With tax revenue from legal pot sales in California falling short of projections, a financial analysis firm estimated Tuesday that total sales this year will be $1.9 billion, significantly less than the $3.8 billion the company expected.The firm, New Frontier Data, had also estimated that total sales in California would reach $6.7 billion by 2025, but now says it is more likely the industry will generate $4.72 billion by then.Most cities in California have refused to allow pot businesses, and there are tough rules for those who want state licenses to grow, distribute and sell marijuana.  [node:read-more:link]

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Ashley Hanson believes in the power of performing arts to bring communities together. After all, she has seen that happen up close. Her organization, PlaceBase Productions in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, uses “radical playfulness” to stage events ranging from bonfires and singalongs to tongue twisters and town-square theater productions. [node:read-more:link]

If people truly understood the science behind modern poultry genetics, there would be little justification for the movement toward slower-growing broiler breeds, a University of California-Davis (UCD) extension specialist said. [node:read-more:link]

In the national immigration debate, anti-immigrant rhetoric is at a fever pitch generated by politicians bent on inciting a cultural war and exploiting the fears many Americans have about their economic situation and how their communities are changing. But to truly understand the role of immigrants in the United States, we must look to the states and localities where immigrants live. [node:read-more:link]

If the food in your fridge is expired, you'd likely throw it out. But a Get Gephardt investigation finds that, in doing so, you are likely trashing perfectly good food. At the center of the problem is confusion over what the “expiration dates” printed on food actually mean, experts say.The confusion is understandable. The labels don't seem to have any consistency.Taking a day for 'investigative shopping' around several local grocery stores, on packaged food, Get Gephardt found a date was almost always printed. [node:read-more:link]

Within weeks, the Trump administration will make it easier for small businesses to band together to buy health insurance for their workers. The U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Across the country, Americans’ anxiety about their finances is worsening. And rural residents are far more pessimistic about their financial prospects. Only 36% of Americans living in rural counties — who don’t earn enough to pay for the lifestyle they want — believed that situation would improve in the future, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. Comparatively, nearly half of those living in urban and suburban areas who were in the same boat were optimistic about their financial futures. [node:read-more:link]

Even before the opioid crisis peaked here in 2016, Ohio was already spending about the same on opioid dependency statewide as it did kindergarten through high school education, according to a recently released study. The enormous price tag in 2015 of opioid dependency in the state was somewhere between $6.6 billion and $8.8 billion. During the same time, the state spent about $8.2 billion on public education, according to the study released by Ohio State University’s C. [node:read-more:link]

New York State will invest $12 million to help build the College of Veterinary Medicine at LIU Post in Brookville as part of the state's $72 million investment to support three transformative, economic developments on Long Island, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced. The funds will go towards a $40 million project to create a College of Veterinary Medicine at Long Island University to help fill a void in that academic area. There are only 30 schools of veterinary medicine in the United States and just three in the northeast. [node:read-more:link]