Conservative group works to relax child-labor laws, citing 'parental rights'; biggest victory has been in Arkansas

Chart by Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, from Department of Labor data

With guidance from a conservative lobbying group, some states are relaxing their child labor laws; the changes may make exploitive practices more common and violators harder to find, report Jacob Bogage and María Luisa Paúl of The Washington Post: "Iowa lawmakers voted last week to roll back certain protections. . . . The state's Senate approved a bill to allow children as young as 14 to work night shifts and 15-year-olds on assembly lines. . . .The measure, which still must pass the Iowa House, is among several the Foundation for Government Accountability is maneuvering through state legislatures. . . . The Florida-based think tank and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have found remarkable success among Republicans to relax regulations that prevent children from working long hours in dangerous conditions."

"On the surface, the FGA frames its child-worker bills as part of a larger debate surrounding parental rights, including education and child care," Bogage and Paúl write. "It achieved its biggest victory in March, playing a central role in designing a new Arkansas law to eliminate work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16. . . . . Sponsor, state Rep. Rebecca Burkes (R), said in a hearing that the legislation 'came to me from the Foundation [for] Government Accountability.'"

"Since 2016, the FGA's Opportunity Solutions Project has hired 115 lobbyists across the country with a presence in 22 states, according to the nonpartisan political watchdog group Open Secrets," the Post reports. David Campbell, professor at the University of Notre Dame, told Bogage and Paúl, "The reason these rather unpopular policies succeed is because they come in under the radar screen. . . .Typically, these things get passed because they are often introduced in a very quiet way or by groups inching little by little through grass-roots efforts."

Annie B. Smith, director of the University of Arkansas law school's Human Trafficking Clinic, told the Post, "This is likely to make it even harder for the state to enforce our own child-labor laws. . . . Not knowing where young kids are working makes it harder for [state departments] to do proactive investigations and visit workplaces where they know that employment is happening to make sure that kids are safe." The lack of documentation leaves children exposed. "The work permits — more than 2,700 of which were issued by Arkansas officials in 2022, according to state government data — required proof of age, parental permission and an employer's signature," the Post reports. "They left an 'important paper trail' of where children were employed and reminded businesses of the rules, said Laura Kellams, from the nonprofit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families."

Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 partly to "stop companies from using cheap child labor to do dangerous work, a practice that exploded during the Great Depression," Bogage and Paúl report. "The Labor Department has seen a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018, officials reported. Between 2018 and 2022, federal regulators opened cases for 4,144 child labor violations covering 15,462 youth workers, according to federal data."

Revitalizing rural Main Street means cultivating from within, seeking outside planning resources and 'shared vision'

Image from Main Street America

Picture a small-town Main Street with bustling local businesses. Shoppers line up at The Ugly Mug, a locally run coffee shop with attitude. . . . This scene could be the beginning of a town's revitalization dream. "A new program seeks to change the economic development narrative in rural and small-town Main Streets," Kristi Eaton of The Daily Yonder reports. "Main Street America, a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, recently announced the 10 organizations that were selected for the Equitable Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Rural Main Streets Program. Nine states and Puerto Rico were selected." Main Street America offers a self-guided training for communities that are looking at developing their plan.

While many smaller towns seek to bring in new businesses from the outside, "Matt Wagner, chief program officer for Main Street America, noted that research from a survey of nearly 2,500 small business owners in August 2020, showed that 70% of the small businesses were started by people that already lived in those communities," Eaton reports. Wagner told her, "They weren't recruited or asked to move a business there. . . . And this wasn't just for retail, restaurants and service businesses – 92% of small scale producers and 57% of businesses with more than 20 employees were started by locals. We need to cultivate the talent that already lives in our rural communities."

 

Wagner told Eaton, "Post this workshop, we will be working with each of our Main Street state coordinators to then select three rural Main Street communities that will be part of a more in-depth cohort group, each receiving in-community and virtual services, professional development opportunities and peer-to-peer learning exchanges." Eaton reports the group is "working with the Kauffman Foundation on the program, which will include a one-day workshop in each of the 10 participant areas. Those workshops will be open to any rural community to attend, Wagner said."

 

Breanne Durham, the Washington state Main Street director and one of the programs selected, told Eaton that sees a wide range of experiences in rural Main Street communities. She said, "Some communities that have been 'successfully revitalizing' their districts for years or decades now face challenges related to housing, affordability and over-tourism. . . Others struggle to find enough volunteers and funding to even start a Main Street initiative. . . . Some communities have populations that are growing rapidly while others are dwindling. . . . .The keys to success regardless of the challenges faced are having strong partnerships in place and a shared vision for the future of their unique community."

Expose of small-town police department's 'predatory policing for profit' wins AL.com one of six Sidney Hillman Prizes

Reporters John Archibald, Ashley Remkus and Ramsey Archibald

AL.com, the news organization that until recently printed newspapers for Alabama's three largest cities, has won a Sidney Hillman Prize for revealing what the judges called a "exposé of predatory policing for profit" by a police department in Brookside, Ala., pop. 1,253, northwest of Birmingham.

"Brookside police drove unmarked cars, patrolled beyond town limits, stopped cars for simply driving in the left lane, and signed tickets cryptically as Agent JS and Agent JT. Jett’s Towing Co. suspiciously showed up on the side of the road at the same time as police stops. The police went from towing 50 vehicles in a year in 2018 to 789 vehicles in 2020. Those fines funneled back into the force itself," said the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which presents the awards. The series "prompted the Alabama legislature to pass a measure restricting towns across the state from using revenues from fines and fees to supply more than 10 percent of their budgets." The police chief, hired in 2018, increased revenue from fines and forfeitures by 640% from 2018 to 2020, and the town's part-time municipal judge and prosecutor also got outsized pay raises. The police chief resigned after the first story. Read more here.

The series won the prize for web reporting. For those for books, newspapers, podcasts, magazines, and opinion and analysis, click here. The prizes, "for journalism in the service of the common good." are named for a labor leader "who believed that a free press was essential to a fair and equal society."

Flora/fauna: The grizzly bear may return to the Cascades; revelations in 'chicken-speak,' how to repel mosquitoes . . .

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service map via National Geographic shows
current grizzly range in dark brown, historic range in light brown.

Grizzly bears may return to the Pacific Northwest. "Across 6.3 million acres of forest home to the nation’s most imperiled grizzly-bear population, there has not been a confirmed sighting of Ursus arctos horribilis since 1996," reports Craig Welch of National Geographic. "So the Biden administration is working on a last-ditch effort to bring grizzlies back. Much as federal agencies reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park, scientists hope in coming years to pluck grizzlies from healthy populations in Canada or Montana and transplant them to the Pacific Northwest. . . . The government has a plan to bring these animals back to an ecosystem that needs them." The bears are top predators, but 90 percent of their diet is plants.

Image courtesy of Agate Surrey

"Chill Phyllis" was a backyard chicken who moaned and muttered a lot -- in chicken-speak, of course. . . . People said Chill Phyllis was simply exhausted from laying eggs, but they really weren't sure. . . . Now there's a book that might share some clues about such fowl. "Clucking, trilling, grumbling: The language of chickens was just one of the revelations that struck Tove Danovich as she raised three chicks in her Portland yard," Rebekah Denn writes for The Seattle Times. Danovich's book, Under The Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them began as a "quest for eggs," but the project hatched into research and a resource with "with notes on hatchery ethics, therapy chickens, and rescued battery hens."

Why do mosquitoes buzz in people's ears? Because they're obnoxious (unless you're a bird; then they're dinner). Here are some nature-friendly tips on plants such as rosemary and lavender that can keep the buzzing, biting and disease-carrying party crashers at bay.

Wool can be a magical material for warmth, dryness and the general coziness, but in some places it needs a little more recognition. "There isn’t a great market for much of the wool produced in the Upper Midwest. The price per pound of raw (greasy) wool is unlikely to cover the cost of raising and shearing the animal. . . . Some farms just compost or burn their clip," reports Donna Kallner of The Daily Yonder. "The Fibershed movement is working to change that. The non-profit organization’s mission is to transform regional fiber systems through climate-beneficial agriculture, rebuilding regional manufacturing, and reconnecting end-users with the source of their fiber."

"Massive," "font of life" and "wild ox" are all names for the bison. "The American bison stands at the crossroads of the animal, plant, and human worlds. It is part of an integrated ecosystem that includes people as much as it does bobcats, finches, and sunflowers," reports Nathan Beacom for Plough magazine. "In the Great Plains, scientists and small farmers bring back a mythic beast and a lost ecosystem. . . . Finding the right way to relate to this, our national mammal, might show the way to a healthy relationship with the natural world of the American West."

Photo by Matthew Modoono,
Northeastern University

Parrots are fun, social pets but also intelligent and need social interactions. These parrots participated in video chats with fellow feathered friends. For many, it turns out "Polly does want to video chat. . . . a lot," reports Emily Athens of The New York Times. "They mirrored each other's behavior grooming together . . . and singing together. . . . Some of the birds quickly made favorite friends."

Not all cats hate water. This story recalls "The forgotten history of cats in the navy. . . . Sailors embraced their feline colleagues, giving them tiny uniforms and their very own hammocks," reports Scot Christenson of National Geographic. "But cats are natural outlaws—so it couldn’t last forever."

Experts look back at the pandemic and see a state-local public-health system that wasn't equipped to deal with it

By Krista Mahr and Daniel Payne
Politico Pulse

As the Covid-19 public health emergency enters its final weeks, Washington is still gripped by debate over how the pandemic started and what the Trump and Biden administrations got wrong. But one thing most can agree on: This won’t be the last time we face off with a deadly pathogen, and we’d better be ready. That’s the premise of a new report released by the Covid Crisis Group, headed by Philip Zelikow, former executive director of the 9/11 Commission.

The group of 34 experts was assembled in 2021 to lay the groundwork for a future Covid commission that never came to be. So they released their findings Tuesday, offering a series of lessons about what went wrong — and occasionally right — in America’s pandemic response. A few highlights:

When 19th century infrastructure met a 21st century virus: America's public-health infrastructure was built on a 19th century design, researchers wrote, focused on the state and local response to outbreaks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, founded as a research center early in the 20th century, was neither conceived nor updated to manage a national health emergency. The modern health-care system evolved separately and with more resources from the nation’s public-health infrastructure, and both public health and the health-care system were detached from the bio-pharma complex, which ultimately made the drugs that saved Americans’ lives.

Policy failure created the pandemic partisan divide, not the other way around: Red and blue states had surprisingly similar approaches to lockdowns and reopenings early in the pandemic, upending the narrative that there were distinct “red” and “blue” pandemic responses. Instead, researchers said, it was a series of federal policy failures that created the toxic political environment that has come to define many people’s feelings about Covid and the government’s response.

Health security is national security: The report hails Operation Warp Speed as a major success in the pandemic response, partly due to researchers already being familiar with coronaviruses and the mRNA vaccine platform already being so advanced. The program helped invest, manufacture and distribute vaccines, and its leadership was granted unusual autonomy by the Trump administration, researchers wrote.

One-party control, urban-rural divides, gerrymandering, lack of competition make state legislatures less representative

"One-party control of state legislatures, compounded by hyper-partisan politics, widespread gerrymandering, an urban-rural divide and uncompetitive races," has made many of them dysfunctional, writes Michael Wines of The New York Times, or less representative of their states than they should be, writes Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post.

Wines's object example is Tennessee, where 60 of the 99 House members had no opposition in last year's general election. (The national rate is about 40 percent.) "Of the remaining House races, almost none were competitive. Not a single seat flipped from one party to the other. . . . The lack of competition means incumbent lawmakers face few consequences for their conduct. And their legislative actions are driven in large part by the fraction of partisans who determine their fates in primary elections, the only political contests where they face serious opposition."

“We’re just not in a normal political system,” Kent Syler, a political science professor and expert on state politics at Middle Tennessee State University, told Wines. “In a normal two-party system, if one party goes too far, usually the other party stops them. They put the brakes on.”

Such forces have been "intensified by the Supreme Court’s open door for gerrymandering and the geographic sorting of Democrats into urban areas and Republicans into rural ones," Wines reports. One-party control "has enabled both parties to enact legislation advancing their policy agendas . . . but it is Republican-run states, many experts say, that are taking extreme positions on limiting voting and bending or breaking other democratic norms, as Tennessee did in expelling two lawmakers last week."

Another factor is that national politics now trump state issues, said Steven Rogers, a Saint Louis University political scientist who has studied the issue. He told Wines, “It’s pretty much what a voter thinks of the president that is going to dictate how a voter casts their ballot in a state legislative election. What legislators do themselves doesn’t really matter that much anymore.”

In an opinion piece for the Post, Tumulty writes, "It should come as no surprise that, as the balance of power in state capitols is becoming more lopsided, we are seeing more extreme measures coming out of them, particularly those where Republicans have control." She quotes Wendy R. Weiser, who runs the democracy program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice: “State legislatures are not only crossing lines and abusing authority but are increasingly misaligned with the will of the voting public.”

Appalachian author Silas House becomes Kentucky's first openly gay poet laureate, but he dislikes being categorized

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, center, with state poets
laureate Crystal Wilkinson (outgoing) and Silas House
(incoming), both with rural roots. (Photo by Al Cross)  

Author and activist Silas House, who has become a leading voice of Appalachia, is the new poet laureate of his home state of Kentucky. As he got the honor from Gov. Andy Beshear Monday, House highlighted his regional roots and his status as the state's first openly gay poet laureate.

"I am also a person of faith who has always refused to allow that to be taken away from me by a culture that insists on narrow definitions of Christianity," House told a crowd in the state Capitol rotunda. "I am a teacher, I'm a father; like most people, I have many identities. . . . But all too often the world tries to reduce us all to one neat and tidy label. This troubles me, the way we so often operate in absolutes. It has become too easy to categorize people as wholly good or wholly bad. I believe we can offer both grace and defiance. We can give people grace while also knowing there is a line we won't allow to be crossed. Art, and especially writing, can help to build empathy. I believe this is one of our most important roles as artists. Literature gives us the opportunity to see differing points of view more easily and more clearly."

Earlier, House recounted the working lives of his ancestors and said, "For the first eight years of my life, we lived in a trailer, just like almost everyone else in my family, and I can tell you this for shore, the rain sounds loveliest on a trailer roof. While most of the world often told us that we were no good because of where we lived, my family taught me to always be proud of being country, being Appalachian and being a Kentuckian. When you are from a place, or culture, or way of being that is constantly negated, belittled or erased, you love it harder. But I have learned this: The more people try to erase us, the more pride we have. The more they try to dull us the brighter we will shine."

House is the author of several best-sellers, including Clay's Quilt, A Parchment of Leaves, The Coal Tattoo, Southernmost and Eli the Good. His latest novel, Lark Ascending, was published last year.

As poet laureate, House said, "I want to celebrate the rich literary tradition of the commonwealth in ways that can help build our tourism. Most of all, I want to always show others how to shine their own lights more brightly, to celebrate books, to make clear that our similarities far outweigh our differences."

Grid manager's review does not recommend more security for electric substations, says 'Cost was a major concern'

A string of attacks with at least two involving gunfire occurred at substations and other
power facilities last year. (Map by Claudine Hellmuth, Energy & Environment News)

Despite last year's electric-substation shootings and discussion focusing on the power grid it manages, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. is not recommending additional security measures at electric substations, reports Robert Zullo of States Newsroom. Zullo notes that the corporation's CEO, Jim Robb, "told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that cost was a major concern. 'We're not recommending a common minimum level of physical security protections at this time,' Robb said, adding that NERC was aware of the vulnerability of substations and other electric transmission infrastructure, particularly in remote areas. 'Physical security hardening of substations can be extraordinarily expensive. . . . It's important that the risk abated is commensurate with the capital required.'"

FERC ordered the national grid manager to do the review last year, after gunfire attacks on substations in North Carolina, Ohio, the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, the commission tasked NERC with reviewing existing rules, which only currently apply to electric infrastructure, that, if knocked out, would pose a hazard to the broader bulk power system," Zullo writes. "The current regulation, known as the CIP-014 Reliability Standard, came into being in 2014 after a sniper attack on a California substation. [The standard seeks to prevent] the successive loss of elements on the electric system that results in widespread service interruption. . . . Many substations, like the ones targeted in Moore County, N.C., don't meet that threshold, but damaging them can still result in a loss of power for thousands."

"NERC also didn't recommend extending the applicability criteria under the existing regulations to other, less crucial substations, finding that the rule 'appropriately focuses limited industry resources on risks to the reliable operation of the (bulk power system) associated with physical security incidents at the most critical facilities," Zullo reports. "The review found that the language in the requirements should be 'refined' so that owners of substations that meet the threshold for the security standards conduct effective risk assessments."

FERC Chairman Willie Phillips told Zullo, "There is no greater priority for me and for this commission than making sure that we protect the security of our electric grid." A NERC spokeswoman "said that while the commission cannot create a security standard or tell NERC how to write one, 'They do have the authority to order us to establish a new standard or modify an existing one.' . . . . Robb added that NERC sets baseline standards and that utilities, working with their regulators, can 'invest in additional protections."

Most rural mail carriers may be getting a pay cut; some may opt to quit or retire; USPS says cut driven by union contract

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

Who goes where Amazon and FedEx fear to tread? Rural mail carriers trod over hill and dale to get mail to their customers, and it may come as an unhappy surprise to those customers that their carrier's pay may be cut. "A new payment system that is estimated to reduce base pay for most rural letter carriers, for some by thousands of dollars, has led to widespread threats of quitting and concern about whether the mail will get delivered in rural America," reports David Dayen of The American Prospect. "The U.S. Postal Service intended to begin implementing the new system, known as the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System [RRECS], on Saturday, despite a grievance filed by the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association union seeking a 60-day delay and a release of the data that went into it. 'We know, and the USPS knows that there are errors that need to be corrected,' the NRLCA stated last week in a message to members. . . . 'The USPS's position is to implement and correct the errors later' (emphasis in original)."

The change has been planned for years, but the information given to carriers has been inconsistent, and implementation has faced delays, Dayen reports: "Two years ago, as RRECS was getting finalized, workers were told that most carriers would see modest changes at most," Dayen writes. "But losing four hours a week can translate into an annual salary cut of $8,000, according to letter carriers who spoke on condition of anonymity. . . . Two weeks ago, the NRLCA said it was working to resolve disputes over implementation. RRECS' implementation was recently delayed. . . . There are rumors that it has been delayed again for one more pay period, but since it was established by a binding arbitration ruling, RRECS will eventually govern rural letter-carrier pay."

"The inner workings of the RRECS algorithm and the calculations that went into it remain a closely guarded secret. But rural letter carriers have been told what the new evaluation means for them, and message boards, private Facebook groups, and other social media sites have lit up in the past few weeks as a result." Dayden reports. "A TikTok video from a carrier, who claims he will lose $12,000 per year, cited the threats to the postal system from the changes. 'A lot of you may not be getting mail today. We've had some people walk out.'. . . . In a statement, a USPS spokesperson said, 'The compensation system for rural letter carriers is a nationally negotiated pay system codified in the parties' national agreement. . . . Parties worked jointly for years to implement these new provisions.'. . . The agency did not respond to questions about how it will ensure mail delivery if walkouts increase."

Rural carriers are not paid like their urban counterparts, "who are paid by the hour," Dayen notes. "Those who work in rural areas are paid based on an evaluation of how many hours per week it takes to complete their route. Some of these areas have an enormous footprint and require lots of driving. But under federal law, USPS must serve all mailboxes, regardless of whether they cost more money for delivery than the revenue they bring in. . . . For many years, an official mail count evaluated how long the route took to complete. . . .There were tensions between the union and USPS over whether the mail count could be manipulated to reduce pay. This became a point of contention in bargaining sessions."

Biden administration about to propose first controls on greenhouse gases from power plants that burn coal and gas

After 16 years of political, bureaucratic and legal talk about it, the federal government "is poised to announce limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants that could compel them to capture the pollution from their smokestacks, technology now used by fewer than 20 of the nation’s 3,400 coal and gas-fired plants," report Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman of The New York Times.

The plants "generate about 25 percent of the planet-warming pollution produced by the United States," and 60 percent of its electricity, the Times reports. The rule would apply to future plants, either preventing their construction or perhaps requiring them to use commercially unproven technology to capture carbon dioxide they emit. "The proposed rule is sure to face opposition from the fossil-fuel industry, power-plant operators and their allies in Congress, and a lawsuit by Republican attorneys general, Davenport and Friedman report.

The legal landscape has changed since the Supreme Court blocked the Obama administration's attempted limits on power plants. Last year, the court "confirmed that the EPA had the authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants but in a limited way," an\d then Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act "that classified greenhouse gases as pollutants to be regulated" and created tax credits to plants that capture carbon, a technology that "has advanced since the Obama administration," the Times reports.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the proposal, which is expected to be made formal soon so it can go through a public comment period and be implemented next year, preventing Republicans in Congress from nullifying them if they win control of both houses in 2024.

Reporting on a rural county's political transformation, driven in part by outside forces, leads to threats of violence

Doni Chamberlain worked as a reporter for 10 years before starting
her own online publication. (Photo by Marlena Sloss, The Guardian)

When local politics become driven by outside forces, community reporting can become dangerous, especially if it focuses on the transformation of a rural county by those forces. Ask Doni Chamberlain of A News Cafe in Northern California.

"In a seemingly long-gone era – before the Trump presidency, and Covid, and the 2020 election – Doni Chamberlain would get the occasional call from a displeased reader who had taken issue with one of her columns. They would sometimes call her stupid and use profanities. . . . Today when people don't like her pieces, Chamberlain said, they tell her she's a communist who doesn't deserve to live. One local conservative radio host said she should be hanged," reports Dani Anguiano of The Guardian. "Chamberlain, 66, has worked as a journalist in Shasta County for nearly 30 years. Never before in this far-northern California outpost has she witnessed such open hostility towards the press. She has learned to take precautions. No meeting sources in public. She livestreams rowdy events where the crowd is less than friendly and doesn’t walk to her car without scanning the street. Sometimes, restraining orders can be necessary tools."

Chamberlain has published stories "revealing that police were investigating the county’s top candidate for said CEO job, a leader of a California secessionist group, for an incident with a teenage girl at a local business . . . an analysis from the county clerk about the risks of introducing an untested manual tally voting system in response to disproven theories about Dominion voting machines . . . a large gathering held in defiance of Covid restrictions; a pandemic shortage of nurses temporarily closing a local neonatal intensive care unit; and a sheriff’s deputy promoting far-right extremist content on social media."

Chamberlain started A News Cafe after being laid off from her job as a columnist for the local weekly newspaper, the Shasta Scout. It reported on a "hanging threat" seemingly directed at her: "Vaguely threatening statements towards the media were made as a part of a recent podcast produced by 'Red, White and Blueprint,' an effort to document attempts to recall Shasta County Supervisor Leonard Moty," who lost his seat over anti-pandemic mandates, the Scout's Annelise Pierce wrote. "As the show was coming to a close, Clendenen spoke about the Nuremberg Trials, tribunals held by the Allies after World War II that ultimately prosecuted many of Nazi Germany's leaders. He said, 'I think in our own country there's a day coming that the media will have to pay, in one way or another. . . . I'm not saying that we're going to hang them.'"

Shasta County (Wikipedia map)

Chamberlain told Anguiano that Shasta County has a "perfect storm" of hard-right groups that have coalesced "to form a powerful political force with outside funding and publicity from fringe figures," Angiano wriites. "Anger coalesced into an anti-establishment movement backed financially by the Connecticut millionaire Reverge Anselmo. . . . Chamberlain's writing has made her a public enemy of the conservative crowd intent on remaking the county. Far-right leaders have confronted her at rallies and public meetings, mocking and berating her." Chamberlain told Anguiano, "This isn't how it's supposed to be to be a journalist. I shouldn't go to my car, afraid one of these guys is gonna bash me in the head with a baseball bat."

Chamberlain says the atmosphere makes finding sources difficult, and many people are afraid of speaking out, "even anonymously, "Anguiano reports. "Her family worries for her. Her son has put cameras all around the house. For Mother's Day, he gifted her gel pepper spray. . . . Chamberlain's twin sister has warned her not to poke the bear." She told Anguino, "I say, 'I'm not poking a bear, I'm just holding a flashlight. . . . I'm reporting things other people can't report. . . . I feel a moral responsibility to let people know what's happening.'"

California's superblooms can be seen from space

Wildflowers between highways (Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies via Los Angeles Times)

Image from Washington Post collection of satellite photos from
Planet Labs PBC notes one species of wildflowers; the purple
flowers are Great Valley phacella (Phacella ciliata). 

In a galaxy, not far away, comes something epic: superblooms! Nature's flower power has come to California and the world via space photos, reports Terry Castleman of the Los Angeles Times. "New satellite photos from Maxar show hillsides across the state adorned with flowers . . . The variety of colors is astonishing."

The last superbloom was in 2019. It takes a unique series of conditions, beginning with dormant seeds tucked away in the soil, report Allyson Chiu and Naema Ahmed of The Washington Post: "Naomi Fraga, director of conservation programs at the California Botanic Garden, told the Post that . . . the flowers are waiting for 'just the right conditions' to start their life cycle. California's impressive floral showing is most likely connected to the massive amounts of precipitation that drenched much of the state in recent months."

Fraga told the Post, "They're winter annuals; they respond to winter rain. . . . When the seed bank in the soil experiences this sort of range of temperatures and precipitation across time, then that can stimulate several different species to germinate." Chiu and Ahmed explain, "Before the heavy rains and snowfall that pummeled the state . . . California had experienced three of its driest years on record. The drought could have reduced the number of invasive grass seed on the landscape and helped improve the chances for native plants to capitalize on the heavy rains and thrive."

"Superbloom" is not a scientific term, but is "a wonderful natural phenomenon where many annual wildflowers all bloom simultaneously," Fraga said. "You have a great diversity, an abundance of many different wildflower species, all flowering, creating bright patches of color on the landscape where they become the dominant feature. . . . [the blooms] are an ephemeral phenomenon." 

"If people aren't mindful when they visit these flower patches, experts say, there will probably be consequences," the Post reports. Walking through blooms could trample the flowers before they produce seeds. High foot traffic could also compact the soil, making it more difficult for flowers to grow in that area." If you're in California to experience the super bloom, there's a solution to "not squishing flowers" and possibly snuffing out their ability to seed and reproduce. Go by zipline, suggests Jeanette Marantos of the Times: "At $90 to $160 a person — depending on the length of the ride — the experience is more expensive than parking your car and wading through flowers, but it's also much kinder to these fragile native plants." Fraga pointed out to the Post, "It's not just for our enjoyment or the display. It's life happening. . . . For that life cycle to continue, we need to know that this flower isn't the end goal. The end goal is the seed."

Opinion: Some young people have 'realized that rural, and all that it entails, matters,' but farmers must be self-starters

By Peggy Sanders

If you put 100 people in a room, chances are 80 of them had grandparents who were farmers or ranchers and maybe 30 of their parents were. (These are my “statistics” so accuracy is not guaranteed.) There would be a slim chance that even one of these 100 people is a farmer or rancher now. Each farmer raises enough to feed 155 other people annually with only 1 percent of Americans in production agriculture.

Yet, there is a renewed sense of desire to get back to the land. Many people who have never set foot on a farm or ranch are getting the idea of an idyllic, easy life. Heck, all you have to do is get up, saddle your horse and ride. They watch too many movies.

Peggy Sanders

Notice that many of the present generation, the ones farthest removed from the farms and ranches now want to get back to the land. They are willing to lease instead of buy land, work a job or two in town, share crop, or whatever it takes to get started. Yes, they have fond memories of visiting the grandparents’ farms, but it is much more than that. This generation has realized that rural, and all that it entails, matters.

Only a country person can fully appreciate a homemade meal; not just home-cooked, but home raised. It can take at least 18 months to get that meal on the table, if you count the beef. A full summer is needed for the preparation of the sweet corn and tomatoes and watermelon that top off the meal. Maybe it’s the dirt under the fingernails that adds flavor, or the sweat from the brow; either way you look at it, anything you work for means more.

I have been corresponding with a city gal in an Eastern state who is soon going to marry a dairy farmer. She is just beginning to get an idea of the complexities of farming. The more she learns the more questions she has for me, a recovering dairy farmer, turned rancher. She has realized there are no eight-hour workdays on a farm. And that farmers and ranchers have to be so versatile. Yes, they have to be plumbers, electricians, mechanics, welders and truck drivers. In addition, they are accountants, purchasing agents, scientists, animal specialists and psychologists.

The recitation could go on for several paragraphs. At least the constant hat changes keep things from getting boring. Couple the variations of the job with the fluctuations of the weather to which agriculture is so closely tied, and you have weekly if not daily puzzles.

This gal has seen that like any self-employed person, ranchers and farmers have to be self-starters. Some folks who punch a time clock frequently comment about how nice it must be to be self-employed, to take days off whenever the whim strikes. The truth is most self-employed people work longer and harder at their jobs than the general population, a truth my new friend is appreciating more and more.

A national-award-winning columnist and an author, Peggy Sanders is part of a sixth-generation farm and ranch family in Fall River County, at the southwestern corner of South Dakota. If you are interested in publishing her columns, contact Al Cross at the Institute for Rural Journalism.

Tennessee weekly does feature stories on top 10 graduates

The Hickman County Times profiles the top five graduates of each high school and lists each school's Top 10.

By Al Cross

Director and Professor, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky

One of my favorite annual features in a rural newspaper is the "Top Ten" series in the Hickman County Times of Centerville, Tenn., about the top 10 graduates of the county's two high schools. Many papers profile valedictorians and salutatorians, but those choices are often close calls, so more profiles mean more well-deserved recognition.

Editor-Publisher Brad Martin told The Rural Blog, "These are among the best young adults we produce, so why not tell about how they got to this high level of academic achievement? Plus, folks like to complain about today's youth, so I thought these kids are a good representation of the best. . . . I have received good though muted reaction. Most readers will know one or two of these kids and they enjoy reading about them, from what I am told."

The weekly has been publishing the profiles since 2000. When the county got a second high school, Martin started profiling the top five students in each graduating class. The rankings are issued around March 1, leaving time for just one story a week in the 10 weeks before commencement.

Hickman County (Wikipedia map)

Until now Martin has written all the profiles, except the year he was recovering from surgery. Now that he is publisher, he writes, "I have farmed out the entire series. Kirsten Lane did the first five, from Hickman County High, where she is a junior (you've featured her...); William Hayes, my first full-time reporter, is in the midst of the five top students from East Hickman High. His No. 5 story will publish May 8, just before graduation."

Many of the profiles report that the students don't plan to return to Hickman County after college, and Martin reports "no pushback" from readers. "In Hickman County, where two-thirds of the workforce commutes elsewhere every day, that issue is pretty well understood. My view is that they are our kids and they ought to be celebrated."

Another example for rural newspapers to follow: Nine years ago, Martin did a Page 1 story with the other side of the coin, reporting that most graduates didn't continue their education in the year after they got their diplomas. At the time, about 55 percent of high-school graduates across Tennessee continued their education in the next year, but only 40 percent of Hickman County graduates did.

'People find sunsets to be the most awe-inspiring weather,' study says; maybe we should spend more time with them

A spring sunset reflects off Stoney Creek near Pasadena, Maryland.
(Photo by Jonathan Newton, The Washington Post)

As spring ebbs and flows into summer, it might be time to go out and gaze at some sunsets. Sunrises can be big, bold and full of promise, but sunsets can be more momentous because the air has more things to refract light. "Whether you're commuting, relaxing on vacation or quickly glancing out the window, the vibrant reds, oranges and yellows streaming from the sun grab your attention, writes Kasha Patel of The Washington Post. So many of us think, 'Wow.' We become momentarily speechless." 

"Research has shown that spending time in nature under clear blue skies can boost your mental health, but the new research suggests perhaps looking at a sunset or sunrise can be an extra boost for your emotional state. . . . Now research tells us: Sunsets are among the most beautiful fleeting weather phenomenon in a day. . . . . People find sunrises and sunsets to be the most beautiful and awe-inspiring weather, according to a study published this year by a pair of British researchers," Patel reports. "People liked them more than storms, rainbows, clear blue skies or nightscapes — and some would even be willing to pay up to 100 British pounds to see landscapes at dawn or dusk."

"Awe has typically been a difficult emotion to evoke, said lead author Alex Smalley, but feelings of awe can improve mood, increase positive emotions and decrease stress," Patel writes. "Smalley's research has shown that people can 'experience these bumps in awe and aesthetic appraisal and beauty' when looking at a sunset or sunrise. Smalley, a doctoral candidate at the University of Exeter in England, told her, "We have, as Western populations, become very disconnected from the natural world. When you see something vast and overwhelming or something that produces this feeling of awe, your own problems can feel diminished, and so you don't worry so much about them."

At times our schedules do not allow us to be present, but physically seeing a sunset may not be required. Patel reports, "Smalley says his new study indicates that you might not need to see the sunset in real-time or even in person. Much of his current research uses digital stimuli of nature, such as a screen saver, to test a person's emotions. . . . He also works with an app called Portal, which uses immersive technology to transport people's imaginations to beautiful places around the world. In both cases, he said, people reported more positive emotions, moods and a strengthening of cognitive functions that are often experienced when people physically spend time in nature."

White women in rural America are dying at accelerated rates; new memoir explores why this group 'feels forgotten'

Book cover via Amazon

"A New Divide in American Death" was a Washington Post headline in 2016. The article's research pointed to an only partially explained reality: "The most extreme changes in mortality have occurred among white women, who are far more likely than their grandmothers to be smokers, suffer from obesity or drink themselves to death," Joel Achenbach and Dan Keating wrote. "The statistics show decaying health for all white women since 2000. The trend was most dramatic for women in the more rural areas."

But why? Sometimes it takes a story rather than a study to show us. Journalist and author Monica Potts grew up in Clinton, Arkansas, a town of about 2,500. She left to pursue her dreams, but her best friend, Darci, stayed in Clinton. In an interview with NPR Host Scott Detrow, Potts discusses the two women's contrasting stories in her new book, The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir Of Friendship And Lost Promise In Rural America.

Detrow: Two best friends start with the same dream but grow up to live very different lives. It's the story at the heart of a new memoir about getting out of a small town and the crushing pressures to stay in it. . . .So you're the one who, as it were, got out. But let's start with this - your friend Darci didn't. Tell us about Darci, and tell us about when the two of you were really young, the type of dreams you shared.
Potts: Darci and I met when we were really young, like, 5 or 6. From that moment on, we were almost sisters. We grew up in a small town in the Ozark Mountains. . . . It's a strong evangelical community. When we were little, we would look through an old atlas and dream about getting away when we were older to a big place. . . . When we were older, we dreamed about going to concerts and listening to bands we liked instead of the country music we heard everywhere.
Detrow: Just focusing in on that marriage message, you also write about the hypocrisy and the confusion about, your life is about getting married; your life is about finding a husband; your life is about having children. And yet, if you have sex before marriage and if you get pregnant, that's a terrible, terrible decision - and just trying to make sense of all of these conflicting messages as a teenager.
Potts: Yeah. Well, it's a terrible decision, but the path to redemption is through the church.
Detrow: At the expense of your education in many examples, right?
Potts: Yeah.
Detrow: You write about people dropping out of high school their sophomore or junior year, even, and getting married once they become pregnant.
Potts: At the expense of your education and whatever else you might have wanted for your life. Your life becomes about being a mother, and everything else you might have wanted becomes subsumed by that.
Detrow: So you go to college. You begin a career as a journalist. Darci drops out of college relatively early. She stays in and around Clinton. She's in a series of abusive relationships. . . .has drug problems. . . but you ultimately reconnected as adults.
Potts: I was working as a journalist, and I had started to read a series of studies about white women with the least amounts of education - were losing years of life expectancy compared to the generation before. That felt very personal to me. . . .That group of women was similar to the girls that I had grown up with, and I wanted to report what was happening and across rural America. . . .While I was [in Clinton] in April 2015, Darci reached out to me for the first time . . . . We met up. . . . I told her the kind of book I wanted to write. . . And she said, well, maybe you should just write about me. From there, we started to talk more about her life.
Potts: We spent a lot of time together over the next few years.
Detrow: And she really struggled in those interactions with you.
Potts: It was really up and down, and it was often painful to watch. . . . But she thought that if her story might help other people, then it would be worth it.
Detrow: And what do you think the big picture lessons are?
Potts: I've spent about five years thinking about this. . . One of the things in rural America is this perception of scarcity. I think it's easy for people here to believe that they've been forgotten, that there's no help for them, that there are no options. . . . or life outside of the church and motherhood and marriage for girls is. . . .They're just not connected to those options. I think the first place to start would be expanding those worlds and connecting people to the broader world . . . . giving people the freedom to become who they are and who they need to be.
Detrow: Over the period where you began reporting this book and writing this book, you decided to move back there yourself. Why?
Potts: There was a moment when I started to come home in my mid-30s. . . . I just realized how beautiful this place was to me. I have really deep roots here. . . . And there are things about this place I love - the wildness, the mountains, the rivers, and some of the culture. I felt I needed to close the loop before I could move on with my adulthood and experience this place anew and with fresh adult eyes.

Farmers wonder about sequestering carbon. It will take time to measure the soil's capacity, and the results may vary.

Photo via Successful Farming

It's no wonder farmers feel stress. They have to feed the planet, fuel cars, make sure their livestock is healthy, and now they have to decide whether to sequester carbon. "Much fanfare accompanies programs that pay farmers to sequester greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide in their soils. Yet, questions linger as research casts doubt on whether the promise equals reality," reports Laurie Bedord of Successful Farming. Gregg Sanford, senior scientist, Department of Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin, told Bedord, "I worry that we are selling ourselves a pie-in-the-sky dream we might not realize, and that it could come back to bite farmers and ultimately not get us any further down the road toward reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."

Bedord explains, "About two decades ago, Sanford began reading scientific literature that suggested certain farming systems could help combat climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil." Sanford told her, "We love to support farmers and incentivize them to do things that benefit society, but we also put a ridiculous amount of pressure on farmers to save us from every-thing. I don't feel the science is there to say that if you do these practices (e.g., cover crops, no-till, etc.), you will sequester carbon across the board. In some cases, we will, but in many cases, we won't." Bedord adds, "One of the caveats with soil carbon sequestration, Sanford says, is there are places in the United States where certain types of farming management will be able to build soil carbon resources, but results may vary."

"Sanford believes that to make a big impact on soil carbon and use it as a tactic to mitigate climate change, a transformational change must occur in agriculture," Bedord writes. "If the prairies built these soils, should we consider emulating what they can do in our production systems?" Sanford told her, "To get soils in the Midwest back as close as we can to those tallgrass prairies to stabilize or accrue carbon, we need to switch from farming systems dominated by annual crops to systems dominated by or exclusively built around perennials. . . . That is our best hope for building carbon in this region, but it's a big change and a hard pitch to make."

For now, soil, not carbon credits, is farmers' focus. "Initially, Kevin Bahr was among the carbon program skeptics. As he learned more about the Truterra carbon program, Bahr says it seemed like something worth exploring and joined the program in 2021," Bedord reports. "Like most central Kansas farms, Bahr's land is diversified. . . His soils range from good black dirt to sandy loam." Bahr told her, "While we may be talking about carbon, this program is more about soil health, which is a journey that doesn't happen overnight. . . I'm employing certain practices like no-till and cover crops because they are best for my soil; the carbon credit money is like gravy on top of my mashed potatoes. It's a reward for taking care of the land the way I should."

Award-winning NPR affiliate struggles with state university overseers about investigative reporting on public figures

Rural West Kentucky has "an award-winning public radio news department struggling with administrators, particularly Murray State University President Robert 'Bob' Jackson, about investigative reporting involving state lawmakers and other public figures and institutions," reports WPSD-TV in Paducah. Examples:

When WKMS asked the local health department for Covid-19 case numbers, "including case counts from the university," Jackson somehow learned about it and called a Zoom meeting with the provost and station manager Stan Lampe, who resigned last June.

That was soon after reporter Liam Niemeyer, now at the Kentucky Lantern, sought security video showing  District Judge Jamie Jameson "walking around the courthouse in his underwear early in the morning," WPSD reports. Lampe testified before the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission, which removed the judge from office: "I felt as though . . . someone was attempting to influence me or exercise some leverage over me because of the power they hold." WPSD reports, "Lampe said he was subsequently ordered by administrators he believed were acting on Jackson's orders to provide a written explanation."

Lampe, the station's former news director, testified that he was not punished "but the public radio station had received ... changes in their budgetary allocation as you would see lawmakers contact university officials in the event that their — if, if the university official, I can't speak for that person, but I can say the station — not necessarily me, but the station — could receive some negative blowback from the administration."

In November, after Jackson spoke to the Paducah Rotary Club, "WPSD tried to speak with him about the incident involving his and Jameson's conversation and the possible WKMS story. Jackson refused to answer multiple questions before getting into the back seat of a car and being driven away. At the time of this interview, the university had not provided a statement to WPSD. Emails we obtained after the Kentucky attorney general said Murray State violated the law by withholding them reveal that Jackson's opinion about WKMS’s reporting was well known to administrators."

Business Dean David Eaton wrote, "Dr. Jackson gets complaints in regards to the 'investigative' nature of some of the news . . . along the lines of ‘We're not The New York Times.’ And this seems to be the nature of the complaints that are coming to him. … I think this may be tied to a perception of FOIA requests that ‘reporters stir up trouble.’ Or inconvenience. Or maybe shed light in places people don't want it ... which is a legit function of journalism. . . . Clearly, WKMS is not simply a publicity arm of Murray State." Eaton mentioned reporting of a lawsuit against a nonprofit headed by state Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah.

Niemeyer reported, but the station never aired, a story about another legislator's Twitter feed, "which Niemeyer characterized as 'about tweets showing nudity, sex acts and other sexual content that were "liked" by state Sen. Jason Howell's Twitter account'." Howell's district includes Murray. The Lantern ran the story. In pursuing it, Niemeyer told a MSU public-relations excutive that Lampe had "called me at my desk right before we had planned to publish the story and told me to kill it. He told me he couldn't guarantee that my job would be protected if the story ran."

Niemeyer said in the email that News Director Rachel Keller "says the Twitter account story being killed was a part of multiple incidents during her tenure as news director where [she] and/or Lampe faced pressure from university administration or public figures in the community regarding stories that the station published or reporting the station pursued."

After 17 years of debate, Iowans will be able to buy raw milk, but health questions remain; 18 other states ban sales

Michael Jennings Photography photo via Des Moines Register

After almost two decades of debate, the Iowa Legislature gave its final approval to allow the sale of raw milk from farm to consumer, reports Donnelle Eller of the Des Moines Register. "Previously passed by the House, it will let producers sell unpasteurized milk to Iowans from their farms, as well as cheese, yogurt, ice cream and other raw milk products. . . . Sen. Jason Schultz was the bill's Senate floor manager; he said that he'd waited 17 years for a raw milk bill to clear the Legislature. . . . Senate Bill 315 goes to Gov. Kim Reynolds for her signature."

The bill's passage doesn't mean the conflict over raw milk is settled. "Supporters say raw milk tastes better and has more nutrients, while opponents say it can contain bacteria that's dangerous to children and could spark a public health outbreak," Eller writes. "Several major farm organizations, including the Iowa State Dairy Association and Iowa Dairy Foods Association, registered to lobby against the bill. . . . Rep. Megan Srinivas, (D) and Des Moines infectious disease doctor, said last week during the House's debate on the bill that she's concerned children will become ill, with potentially lethal ramifications, if adults give them unpasteurized milk."

The bill sets some limits on where products can be sold along with testing requirements, but Srinivas points out that testing may not prevent illnesses. "Under Senate Bill 315, producers can sell the raw milk and related products from their farms, but not at farmers markets or restaurants. Containers must have labels saying the contents were not subject to state inspections or public health regulations," Eller reports. "It sets a testing requirement of no more than 25,000 colony-forming units, or CFUs, of bacteria per milliliter in raw milk. . . . [the testing] doesn't distinguish between the types of bacteria, Srinivas said, adding that some bacteria are good for people, while others are deadly," Eller reports. Srinivas told her, "If I had 25,000 CFUs of lactobacillus, a very healthy gut bacteria we have in probiotics, growing in my raw milk, I wouldn't be concerned. But if we have even 5,000 or 10,000 colony-forming units of Shigella, that can be lethal."

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a farmer who was the bill's House sponsor, said the legislation "allows Iowans to buy raw milk if they want it," Eller writes. Kaufmann said, "We're simply adding this to the list of foods that people can get without Jiminy Cricket, the government, sitting on their shoulder, and whispering what's best for their families." Eller adds, "Iowa is one of 19 states that has prohibited the sale of unpasteurized milk, according to Raw Milk Facts."

DEA looks to curb telehealth prescriptions, which advocates say will complicate rural care and addiction treatment

Photo by Ted S. Warren, The Associated Press

The opioid epidemic has become a persistent, brutal feature of American life. "Its despair and suffering echo through cities large and small, from pitched tents . . . to the hamlets and hollows reeling from the opioid epidemic across Appalachia . . . a nation seemingly inured to the startling toll of addiction," wrote Kevin Deutsch of The Rio Grande Sun in Española, New Mexico, long plagued by drugs.

The stories of suffering, death and a medical communities stretched to their limits explain recent push-back against a new Drug Enforcement Administration "plan to resume tighter limits on the prescribing of controlled substances through telehealth," report Stephanie Armour and Liz Essley Whyte of The Wall Street Journal. "Under the proposed rules, other drugs, including Adderall, Ritalin and OxyContin, would require patients to meet in person with prescribers first or be referred by a doctor they met in person. . . . Patient-advocacy groups say the requirements would create barriers to care. . . . The in-person requirement will make it harder for certain patient populations who live in rural areas where there are few doctors or in areas where there are long waits to see a provider, according to organizations opposed to the proposal."

Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, chair of the American Medical Association's Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force, told the Journal, "The DEA proposal requiring an in-person visit within 30 days to get a prescription refill is far too short and unrealistic. For patients being treated for opioid-use disorder, this proposal could result in more overdose deaths. For those who rely on controlled substances, it could result in avoidable emergency visits and hospitalizations." The Journal reports, "Dr. Brian Hurley, new president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, said adding the requirement risks undermining public safety because the country is in the throes of an overdose crisis."

Why now? "The proposal comes as the Justice Department has been increasing its focus on telehealth companies that prescribe controlled substances [citing] possible violations of the Controlled Substances Act. . . . The Department of Health and Human Services  issued a special alert warning about telehealth fraud and its potential to harm patients . . . . Still, a number of medical groups say the in-person mandate isn't the solution to possible fraud. They say the DEA has rushed through the proposal, which got about 35,000 comments during a 30-day public comment period."

"A Biden official said the in-person requirement is meant to make sure that patients struggling with addiction are also screened for other health problems, such as heart conditions or diabetes," the Journal reports. "Telehealth with medication-assisted treatment for opioid-use disorder was linked with greater patient satisfaction, an overall reduction in healthcare costs, and an increase in the use of buprenorphine, according to a June 2022 study in the journal Telemedicine and e-Health.