recent presidential elections.

Numerous media reports this week had Kaine and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, as the last two finalists in the Clinton veepstakes. A selection of Vilsack would have signaled the targeting of "white working-class men — especially in rural areas — in the Midwest," also being targeted by Donald Trump with his pick of Indiana Gov Mike Pence, Gabriel DeBenedetti and Helena Bottemiller Evich reported for Politico Tuesday.

Clinton and Vilsack have known each other for 40 years, and he supported her when he dropped out of the presidential race in 2007. But when his name surfaced as a finalist, some African Americans questioned it, giving his hasty firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod, a black woman, in 2010 after she was misquoted by a right-wing news site.

Vilsack has little if any record on gun issues, but Kaine has an F rating from the National Rifle Association. Debuting with Clinton in Miami, he said, "When the vast majority of Americans and a majority of [National Rifle Association] members agree that we have to enact common sense gun safety measures, Hillary and I will not rest."

Kaine, 58, grew up in a suburb of Kansas City, Kan. He is the son-in-law of Linwood Holton, the first Republican governor of Virginia (a moderate, 1970-74) and a native of Big Stone Gap, in the Central Appalachian coalfield. Kaine started his political career on the Richmond City Council, which elected him mayor of the racially fractious city, then was lieutenant governor. After a term as governor (Virginia allows only one) he was President Obama's first chair of the Democratic National Committee.

"As governor of Virginia, Mr. Kaine appealed to both Democrats in urban pockets and independents in rural areas, and established a reputation as a pragmatic consensus builder," writes Amy Chozick of The New York Times. But his main appeal in the 2012 Senate race was to swing voters in Northern Virginia, and when he made an appearance with Clinton in Virginia last week, it was in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Annandale.

Kaine's main electoral assets appear to be his residence — Virginia is a swing state with 13 electoral votes, and Clinton will now be able to spend elsewhere most of the money she would have spent in the Old Dominion — and his fluency in Spanish, which will help turn out Hispanic voters in several other swing states. But he may add a flourish from old-time rural campaigns; he plays the harmonica.

Kaine has no apparent blemishes on his record. Virginian Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a political consultant who once specialized in reaching rural voters for Democrats, has been skeptical of Clinton's prospects and has said he will vote for Trump, told Paul Schwartzmann of The Washington Post: "The boy is cleaner than the Board of Health. If there's one thing Hillary needs, it's clean."

Social problems in rural areas change nature of USDA and its concept of rural development

Pomeroy, Ohio (Bloomberg News photo by Ty Wright)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is "becoming Uncle Sam’s lead tool to fight a social emergency -- soaring drug use, rising suicide rates and deepening poverty -- spreading across the heartland," Alan Bjerga reports for Bloomberg News.

“We’re charged with the responsibility of filling the gap to make sure rural America hasn’t been forgotten,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Bjerga, who reported from Pomeroy, Ohio, "a town of about 1,800 people about 200 miles south of Cleveland, where . . . the opioid epidemic has accompanied an ebbing-away of jobs and, among some demographics, an unprecedented drop in life expectancy. Any Norman Rockwell idyll of white-picket fences and unlocked front doors has long since been upended by globalization."

"Such social problems have changed the government’s conception of rural development, says Vilsack, who’s under consideration by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as a possible running mate. Five years ago, “We might have made a grant for a fire station,” he said in an interview. “Now it might be a substance-abuse center.” (As a candidate in 1982007, Clinton said she favored renaming the Agriculture Department the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.)

“Most people in cities are now several generations away from life on the farm, and some even think of rural areas as our dumping ground,” eminent Cornell University sociologist Daniel Lichter told Bjega. “It’s where we send our prisoners, our garbage and our toxic waste.”

Bjerga says USDA's role illustrates a point not often made: "The government, like the wider culture, is much more attuned to the problems of urban areas where most Americans live. That’s why Donald Trump’s message -- repeated at the Republican National Convention up the road in Cleveland, where he accepted the nomination last night -- of fighting for the small-town folks has resonated so much in rural parts of swing states like Ohio."

Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies, told Bjerga, “When your government is based on the assumption that the country is going to be 90 percent urban, you’re going to concentrate resources on urban areas,” Davis said. “The USDA becomes the ‘rural’ agency that’s left with this wide mandate, even if it’s not always the best fit.” (Read more)

Fact checkers say Trump off base on issues such as Iran deal, Syrian refugees, cost of regulation

During his speech Thursday at the Republican National Convention, presidential nominee Donald Trump said, "I will present the facts plainly and honestly. The carefully-crafted lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention next week. But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else." (Post photo by Ricky Carioti)

According to the Fact Checker column of The Washington Post, Trump followed that statement with a lengthy list of incorrect assertions. Politifact, NBC News, The New York Times and FactCheck.org offered similar reviews of Trump's presentation.

Trump said the nuclear deal with Iran “gave back to Iran $150 billion and gave us absolutely nothing." Kessler and Lee write, "Trump frequently misstates the facts about the Iran deal, making it sound like the United States simply shipped $150 billion of taxpayers’ funds to Iran. This was always Iran’s money, frozen in banks around the world, but $150 billion is the high estimate of the money that could be received."

"The Treasury Department says the figure is in the range of $100 to $125 billion, but the usual liquid assets would only be about $50 billion, as the rest of the assets are either obligated in illiquid projects (such as over 50 projects with China) that cannot be monetized quickly, if at all, or are composed of outstanding loans to Iranian entities that cannot repay them," Kessler and Lee write. "For its part, the Central Bank of Iran said the number was actually $32 billion. Reasonable people can disagree on the merits of the Iran deal, but it’s a stretch to say 'nothing' was received. Iran’s nuclear program was certainly put on ice for at least a decade."

Speaking of Syrian refugees, Trump said, "there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from," Kessler and Lee write, "The process of vetting refugees starts with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and then continues with checks by U.S. intelligence and security agencies. It takes one to two years, or longer in some cases." Politifact has a detailed description of the process.

Trump said, "Excessive regulation is costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year." Kessler and Lee write, "Trump presents an unbalanced figure here. Various organizations, such as the Small Business Administration, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have come up with similar estimates on the cost of regulations. But there is one huge element missing—the benefit side of the analysis. Every regulation has costs—but also benefits. Look at cars, for example. Seat belts are a regulation, but they also result in fewer deaths, which is presumably a benefit. Higher fuel-economy standards raise the initial cost of a car, but also result in savings on gasoline over time." (Read more)

Beyond the fact checkers, other journalists took issue with Trump. NYT columnist David Brooks said the nominee's focus on law and order was "based on a falsehood. Crime rates have been falling almost without fail for 25 years. Murder rates have been rising just recently among gangs in certain cities, but America is much safer than it was a decade ago. In the first half of 2015, for example, the number of shootings in New York and Washington hit historic lows." In his speech, Trump said the Obama adminstration had failed inner cities on crime.

"Trump dwells on illegal aliens killing our children," Brooks wrote. Between 2010 and 2014, only 121 people released from immigration custody later committed murder; that’s about 25 a year. Every death is a horror, but the number of police officers killed each year as a result of a crime is about 55, in a nation of over 320 million people. The number of police deaths decreased by 24 percent between 2005 and 2015."

Next week we will share what fact-checkers have to say about the Democratic convention. These reports excerpt only a small part of what they have to offer.

Walmart begins selling damaged apples at Florida stores, says it wants to cut food waste

Walmart, the largest grocery store chain in the U.S. with more than 4,000 stores, this week began a pilot program selling imperfect apples, so-called "ugly fruit," at 300 stores in Florida, in what says is an effort to cut food waste.

"Ugly fruits and vegetables are a fact of life on the farm," Maria Godoy reports for NPR. "Sometimes the dents and scars are so minor that you wouldn't think twice about buying them. They're perfectly edible, delicious and just as nutritious as their unmarred brethren—or perhaps even more so. But their cosmetic challenges (think hail-pocked apples or curvy leeks) have traditionally kept them out of retail stores."

Imperfect produce often ends up in landfills, Godoy writes. Statistics are not kept on how much is thrown out, but JoAnne Berkenkamp, a senior advocate for food and agriculture at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said about 20 percent of production is thrown out each year. Walmart, which calls the apples "I'm perfect," has already been selling imperfect potatoes, called "Spuglies," in Texas. (Read more)

Rural Mainstreet Index in heartland remains on the negative side of the ledger for 11th month

For the 11th straight month the Rural Mainstreet Index was below 50, showing an economic decline. July's number was 39.8 on a 100-point scale. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss surveyed 174 bank executives in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

"One out of five crop farmers in the region is losing money on grain sales, Goss said, and that’s causing declines in farmland prices (for the 32nd straight month), farm equipment sales and retail sales in the 10-state area," Steve Jordon reports for the Omaha World-Herald. "The bankers said they expect loan defaults, on average, to increase by 5.4 percent over the coming year, Goss said, although many of them said they expect defaults to increase by more than 10 percent. That’s largely because of commodity prices, which are down 9 percent over the past 12 months, including a 16 percent drop in livestock prices, Goss said." (Read more)

Water in rural Colorado town tests positive for marijuana's psychoactive ingredient

Officials in rural Hugo, Colo. (Best Places map), on Thursday warned residents not to drink or bathe in water or allow pets to drink it, because water supplies tested positive for tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana, John Ingold reports for The Denver Post. "There have been no reports of illnesses or any symptoms of impairment from drinking the water, officials said." Hugo, located in Lincoln County, does not have any commercial marijuana operations. The county of 5,420 residents has 62 medical-marijuana patients, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment.

"Concerns about the water were first raised by a Hugo company using quick 'field tests' to check employees for THC," Ingold writes. "The simple tests are similar in function to home pregnancy tests in that they can return only two results: positive or negative." The company conducting the tests "had been getting inconsistent results and decided to test a vial of tap water, expecting it to be negative. Instead, the test came back positive, and the company called authorities."

"Lincoln County officials conducted 10 other field tests, using two different types of test kits, on the town’s water and six came back positive," Ingold writes. "Authorities later isolated the positive results to a single well—well No. 1, about a mile south of Hugo’s small downtown." The well showed signs of forced entry, but officials said it was unclear when the damage occurred.

The source of the chemical remains a mystery, on more than one level. THC is not soluble in water.

Demand for organic is on the rise, but making the switch is costly and time-consuming for farmers

Consumer demand for organic products is on the rise, but obstacles for farmers to be certified organic is creating a shortage of producers, Leah Messingers reports for The Guardian. Organic sales in the U.S. reached $13.4 billion last year, up from $12.8 billion in 2014, according to research group Euromonitor. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture says only 1 percent of U.S. cropland has been certified organic. (Getty Images by Nick David)

The problem is that "the time and expenses required to get organic certification present major roadblocks for increasing the amount of organic farmland in America," Messinger writes. One California farmer who was recently certified organic said "he spent three years working to demonstrate the use of eco-friendly pest and soil management practices and paid between 10 to 20 percent in higher labor cost. Yet he was unable to convince processors that pack and ship his harvest to pay more for his fruit—which he was already cultivating by using the organic standards set by the federal government—during that period."

"The USDA, which sets the organic standards for certification by public and private organizations, requires farmers to show their changing practices by forgoing the use of prohibited products, such as certain synthetic pesticides, for three years," Messinger writes. "This time frame allows the changes in the chemical and biological properties of the soil to take root. During this transitional period, farmers can already be growing fruits and vegetables organically, but they cannot increase the prices to the levels commanded by harvests from certified farms." Food giants say "more farmers would switch to organic if they could get financial help during the three-year transitional period." (Read more)

How is Ted Cruz's party-splitting act playing in your area? It's an easy national story to localize

Cruz waves goodbye as Trump supporters boo him. (Los Angeles Times photo)

Last night the star of the Republican National Convention was supposed to be Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the vice-presidential nominee. But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz stole the show by refusing, in the face of chants and boos from Donald Trump supporters, to endorse his former primary rival. This morning, in a performance just about as remarkable, Cruz defended himself before the Texas delegation. Cruz is clearly running for 2020, but his critics say he has killed his presidential prospects. What do the Cruz supporters in your area think?

This is a story easy to localize. If you don't know who your local Cruz supporters are, you can look up his contributors in your three-digit ZIP code area on a page of the Federal Election Commission website, here. Just click on your state, then the candidate, then the ZIP code area. There's also a button (not visible on the cropped screenshot example below) to download the names, addresses and amounts of contributors to an Excel file. Then call 'em up and ask, is Cruz doing right or wrong? If enough journalists did this, and shared the results with us, we could get an idea of how Cruz is playing and how unified the Republican Party is. In any event, it's still an excellent way to localize the biggest current national event.

Fact-checking convention claims on national debt, taxes, Benghazi

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, vice presidential nominee
(Photo from The Detroit News)

The Republican National Convention has completed its third day, and we take a look at what fact-checkers are saying about Wednesday's speeches. The Rural Blog will be providing excerpts from both conventions. If you want to re-publish them, we encourage you to look at The Washington Post's Fact Checker, FactCheck.org or Politifact for full context and things you may want to add. The fact-checkers looked at a lot more assertions yesterday than we have room to publish here.

Donald Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, "said that Hillary Clinton’s 'only answer' to the debt 'is to keep borrowing and spending,'" Lori Robertson writes for FactCheck. "But the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that Trump’s tax and spending plan would cause a 'massive increase' in the debt, while Clinton’s plan would result in a 'relatively small' increase."

Trump's son Eric "claimed that the U.S. is 'one of the highest-taxed nations in the world,' but U.S. personal taxes aren’t even in the top 10 among industrialized nations," Robertson writes. The U.S. does has one of the highest business-tax rates. "Florida Gov. Rick Scott claimed the U.S. has 'world-record high debt'— it actually ranks 39th out of 178 nations in terms of debt as a percentage of GDP. And he said the U.S. economy is 'not growing,' when it is."

Pence took out of context a Clinton quote about the Benghazi terrorist attacks, which left four Americans dead, report Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of the Fact Checker. At a congressional hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) "pressed Clinton repeatedly why she did not directly speak to survivors of the attacks to find out if it had been prompted by a protest, as initial media reports indicated. Her answer was an FBI investigation into the attacks had been launched and that it would have been inappropriate to speak to people who were being interviewed by professionals."

"Johnson called that 'a good excuse' and asserted the administration misled Americans about whether the attacks were preceded by a protest," Kessler and Lee write. Clinton replied: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.”

Pence said Indiana has "a $2 billion surplus, the highest credit rating in the nation, even though we've cut taxes every year since I became governor four years ago." Actually, it's tied with 14 other states for highest, Allison Graves and Neelesh Moorthy write for Politifact.

Federal judges rule against Texas, Wisconsin voter ID laws; ACLU sues Kansas over rule change

Federal judges this week ruled against voter-identification laws in Texas and Wisconsin that critics say are barriers to people more likely to vote Democratic. Also, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Kansas over a rule change passed last week that would throw out up to 50,000 votes cast by people who registered at the Department of Motor Vehicles, where proof of citizenship is not required to register to vote.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that "Texas’ voter identification law violates the U.S. law prohibiting racial discrimination in elections," Jim Malewitz reports for The Texas Tribune. The court ruled that the state's "2011 voter ID law—which stipulates the types of photo identification election officials can and cannot accept at the polls—does not comply with the Voting Rights Act. Texas is among nine states categorized as requiring 'strict photo ID,' and its list of acceptable forms is the shortest."

Because not every Texas county has an office that generates driver's license or alternate photo IDs, the law has a disproportionate impact on rural areas.

On Tuesday a federal district judge in Milwaukee ruled "that Wisconsin voters without photo identification can cast ballots by swearing to their identity," Patrick Marley and Jason Stein report for The Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee. The decision "creates a pathway for voters with difficulties getting IDs who have been unable to cast ballots under the state's 2011 voter ID law."

"The ruling will allow voters to use affidavits instead of IDs to vote in the Nov. 8 presidential election," Marley and Stein write. "But this new system will not be in place for the Aug. 9 primary for congressional and state legislative races because Adelman determined election officials needed more time to implement it."

The ACLU said in its lawsuit against Kansas Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach that "the dual voting system established by his office last week violates a previous court ruling," Bryan Lowry reports for The Wichita Eagle. "A state panel approved a temporary rule last week to allow more than 17,000 Kansans, who registered to vote at DMV offices without providing proof of citizenship, to vote in federal elections this August and November under the federal motor voter law." The Kansas State Rules and Regulations Board said those votes wouldn't count. The number of votes that would be tossed out could reach 50,000 by the presidential election.

"The move was meant to satisfy a federal court order," Lowry writes. "But the ACLU contends that blocking these voters from state and local elections runs afoul of a previous ruling by a Shawnee County judge that Kobach lacks the authority to create a dual voting system."

Gentrification has revived rural W.Va. mountain community, but raised suspicions, prejudices

A once-sleepy West Virginia mountain community 125 miles west of Washington, D.C., has received an economic boost from urban migrants, many of whom are gay, Shilpi Malinowski reports for The Washington Post. The gentrification of Hardy County has brought new business but also suspicion and prejudice, especially among poor residents who have seen newer, more expensive housing being built, with most of the new housing being used for weekend getaways by urban dwellers. (Post photo by Astrid Riecken: Wardensville, W.Va.)

In the past two years 16 new businesses—13 owned by newcomers—have popped up on Main Street in Wardensville, a town of about 250 residents whose downtown was once filled with vacant storefronts, Malinowski writes. In 2015, there were 115 local real-estate sales, up from 61 in 2012. One factor that helped: "In 2010, Hardy County received a federal grant to lay fiber-optic cable for internet service throughout the area," bringing in high-speed broadband.

"What is happening in the area seems to fit the definition of gentrification; the new residents moving into Wardensville and Hardy County often have D.C. salaries that far exceed the area’s median household income, which the 2010 census put at $31,347," Malinowski writes. "Wealthy gentrifiers moving into the relatively poor, rural area come with their own tastes, and the new businesses popping up often seem like they belong in Columbia Heights or Bloomingdale. Breweries, restaurants with city-level prices and art galleries are bringing the larger world into the small town."

Malinowski writes, "a rainbow pride flag now flies on Main Street, and the town is incorporating a more visible gay culture into its existing community." Paul Yandura and his partner, Donald Hitchcock, who moved to Hardy County in 2008, opening a store and becoming real-estate agents, told Malinowski, “We were told at one point that one of the churches was going to boycott our business because we are gay. But one of the preachers came in and apologized, and said they should never treat people like that. And the truth of the matter is that there have been gay people in this town for many years.”

Martha Bradfield, a longtime resident, told Malinowski, “Change is difficult for some people, and so is the fact that it’s the outsiders who are coming in and being the movers and shakers. realize that a lot of people who have lived here all their lives probably would like to see it remain a sleepy little town." (MapQuest image)

High tensions leading Connecticut police officers to make fewer traffic stops, departments say

Police officers in Connecticut are making fewer traffic stops, largely because of growing fear of increased tension between police and residents, escalated by recent national shootings of police officers and by police officers, Dave Altimari reports for the Hartford Courant. In 2015 Connecticut police made 576,000 traffic stops, 20,000 less than in 2014. Some police chiefs attribute the reduction in stops "to the growing animus between officers and the public."

The number of statewide tickets issued in 2015 decreased by 24,196, or 6 percent, according to data submitted by the departments to the state racial profiling prohibition advisory board, Altimari writes. "Ninety-three departments reported a decrease in infractions issued and 37 departments reported an increase last year" and "about 60 police departments reported a decline in motor vehicle stops, compared to about 40 departments that reported an increase."

Eugene O'Donnell, a former police officer and district attorney in New York City who teaches law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, "said the numbers in Connecticut, considered to be a relatively 'safe' state, reflect what he believes will be a national trend of officers cutting back on routine traffic stops," Altimari writes. O'Donnell told him, "People are toying with the cops, almost daring them so they can videotape it. The interaction is not one of equals. Citizens are yelling at cops and filming them all of the time. If you are doing stops in a high-crime neighborhood there's a good chance you will end up in a bad situation and you can't pretend that the political establishment will always support you." (Read more)

Small towns in Delaware rarely, if ever, receive Freedom of Information Act requests

Residents and journalists in some small towns rarely, if ever, take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act, Craig Anderson reports for Delaware State News. The Delaware Freedom of Information Act requires all Delaware municipal governments to provide requested information in a timely manner and at a fair cost. (Anderson photo: City of Dover administrative assistant Jody Stein reviews a FOIA request)

In Hartly, the state's smallest incorporated town with 74 residents, local officials searched back to the 1990s, but were unable to find any FOIA requests, Anderson writes. The town has a website link for FOIA matters, which Delaware Code requires, but it appears to have never been used. Suzanne Morris, town commissioner and clerk, told Anderson, "I can tell you that to the best of my knowledge Hartly has never received a FOIA request."

Little Creek, a town of 235, handled just one FOIA request since at least 1995, Anderson writes. Felton, a town of 1,362 residents, averages one request every couple years. Harrington, with 3,715 residents, gets about 10 per year, "typically coming from email or a form completed on the town website." Smyrna, which has 10,023 residents, sometimes gets four or five in one day, and other times goes a month without one. (Read more)

Cop killings leading some rural police departments in Mo. to change how they respond to 911 calls

Wikipedia map: Douglas County

Shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, and Tuesday in Kansas City, have led rural police departments in Missouri to change the way they respond to 911 calls, Sara Forhetz reports for KYTV-3 in Springfield. Smaller counties in Missouri "say they are doing a few things differently now, such as whenever someone calls 911, asking a lot more questions on the phone before they respond. It might take a little longer to get there to the scene, but at least they know who they are dealing with and what the situation is."

Rural police departments also are more closely monitoring social media, Forhetz writes. Douglas County Sheriff Chris Degase told Forhetz, "Most of the time we know who we are dealing with before we go, which is a good thing... It's definitely in the back of all of our minds. ... There has been a drastic turn toward law enforcement. Just waking up and turning on the TV every morning would keep us from becoming complacent. It seems like something is happening every night." (Read more)

Citizenship offices are few and far between, forcing rural immigrants to travel long distances

Rural immigrants usually have to take the long road to citizenship. Most states have few U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices—some have none—and most are located in urban areas, meaning it's not uncommon for those seeking naturalization to make several trips across thousands of miles before becoming U.S. citizens, Sara Millhouse reports for the Daily Yonder. (Map: USCIS offices)

Iowa only has one immigration office, in Des Moines, meaning that someone like French-born Stephanie Rickels, who lives in rural Cascade, Iowa, has to drive 183 miles each way for appointments, Millhouse writes. Her three required trips—her last appointment lasted 15 minutes—will equal 1,098 miles.

While being a teacher affords Rickels time during the summer to make three trips to Des Moines, some rural residents are not so lucky, Millhouse writes. Some people can't afford to take time off from work, while others lack the transportation. Rural transit authority is available from Cascade to Des Moines, but three trips cost about $450.

Costs and lack of transportation and time have caused some to fear that many rural immigrants skip being naturalized, thus, are ineligible to vote in a presidential election in which immigration has become a major issue, Millhouse writes. The U.S. government "estimates that 8.8 million people are eligible for citizenship. Of those, 653,416 went through the process in fiscal year 2014, the latest for which statistics are available through the government’s Office of Immigration Statistics. In 2014, 6,125—less than 1 percent—of newly-naturalized citizens lived in 'micropolitan' or noncore counties." (Read more)

Rural towns banking on new electric car charging stations to boost tourism from Yellowstone visitors

A rural town in Montana hopes that installing electric car charging stations will boost tourism, mainly from visitors on the way to Yellowstone National Park. Red Lodge, Mont., located about 68 miles from Yellowstone, in June installed two Tesla destination chargers and two Clipper Creek universal chargers at public restroom sites, Erik Olson reports for the Billings Gazette. City officials said they hope travelers using the chargers, which take three or more hours to reach full power, will spend that time shopping in Red Lodge. Katelynn Essig, the city’s sustainability coordinator, told Olson, “They’re going to come in, cap off, eat something and go." (Olson photo: Red Lodge electric charging station)

The charging stations can be used on any electric car, Olson writes, "Installation of the four stations cost about $10,000, which will be reimbursed through Tesla Motors," whose owner Mo Fowell owns a home in Red Lodge. Fowell said "the stations will help eliminate 'range anxiety' for electric car owners who worry that their battery will die on the highway." Adding the new charging stations means that on Interstate 90 in Montana, no two stations are more than 150 miles apart, a distance that Tesla electric cars travel on a full charge. Fowell told Olson, “Last year, you couldn’t get to Yellowstone Park. Now you can." (Read more)

Advances in social media, live streaming are changing the way conventions are being covered

Advances in social media are changing the way the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are being covered. "In 2012, live video coverage was almost exclusively the domain of news organizations," Shelley Hepworth reports for Columbia Journalism Review. "Now social platforms have set their sights on live streaming, and the 2016 conventions are shaping up to become a frenzied microcosm of the next era of live event coverage."

"Facebook users are watching more than 8 billion videos a day on the service, according to numbers released in November," Hepworth writes. "Snapchat surpassed that figure with a reported 10 billion daily video views in April. YouTube claims to reach more 18- to 49-year-olds than any cable network in the US. Having conquered video, social platforms are partnering up with news organizations to deliver live streams from the conventions directly to users’ social feeds." Crystal Patterson, Facebook’s head of government and politics outreach, told Politico, “This is the most engaged we’ve been at the convention, and it’s highly correlated to the fact (that) we have a lot of tools to offer.”

Hepworth writes, "The advent of live social streaming comes at a time when TV audiences are shrinking. Until now, live event coverage on TV has been relatively immune to digital encroachment, but new tools mean networks can now expect to be challenged on that front, too, with some commentators suggesting they could spell the demise of cable news."

"The upside of live streaming is the amount of choice available to viewers, who can watch the conventions in the formats they prefer," she writes. "The downside is the potential for audience fragmentation, which could adversely impact advertising revenue." (Read more)

Fact-checking convention claims on Medicare, Keystone XL, Zika, Common Core and more

The Republican National Convention has completed its second day, and we take a look at what fact checkers are saying about Tuesday's speeches. The Rural Blog will be providing excerpts from both conventions. If you want to re-publish them, we encourage you to look at The Washington Post's Fact Checker, FactCheck.org or Politifact for full context and things you may want to add. The fact-checkers looked at a lot more assertions yesterday than we have room to publish here.

On Tuesday Donald Trump Jr. (left) said Hillary Clinton would destroy Medicare for seniors. Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee write for the Post, "This is a mysterious claim by Trump’s son that appears to have no factual basis. There is no specific proposal by Clinton that could be said to 'destroy' Medicare, the health-care program for the elderly."

"The most substantive change that Clinton would make is to allow people older than 55 to join Medicare; currently it is limited to those age 65 or older," the writers report. "But the effect on the program, while uncertain, does appear to be limited, especially if premiums are set correctly, according to a 2008 Congressional Budget Office study of options for Medicare. (The CBO looked at a general buy-in program as well as one for people as young as 62.) Such a plan may lead people to retire early, thus reducing the size of the workforce, but that’s entirely different from 'destroying' Medicare."

Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org writes, "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrongly said that Clinton was for the Keystone XL pipeline before she was against it. She did not take a position until she opposed the pipeline in 2015." Also, concerning the threat from Zika, McConnell said “Clinton Democrats in the Senate blocked a bill aimed at eliminating that virus before it can spread.” The whole story is that Democrats objected to “poison pills” Republicans added to the bill, primarily denying of the funding to Planned Parenthood. McConnell also claimed that the Senate “ended Common Core.” It may have eliminated any connection to federal funding, but the Common Core State Standards are a creation of the states, not the federal government. But the Post found McConnell was correct in saying Clinton made up a story about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Clinton "had expressed support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite documented human rights abuses in the country," claiming she called the leader, who Christie said is responsible for 400,000 deaths, a reformer, Allison Graves and Neelesh Moorthy report for Politifact. What Clinton actually told CBS's Bob Schieffer in a 2011 interview was, "Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer."