Rural

Not that long ago, Alex Caicedo was stuck working a series of odd jobs and watching his 1984 Chevy Nova cough its last breaths. He could make $21 an hour at the Johnny Rockets food stand at FedEx Field when the Washington Redskins were playing but work was spotty  Today, Mr. Caicedo is an assistant manager at a pizzeria with an annula salary of $40,000 and health benefits.  The Caicedos are among the 3.5 million Americans who were able to raise above the poverty line last year according to census data.  [node:read-more:link]

The federal government's 5-year, $67 million rehabilitation effort following a 2015 rangeland wildfire in southwest Idaho and southeast Oregon is entering its second year with another round of herbicide applications combined with plantings of native species. The U.S. Bureau of Land Managementhas started applying the herbicide Imazapic on federal lands to knock out invasive weeds in Oregon and will begin in Idaho in October, officials said. [node:read-more:link]

Websites take minutes to load and photos take hours to upload at Ryan Davis’ home in the small southern Tennessee city of Dayton. If Davis gets in his car and drives about half an hour south to Chattanooga, though, everything takes under a second.  The city-provided fiber optic network there is so fast — up to 10 gigabits per second — that Chattanooga is known as Gig City. Chattanooga wants to expand outside of its current service area to Dayton and other rural spots. But a state law bans cities from doing so, and the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced a $54.6 million Community Facilities program loan to the Fulton County Health Center in Wauseon, Ohio, to renovate a critical access hospital that also offers treatment for substance misuse disorders.  "USDA's investment in much-needed medical facilities is bringing state-of-the-art health care to residents in our rural communities," Vilsack said. [node:read-more:link]

 Three hours south of the Field of Dreams, the words of the late W.P. Kinsella were invoked Monday night in front of the Iowa Supreme Court.  Kinsella was the Canadian writer whose novel “Shoeless Joe,” a story of a ghostly baseball player written in in 1978 while he was at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City, became the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.” He died Friday at age 81.  Monday night wasn’t primarily a eulogy for the man whose fiction in a roundabout way led 150 or so people to watch a real-life court drama in the Grand Theatre in downtown Keokuk, complete with free cookies. [node:read-more:link]

Louisiana's Shelter at Home program is a key component of the housing recovery plan for flood victims, but it may not apply to potentially thousands of people because mobile homes are automatically excluded. The quirk in the program has prompted angry calls to state lawmakers and others in recent weeks as the program, which provides up to $15,000 for homeowners to be able to quickly get back into their flood-damaged homes, begins to ramp up. "I've watched people repair manufactured homes," said state Sen. Bodi White, a Central Republican who is running for mayor of Baton Rouge. [node:read-more:link]

Dr. Bronner’s, a Vista, Calif.-based natural and organic body care products company known for its hemp-based soaps, has pledged to contribute upward of $660,000 to marijuana legalization campaigns in five states.  Dr. Bronner’s plans to partner with organizations such as New Approach and the Marijuana Policy Project and to make financial contributions to legalization campaigns in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada, which arevoting on recreational marijuana measures this November. [node:read-more:link]

In New York state, it's the law that working police dogs injured in the line of duty must be transported to the nearest veterinarian in an ambulance.  The law to authorize paramedics to transport injured police dogs to appropriate facilities was sponsored by State Senator David J. Valesky and passed during the 2015-2016 Legislative Session. [node:read-more:link]

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced new USDA initiatives to strengthen outreach and education resources at the local level to combat the rural opioid epidemic, including an expanded series of state-led opioid awareness events and increased access to information in USDA local offices. The effort begins on Monday, Sept. 19, coinciding with President Obama's designated Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week from Sept. [node:read-more:link]

If you’re baffled by the latest good news/bad news for the American middle class – word that in 2015 typical family income got its best boost in five decades, but families are still worse off than in 2007, just think about trickle-down economics and how it works.  During an economic recovery, the modern U.S. business model of trickle-down capitalism focuses first on delivering corporate profits, then soaring stock prices on Wall Street and big stock bonuses for CEOs and corporate execs. [node:read-more:link]