Ashley Hanson believes in the power of performing arts to bring communities together. After all, she has seen that happen up close. Her organization, PlaceBase Productions in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, uses “radical playfulness” to stage events ranging from bonfires and singalongs to tongue twisters and town-square theater productions. [node:read-more:link]
Within weeks, the Trump administration will make it easier for small businesses to band together to buy health insurance for their workers. The U.S. [node:read-more:link]
Across the country, Americans’ anxiety about their finances is worsening. And rural residents are far more pessimistic about their financial prospects. Only 36% of Americans living in rural counties — who don’t earn enough to pay for the lifestyle they want — believed that situation would improve in the future, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. Comparatively, nearly half of those living in urban and suburban areas who were in the same boat were optimistic about their financial futures. [node:read-more:link]
Even before the opioid crisis peaked here in 2016, Ohio was already spending about the same on opioid dependency statewide as it did kindergarten through high school education, according to a recently released study. The enormous price tag in 2015 of opioid dependency in the state was somewhere between $6.6 billion and $8.8 billion. During the same time, the state spent about $8.2 billion on public education, according to the study released by Ohio State University’s C. [node:read-more:link]
Businesses and schools in two Illinois counties want to make sure students know about career opportunities in their own back yard and get the skills needed to fill the positions.The ECCEL Academy, pronounced “Ex-cel” and standing for Edgar Clark Career Exploration and Leadership, will initially focus on high school students, but organizers also want to later include fifth- through eighth-graders. “Everybody’s looking for skilled workers,” said Terry Elston, a member of the Paris Economic Development Corp. board. [node:read-more:link]
A Detroit area study finds that energy-efficient CFLs and LEDs are more expensive and less readily available in high-poverty urban neighborhoods. One of the easiest ways for a household to save energy and money is to install energy-efficient light bulbs in as many sockets as possible. [node:read-more:link]
FEMA had a warning for local governments at the annual Governor’s Conference on Hurricanes: Don’t count on Uncle Sam to be there immediately after the next natural disaster. “If you’re waiting on FEMA to run your commodities, that’s not the solution,” FEMA Administrator Brock Long said Wednesday. “I can’t guarantee that we can be right on time to backfill everything you need.” [node:read-more:link]
There is a good case that America’s economy has never needed immigrant labor more than it does now. The American birthrate has slowed dramatically, with the number of babies born in the U.S. last year hitting a 30-year low. At the same time, Alaska fisheries, New Hampshire restaurants and Maryland crab processors all say they are critically short of workers. Farmers say they need thousands more workers, and some production is moving overseas for lack of labor. There are 6.6 million job openings in the U.S., which means that, for the first time in history. [node:read-more:link]
ural counties consistently had higher suicide rates than metropolitan counties from 2001-2015, according to data released today in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States. There were more than half a million suicides during the 2001–2015 study period.“While we’ve seen many causes of death come down in recent years, suicide rates have increased more than 20 percent from 2001 to 2015. [node:read-more:link]
First United Airlines barred an emotional support peacock from boarding. Now American Airlines is telling passengers some of their service and emotional support animals — including goats, hedgehogs and tusked creatures — can’t fly. The carrier is joining rival airlines in tightening rules for passengers flying with emotional support animals, expanding the list of animals that can’t fly in addition to requiring customers vouch for their animal’s ability to behave. [node:read-more:link]
