Texas weekly highlights helpers of the needy each Thanksgiving: 'The hands that give are never left empty'

The top of the first of four pages devoted to charities in this week's edition of The Canadian Record

For six years, The Canadian Record in the Texas Panhandle has published a Thanksgiving feature that reminds readers that many of their neighbors have a lot less to be thankful for, and how to help them. Editor-Publisher Laurie Ezzell Brown told The Rural Blog, "The nonprofit organizations that we mention are always appreciative of the light it shines on them, and I am always hopeful that it helps them continue the good work they do." Here's what she wrote for this week's feature:

"The hands that give are never left empty. There is no better time to be reminded of that than now, when we are awash in consumer-oriented Christmas messages urging us to spend our money—even as many in this community struggle to feed and clothe their children, care for the elderly and infirm, and pay for life’s basic necessities.

"As we each prepare our Thanksgiving meals and celebrate this great bounty in the company of friends and family, please remember—in thought, word, and deed—those for whom this day offers fewer blessings and far greater uncertainty. Those who have lost jobs, whose businesses are struggling, whose health is in jeopardy, or who care for one who is ill. Those who are alone, who live in fear, who wrestle with addiction, who are without hope in a season whose persistent message is one of great hope. Those who labor and are weary. Those whose children are hungry or cold. Those who have no home, and no family to offer them shelter and kindness.

"We live in a time of great promise, in a country that enjoys enormous wealth; and yet, there are many who have neither. We live in a community that has always given generously to those in need, but we can never take the generosity of others for granted. It is for each of us to give according to our ability. With these things in mind, we asked representatives of local nonprofit charities to describe each organization’s mission and to tell us how we can contribute.

"In the following pages, you will read about the daycare center that nurtures our youngest children; the hospice program that gives comfort to the dying, and to their families and loved ones; the food bank that delivers groceries to those who have fallen on hard times; the ministerial alliance that aids families and individuals in crisis; and the group of mothers whose efforts are focused on ensuring that children receive needed dental and medical care—even if their parents are not able to afford it.

"Your gifts, however small or large, offer comfort and sustenance. They send a much-needed message to all who suffer, that they are neither forgotten nor lost, and that this is a community that cares, even for the least of these. And in giving, we are reminded of all we have—the blessings that are ours—for which we give thanks, today and every day."

Rural women face dwindling access to hospital childbirth services; Connecticut woman's ordeal is an example

A rural Connecticut woman's recent ordeal highlights a recent study noting that rural women, especially in communities of color, often have more difficulty accessing hospital childbirth services.

Shantell Jones lives in Windham, a town of 25,000, 41 percent Latino. She lives six blocks from a hospital, but when she went into early labor the ambulance had to drive to another one 30 minutes away because Windham Hospital shuttered its labor and delivery services last year, Jean Lee reports for NBC News. Ten minutes into the drive, Jones gave birth in the ambulance as it parked by the side of the highway, and though she and her son are healthy, others are not so lucky sometimes. 

Pregnant women without easy access to a hospital with obstetric services could be at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely, giving birth in an emergency room, or outside of a hospital entirely, public-health experts say. Thousands of other pregnant rural women are facing that risk as hospitals reduce or close obstetric services to cut costs. "Nationwide, 53 rural counties lost obstetrics care from 2014 through 2018, according to a 2020 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association." It also found that 1.045 of the out of 1,976 rural counties "never had hospitals with obstetrics services to begin with."

Communities of color and those with high poverty rates are especially at risk. Not only are they more likely to lose or never have local obstetric services, but they're more likely to have transportation issues or lack insurance that would cover a pricey ambulance ride to a hospital further away, Lee reports. Local ambulance services might not be able to respond as readily because they're stretched thin too.

Major retailers found liable for opioid epidemic in 2 Ohio counties; ruling bolsters public-nuisance legal strategy

Recent court rulings in Oklahoma and California rejected claims that drug companies were responsible for the opioid epidemic, but an Ohio court ruling this week was a positive signal for other lawsuits using the strategy of claiming a public nuisance. Those cases could bring billions of dollars in payouts to states and municipalities to mitigate the addiction crisis.

On Tuesday a court ruled that major retailers CVS, Walgreens and Walmart helped fuel the opioid epidemic in two Cleveland-area counties. Jurors in a federal court concluded that the pharmacy chains' actions in Lake and Trumbull counties "helped create a public nuisance that resulted in an oversupply of addictive pain pills and the diversion of those opioids to the black market, Nate Raymond reports for Reuters. The verdict is the first the companies have faced over the issue.

The prosecutor will seek more than $1 billion from the companies to help the two counties address the toll of addiction, but "Judge Dan Polster will decide how much the companies owe to abate the epidemic in the counties and is expected to hold a trial on that question in April or May," Reuters reports.

The companies say they plan to appeal the verdict, citing recent Oklahoma and California rulings as proof that the public-nuisance claim was inappropriately applied. "The pharmacy chains have blamed drugmakers for marketing the addictive medications, and doctors for overprescribing, arguing that others were significantly responsible for the flood of legal opioids that were diverted to illegal use," Meryl Kornfield and Lenny Bernstein report for The Washington Post. "But federal law puts a 'corresponding responsibility' on the pharmacist to determine that a prescription he or she fills is for a legitimate medical purpose." Other chains such as Rite Aid and Giant Eagle have previously settled with the counties for undisclosed sums in the matter.

It's unclear whether the public-nuisance strategy will ultimately prove effective. Similar claims are ongoing elsewhere, in state courts in New York and Washington, and a federal court in West Virginia, Kornfield and Bernstein report.

New rapid antibiotics test could bring more transparency to meat supply chain

Veteran cattle rancher Bill Niman has co-founded a company, FoodID, that can quickly test meat for the presence of antibiotics. He believes adopting the tech will force meat companies to be honest about whether they're using antibiotics on animals, Lisa Held reports for Civil Eats.

The question matters because, scientists say, "antibiotic resistance—the growing number of 'superbugs' that are resistant to treatment—is 'widely considered to be the next global pandemic,'" Held reports. "And while a number of countries have successfully reduced dependence on them, the U.S. is behind the curve. For example, the U.S. cattle industry uses medically important antibiotics four to six times more intensively than four of the top livestock-producing countries in Europe, according to analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council."

Major meat brands sell product lines labeled antibiotic-free, but it's difficult for consumers or consumer agencies to test those claims. "While tests for antibiotic residue in meat already exist, FoodID’s version uses flow-through technology, the same technology used in at-home pregnancy tests, to make the process faster, cheaper, and more sensitive than ever before," Held reports. "Using that tech, the company’s first application seeks to partner with companies to validate their 'no antibiotics' claims, since the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires testing just .0025 percent of animals each year. With chicken, FoodID’s team tests multiple birds pulled from each chicken house; with cattle and pigs, they test carcasses at the slaughter facilities."

Smaller producers may be more likely to adopt the tech, since it will bolster their claims of selling superior meat. Larger meat companies may be less inclined, but Niman hopes independent watchdog groups will test the meat, a la Consumer Reports, and publicly pressure the companies to change their practiciess, Held reports.

Thanksgiving roundup: Native Americans reflect on Indigenous People's Day and more

Just in time for Thanksgiving, here's a roundup of news concerning the nation's original inhabitants, whose communities and concerns today are often rural.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims. The Wampanoag Nation, whose ancestors were at that first Thanksgiving, say what actually happened in 1621 is much different from what most children are taught in grade school. Read more here.

More states are heeding tribal leaders and banning Native American sports mascots. Read more here.

For centuries, Native Americans lived and fished the area, often called the Everglades of the West. But now climate change is fueling a water-rights conflict in the Pacific Northwest's Klamath Basin. Read more here.

Tribal members across Oklahoma reflect on Indigenous Peoples' Day. Read more here.

A three-part podcast from Wyoming Public Media's "The Modern West" explores the U.S. government's historic failure to keep its promise to provide adequate medical treatment for Native Americans, and how that has made the coronavirus even more deadly among many tribes. Listen to the series here.

Last week the Senate confirmed Charles Sams III to lead the National Park Service. Sams, a member of the Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes, is the first Native American to lead the agency, and the first permanent head of the agency in years. Read more here.

Comedian Adrianne Chalepah keeps crowds laughing while highlighting Native American life and issues. Read more here.

Lee Enterprises sale to Alden would create hedge fund-owned duopoly for U.S. dailies, include dozens of weeklies

Locations of Lee Enterprises' daily newspapers

"Lawmakers, local reporters and journalism advocates are sounding the alarm over a takeover attempt of local newspaper group Lee Enterprises by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for cutting journalists at local papers to maximize profits," Sara Fischer reports for Axios.

If Alden bought out Lee, a "clear majority" of U.S. dailies would be owned by hedge funds. Moreover, it would "essentially create a local news duopoly between Alden and Gannett/Gatehouse, which merged in 2019," Fischer reports.

"It was pretty clear this day would come," Joshua Benton writes for Nieman Lab. "Lee is the biggest acquisition target left out there, with papers in 77 markets across 26 states — not to mention nearly 350 weekly and specialty publications." Benton adds, "At some previous companies that Alden has tried to acquire, there’s been resistance — from management, employees, civic leaders, or all of the above. . . . But frankly, I’d be surprised if Lee put up much of a fight this time," since it's offering cash and a 30 percent more than the price of Lee stock last week.

As Lee's stock spiked 26 percent on Monday after Alden announced its offer, policymakers and reporters expressed concern. Sara Gentzler, a state-government reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, tweeted that it was a "gut-wrenching scenario for Nebraska newspapers and anyone who cares about preserving robust local news."

Scores of Lee's papers were once owned by Warren Buffett, "who soured on the business in recent years and said most newspapers were 'toast'," Katie Robertson of The New York Times reports. Lee "managed the 31 daily newspapers and dozens of weeklies owned by Mr. Buffett for a time before he sold them to that company in 2020."

Lee was recently in the news after reports that Iranian hackers broke into the company's computer systems the day after the 2020 election and tested how to create fake news.

UPDATE: Editor & Publisher hosts a discussion among Gordon Borrell, founder and principal of Borrell Associates; Rick Edmonds, media-business analyst for The Poynter Institute; Steven Waldman, president and co-founder of Report for America; and Gretchen A. Peck, contributing editor at E&P.

Farmers get 14 cents of dollar spent on Thanksgiving meal

National Farmers Union graphic; click on it to enlarge

"For every dollar Americans spend on Thanksgiving meals this year, farmers and ranchers will earn approximately 14.3 cents," says the National Farmers Union.

“Ordinarily, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with our loved ones and enjoy a big meal,” said NFU President Rob Larew. “But for many Americans, the cost of traditional holiday foods may simply be out of reach for some families.”

NFU says that while consumers are paying more for food, "almost none of that is being passed on to America’s family farmers and ranchers. Multiple waves of mergers and acquisitions during the last several decades have resulted in agriculture and food supply chains that are uncompetitive, fragile, and underpay farmers. The farmer’s share of every dollar consumers spend on food has fallen from 50 percent in 1952 to less than 15 percent today."

Supreme Court decision on groundwater rights could have implications for interstate water wars in era of more droughts

Aquifer being tapped by Memphis and Mississippi
(Wall Street Journal map, adapted by The Rural Blog)

On Monday the Supreme Court unanimously found that Tennessee was not stealing Mississippi's groundwater; the ruling has broad implications for how states manage natural resources, especially as climate change continues to drive droughts, Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg.

Over a century ago, the Supreme Court established the equitable apportionment doctrine as a rubric for deciding interstate conflicts over common bodies of water. This case is the first to extend that doctrine to groundwater, Jess Bravin reports for The Wall Street Journal.

"Mississippi accused a Memphis utility of improperly pumping water out of an interstate aquifer spanning the region, claiming it wasn’t a 'shared resource.' The dispute centered on whether the utility interfered with Mississippi’s authority over its land and waters," Magill reports.

Mississippi sought at least $615 million in damages, claiming it was more difficult and expensive to access water because the Memphis utility was drawing so much out of the Middle Claiborne Aquifer—some 120 million gallons per day, Bravin reports. The aquifer lies under eight states in the Mississippi River Basin.

Free webinar TODAY at 2 p.m. ET to celebrate Native journalism and Freedom Forum Institute's 30th anniversary

The Freedom Forum Institute, a nonprofit that raises awareness about First Amendment rights, will celebrate its 30th anniversary with the latest in a series of free webinars at 2 p.m. ET today, "Celebrating Native American journalism and 30 Years of the Freedom Forum." Click here for details or to register.

Here's some more info from the website: "As we celebrate Native American Heritage Month, join us to look back at the Freedom Forum’s longtime commitment to Native American journalism, talk about representation of Native journalists today and discuss the issues that are being covered in the community. Three journalists who have participated in Freedom Forum programs will share how the initiatives impacted them and talk about their work today:

• Katie Oyan, West Desk editor, The Associated Press
• Shondiin Silversmith, indigenous affairs reporter, The Arizona Mirror
• Mark Trahant, editor, Indian Country Today

EPA finds glyphosate, atrazine and simazine can hurt endangered species or habitats; new rules could be coming

"The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized biological evaluations concluding that three common herbicides can adversely affect endangered species or their habitats," Philip Brasher reports for Agri-Pulse. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service will use the EPA's findings on glyphosate, atrazine and simazine to determine whether the weed-killers actually jeopardize the existence of any endangered species. The biological opinions that those agencies issue could result in additional restrictions being placed on the herbicides."

The report suggests new measures to mitigate the herbicides' impact, "including buffers to sensitive habitats, use deletions, and restrictions regarding where applications can occur," Brasher reports.

EPA reauthorized atrazine and simazine (part of a class called triazines) in September 2020, but put new restrictions on their use designed to limit potential harm to human health and the environment. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup. Manufacturer Bayer AG announced this summer that it will remove the weedkiller from the lawn and garden market in 2023, but it will remain available for farmers.

Rural journalist, dying of cancer, reflects in weekly columns

Dave Taylor

This spring, Dave Taylor found out he had Stage 4 esophageal cancer. The veteran journalist, editor of the weekly Hancock Clarion in Hawesville, Kentucky, began writing about the experience the week afterward in a column series called "What I Learned From Dying."

"If things go well this will be a long-term column that could serve as catharsis for me or a peek behind the gown for those who are curious," Taylor wrote in the first column. "If things don’t go as well, then maybe it’s just a long, rambling goodbye."

Since that first column in May, Taylor has reflected not just on his life, but on journalism and the value of local reporting. "While the stories I’ve covered haven’t always been earth shattering, they’ve been important to the people in those stories and maybe important to those who read them," he writes.

The Clarion—and other rural newspapers—play a vital role in their communities. "Nowhere else are you going to find pictures of your kids at the fair or an action shot of the homerun your grandson hit in the big game last week," Taylor writes. "But we also play the role of local historians. We mark history with every story we write and photo we print. When someone wants information about anything in the past they turn to the newspaper."

Staffers at the paper, owned by longtime Publisher Donn Wimmer, do their best to cover local happenings "because generally speaking, we’re the only ones covering Hancock County at all," he writes. "Please continue to read and support the Clarion. It’s the only paper we’ve got."

Iranian hackers got into Lee Enterprises systems the day after the 2020 election, and tested how to create fake news

Lee Enterprises newspaper locations; click the image to enlarge, or click here for the interactive version and a list.

"Iranian hackers last year infiltrated the computer systems of Lee Enterprises Inc., a major American media company that publishes dozens of daily [and weekly] newspapers across the U.S., as part of a broader effort to spread disinformation about the 2020 presidential election," Dustin Volz reports for The Wall Street Journal. "On Thursday, the Justice Department said the alleged hackers broke in to the digital systems of an unnamed media company in fall 2020 and tested how to create false news content. People familiar with the matter on Friday identified the company as Lee."

Lee, based in Davenport, Iowa, is one of the nation's larger newspaper chains, especially since acquiring BH Media Group's 31 papers in early 2020. It has more than 350 non-daily papers.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned the unnamed company about the intrusion, prosecutors said. The day after the November presidential election, the hackers tried to get back into the media company’s system but failed, prosecutors said. The federal charging document in the case doesn’t indicate the hackers successfully published fake information under the unnamed media company’s news brands," Volz reports. Last year, U.S. intelligence found "that the leaders of Russia and Iran ordered their governments to attempt to influence U.S. voters’ choices in the 2020 presidential election and undermine the public’s faith in American democracy."

News media can used to spread disinformation without hacking. That happened last November while votes were still being counted: "A coordinated network of Twitter accounts posed as the Associated Press and CNN to prematurely declare election victories for Democrat Joe Biden," Volz reports. "Those tweets, which Twitter removed quickly, were nonetheless retweeted dozens of times and amplified by at least a handful of journalists and other verified Twitter users." 

The incident is a good reminder to be vigilant and cross-check even tweets that seem legitimate. State election officials, increasingly concerned about disinformation campaigns, have called on the public to only trust official vote tabulations instead of news media reports or projections, Volz reports.

UPDATE, Nov. 23: Lee is a takeover target of Alden Global Capital, The New York Times reports.

Ken Burns: The one national historic site with 'massacre' in its name shows we should teach history, not mythology

The Sand Creek Massacre, from History of Colorado; the national historic site was dedicated in 2007.

By Ken Burns

For The Washington Post

I’ve been making films about American history for more than 40 years. In all of those years, there’s something central that I’ve learned about being an American: Veneration and shame often go hand in hand.

Today, however, I fear patriotism is presented as a false choice. It seems that for many, to be patriotic is to remember and celebrate only our nation’s triumphs. To choose otherwise, to choose to remember our failings, is thus somehow anti-American.

But it is not so simple.

When the National Park Service opened its 391st unit — the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site — the site became the first and only to include the word “massacre” in the title, a reminder of the Nov. 29, 1864, attack on Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people that was misrepresented as a “battle” for nearly a century. In a video, I reflect on the legacy and contemporary resonance of this massacre.

Being an American means reckoning with a history fraught with violence and injustice. Ignoring that reality in favor of mythology is not only wrong but also dangerous. The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious ones, and often the two are intertwined.

As some question how to teach American history to our children — and even question the history itself — I urge us to confront the hard truth, and to trust our children with it. Because a truly great nation is one that can acknowledge its failures.

Ken Burns is a filmmaker whose digital history project UNUM connects scenes from his documentaries to current events.

Rural communities may miss out on infrastructure funds; experts recommend states stage outreach programs to help

Though the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure package has plenty of money specifically earmarked for rural America, rural communities are concerned they'll miss out on much of it.

Most of the funds "will flow to state governments, with the most populous states getting the largest amounts. Then cities, towns and counties will compete for grants and loans, with state officials deciding who gets what. Federal officials will maintain control of about $120 billion, part of which will be doled out through competitive grants," Aallyah Wright reports for Stateline. "Rural leaders worry that they lack the staff and matching dollars to compete with bigger cities for their fair share of the bounty."

Some smaller, more conservative states have had difficulty with federal stimulus money because they don't have processes in place to decide how it should be spent, develop regulations to govern distribution, and then actually distribute it, Johnathan Hladik, policy director for the Center for Rural Affairs, told Wright.

Even when states clear those hurdles, rural municipalities often have trouble accepting and spending grants for similar reasons: lack of personnel, decision-making processes and know-how. Communities also worry they can't accept money that requires cost-sharing or matching funds, Wright reports. Hladick recommended that state agencies market their stimulus fund plans to localities to maximize the money's potential.

Kansas state officials hid public information at private firm's request; it's part of a national trend against transparency

The Kansas state government hid large parts of an audit to please a private company. The audit, which cost taxpayers $100,000, "was meant to watchdog about $160 million in prescription drug spending on state employees, though experts say it came nowhere near achieving that, despite its hefty price tag," Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports for KCUR in Kansas City. "Kansas bowed to the auditor’s wishes for secrecy, even though an attorney for the state couldn’t find anything in the report that qualified for protection from public view."

The incident is part of a larger trend: "In Oregon, a city is hiding from a newspaper how much of the region’s precious water Google uses to cool its servers — claiming it’s a Google trade secret. A Utah county refused to show a disability rights center its jail manuals for things such as hygiene and medical care — because the author had copyrighted them," Llopis-Jepsen reports for the NPR affiliate. "Virginia pre-emptively promised Amazon it would redact as much as it could get away with if any citizens asked for public records involving the company — to please the retail behemoth."

State and local governments regularly duck transparency laws by citing private companies' intellectual property rights. "And in the case of Kansas, it effectively outsources the redaction process to private companies that don’t work for the public, that don’t have any legal obligation to follow open records law and that can’t be hauled before a judge for breaking it," Llopis-Jepsen reports.

Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, told Llopis-Jepsen he worries that governments are increasingly allowing businesses control what the public can see: "This is not a Kansas problem. It’s not an Oregon problem . . . It’s an everywhere problem."

What's in the Build Back Better bill for rural America

Today the House passed a $2 trillion social spending and climate bill 220-213, with all Republicans and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, opposed. It goes to the Senate, where changes are likely to satisfy Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. 

"The package retains most of its original major elements, including funding for clean energy, universal prekindergarten, subsidized child care, and billions more for health care, affordable housing and elder care," The Wall Street Journal reports. "Many of these programs are set to expire within several years, a deliberate effort to lower the package’s top-line price. Making the programs temporary as opposed to permanent also represents a bet by Democrats that future voters will vote for candidates who promise to renew them. The package would be financed by changes to the corporate tax code, including a new corporate minimum tax, while raising taxes on high-income individuals."

Here's some of what's in it that affects rural America:

• $555 billion for climate, including "$320 billion in 10-year expanded tax credits for residential and utility-scale renewable energy, transmission, electric vehicles and clean-energy manufacturing; $105 billion to boost resilience to the effects of climate change, such as wildfires and droughts; $110 billion to grow U.S. supply chains for renewable energy technology; and $20 billion to motivate the government to purchase cutting-edge energy technologies," the WSJ reports.
• $200 billion to extend the expanded child-tax credit through 2022.
• About $200 billion for four weeks of paid parental, sick or caregiving leave, starting in 2024.
• $150 billion for providing at-home medical care for seniors and disabled Americans.
• $18 billion for "job-promoting investments to ensure those living in rural America, on tribal lands, and our insular areas have access to clean water and reliable and efficient renewable energy, says the Agriculture Department. "This funding will also support investment in renewable biofuels infrastructure important to farmers and our fight against climate change, and flexible funding for rural community growth." That includes $9.6 billion in debt relief for farmers and $1 billion for farmer loan modifications. It also includes more than $1.3 billion in assistance and support for underserved farmers, ranchers and foresters.
• $2 billion for agricultural research and infrastructure. Click here for a detailed breakdown.
• $5 million through Sept. 30, 2031, for audits and other oversight to make sure USDA spends all that money on what it's supposed to. USDA has been widely criticized for sparse oversight.
• About $27 billion for programs to help prevent and fight forest fires, restore forests and promote tourism in under-served areas. That includes the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps, modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the Great Depression.
• $28 billion for conservation, including support for farmers.
• $10 billion for child nutrition programs, which would make 9 million more children eligible for free school meals.
• $200 million for additional pandemic relief payments to frontline grocery workers.
• A pathway to legal residence, but not citizenship, for undocumented immigrants. About 7 million of the 11 million undocumented in the U.S. could apply for work permits, permission to travel abroad, and state driver's licenses. "To qualify, immigrants must have arrived before Jan. 1, 2011, and lived here ever since. Work permits would be valid for five years, and could be renewed one time, extending protections through September 2031," The Washington Post reports.
• Restoration of more than 400,000 green cards that went unused because of bureaucratic or pandemic-related delays.
• A fee on methane emissions and funding to help facilities lower such emissions.
• Enhanced subsidies for health insurance through Affordable Care Act exchanges would be extended through 2027. They are now set to expire after 2022. "The changes would mean more people would continue to remain eligible for subsidies and lower-income people would also continue to see more generous subsidies," the WSJ reports.
• Subsidies in 2022-25 for the 4 million uninsured Americans in the 12 states that haven't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
• Many Medicare recipients would pay less out of pocket for health care, and the program would cover hearing care for the first time.
• Consumers with private insurance would never have to pay more than $35 for insulin before a deductible is applied.
• A $2,000 a year cap on out-of-pocket costs for the voluntary prescription drug benefit, starting in 2024.
• More than $18 billion for the first three years for universal pre-kindergarten. "After that, the program would be funded with a 90% federal, 10% state split in the fourth year, then 75%-25% in the fifth year and 60%-40% in the sixth year. The program would end after six years," WSJ reports. A coalition of conservative religious groups opposes the measure, saying a non-discrimination clause could disqualify them.
• About $100 billion over three years to address child-care shortages and raise workers' wages by building new facilities, training teachers, and subsidizing low- and middle-income families' child-care expenses. "After the first three years, the entitlement expands to nearly all families. It guarantees that no family making less than 250% of their state’s median income would pay more than 7% of their income on child care," the WSJ reports. "Families making less than 75% of their state’s median income would pay nothing. The program ends after six years."
• For the first time, the federal government would be able to negotiate the prices of some medications covered by Medicare. The measure would begin with 10 drugs starting in 2025 and will increase.
• $150 billion for affordable housing, including $65 billion to repair public housing, $35 billion for rental assistance and $15 billion for affordable housing grants through the Housing Trust Fund. The plan will also provide down-payment assistance for first-time home buyers whose parents are also not homeowners.

The bill is notable for how much funding will go to rural and agricultural interests. The American Farm Bureau Federation opposes it; President Zippy Duvall said in a statement the bill would hurt rural America because it "raises taxes and spends more taxpayer money at a time our country can afford to do neither."

However, a diverse group of conservation, agricultural, and sporting groups voiced their support for the bill. Conservation funding in the bill "underscores the central role that farmers, ranchers and private forest owners play in addressing the climate crisis," Aviva Glaser, the National Wildlife Federation's senior director of agriculture policy, said in a statement. "This transformative investment into popular and effective USDA conservation programs and practices will create jobs, support rural communities, reduce emissions, and create benefits for soil, water, and wildlife.

New rural coronavirus infections up 10% last week while Covid-related deaths fell about 20%

New coronavirus infections, in ranges by county, Nov. 6-13
Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

Rural counties reported about 117,000 new coronavirus infections Nov. 6-13, a 10 percent increase from the previous week. "Rural counties were evenly split between those that had better infection rates compared to two weeks ago and those that had worse," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. "Twenty states saw an improvement in their rural infection rates, while 27 had worse rates last week ... In 38 states, the rural infection rate was higher than the urban infection rate."

Rural counties saw about 2,100 Covid-related deaths last week, down 20% from the week before. "The rural death rate remains two times higher than the metropolitan death rate, a trend that started in mid-August," Murphy and Marema report. Click here for more charts, regional analysis, and county-level interactive maps from the Yonder.

New HGTV show, a spinoff of popular 'Home Town,' picks six towns for home, business and public projects in each

Six American towns will get a makeover next year on a new HGTV show featuring Ben and Erin Napier, hosts of the popular "Home Town" series.

In the spinoff, called "Home Town Kickstart Presented by People," the Napiers will bring in an all-star cast—including Nate Berkus and Ty Pennington—to do three types of projects in each town: "refresh the home of a local hero, give a small business a beautiful upgrade and reinvigorate a public space to enhance the residents’ quality of life and engender community pride," according to a press release.

Thousands of towns applied when HGTV announced the series in January. The winners are: Buffalo, Wyoming; Cornwall, New York; Winslow, Arizona; LaGrange, Kentucky; Thomaston, Georgia; and Minden, Louisiana.

La Grange residents are delighted about the prospect, Dakota Sherek reports for WDRB in Louisville. The community of around 10,000 is the seat of Oldham County, northeast of Louisville.

"It's certainly a fantastic achievement for our city," La Grange Mayor John Black told Sherek. "We've been working on this, these things, for years. We continue to working on making this a vibrant, cool town, and with what HGTV does, we just couldn't be more happy and excited they're going to come here and see us."

Quick hits: Invading armadillos, in search of Appalachian-friendly therapy; National Grange reelects president

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

"Infra," short for infrastructure, is an ancient prefix and the new shorthand work for supporting structures that undergird American society, not just roads and pipes. Read more here.

Betsy Huber has been reelected for a fourth term as president of the National Grange, the oldest agricultural and rural advocacy organization in the U.S. Read more here.

Armadillos, whose habitat has expanded north because of climate change, have besieged a town in western North Carolina. Read more here.

Are Appalachian foodways at risk of being lost forever? Read more here.

Culturally sensitive therapists could play a key role in easing Appalachia's mental-health crisis, writes one Eastern Kentucky resident. Read more here.

'The First Amendment is having a nervous breakdown' as info overload masks truth, journalism-review editor writes

Gateway Journalism Review illustration by Steve Edwards

By William H. Freivogel
Gateway Journalism Review

230 years after its ratification, the First Amendment is having a nervous breakdown.

Billions of bits of information and misinformation flood the public sphere every day leading people to throw up their hands because they can’t figure out what or whom to believe.

Bedrock principles of Enlightenment philosophers and great First Amendment champions, Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, are no longer certainties. We’re not sure anymore that truth will emerge from the marketplace of free expression or that a democracy can depend on free speech to disinfect public debate and find the path forward.

The consequences of information chaos are frightening. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Americans are tricked by misinformation about vaccines and end up getting seriously ill and dying. A large part of the electorate believes former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and seems energized by the false claim to take back power. Many Americans are not outraged by Jan. 6 – the riot, insurrection, coup – when Trump tried to block the peaceful transition of power that is fundamental to democracy and never before has been challenged as he challenged it.

A year ago GJR called the election a “stress test” for American democracy and said, “The transfer of power has happened so many times we take it for granted, Yet with this self-absorbed man in the White House nothing can be taken for granted.” It seems Vice President Mike Pence needed the advice of former Vice President Dan Quayle to stand up to Trump. Even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff feared a coup.

As part of its annual First Amendment celebration, GJR called on some of the best First Amendment thinkers in St. Louis to write about the health of the First Amendment and 1A controversies bubbling around us – from the fields of Washington University, to the school boards of Webster Groves and Kirkwood, to the Missouri Legislature to the governor’s mansion in Jefferson City,

Mark Sableman, one of St. Louis’ leading media lawyers, who has spent a lifetime defending the media, writes that it’s time to rethink protection of anonymous speech, rethink the extraordinary legal protection that allows Facebook to send users to ideological extremes, and reconsider Enlightenment assumptions.

As he put it, “Legal thinkers need to move on from simplistic Enlightenment assumptions about human rationality. We know from modern neuroscience and physiological research that humans are far more irrational and susceptible to manipulation than our Enlightenment forbearers realized, and that psychologically targeted and high-emotion content often leads people astray.”

Claire McCaskill, former Missouri senator turned MSNBC/NBC commentator, told Jo Mannies, retired dean of political reporters in Missouri, that all public-school students should be required to take media literacy in the seventh grade. She pointed out that candidates for office are no longer expected to tell the truth or to have any experience in government. Former President Donald Trump broke those molds.

McCaskill wondered if an inexperienced businessman in Virginia could win the governorship by courting Trump voters but not embracing Trump himself. We know now that the answer was yes. Glenn Youngkin won partly by attacking the bogeyman of “critical race theory” – even though it isn’t being taught in the Virginia schools.

Mitch Eden, the adviser of the award-winning Kirkwood Call newspaper, knows the antidote to this narrow thinking – uncensored student journalists. Eden asked McCaskill in her zoom interview to support the effort to persuade the Missouri Legislature to pass the Cronkite New Voices bill to overturn Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, the 1988 Supreme Court decision allowing principals to censor student journalists in public schools. The decision is one of the most regressive First Amendment decisions of the past half century and 14 states have effectively overturned it.

Maddie Myers, former editor of the Kirkwood Call and a journalism student at the University of Missouri, followed up by sending Eden an email explaining how press freedom for student journalists liberates them to seek the facts. “By not having my voice censored,” she wrote, “I have been able to give a voice to the voiceless and shed light on important issues” such as “intruder drills, inequality in sports, and racial equity.”

That is, if schools are still allowed to use words like “racial equity.”

Academic freedom is under assault from both the left and right at universities. The University of North Carolina balked at giving Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure even after she won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1619 commentary. And a Yale Law School diversity director threatened a student who invited fellow students to a party co-sponsored by the Federalist Society. The diversity director told the student the invitation was “triggering” to Black students partly because “FedSoc belongs to political affiliations that are oppressive to certain communities.”

At Washington University this fall, Fadel Alkilani, student vice president for finance, removed flags that College Republicans had planted on Mudd field to commemorate those who died on 9/11. He said they represented “American imperialism.” Chancellor Andrew Martin condemned the removal of the flags, but then shrank from condemning the wave of Islamophobia directed at Alkilani.

Gregory Magarian – the Thomas and Karole Green professor of law at Washington University and a noted First Amendment expert – called Martin’s failure to condemn Islamophobia “baffling and shameful,” adding that for the university to “embrace the College Republicans’ political view of 9/11 and then to ignore hateful attacks on a student in its charge…cause far greater harm than Alkilani’s errant action to the culture of free speech and open debate on our campus.”

When Missouri’s governor starts a criminal investigation of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch because it has performed its watchdog role and disclosed a security breach in state records on teachers, he not only shows he doesn’t understand the role of the press as a watchdog, but also that he doesn’t understand computer coding, Sableman and Post-Dispatch lawyer Joe Martineau told GJR.

And the importance of whistleblowers has been illustrated in recent weeks as whistleblowers at Facebook disclosed that Mark Zuckerberg chose profits over civic duty by pushing users toward the political extremes. A recent story described how a 2018 change in Facebook algorithms in Poland destabilized that country. Social media has been almost as effective as Vladimir Putin in destabilizing democracies, including our own.

Yes, let’s celebrate the First Amendment this year and next and every year after. But we can’t take it for granted or assume it will automatically lead us to truth and the right path for our democracy. We can’t let our democracy’s future rest on Dan Quayle telling Mike Pence the right thing to do in the face of a mob chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

All of us as citizens are going to have to work hard to become media literate, to check our sources, to shun prejudices and ideologues and to see through the manipulation of master demagogues who would upend our entire, wonderful experiment in order to grab back the power of the White House.

William H. Freivogel is editor of Gateway Journalism Review, formerly the St. Louis Journalism Review. The full version of this article was first published in GJR's Fall 2021 print edition.