Teresa Jones and Anja Thiessen have very different backgrounds, but they both see education as a way to uproot entrenched poverty in the Mississippi Delta. Jones is from a small, unincorporated community about 25 miles east of the Mississippi River. Thiessen was raised near a different river, the Rhine, which flows past her hometown of Bensheim, Germany. Both women have helped build new education programs that focus on Delta youth. [node:read-more:link]
Orlando Paden is a young state representative who always knew what he wanted to do. Mary Williams is a nurse practitioner who discovered her calling while slowly walking into her profession. Both look for ways to lead their region toward opportunity. [node:read-more:link]
When Fox News came calling to do a story about Appalachia, it didn’t take long to figure out what they were really after: examples of doom, gloom, and failure. Nonprofits must shift the focus away from negative stereotypes to show what's working in rural America. Appalachia has always had a problem with media outlets wanting to boost their sales by exploiting “poverty porn.” They come get photos and stories of handpicked, downtrodden people, and instead of offering solutions or asking for change, they quote people of privilege whose answer is that poor people should pick up and leave. [node:read-more:link]
Giraffe's have been placed on the Red List of endangered species, after conservationists discovered there were fewer than 100,000 left in the wild.The animal was previously listed as ‘of least concern' but is now classed as ‘vulnerable to extinction’ after the global population plummeted by 40 per cent in the past 30 years.Giraffes are declining because of habitat loss, illegal hunting and civil unrest in the African countries where they live. Giraffe number shave dropped 30 % in last thrity years. [node:read-more:link]
Michigan became the first state in the U.S. to develop a full list of infrastructure recommendations when Gov. Rick Snyder unveiled that report. More than 100 recommendations across four areas - water, transportation, energy and communications - resulted from months of work by the 21st Century Infrastructure Commission. "This is not an answer by itself, but a road map," Snyder told a crowd gathered at Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, in addition to viewers at satellite locations in the state. [node:read-more:link]
Counties and states with large shares of uninsured risk having to contend with a range of health and economic impacts, such as reduced workplace productivity, unsustainable demands on emergency departments, higher tax burdens resulting from uncompensated care costs, and deteriorating health care quality due to reductions in public spending. In 2013, before the implementation of major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, 41 million U.S. adults age 19–64 had no health insurance. Coverage varies considerably by geographic location. [node:read-more:link]
At century's end, the number of summertime storms that produce extreme downpours could increase by more than 400 percent across parts of the United States — including sections of the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast, and the Southwest — according to a new study. [node:read-more:link]
In the early 2000s, no one in Jacksboro, Texas thought much of Faith Community Hospital, the fifty-year-old hospital in the center of town. The building was substandard. Staff morale was low. Patients preferred to drive thirty miles or more to Fort Worth or Wichita Falls for care. And when the hospital flunked a Medicare inspection due to mold and asbestos, voters rejected a bond issue to build a new hospital by a 3-to-1 margin.Then, in 2010, Frank Beaman came to town, taking on the role of Faith’s CEO with a keen understanding of what was at stake. [node:read-more:link]
When Misty Jones looks back on her drug-using years, she sees a pattern. Since she was 18, she’s been having babies, using drugs, losing custody of her babies, and trying to quit drugs so she can get them back. Now 36 and in recovery from heroin addiction for 15 months, Jones, a member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam tribe, said she realizes she needs to beat her drug habit before she can take care of her children. “This time it’s going to be all about Misty and getting clean and not about Misty and getting her kids back,” she said. [node:read-more:link]
After suffering a leg injury while enlisted in the Air Force, finding work became a challenge for a Texas man and his service dog until he walked into a Lowe's Home Improvement store. Clay Luthy was working as a handyman, doing his best to support his three children, when he was shopping the Abilene store and decided to submit a job application, Lowe's spokeswoman Karen Cobb told mySA.com, adding Luthy's injuries prevented him from bending his knee. Human Resources Manager Jay Fellers said he was unaware the 35-year-old veteran had a service dog until he showed up for an interview, but th [node:read-more:link]
