The Rural Blog, March 2007

This Web log of rural issues, trends and events is regular reading for hundreds of journalists who cover rural issues and need story ideas, sources, comparisons and inspiration. Rural journalism is important because 21 percent of Americans, some 62 million people, live in rural areas. Let us know what items are helpful, and send stories, links and suggestions, to al.cross@uky.edu. Use of items from The Rural Blog by news outlets is encouraged and hereby granted, on the condition that clear credit is given to the original source of the material. If the blog provides information for a story, let us know.

A federal judge has blocked the U.S. Forest Service’s plan to manage national forests and grasslands, saying the agency "violated the basic laws ensuring that forest ecosystems have environmental safeguards," reports Felicity Barringer of The New York Times. The rules require lesser "environmental reviews and safeguards for wildlife, and limited public participation in the development of management plans for individual forests. Instead, they broadened the power of forest managers to decide whether mines, logging operations, cellphone towers or other development would be appropriate uses of forest land."

District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of San Francisco, ruling Friday in a lawsuit by Earthjustice, said the service should have consulted the public and considered the environmental impact of the management plan because it was a "paradigm shift" in the management of 192 million acres of forests and grasslands, reports Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post. "Under the old policy, the government had to maintain viable populations of native wildlife in forests and monitor some populations regularly, while limiting logging and drilling for oil and gas," Eilperin writes. "The new rule -- which gave economic activities as high a priority as maintaining the forest's ecological health -- made it easier to conduct drilling and logging in national forests while weakening protections for native fish and wildlife." To read the Post story, click here.

Hamilton "could not determine if the rules were environmentally benign, as the Forest Service argued, or if endangered species would be unaffected, because no studies had been done," Barringer writes. "She sent the management plans back to the Agriculture Department, the parent agency of the Forest Service, to be redone, this time in consultation with the public and with the federal agencies that protect wildlife." Chris West of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber-industry group, told the Times, “The court order is requiring analysis when not a grain of sand or a single hair on a critter is being moved. And we are going to spend millions of dollars doing it. It’s bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake.” (Read more)

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration said yesterday Massey Energy Co. should be fined $1.5 million "for 25 violations that contributed to the deaths of two West Virginia coal miners in January 2006," reports Tim Huber of The Associated Press. "The fine is the largest the agency has ever imposed for a coal mining accident, surpassing the old mark of $540,000."

"The number and severity of the safety violations that occurred demonstrated a reckless disregard for safety," MSHA Director Richard Stickler said at a news conference in Logan, W.Va., the heart of Massey country. "Miners Don I. Bragg and Ellery Elvis Hatfield died in a Jan. 19, 2006, fire after getting lost in thick smoke inside the Aracoma Coal Co.'s Alma No. 1 underground mine in Logan County," Huber writes. "Aracoma is a subsidiary of Richmond, Va.-based Massey."

MSHA referred its initial findings to federal prosecutors a year ago. Federal and state investigators agreed that a conveyor belt was the source of the fire, "and concluded that missing walls that control air flow and faulty firefighting equipment were key factors," Huber writes. "The state also found that water lines for fire hoses and sprinklers at the scene of the fire were shut off and that fire hoses couldn't be connected because of incompatible fittings, a problem that had been reported to management after a similar fire" less than four weeks earlier. "The federal agency also determined the mine was not following its approved ventilation plan. Air that should have gone to the face of the coal seam was being pumped in the opposite direction. Massey Energy said in a statement that it was reviewing the report, but had no specific comment." (Read more)

For a story from Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette on continuing violations at the mine, click here.

Altria Group Inc., parent firm of Philip Morris USA, "made its full payment of $3.5 billion to states under a 1998 health-care settlement," including $400 million that the world’s largest tobacco company says it does not owe because it has share of the cigarette market has declined, reports Bloomberg News.

Settlement payments by Philip Morris, Reynolds American Inc. and the Lorillard Tobacco Co. are based on their market share. "The companies can seek to reduce their payments if they lose more than 2 percent of their market share," Bloomberg reports. "Last year, a report by the Brattle Group, a consulting firm, led Reynolds American and Lorillard to put about $800 million of a total $2.7 billion of annual payments in a so-called disputed-payments account. The report said the companies had lost market share because of restrictions imposed under the settlement. States are challenging the withholding." (Read more)

For the states, the payment was good news for state bonds and programs backed by the $246 billion settlement. For North Carolina and Kentucky, it was also good news to their agribusiness sectors, because the top two tobacco-producing states have dedicated half of the settlement money to improving their agricultural economies. For our report on the differences in how they do that, click here.

The U.S. Senate has approved a plan to extend a program to help rural schools hurt by cutbacks in logging national forests, but the rescue effort faces an uncertain future because it is attached to the military spending bill that President Bush has vowed to veto. “The Senate plan would authorize about $2.8 billion to extend the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act through 2011. Another $1.9 billion would be directed to rural states through a proposal to fully fund the Payments in Lieu of Taxes program,” reports the Springfield News-Leader in Missouri. (Read more)

Also attached to the bill are programs aiding various segments of agriculture. “It includes $40 million for a Tree Assistance Program that provides help for Christmas trees and ornamental shrubs,” writes Dana Milbank in a column for The Washington Post. “Also in the Senate's version of the Iraq bill: $24 million for sugar beets, $3 million for Hawaiian sugar cane, $13 million for the Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program, $100 million in compensation for dairy losses, $165.9 million for fisheries disaster relief, and money for numerous other ‘emergencies.’”

Some see these measures as pork barreling, reports Milbank. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said at a news conference, “I don't see how the asparagus-spinach problem helps us win in Iraq. This is a bill designed to help people that are getting shot at.” However, Graham voted in support of the rural-schools plan attached to the bill. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) called on citizens to “stand up as Americans, not as spinach growers, not as milk producers, not as tree farmers.” (Read more)

Kansas yesterday became the latest state to expand gambling, as the legislature narrowly approved a bill to allow "large, tourist-attracting hotel-and-casino complexes in four areas, including in or near Dodge City, the Kansas City area, southeast and south central Kansas," reports Carl Manning of The Associated Press.

The Prairie Band Potawatomi, which has one of four tribal casinos in northeast Kansas, said it would go to court to invalidate the law, which is based on the state constitution's authorization of a lottery -- and a state Supreme Court decision that the "lottery" can include slot machines and table games. (Read more) Efforts to have the constitution explicitly authorize private, non-tribal casinos failed in the legislature. Dodge City is planning a Boot Hill Casino, reports the Dodge City Daily Globe. (Read more)

Casinos would be subject to local referenda that must be held this year. As in states farther east, the bill was spurred by competition from a bordering state. "Several small casinos have recently sprouted just across the Oklahoma border, drawing gamblers and their money from Kansas and spurring local efforts to pass gambling in the state," reports David Klepper, Topeka correspondent for the Kansas City Star. For students of legislative maneuvering, Klepper has a good description of how the bill passed. (Read more)

A telemedicine program in Georgia allows patients to meet remotely with medical specialists who are not available nearby. At a local presentation center patients and doctors can meet remotely with any of 75 specialists from fields such as cardiology, dermatology and pediatric medicine. The program began 18 months ago with a grant from WellPoint, owner of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, and is now in 39 counties, reports Nancy Ferris of Government Heath IT (Information Technology).

“The specialists practice at 11 urban sites, including the state’s major hospitals,” writes Ferris. “They get paid for their services as if the visit were in person, according to a new Georgia law, state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said. Oxendine got WellPoint to contribute about $126.5 million to improve rural health care in Georgia when the company was seeking his approval for its merger with Anthem.”

Oxendine said rural areas of Georgia lack specialist physicians. Patients can be referred to doctors in urban areas, but the long drive involved causes them to lose time at work. The long drive also makes patients tend to postpone their visits, allowing their conditions to worsen. “The telemedicine program aims to put a presentation center within 30 miles of every rural resident who lacks access to specialty health care. Primary care doctors get extra reimbursements for using the centers and working with the remote specialists, said Sunil Joshi, director of the program at WellPoint.” (Read more)

Georgia remains one of only three states with a total ban of alcohol on Sundays, following failure of legislation that would have allowed voters to decide locally whether beer and wine could be sold on that day. The other states where Prohibition remains in effect on Sunday are Indiana and Connecticut.

Rural opposition was key to the bill's fate. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found that in January, "68 percent of respondents statewide supported giving voters the chance to consider Sunday beer and wine sales at grocery and convenience stores,” writes the newspaper's James Salzer. “About 80 percent supported the concept in metro Atlanta. Only a little over half did so in South Georgia. Support dropped to under 50 percent in Middle Georgia, home of Gov. Sonny Perdue, who opposes the bill.”

Groups such as the Christian Coalition and the Christian Alliance rallied ministers and volunteers to fight the bill, reports Salzer. “Rural Georgia doesn't want this bill,” Jim Beck, president of the Christian Coalition of Georgia, told the Journal-Constitution after the bill passed a Senate committee. (Read more) Senate Republican leaders refused to send the bill to the floor. Click here for Salzer's latest story.

Last Tuesday the town council of Dewey-Humboldt, Ariz., population 3,613, voted 5-2 to allow people to bring guns to the town's public meetings and inside municipal buildings. “There's nothing wrong with being in favor of what the Constitution says,” said Vice Mayor Warren Rushton. He added that letting citizens bring guns to meetings will deter violent crime. Rushton had pressed the council to vote on the issue since a recent state legislation requiring municipal governments to tell people to disarm themselves before entering public buildings, reports Doug Cook of the Daily Courier in Prescott.

“Council members Len Marinaccio and Candy Lincoln, while agreeing with a person's right to own and carry weapons, cast the two dissenting votes,” Cook reports. “During the council discussion, Lincoln, gun advocate, said people who attend public meetings should leave their weapons at home to avoid any calamity, particularly when emotions run high.” Dewey-Humboldt councilman-elect Floyd Wright supported Rushton’s resolution with a public comment before the vote. “Many armed individuals have wreaked havoc (in schools) because the teachers were not able to defend themselves,” Wright said.

Mayor Tom Hintze, a life member of the National Rifle Association, disagreed with the decision. “I'm all for freedom of carrying weapons, but I agree with Terry,” he told the Courier. “People have the right to do it, but you don't need to publicize it with a resolution. Some people shouldn't have a gun and wouldn't know how to handle it. And I've seen some of these (council) meetings get pretty hot.” (Read more)

The proposed federal budget would eliminate the Small Communities Air Service Program and cut in half money for the Essential Air Service Program, both of which help maintain commercial airline service in rural areas, notes Niel Ritchie of the League of Rural Voters -- a non-profit group that is based in Minneapolis and tries to increasing the representation of rural people in public policy.

"The budget also slashes funding for the Airports Improvement Program, which means rural airports won't get grants to improve their facilities while the bulk of funding goes to the major commercial airports in big cities," Ritchie writes. "Adding insult to injury, the administration has also backed a radical 'user-fees' plan pushed by the big airlines that could result in a huge tax hike on general aviation — everything from crop dusters to "puddle jumpers" to aircraft used by small businesses."

Ritchie argues that the fees would effectively ground many of small piston and turboprop planes and "severely affect the lives of local rural businesses and residents, limiting their access to specialized medical care, educational institutions and wider markets for rural products." The fee would "offset a proposed tax break for the commercial airlines, which are on the brink of realizing record profits in 2007. The big airlines justify this tax break by saying we need to increase funding to modernize the air traffic control system. But this proposal would reduce funding for the system to the tune of $600 million, taking what should be funds to modernize our air traffic control system and giving a huge tax break for the airlines instead. Moreover, the funding system has generated a $1.7 billion surplus, and increasing airline profits suggest it will bring in even more revenue in the coming years." (Read more)

Bill Bradow, managing editor of the Grand Prairie Herald and the DeValls Bluff Times in Hazen, Ark., died March 16 of a heart attack while on his way home from a local baseball game. On March 7, he celebrated his 57th birthday, in part with a March 14 column that turned out to be his last -- and suggested a premonition, notes Tom Larimer, executive director of the Arkansas Press Association in the APA's Arkansas Publisher.

“Despite having a ticker that should have quit working back in ’96 and a general physiognomy that would be considered unusually fragile for a mayfly, I remain above the sod, annoying and occasionally offending everybody within range,” Bradow wrote. “And the Almighty? He’s just sitting back and laughing, ‘Don’t need you up here,’ He chuckles, ‘and the fellow downstairs in the red union suit is afraid you’ll take over.’ However, I can honestly say that, should I roll snake eyes in the crap game of life tomorrow, I can exit with no regrets. I’ve had a ball and I’ve left my mark.”

Bradow's obituary in his newspapers said, “During his career as a journalist, Bill was never afraid to tell the truth, or do what he could to right a wrong. There were generally two reactions to Bill; people either loved him or hated him, but no matter which it was everyone respected him.” That's an epitaph that we think most rural editors would like. Bill Bradow is survived by his wife, Roxanne Woods Bradow; two sons, two grandchildren, a brother and two sisters. A memorial fund (P.O. Box 783, Hazen AR 72064) will establish an annual award to the Hazen High baseball or softball player who best exemplifies the true spirit of the game and “plays the game the way it is supposed to be played.” Bradow was a big baseball fan. (Read more)

The push for energy independence through ethanol is having a big effect on federal farm programs, "as well as significant economic impact in the dairy, livestock, swine, and poultry sector," New Hampshire Agriculture Commissioner Steve Taylor reports in his Weekly Market Bulletin.

"Most recently USDA is proposing that as many as four to seven million acres of highly erodible land that has been placed in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) be released for additional corn production for ethanol use," the Bulletin reports. Most of the 36 million acres in CRP is planted in grass.

UPDATE, April 1 (and no fooling): Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced March 30 that USDA would not allow farmers to put CRP land back into production without penalty "at this time," and "I would not anticipate a change in this policy in 2007." To read the USDA release, click here. Meanwhile, Farm Bureau said corn plantings won't be as large this year as USDA forecasts. (Read more)

A coal miner's widow told a congressional committee yesterday that Congress needs to require "more inspections, methane detectors, and better education and training," steps her home state of Kentucky took this month, and the committee chairman pledged action to protect miners and families who try to hold coal operators accountable and improve safety, reports Janet Patton of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Melissa Lee told the House Education and Labor Committee that she "has witnessed death threats made against her four sons that forced her to leave Harlan County," Patton writes -- adding that a veteran coal miners "has been fired and blacklisted for voicing safety concerns," and that "little has changed underground" since Congress upgraded federal safety laws last year in the wake of disasters.

Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., said he would, Patton writes, "do everything possible to make it safe for miners and family members to come forward without facing retaliation in their communities." He said families of killed miners had been denied the opportunity to testify before the committee last year, when the House was controlled by a Republican majority generally friendly to energy-producing interests.

"Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, said that because the mines are often the only industry in an area, communities face huge economic pressure to ignore the toll on families," Patton writes, quoting the freshman Democrat and former newspaper publisher: "These lives are far more than the cost of doing business."

Click here to read Patton's story. Click here for a news release from the National Mining Association on its testimony. We got the NMA release through Government Policy Newslinks, which offers a daily digest of press releases, statements, reports and other information from Congress, the White House and federal agencies. GPN offers a free, 60-day trial subscription to readers of The Rural Blog; to sign up, click here.

More than two weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune published a story about a 14-year-old African American girl in Paris, Texas, being sentenced to up to seven years in juvenile prison for shoving a hall monitor -- by the same judge who three months earlier probated a 14-year-old white girl for burning down her family's home -- and that the Paris Independent School District was being investigated for alleged repeated discrimination. Yesterday, The Paris News, circulation 10,500, began to catch up with the larger story.

"The Paris News filed an open records request last week under the Texas Open Records Act seeking copies of complaints and actions against PISD by the Office of Civil Rights. The newspaper sought and received records dating to 2003," Mary Madewell writes, reporting that none of the dozen or so complaints have been upheld but five are still pending. Madewell's story began, "U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights continues to investigate Paris Independent School District amid threats of more protests by black activists. Tensions increased in the community after a March 12 article in the Chicago Tribune featured Shaquanda Cotton, 15, a former PISD student who Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville sent to a Texas Youth Commission facility in March 2006 on an indeterminate sentence up to her 21st birthday. The commitment followed a jury determination Cotton committed an act of juvenile delinquency -- specifically, assault causing bodily injury on a public servant." (Read more)

The Tribune story, by Houston-based reporter Howard Witt, reported, "The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor -- a 58-year-old teacher's aide -- was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced . . . to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21. The story called Paris "starkly segregated." (Read more)

The story "exploded" on the Internet, Witt wrote in a column yesterday. "It was the top story on digg.com, a site that ranks Internet pages by user popularity and recommendations," he wrote. " And now the story has jumped across the ethernet into the physical world: Dozens of talk-radio stations across the nation were buzzing about Shaquanda last week, protests on her behalf were held in Paris, a petition- and letter-drive aimed at Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the judge in the case . . . is under way, and civil-rights leaders from the NAACP and the ACLU to the Rev. Al Sharpton are weighing whether to get involved. I've written thousands of stories for the Tribune over the last 25 years, from around the nation and across the world, and I've never seen a reaction like this before." To read Witt's column, click here.

Witt said the story is driven by outrage at what seems like excessive punishment, and "There's been some outrage in the other direction, as well: A number of residents of Paris have contended, in e-mails and articles in the local Paris newspaper, that the Tribune story unfairly portrayed their town as racist." He quotes Paris News columnist Phillip Hamilton: "Paris is being burned at the media stake by a journalist that didn't get the whole story poking the hot irons and igniting the fire. ... Does racism exist in Paris? Yes, but not nearly to the extent the Tribune reporter would have readers believe." Hamilton's column, which called Witt's story "a fictional account," appeared March 18. It said that the sentence was probably too harsh, but that the town of 26,000 had been "lashed with false statements, omitted facts and inaccurate information" in "a journalistic lynching" -- a takeoff on Witt's story, which began with an account of lynchings at the local fairgrounds and expressions of fear by local residents that "the racist legacy of those lynchings is rebounding."

In a story published in The Paris News on March 14, Josh Edwards wrote of Witt's article, "Some people are calling the story a smear campaign that inaccurately represents Paris, while others are praising the midwestern newspaper for finally presenting an accurate look at the story." The Paris News is owned by Southern Newspapers Inc. (Free registration required for access to Paris News archives)

The U.S. Department of Labor has found that "Flagrant safety violations at an Eastern Pennsylvania anthracite mine directly contributed to the death of a miner there last October," reports Steve Twedt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Under the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act passed after mine disasters last year, flagrant violations can be assessed fines up to $220,000. "This is the first mining accident to fall under [the] new flagrant-violation procedures," Twedt notes.

The citations are being reviewed by the assessment office of the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration, which will set amounts of fines against R & D Coal Co., stemming from the Oct. 23 death of miner Dale Reightler, 43, of Donaldson, from injuries suffered in a methane explosion during blasting at the Buck Mountain Slope Mine in Tremont, also in Schuylkill County.

Reightler died because the company "failed to observe basic mine safety practices and violated critical safety standards. As a result, a miner tragically lost his life," Richard E. Stickler, assistant labor secretary for mine safety, said in a press release. Among the violations cited were failing to follow ventilation and roof control plans, failing to conduct a proper pre-shift examination, having unqualified miners do the blasting, and setting off the blast before miners had moved to a safe area. Additional citations may be issued.

"Pennsylvania mine safety officials ordered the mine closed and sealed after finding a number of safety violations leading up to the fatal explosion. They also revoked the certificates of three mine supervisors. In revoking the mine's permit, state officials noted the similarity between last October's explosion and a December 2004 explosion at the mine that injured four," Twedt reports. "After talking to former mine employees following Mr. Reightler's death, officials at the Department of Environmental Protection concluded that mine managers had misrepresented circumstances of the 2004 explosion." (Read more)

While President Bush, other politicians and farmers in much of the nation are pushing ethanol as an avenue to energy independence, "ranchers and environmentalists, hog farmers and hippies, solar-power idealists and free-market pragmatists" have found common ground in opposing federal subsidies for turning corn into fuel.

"This ethanol binge is insane," Paul Hitch, president-elect of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, members of which are having to pay more for corn because increasing demand for ethanol has raised corn prices, told Moira Herbst of Business Week. "This talk about energy independence and wrapping yourself in the flag and singing God Bless America — all ... at a severe cost to another part of the economy."

Herbst writes, "Left-leaning economists such as Princeton University's Paul Krugman are joining free-market fundamentalists at the Cato Institute in pointing out the economic pitfalls of ethanol. And green groups worry that aggressive production of corn could have dire consequences for the environment, because of the heavy use of pesticides, fertilizer, and machinery that burns fossil fuels." (Read more)

As housing developments expand into rural areas, wildlife often remain. Deer can be the most noticeable, and the most troublesome, dining on landscape plants. Increasingly in some areas, they carry the threat of lyme disease, carried by ticks. "Lyme disease has become a way of life" and "a serious public health issue" in Fairfax County, Virginia, reports Amy Gardner of The Washington Post.

"Suburban lots with azaleas and rhododendrons is just like laying out a buffet for deer," Jorge R. Arias, who fights disease-carrying insects for the county, told Gardner. "We have created in suburbia what is essentially a perfect habitat for them." He said about 15 percent of deer ticks in the area have the bacteria of Lyme disease, which can lead to cause heart, mental, nervous-system and arthritic complications. (Read more)

“A federal judge blocked permits for four mountaintop removal mines late Friday, in a major ruling that could force much tougher regulation of West Virginia’s coal industry,” reports Ken Ward of The Charleston Gazette. Judge Robert C. Chambers cited “alarming cumulative stream loss” to the filling of hollows and other narrow valleys with the earth and rock blasted to gain access to coal seams. He “ruled that more thorough reviews of the mines’ potential impacts must be done before permits can be approved.”

“Chambers rescinded four permits issued to subsidiaries of Massey Energy, and sent the mine proposals back to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a more detailed study. The judge found that the Corps’ methods for examining permit applications were severely lacking, especially how the corps measures the ecological loss of burying small, headwaters streams,” Ward writes. “Chambers did not order — as citizen groups had hoped he would — that the corps perform a detailed study, called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, on every mountaintop removal permit application.”

Nevertheless, Joe Lovett, director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, one of the plaintiffs in the case, called the ruling a victory. “Judge Chambers is the third federal judge in West Virginia to find that the corps’ actions permitting mountaintop removal violate the Clean Water Act.” Those rulings were reversed on appeal, but this case poses different questions, dealing with individual permits rather than a general permit the corps first used. Earthjustice, an environmental group whose lawyers joined Lovett in bringing the case, said the ruling would affect dozens of pending permit applications in Appalachia.

Other plaintiffs are the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Coal River Mountain Watch and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (which provided the aerial photo, above, of mountaintop-removal mining in southern West Virginia). The permits directly affected by the case are in Boone, Logan, Kanawha, Fayette and Raleigh counties. The mines “would strip about 3,800 acres of hills and hollows, and bury more than 12 miles of streams,” Ward reports. (Read more)

Youths in rural areas and small metropolitan areas are more likely to abuse prescription drugs than their urban counterparts. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, most of those who abuse prescription drugs are between 12 and 25. Pain killers such as codeine, Vicodin and Percocet are those most often used. “The NHSDA shows that the annual number of new users of pain relievers has been increasing since the mid-1980s, from about 400,000 initiates to 2 million in 2000. Other drugs being increasingly abused are stimulants, tranquilizers and sedatives,” reports the Muskogee (Okla.) Phoenix.

Rural youths don’t need a dealer to find prescription drugs because they don’t get them off the street, these drugs come from home, reports the Phoenix. However, the solution for parents is not to lock up their medicine cabinets, said Jackie Luckey, a prevention associate at Area Prevention Resource Center, part of Green Country Behavioral Health Services Inc. Children need to be raised with more boundaries, he said. Narconon Arrowhead, a non-traditional drug rehabilitation and education facility in Canadian, Okla., blames much of the abuse problems on the availability of these drugs. (Read more)

Law promises benefits to first responders' survivors, but feds don’t deliver

"More than three years after President Bush signed a law granting federal benefits to families of firefighters, police officers and EMTs who die of heart attacks and strokes on the job, not a dollar has been paid," reports Bill Dedman of MSNBC. "The U.S. Justice Department has denied all 34 claims that have been decided, and has yet to act on more than 200 others" filed under the Hometown Heroes Act of 2003.

About a third of the claims have been filed by survivors of law-enforcement officers, and most of the rest by firefighters' families. Dedman notes a new study by the Harvard University School of Public Health shows a firefighter is up to 100 times more likely to have a heart attack when responding to a fire alarm. The Justice Department didn't say whether it had denied any claims by families of emergency medical technicians.

The law says the presumption that death was caused by duty can be reversed "by competent medical evidence to the contrary," but left the definition of that up to the Justice Department, which "has interpreted this phrase to mean that claims should be denied if there is evidence of a non-duty-related medical factor or event that would have independently caused the stroke or heart attack," Dedman writes.

"At least some of the denials were based on Justice Department judgment that some of the duties the firefighters were performing at the time of their deaths do not meet the law's requirement of 'nonroutine strenuous activity.' . . . Other claims are being held up as the Justice Department searches the medical records for pre-existing medical conditions," Dedman reports. "The Justice Department spokeswoman said that only 20 cases have so far begun the medical review process."

This could be a story for you. Dedman pointed Al Tompkins of The Poynter Institute to a searchable database of first responders who have died in the line of duty. Tompkins advises, "Check with your local public safety agency, Fraternal Order of Police and firefighters union or association to see what cases might be pending locally. Here are two groups that help in cases like these -- Concerns of Police Survivors, Inc. and National Fallen Firefighters Foundation." (Read more) For Dedman's story, click here.

People in rural northeast Louisiana have may have inadequate access to mental-health providers, leading them to seek such services from doctors who aren’t qualified. Researcher Cathy Parker, a marriage and family therapist from the University of Louisiana, said that mental stress can lead to physical illness. This is not only the case for severe mental illness, but everyday problems that can compound, leading individuals to feel sick and seek medical care, reports Jason Stuart of the Bastrop Daily Enterprise.

There is a lack of psychologists and psychiatrists in the region, but there are more marriage and family therapists who could also help with emotional issues, reports Stuart. “There's nothing preventing doctors from referring patients to MFTs except one thing -- money. A majority of these kind of patients are on Medicaid or Medicare, and therein lies the problem. Though Medicaid and Medicare will cover a patient's expense for a medical psychologist, they will not currently include MFTs.”

"We live in an economically depressed area, and people here generally don't have the money to pay for therapy," Parker told the Enterprise. MFTs could improve the quality of mental health care in the area if they were included in the health care hierarchy, she said. Because of their exclusion, doctors often do not recognize MFTs as licensed mental health care professionals and therefore do not think to refer their patients to them, even if they could afford their services. (Read more)

The persistent shortage of rural doctors in Virginia is still growing. The Virginia Department of Health estimates 798,924 of the state’s 7 million people live in rural areas that don’t have sufficient access to primary health care, more than 10 percent of the state’s total population. Virginia’s aging demographic is creating more demand for health care while doctors are retiring and not being replaced, reports the Virginia Farm Bureau. “The minute they retire, it becomes an area of need,” said Dr. Michelle Whitehurst-Cook, associate dean of admissions for the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

The high expense of medical degrees is a major problem when trying to recruit doctors to rural areas, reports the Virginia Farm Bureau. The average medical school graduate has $130,000 worth of debt upon finishing. Virginia Rural Health Loan Repayment Program offers to repay up to $20,000 dollars a year of student loans for new doctors practicing in underserved rural or inner-city areas and specializing in general internal medicine, general pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, or psychiatry. However, new doctors may also be reluctant to move to the countryside. (Read more)

Legislation proposed in the U.S. House this week would allocate unused television channels for use by broadband Internet by 2009. The move could possibly provide affordable services to millions of Americans, particularly those in rural areas. The bill mandates a final decision to be made by the beginning of October. A similar bill failed last year, reports the Associated Press, but Democrats now control Congress.

“Under the measure, the Federal Communications Commission would be required to permit usage of the unused TV spectrum, also known as ‘white spaces,’ for Internet broadband service as long as it doesn't interfere with television programming,” reports AP. New technology has been developed that can transmit within these spaces and a coalition has submitted a prototype device to the FCC for testing. However, television broadcasters are doubtful of the device, concerned that it may interfere with meeting their federal requirement to transition from analog to digital signals in 2009. (Read more)

An Iowa program to help rural entrepreneurs develop and expand interstate commerce has beginning to get off the ground. Last fall the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation launched Renew Rural Iowa, designed to encourage business and expand wealth in the state’s rural communities. “The Iowa Entrepreneurial Report Card shows Iowa ranking last in new business creation and long-term employment growth. That prompted leaders to take action,” writes Kristin Danley-Greiner of Farm News.

The program is target at communities with population of less than 30,000, reports Danley-Greiner. It works with organizations such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Iowa State University Extension, Iowa Department of Economic Development, the Iowa Bankers Association and the Iowa Bar Association. The Entrepreneurial Development Center in Cedar Rapids is contracted to mentor rural communities through their development phase and teach business education.

“Through Renew Rural Iowa, entrepreneurs will be offered a choice of two one-day seminars that will walk the entrepreneur through all phases of developing a business, such as writing a business plan, determining appropriate financing and analyzing market research and various funding sources,” writes Danley-Greiner. “The second day will provide pre-qualified participants hands-on mentoring to accelerate existing businesses or jump start new ones. Successful companies then will have the opportunity to continue in the professional mentoring program as they grow and develop.” (Read more)

“A large variety of Iowa entrepreneurs ranging from landscapers, livestock ventilation systems, dairies, mobile veterinary clinics to sports team equipment manufacturers have attended previous Renew Rural Iowa seminars across the state and benefited by the interactive, hands-on sessions,” reports the High Plains Journal, based in Dodge City, Kan. (Read more)

Rural Virginia residents fear that they will be left behind after a plan to improve roads in the more affluent northern part of the state. “In the transportation package approved last month and awaiting action by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, lawmakers allowed elected officials in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads the option of increasing local taxes and fees to pump an additional $600 million into roads and transit projects.” Some rural residents worry that partitioning the state by region would allow the northern communities to hoard their wealth, reports Tim Craig of the Washington Post.

There is a large economic gap between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state, fueling resentment between them, creating an ideological gap and causing contention on the topic of tax increases, reports Craig. House Republicans, with a mostly rural constituency, have been fighting efforts to increase transportation revenue in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. However, Northern Virginians are an important part of the economy, feeding money into the rest of the state. The region has 25 percent of the state’s population but produces 40 percent of its tax revenue.

Taxpayers outside Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads would not be asked to pay much into their road projects but they also would not get much benefit from the plan, reports Craig. The Richmond area and rural regions would split $150 million to $300 million a year, state officials said. Kaine attended a series of meetings with lawmakers last week over the concern that the road plan might split Virginia into “haves and some have-nots.” (Read more)

Sago Mine stops running; its legacy so far is more state action than federal

The West Virginia coal mine where 12 men died in January 2006 has stopped production. High production costs from “adverse geologic conditions” and weakening coal prices “made the Sago Mine unprofitable in the current coal market,” International Coal Group of Scott Depot, W.Va., confirmed yesterday to Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette.

A skeleton crew will stay on to maintain the mine so it could resume production if the coal market improves, and the other workers at the mine are being offered jobs elsewhere, the company said. “ICG had previously cut the workforce at the mine from about 85 in early 2006 to 48 at the end of December, according to disclosures filed with the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration,” Ward reports. “Last year, ICG reported a net loss of $9.3 million, compared to a net income of $31.8 million in 2005.” (Read more)

The disaster, and one that killed five at the Kentucky Darby Mine a few months later, prompted stronger mine-safety laws from Congress and the legislatures of Kentucky and West Virginia. "Most of the progress has been at the state level," says an editorial in The Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg, Ky.

MSHA "remains an agency in alarming disarray, despite its urgent, life-and-death responsibilities," the Eagle opines. "Veteran inspectors are leaving the agency, and they're either not being replaced or are being rep laded by new hires with, in many cases, very little practical mining experience. Morale in MSHA district offices is distressingly low, and there's a reluctance to take strong stands for fear of the possible consequences" from the "industry-cozy" Department of Labor, MSHA's parent agency. (Read more)

In the Northwest, new energy from wind is being integrated with traditional hydroelectric power, creating a source of electricity with minimal emissions or need for fossil fuel. The region’s wind-power base is growing fast, from 25 megawatts in 1998 to a projected 3,800 megawatts by 2009. One megawatt of wind can power an average of 225 to 300 homes daily. The U.S. is the fastest-growing wind-energy market in the world, jumping 27 percent last year with a similar outlook for this year, reports The Washington Post.

When wind is weak or there’s a high demand for power, the dams can pick up the slack, reports Blaine Harden. “Hydroelectric power plants ramp up faster and more efficiently than coal-fired or nuclear plants, and without the chronic uncertainties in cost that plague gas-fired plants. The Pacific Northwest gets more of its electricity from hydro -- 67 percent -- than any other region of the country.” When the wind is strong, the dams ease up on power production, conserving more water and possibly becoming more fish-friendly.

“Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, said the electrical grid in the Northwest is uniquely accommodating to wind power because of the dominance of hydroelectricity, and because of relatively reliable wind, progressive utility companies and new state laws demanding renewable energy,” writes Harden. “Those laws require utilities, over time, to generate 15 to 25 percent of their energy from sources that do not cough carbon into the air.” Wind power is well-received among county governments and local land owners, largely because they can profit from it. A farmer may receive between $2,000 to $4,000 a year for allowing a turbine to run on his or her property. (Read more)

Senate Democrats announced a new plan Tuesday to renew an act that provided funds to rural schools with federal land in their districts. The Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, which compensated rural schools for loss of revenue from declining timber harvests in national forests, expired at the end of 2006. To make up for this loss of funding, President Bush proposed to sell off $800 million in Forest Service land, and giving half the money to rural schools, the other half to conservation.

Noelle Straub of the Billings Gazette in Montana reports the new plan would extend the program until 2011 without selling off public land, and aim to make distribution of funds more equal. Three states, California, Oregon and Washington, got 75 percent of payments. “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it appears that money for the program for 2007 will be included in an emergency spending bill coming before the Senate soon,” Straub writes. “Reid said Democrats would offer an amendment to the bill next week that would change the formula and provide for the other four years.” (Read more)

Vanderbilt project to test feasibility of wired classroom for rural students

Billy Hudson, director of the Center for Matrix Biology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, shows Chris Cox, an eighth-grade student visiting from Grapevine, Ark., equipment used in his lab to separate molecules for purification. Cox was among Grapevine students who spent a week at the Nashville university last summer in the first stage of the Aspirnaut Initiative, a program designed to give isolated students an advantage in modern technology. Hudson runs the program. He said in a Vanderbilt press release that rural students are at risk for getting left behind in technology, education and employment. The program will go into the field in Arkansas next month to test the feasibility of a wired classroom for isolated rural areas.

The project will be launched April 10 in Sheridan, Ark., about 30 miles south of Little Rock, About 15 “high ability” students will board a bus equipped with laptops, accessing lessons online, connected to broadband Internet via cell phone towers, allowing them to effectively use their time during the 90-minute ride. Their classroom will be a fellowship hall in a Baptist church in Grapevine, where Hudson grew up. There, they will participate in a webcast set up by the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach, partnered with local schools and the Grapevine Historical Society. (Read more)

Rural ski resorts are finding it hard to get enough employees. Facing a persistent labor shortage, one resort in Virginia flew in temporary workers from Jamaica this season. The Wintergreen Resort flew in 35 islanders, some so unfamiliar with winter that they didn’t even pack coats. “Students on break used to fill seasonal jobs, but resort seasons have lengthened beyond winter breaks as baby boomers have matured into empty-nesters and their leisure time has become less tied to school schedules,” reports N.C. Aizenman of the Washington Post. Other students aren’t interested in part-time employment when they can have other steady jobs year-round,

The resort has a year-round staff of 500, with 700 at peak, reports Aizenman. It is a major employer in a county of only 15,000 people, but it also faces competition for employees from other industries such as orchards, vineyards and factories. The unemployment rate in the area is rarely above 3 percent. Wintergreen recruited its Jamaican workers through a “10-month temporary visa for unskilled, non-agricultural workers known as the H-2B. Limited to 66,000 a year nationwide, the permits are tough to get. Employers must prove that they have tried and failed to hire U.S. workers at prevailing wages. Last year, the permits were snapped up in about 45 days.” (Read more)

In rural Missouri, clinics staffed mainly by physician’s assistants may no longer be allowed to operate. New rules may require doctors to be present at clinics for a greater percentage of time, but those doctors might not be available. “Current rules require a physician to be in the facility when a PA is providing patient care, except for certain follow-up visits and when PAs practice in designated Health Professional Shortage Areas. . . . where there is a recognized shortage of primary medical care providers. More than 80 percent of Missouri's 114 counties are designated as HPSAs,” reports the Bolivar Herald-Free Press.

“House Bill 497 and Senate Bill 537 would require supervising physicians to be present at least 55 percent of the time a PA is providing care and 10 percent of the time when PAs are in federally funded clinics in HPSAs,” writes the newspaper's Charlotte Marsch. “Another piece of legislation, Senate Bill 346, would require physician supervision at least 80 percent of the time with no exception for federally funded clinics. If no legislation passes, the Missouri Board of Healing Arts has said it will change the rules to require 100-percent on-site physician assistant supervision of PAs with no exceptions.”

Physician groups argue that requiring doctors to be present more often would improve the quality of care, reports Marsch. “People who live in rural Missouri understand services are not at their doorstep. The people who are going to these clinics are quite capable of driving themselves,” Bonnie Bowles, executive director of Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons told the Free Press. (Read more)

A legislative committee in North Carolina has approved a bill "that would impose a broad ban on smoking at businesses and public places," reports The Associated Press. "The panel voted 9-4 in favor of the measure, which would ban smoking in most restaurants, bars, offices and factories."

The bill "exempts private residences, designated smoking rooms in hotels, private clubs, and research facilities conducting experiments on smoking or tobacco-product development. It also exempts tobacco shops and tobacco manufacturing facilities. Opponents of the measure said business owners should be able to decide how to run their own enterprise. But others on the committee said it's a question of protecting the health of workers who don't want to be exposed to smoke on the job, in the same way that they're already covered by other workplace safety rules. "We don't have asbestos in buildings any more," said Rep. Verla Insko, D-Orange. "It's a health risk." (Read more)

All across America, there are rural editors like Tim Crews of the Sacramento Valley Mirror in Willows, Calif., who take on local officials, "print the news and raise hell," as Crews likes to say. Every now and then, they get written up by big-city colleagues, as Crews was yesterday by Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle, but with a new angle -- as an example of the essential role investigative journalism plays in American democracy, and how that role is being undermined by newspapers' falling circulation.

"Crews won't have any of it. He is a country editor whose little paper is influencing public opinion on a shoestring budget," Fimrite wrote. "A maverick, old-school muckraker, Crews is notorious in this rural farming community of 6,220 people and the governmental center of Glenn County. In 2000, he was jailed for five days after refusing to name his sources for a story about a former California Highway Patrol officer charged with stealing a gun, a case that received national attention. Depending on who is talking, his financially strapped newspaper is either a beacon of journalistic integrity or an unsavory scandal sheet run by a scoundrel. . . . Despite the criticism, the twice-weekly Mirror is surprisingly influential for a paper with a circulation of 2,944. Almost everybody in the community reads it, more than pick up the Willows Journal and Orland Press Register, which have a combined circulation of 2,122 and are distributed twice a week by the Tri Counties Newspapers chain." (Chronicle photo by Lance Iversen)

Crews once managed those papers, but lost his job when he angered officials by publishing questionable concealed-carry permits. (See item below!) He started his own paper. He told Fimrite, "We're shit disturbers. It's what a small county needs." (The Chronicle used hyphens for most of the vulgarity.) "For his efforts, he has been snubbed and threatened, and seen advertising pulled and his beloved dog die in 2004, apparently with poisoned meat that he believes was left by an angry sex offender he named in the paper. An arson fire was set recently in an office adjacent to his newspaper," Fimrite reports. "There have been several attempts to silence Crews, but he has moles virtually everywhere, and the plots themselves invariably end up in print" -- most notably a strategy session by local school officials on how to do battle with the paper.

"Critics claim Crews mixes his opinions so liberally with the facts that it is impossible to decipher the truth," Fimrite notes, and quotes them. "Even some of Crews' supporters acknowledge that his prose often reflects his point of view. . . . But Jim Bettencourt, a landscape contractor and former Glenn County supervisorial candidate, said Crews' aggressive reporting has kept the public involved in government." He told Fimrite, "Tim is the conscience of our community. He addresses issues that others choose not to. He has empowered the downtrodden and instilled fear in the majority of the old guard in this community." (Read more)

In the most recent Mirror, the paper pulls no punches on itself. One story reports that an occasional contributor to the paper was charged with possession of crack cocaine, and suspended from the paper "until his court issue is resolved." There's a mug shot, and a tough headline: "Mirror contributor busted with crack."

For Sunshine Week, under an editorial headline heading, "New Mirror policy: We shall be good and print what we are told to print," Crews writes, "Well, not really. Although there are people hereabout, notably water carriers for the Glenn County Office of Education, who believe it is a newspaper’s job to print what they are told to print rather than to report what they learn, we shall not go down that path. We note with some amusement that our competition suspends its “no personal attacks” letters policy when it comes to assaults on this newspaper and that’s their prerogative, to a point. But there are the issues of responsibility to the public and suppression of facts involving misconduct on the part of government officials." (Read more)

Rural crime and vandalism are on the rise. In Blue Earth County, Minnesota, "Rural residents fed up with thefts and vandalism that are costing hundreds of thousands of dollars (the overturned grain cart, left, dumped its load into a drainage ditch) are considering some big-city solutions for their problems," reports Dan Nienaber of The Free Press in Mankato. Options "include having farmers park their equipment in consistent locations at night so passing deputies would know if something is amiss."

Farmers, sheriffs, implement dealer Ron Kibble and Commissioner Will Purvis "talked about installing surveillance cameras and alarms in their buildings, on their property or even in their equipment," Nienaber writes. "Alarms can alert deputies so they’re able to respond immediately when buildings or tractors have been broken into and cameras can catch criminals in the act, Purvis said. Technology that’s been used to solve several high-profile crimes in Mankato is becoming affordable enough for farmers to use as well. . . . The cost of those products is easily offset by the expenses farmers face during unwanted planting or harvesting delays while equipment is being repaired or replaced, Kibble said." (Read more)

The Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council created a subcommittee yesterday to study how to protect "personal identifying information" in public records -- an issue raised by The Roanoke Times' Web posting of the list of the 135,000 Virginians with permits to carry concealed deadly weapons. The posting, taken down after many objections, included the permit holders' street addresses.

"The council is made up of state legislators, government officials, media representatives and citizens," reports the Times' Richmond correspondent, Michael Sluss. A legislator from the Roanoke area has "asked for an attorney general's opinion on whether the state police should provide such information. That opinion and the advisory council's work could pave the way for legislation that would restrict access to the data."

The issue has been raised, and could be raised, in many states. In 17 states, such information is public, and in 18 it is private. Other states with concealed-carry permits lack clear statutes or case law on the topic.

The Virginia legislator, Republican David Nutter, said he wants to "find a middle ground that, bottom line, prevents a list like this from being put out in the public domain." Sluss writes that Nutter "later noted that the information still could be obtained from city and county circuit-court clerks." State police have received 17 requests for the data in the last two years. "Four of those requests came from political organizations, including one each from the state Democratic and Republican parties," Sluss reports.

Four requests came from newspapers, one from a Republican legislator and three from the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which has used the gun data for membership recruitment. VCDL member Jim Kadison "said the advisory council should focus on preventing 'abuse of the list' without restricting all public access to the data," Sluss reports, and also "raised the idea of allowing permit holders to have their names removed from lists provided to the public." (Read more) See below for earlier blog items.

UPDATE: Virginia State Police, acting on the advice of the state attorney general, said April 6 they will no longer release the information under the state's open records law. (Read more)

This is National Agriculture Week, and National Agriculture Day is Wednesday, March 21, the first full day of spring. “Ag Day serves to recognize and celebrate the abundance provided by agriculture and is celebrated by producers, agriculture associations, agribusinesses, academia and others. The day itself is hosted nationally by the Agriculture Council of America, but events are carried out at the state and local level across the country,” writes Kristin Danley-Greiner of The Messenger in Fort Dodge, Iowa. (Read more) Sponsors include John Deere and Archer Daniels Midland, an agricultural processing and fermentation company and ethanol producer based in Decatur, Ill.

This year’s Ag Day theme will be “Convergence of Food and Fuel,” reflecting the growing relevance of ethanol and biofuel to the agricultural sector. According to an ACA release and data from the Renewable Fuels Association in 2006, the U.S. ethanol industry increased U.S. gross domestic output by $41.1 billion dollars and created more than 160,000 jobs.

The week will celebrate the more than 22 million people employed in farm-related jobs. “Today each American farmer feeds more than 144 people compared to 25 people four decades ago,” said Greg Webb, public-affairs vice president for Archer Daniels Midland in an ACA release. “Simply put, American agriculture is doing more - and doing it more efficiently - than ever before to meet growing demand.” The ACA lauds the changing nature of agriculture production, including renewable fuels and advancements in farm technology such as self-guided tractors.

In New Hampshire, 180 of the state’s towns and cities are voting on whether to petition the federal government to address climate change. As of Sunday, 134 towns had passed the initiative, and some had yet to vote. “While the resolution is non-binding, organizers hope to use it to force presidential candidates to address climate change during the New Hampshire presidential primary,” reports The New York Times.

“The New Hampshire Carbon Coalition, a bipartisan citizens group led by a former Republican state senator and the former chairman of the state Democratic Party, spearheaded the initiative to have climate change considered at town meetings,” Katie Zezima writes. “The last time voters in New Hampshire focused on a global issue at such meetings was in 1983, when more than 100 towns asked that the federal government do something about acid rain, which was polluting the state’s waterways.” (Read more)

The issue has prompted local coverage. Stephanie Hicks of the Littleton Courier reports in the New Hampshire Business Review that scientists and the state's forestry industry say global warming is bad for the industry. An earlier spring causes an earlier onset of mud, cutting down the time that loggers can spend in the forests. The same problem is faced by those in the maple sugar business and the trees may also be dying with the warming climate. “In the last 20 years, $1.3 million in syrup sales have been lost in the Granite State. Kingsley predicts that over the next 100 years, the loss of sugar maples will mean a $7 billion economic loss and the complete annihilation of the industry,” writes Hicks. (Read more)

In his appearance in New Hampshire last Saturday, Arizona Sen. John McCain, 2008 presidential hopeful and winner of the state's 2000 Republican primary, “said he knew little about climate change before his last primary campaign but delved into it after voters in New Hampshire, especially younger ones, brought it to his attention,” writes Eric Moskowitz of the Concord Monitor. “Climate change is real. The debate now, I believe, is how serious it is,” he told the Monitor. “And I believe it's important that we give our children and grandchildren a planet that is not one that is in serious danger.” (Read more)

Rural Virginia may face a lack of workers as the population ages and young people leave for more populated areas. A study by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service found that in the next decade there will be 825,000 Virginians reaching retirement age. That's 11 percent of the state’s population, up from 9 percent six years ago. “Young people from these rural counties and others tend to leave for college or work, the study says. As a result, the ‘emerging work force’ of Virginians 18-24 is concentrated in college towns and urban areas,” reports The Associated Press.

“While small and rural communities may offer certain dimensions of a high quality of life, the absence of employment opportunities presents significant disadvantages to these communities in attracting younger workers,” Qian Cai, author of the study, told AP. Officials have discussed the problem of an aging population but there are no substantial plans in place to deal with it yet. In some areas young people may find work in the service sector catering to an influx of retirees. However work in places such as industrial parks that have boosted the economies of Virginia towns in the past may not be sufficient to draw in or keep young people. (Read more)

Today ends Sunshine Week, the news media's annual effort to build public support for openness in government. It included progress in Washington, where the House passed four open-government bills, including one to strengthen the federal Freedom of Information Act, and the Senate heard testimony from a small-town editor on the front lines of getting access to, and publishing, public records.

Sabina Haskell, editor of the 10,000-circulation Brattleboro Reformer and president of the Vermont Press Association, joined media and FOIA experts in testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by her senior senator, Democrat Patrick Leahy. He and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, have introduced a bill to create more enforceable deadlines for agencies to respond to FOIA requests.

Haskell told the committee that when the Reformer asked for financial records of the Vernon Volunteer Fire Co. last week, the fire chief told the reporter who asked, "If you print any of this, I will assure you there will be some retaliation." That request was made under state law, but reflects the "culture of resistance" that Meredith Fuchs of the National Security Archive said many officials have toward open-records laws. "The handling of FOIA programs at some agencies suggests that the public is considered the enemy, and any effort to obstruct or interfere with the meddlesome public will be tolerated," Fuchs told the committee.

Leahy said FOIA "faces challenges like never before," and called the Department of Homeland Security's ability to deny requests for records related to "critical infrastructure" the "biggest single rollback" since the law was passed in 1966.

Evan Lehmann of the Reformer wrote, "In 2002, the government had about 138,000 unanswered public records requests, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. That number grew 45 percent by 2005, to about 200,000, the GAO reported. Federal agencies are required to respond to a request within 20 days," but the law can be enforced only by going to court. " In many legal cases, federal agencies provide the documents at the last minute, just before a judge is about to rule, thereby avoiding having to pay attorneys' fees incurred by news outlets."

The Leahy-Cornyn bill "would make federal agencies pay a news outlet's legal fees even if a judge never rules on the case. It would also provide disciplinary action for agencies that fail to turn over documents, hasten responses by tracking FOIA requests, and create an ombudsman who could mediate disputes and minimize lawsuits." (Read more) To listen to Haskell's testimony, click here. For video if it, click here.

"It didn't take long for Sunshine Week to turn stormy," Laurence Hammack writes in today's Roanoke Times. "At 9:15 last Sunday morning, just a few hours after The Roanoke Times was dropped on doorsteps and shoved into paper boxes across the region, Scot Shippee fired the first shot in what would become the newspaper's biggest Internet controversy.

"In an online discussion forum, Shippee blasted the paper for posting on its Web site a database that included the names and addresses of everyone in Virginia licensed to carry a concealed handgun. Shippee wrote that if the newspaper was so committed to public information, it would only be fair for him to publicly list the home address of editorial writer Christian Trejbal. A column by Trejbal that day had urged readers to celebrate Sunshine Week -- a national recognition of the public's right to know -- by using the database to see who in their community was 'packing heat.'"

Hammack continues, "Even though The Roanoke Times hastily removed the database from its Web site, questions remain: Should people be allowed to know who among them is secretly armed? Or did identifying those who carry concealed handguns invade their privacy and make them targets for criminals? And will this fundamental conflict between advocates of the First and Second amendments be resolved by the General Assembly's restricting public access to gun permit information when it takes up the issue next year?

"Virginia is one of 17 states that treats information about concealed-handgun permit holders as a public matter, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In another 18 states, the information is closed from public view. The remaining states have no laws or court decisions that clearly address the question one way or the other." (Read more)

Some towns in the Great Plains, fighting declines in population, have made news by offering free land to people who move there. Tomorrow a town in Alaska, with a similar problem, will do likewise.

"The community of Anderson, population 300, is offering 26 large lots on spruce-covered land beneath the Alaska pathway of the famed aurora borealis and just a short walk from spectacular views of Mount McKinley, North America's tallest mountain. And what's an occasional day of 60-below weather in a town removed from big-city ills?" asks reporter Rachel D'Oro of The Associated Press.

"It's Mayberry," local high-school teacher Daryl Frisbie told AP. His social-studies students "came up with the idea for a project exploring ways to boost the town's dwindling population," D'Oro writes." Students developed a Web site and PowerPoint presentation, then persuaded the Anderson City Council to give it a go." Anderson is off Alaska Highway 3, between Fairbanks and Denali National Park.

"The general rules: The 1.3-acre lots will be awarded to the first people who apply for them and submit $500 refundable deposits beginning at 9 a.m. Monday. Each winning applicant must build a house measuring at least 1,000 square feet within two years. Power and phone hookups are already available," D'Oro reports. "City phones are ringing nonstop over the deal despite only local publicity." (Read more) For a March 7 story on the plan, from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, click here.

"Over the past two decades, public funding of agricultural research and extension has been reduced or declined in real dollars," Farm Foundation reports. "Evidence is now emerging that the rate of growth in agricultural productivity is beginning to decline. At the same time, some U.S. competitors are increasing public funding of agricultural research. Adequate public funding for agricultural research and Extension programs is a critical factor in the future competitiveness of U.S. agriculture."

To address these issue, Farm Foundation held a conference last week in Washington. Among the speakers was Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which issued a press release quoting Stallman as saying, “Congress needs to consider how our land grant universities contribute and verify advancements in agriculture. . . . We need more funding for research, not less.”

The release said, “With new expectations being placed on American agriculture, as well as farmers and ranchers exploring new ways to improve the environment through innovative conservation practices, the need for research is intensifying. . . . Key areas where research is needed, according to Stallman, are bio-security; improved diets; the environment; rural revitalization; biotechnology; and renewable energy.”

Smaller-scale agricultural interests spoke up, too. Bill Nelson, president of WineAmerica, the National Association of American Wineries, said producers of specialty crops need research for many reasons: Such crops are diverse, with complex, site-specific growth characteristics; many require considerable capital and time to establish; and producers and processors face strict and wide-ranging quality requirements. For an outline of the Farm Foundation program and links to presentations of other speakers, click here.

Students who attend consolidated rural high schools in West Virginia are less likely to participate in extra-curricular activities because of long bus rides. That is among the findings of a new study by the Rural School and Community Trust, a rural-school advocacy group that generally opposes consolidation. "Though the report focuses specifically on consolidation outcomes in West Virginia, the lessons learned are a warning to any state that has pursued or is considering pursuing consolidation," the trust said in a release.

The study found that students bused to consolidated high schools lose an average of 49 minutes each day, compared to students who have other forms of transportation in the same districts; and that bus rides in districts with consolidated high schools are 43 percent longer than in districts that have not consolidated.

The West Virginia Legislature passed guidelines for maximum lengths of bus rides -- 30 minutes for elementary schools, 45 minutes for middle schools, and one hour for high schools -- but they are only recommendations and are not enforced, the trust says. About 7.4 percent of West Virginia students ride buses longer than the guidelines. Rates in individual counties are as high as 31 percent, and every county has at least some students whose ride times exceed the guidelines.

"Over the past several decades West Virginia has closed scores of small, locally-based schools (primarily high schools), as part of district-level consolidation," the trust reports, and "further consolidation is presently being proposed statewide." (Read more)

Copley Press Inc. is selling its nine newspapers in Illinois and Ohio to GateHouse Media Inc., a fast-growing, debt-laden company that owns 76 small dailies and about 370 other publications in 18 states.

The Illinois dailies being sold are the Journal Star in Peoria, circulation 68,000; The State Journal-Register in Springfield, 55,000; The Register-Mail in Galesburg, 14,700; and The Courier in Lincoln, 6,100. The Ohio dailies are The Repository in Canton, 65,000; The Times-Reporter in New Philadelphia, 23,000; and The Independent in Massillon, 12,800. The weeklies are The Suburbanite in Akron, circulation 26,000; and the Galva (Ill.) News, 1,200 -- the only one that uses a town's name.

GateHouse already owned 16 dailies and 40 paid weeklies in Illinois. The dailies are in Benton, Canton, Carmi, DuQuoin, Eldorado, Flora, Freeport, Harrisburg, Kewanee, Macomb, Marion, Monmouth, Olney, Pekin, Pontiac and West Frankfort. The paid Illinois weeklies are mainly in southern and northwestern parts of the state and include those in Chester, Geneseo, Murphysboro, Newton, Olney and Shawneetown.

Larry Grimes of W.B. Grimes & Co., a media-business consultant, told Dean Calbreath of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Copley's flagship paper, that the purchase fits GateHouse's growth strategy. “They've been on somewhat of a buying streak since they went public a few months ago,” Grimes said. “They're trying to upgrade their portfolio of holdings by moving more to midsized dailies and larger weeklies instead of smaller community newspapers.” (Read more)

GateHouse, based in Fairport, N.Y., paid a total of $410 million last year for Community Newspapers Co., through which Boston Herald Publisher Patrick Purcell owned four smaller dailies and 93 weeklies in the Boston region; two other Boston-area groups, including one that owned the Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Mass.; and the Massachusetts papers of Journal Register Co. It quickly cut staff and other costs and consolidated operations, and reported that its fourth-quarter profits doubled over the previous year.

Boston Globe business columnist Steven Syre wrote in October that GateHouse's public offering came at "an odd time," given the state of the newspaper business, but noted that the company has a "hyper-local" strategy for news and advertising. The Globe reported that GateHouse was bought in 2005 by a "New York hedge fund and venture-capital firm," Fortress Investment Group LLC, which also invests in real estate, cell-phone towers, assisted living and aircraft leasing. (Read more, registration required)

Wal-Mart Stores is dropping its plan to open limited-service banks, "after critics said the world's No. 1 retailer might use the banks as a stepping stone to a broader financial services operation," reports Parija B. Kavilanz of CNNMoney.com. Opposition came from "the banking industry, community banks and labor unions. Mostly banks feared that Wal-Mart would . . . eventually springboard into the commercial bank business, offering deposit, checking and loan services."

Wal-Mart, which has most of its stores in rural areas, already cashes checks, transfers money and offers credit cards. It applied in 2005 to establish a limited-service bank to "help eliminate third-party transaction costs that it currently incurs from processing of credit, debit card and electronic check transactions in its stores," CNN reports. The bank would not have offered checking or savings accounts. Some other retailers, such as Target, have such banks, but Wal-Mart was a bigger target, so to speak, for critics.

Federal regulators welcomed the decision. "Wal-Mart made a wise choice. This decision will remove the controversy surrounding their intentions," Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., told CNN in an e-mail. Jane Thompson, president of Wal-Mart Financial Services, said the application "has been surrounded by manufactured controversy since it was submitted nearly two years ago. At no stage did we intend to . . . establish branch-banking operations as critics have suggested. We simply sought to reduce credit and debit card transaction costs." (Read more)

The top two tobacco-producing states, Kentucky and North Carolina, each set aside for agriculture half of the money they got in the national settlement with cigarette manufacturers. They have invested it in very different ways, but now both states are considering changes.

At the first Kentucky Governor's Summit on Agriculture yesterday, called to start drafting a strategic plan for agriculture in the state, there was much talk about the settlement money, most of which has gone directly or indirectly to help the state's cattle industry, the largest east of the Mississippi River. Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican seeking re-election, said the plan should build on past successes but "not shy away from new opportunities and the unknown. . . . The prospects for growth and diversification are endless."

Scott Smith, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture and a member of the board that has made nearly 3,000 grants totaling $233 million from settlement funds, said the state needs to invest "wisely and more wisely" in ag-related projects. "We need to broaden our scope and broaden our vision" to include research and development, workforce and education, infrastructure and leadership, he said.

In North Carolina, where the settlement money is invested and only the earnings are spent, Gov. Mike Easley wants the foundation that handles the money "to be more aggressive in helping rural areas win jobs," report Jonathan Cox and Tim Simmons of The News & Observer. Easley, a Democrat in his first term, "said the Golden LEAF Foundation needs to use more of its money to build infrastructure and buildings in distressed communities so they're more attractive to industry."

Foundation president Valeria Lee told the Raleigh newspaper that Easley's staff had already told her much the same. "She said that the foundation has been aggressive in its efforts to help struggling communities and has done a good job.' What's more, it's planning a new initiative to go into communities and identify needs," Cox and Simmons write. It has made about 560 grants, totaling about $205 million. (Read more)

For a detailed comparison of the two states' settlement spending, from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky, and its partner at the Project on Public Life in the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, click here. For a report on the Kentucky summit from business writer Greg Hall of The Courier-Journal, click here.

Blaming federal inspectors and the mine owner, "the United Mine Workers union said yesterday that hazardous roof conditions -- not lightning -- were the likely cause of the fatal methane explosion at West Virginia's Sago Mine last year," writes James R. Carroll of The Courier-Journal's Washington bureau.

The state of West Virginia and International Coal Group, owner of the mine, "had said last year that a massive lightning strike ignited the blast," Carroll reports for the Louisville newspaper. "An independent investigation, done for Gov. Joe Manchin, said there was widespread belief that lightning was involved. But it said it was unable to determine a definitive cause for the explosion."

UMW President Cecil Roberts blamed chronically bad safety practices at Sago and poor enforcement by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration. "Had the government done its job, and Sago done its job, all these miners would be alive," he said at a Capitol Hill news conference. ICG "criticized the UMW report as an 'attempt to further the union's political and organizing agenda'," Carroll writes.

"The UMW said in its 122-page report that shifting or falling rock, which struck other rock or metal or forced wire mesh on the roof to rub against itself, probably created an electrical arc in a sealed-off section of the mine, igniting methane gas." MSHA's final report is expected in April. (Read more) To read the UMW report, via The Charleston Gazette's Web site, click here. For the Gazette story by Ken Ward, click here.

More than 50 Republicans in Congress, including some party leaders, joined Democrats today in sponsoring legislation to let states opt out of student testing required by the No Child Left Behind Act. The sponsors include House Minority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri; his chief deputy, Eric Cantor of Virginia; and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, "Bush's most reliable defender in the Senate," The Washington Post reports.

Blunt and Cantor supported the bill when it passed in 2001; Cornyn was not yet in the Senate. Blunt spokesman Burson Snyder told Jonathan Weisman and Amit Paley of the Post that his boss switched on the issue after meetings with teachers and administrators in his southwest Missouri district.

"Many voters in affluent suburban and exurban districts -- GOP strongholds -- think their schools have been adversely affected by the law," the Post reports. "Once-innovative public schools have increasingly become captive to federal testing mandates, jettisoning education programs not covered by those tests, siphoning funds from programs for the talented and gifted, and discouraging creativity, critics say."

The House bill would let a state opt out via referendum, or by agreement of any two "of three elected entities -- the governor, the legislature and the state's highest elected education official," Weisman and Paley write. "The Senate bill is slightly less permissive, but it would allow a state to negotiate a 'charter' with the federal government to get away from the law's mandates. In both cases, the states that opt out would still be eligible for federal funding, but those states could exempt any education program but special education from No Child Left Behind strictures." (Read more)

Is No Child Left Behind working? A story in the latest Education Week casts doubt on Bush's claims, saying data he cites are only from the long-term trend in reading and math scores in the National Assessment of Education Progress, "researchers say. All available data, they add, show modest improvements that can’t be attributed to the 5-year-old law," write David Hoff and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo. (Read more)

The Roanoke Times "continued to feel the wrath of readers" for posting on its Web site the names and addresses of 135,000 Virginians who have permits to carry concealed deadly weapons, the paper reports.

"By midday Tuesday, there had been more than 2,000 visits to an online discussion forum, at least 36 canceled subscriptions and countless angry calls -- some that showed up in company voice mail well before dawn," Laurance Hammack writes. And threatening comments to the columnist who posted the data "led the newspaper to place a security guard, at least temporarily, outside his Christiansburg house. Concerns were heightened early Tuesday afternoon when a mysterious package was delivered to the house. . . . It turned out the box was full of blank postage labels and cardboard mailers."

The list was published Sunday and taken down Monday "because of concerns that state police might have inappropriately included the names of crime victims on a list it provided to the newspaper," Hammack reports. Unfortunately, the columnist's "intent to trumpet open records could result in their being slammed shut," he writes. "Del. Dave Nutter, R-Christiansburg, said Tuesday that he is seeking an attorney general's opinion on whether state police were within their legal rights in providing the information to the newspaper. Even if the attorney general finds that police acted correctly, requesting the opinion could be the first step in a move at next year's General Assembly to pass a law exempting concealed-weapon permit information" from the state Freedom of Information Act. "It's something that we're going to have to take a look at," Nutter told the newspaper. (Read more)

A state board ruled this week that Massey Energy can build a second coal-storage silo at a West Virginia site that has become a focal point of protests against mountaintop-removal coal mining. If appeals fail, the silo would be within 300 feet of Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County, which is also overlooked by a huge coal-slurry impoundment, sometimes a feature of mountaintop removal.

"In a split decision, the state Surface Mine Board overturned a Department of Environmental Protection order that blocked the silo," reports Ken Ward Jr. of The Charleston Gazette. "The ruling is the latest move in a nearly two-year fight between DEP and Richmond, Va.-based Massey." The agency revoked a permit for the second silo "After the Gazette revealed that the silo was proposed to be built outside the permit area shown on the site maps submitted by company engineers."

The board upheld the revocation, but Massey submitted a new permit application that was based on a boundary marker at the site, not maps that the board had called inconsistent. DEP "agreed with Massey that the boundary marker was the proper permit outline," but "still turned down the company’s application," on grounds that " the new silo violated state and federal laws that prohibit new mining operations within 300 feet of a school," and that new operations include even slight modifications, Ward writes. On a 4-3 vote, the board overturned that interpretation, citing a 1988 state Supreme Court decision. (Read more)

UPDATE, March 17: The Gazette reports, "Police arrested 13 protesters Friday afternoon who occupied Gov. Joe Manchin’s reception area to protest" the decision and Massey’s plan. (Read more)

The store is on U.S. 209 in Washington Township about a mile east of Elizabethville, in northern Dauphin County (Harrisburg is the seat as well as the state capital). "The nearest Wal-Marts are in Selinsgrove and the suburbs of Harrisburg," Lewis writes.

In Lebanon County, just to the east, "residents have hired attorneys and gone to court to stop Wal-Mart from building stores," Lewis notes. "The retailer has dropped plans for the Lower Paxton Twp. store. But Wal-Mart is still trying to build a store in North Cornwall Twp. In York County, residents have opposed a plan to build a retail center near Dillsburg that would include a Wal-Mart, Lowe's and Applebee's. Opposition has targeted Wal-Mart." (Read more)

New Hampshire is not a typical agricultural state, and state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Taylor is not your typical agricultural politician. He writes, “Does the term 'local' trump the term 'organic' when we’re talking consumer behavior, agricultural policy and the future of the New England countryside? Marketing studies and focus-group research conducted recently show that the concept of local resonates considerably more than does that of organic, and that Americans have become much more interested in seeking out locally produced foods, no matter whether they conventionally or organically grown.”

In his in his Weekly Market Bulletin, Taylor notes last week's Time magazine cover story, which he says “rambled on at length in an on-the-one-hand-but-on-the- other vein before finally concluding that food from nearby farms whether they are conventional or organic rates a slight nod over 'industrial organic' fare shipped in from thousands of miles away.” He says a better analysis came in a speech from John Carroll, a University of New Hampshire environmental conservation professor, to the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire's annual meeting this month.

“Carroll is a fierce partisan of local agriculture, and he argues that 'local' is the antithesis of the entire system of industrialized agriculture, totally decentralized and always in the control of local people,” Taylor writes .
“He speaks of a renaissance in New England agriculture, anchored by a revitalization of dairying built on effective utilization of the region’s natural ability to produce forages for grazing and winter feed.”

“What would New Hampshire look like if it could shift that (three to four percent) food self-sufficiency level up to even 30 to 40 percent (by 2020)?” Carroll asked. “New Hampshire would be a very different place indeed, and a far, far better place to live, a healthier place to be, for sure.”

The Ezzell family of The Canadian Record, a weekly newspaper in Canadian, Texas, are this year’s winners of the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism. Pictured at left are the editor, Laurie Brown Ezzell, and her mother, Nancy Ezzell. Pictured below are Tom and Pat Gish, owners of The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky.

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues established the award to honor the couple who this winter celebrated their 50th anniversary of publishing the Eagle. The Gishes were the first recipients of the award. Their son, Eagle Editor Ben Gish, was among the judges who unanimously voted to give the award to the Ezzell family.

“The Ezzells clearly demonstrate the tenacity, courage and integrity I've been privileged to witness in growing up around and working with my parents,” Gish said. Other judges agreed.

Author and former Los Angeles Times Washington correspondent Rudy Abramson, chairman of the Institute’s advisory board and a longtime friend of the Gishes, said “One cannot but notice a number of similarities between the Ezzell family and the Gish family, not the least of which is the continuity their newspaper represents in their community.”

Retired publisher Al Smith, an Institute founder and its steering-committee chair, said: “The story of this gutsy Texas family is as comparable to the Gishes of Kentucky as anyone could imagine.” The Canadian Record has held local, state and national politicians accountable, fought political extremism, opposed unwise military adventures and helped protect the environment, often against organized and violent opposition. All are “great examples of courage, tenacity and integrity,” Smith said. To read more about the Ezzells, click here.

Laurie Ezzell Brown will receive the award on behalf of her family at a dinner Friday, April 20, at the Crowne Plaza Lexington - The Campbell House, 1375 Harrodsburg Road. Other finalists for the award, and Tom and Pat Gish, will be recognized at the dinner. The guest speaker will be John S

eigenthaler Sr., founder of the First Amendment Center.

The Gish Award Dinner is part of the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, which the Institute is holding at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill between Lexington and Harrodsburg. Attendance at the summit is limited, but there will be plenty of additional seating at the dinner. Tickets are $75. Proceeds will support the work of the Institute, which has academic partners at 16 universities in 12 states. For more information on the dinner, the Gish Award or the Summit, contact Institute Director Al Cross at 859-257-3744.

A study by a private research institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., finds that 10 years after Congress required federal agencies to put more information on their Web sites, the sites of 149 agencies surveyed "distinguish themselves more for cyber-foot-dragging than for streamlined access," reports Elizabeth Williamson for The Washington Post.

The National Security Archive found that only 20 percent of the agencies post all records required, and only 6 percent "tell people how to request what does not appear there," Williamson writes. "Two-thirds do not provide indexes to their major records systems, or they provide guides that are so unclear they are worthless." Only one in four agencies includes a Freedom of Information Act request form on its Web site.

"Amid all this opacity, a few agencies stand out," Williamson reports. "One of the most compliant, NASA, was instrumental in the development of the Internet. But so was the Department of Defense," a major violator of the posting requirements, known as E-FOIA, passed in 1996. (Read more)

One of our favorite newspapers, The Roanoke Times, wanted to stand up for freedom of information during Sunshine Week, another of our favorite things. But it decided yesterday to take off Web site a list of Virginians who are licensed to carry concealed deadly weapons, "after igniting a firestorm of criticism," the newspaper told readers this morning.

Publisher Debbie Meade said.the list, published in conjunction with a Sunday opinion piece about open records, "was taken down Monday afternoon out of concern that it might include names that should not have been made public," the paper's Laurence Hammack reports. "Although she had received no official word from Virginia State Police, which provided the data at the paper's request, Meade said she was concerned enough about complaints from readers to act out of an abundance of caution."

The list included names and street addresses of about 135,000 Virginians. It was linked to a column by editorial writer Christian Trejbal that ran in the paper's New River Valley Current section. "Hundreds of readers complained on the newspaper's message board and to a gun-rights group that publishing the names of concealed-weapons permit holders violated the privacy of law-abiding citizens and gave potential criminals information that would help them find victims," the paper reports.

Some argued that felons could check the list to see who might challenge them with a gun, and that dom