Rural News
NH bill targets owners of trespassing chickens
Fosters | Posted on February 1, 2018The New Hampshire Legislature is considering a bill that would make trespassing fowl a violation, not for the chicken, but for its owners. Under the proposal, anyone who knowingly, recklessly or negligently allows their domestic fowl to enter someone else’s property without permission can be convicted of a violation if the birds damage crops or property The law already makes such trespassing illegal when it comes to sheep, goats, cows, horses or pigs, and the bill’s sponsor says fowl shouldn’t be exempt.While a constituent’s frustration with a neighbor’s ducks spurred the legislation, Loudon Republican Rep. Michael Moffett told a House Committee on Tuesday he also has heard from a man who claims his neighbor has used chickens as a “form of harassment and provocation.”“It does come down to property rights, which is important,” Moffett said. “People, wherever you live, should be free from having your property invaded or encroached upon by animals or birds from neighboring property who are not being taken care of.
After Post-Trump Decline, More Central American Children Arriving at U.S. Border
Pew Charitable Trust | Posted on January 31, 2018After a dramatic drop early last year, the number of Central American children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally has been rising sharply since April. Advocates say the increase is being driven by fears of gang violence at home — fears that outweigh heightened concerns about deportation under the Trump administration.“The reality is these children are not necessarily coming to the U.S., they’re just trying to get away from their home country,” said Catherine Hulme, project manager and attorney for unaccompanied children at the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland in Baltimore.
Drug firms shipped 20.8M pain pills to WV town with 2,900 people
Charleston Gazette Mail | Posted on January 31, 2018Over the past decade, out-of-state drug companies shipped 20.8 million prescription painkillers to two pharmacies four blocks apart in a Southern West Virginia town with 2,900 people, according to a congressional committee investigating the opioid crisis. Between 2006 and 2016, drug wholesalers shipped 10.2 million hydrocodone pills and 10.6 million oxycodone pills to Tug Valley Pharmacy and Hurley Drug in Williamson, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data obtained by the House Committee.Springboro, Ohio-based Miami-Luken sold 6.4 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to Tug Valley Pharmacy from 2008 to 2015, the company disclosed to the panel. That’s more than half of all painkillers shipped to the pharmacy those years. In a single year (2008 to 2009), Miami-Luken’s shipments increased three-fold to the Mingo County town.Miami-Luken also was a major supplier to the now-closed Save-Rite Pharmacy in the Mingo County town of Kermit, population 400. The drug wholesaler shipped 5.7 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to Save-Rite and a branch pharmacy called Sav-Rite #2 between 2005 and 2011, according records Miami-Luken gave the committee. In 2008, the company provided 5,624 prescription pain pills for every man, woman and child in Kermit.
Scientists express concern that CWD will jump the gap from deer to people
Smart Brief | Posted on January 30, 2018Sixty percent of macaques that ate venison infected with the prion that causes chronic wasting disease developed CWD, prompting a warning from the Canadian government last year that eating meat from infected deer, elk or other cervids could cause the disease in people. The macaques consumed the human equivalent of one 7-ounce steak each month for three years, and Mark Zabel, associate director of Colorado State University's Prion Research Center, said that neither freezing nor cooking destroys the prion.
As Trump attacks Federal Health Law. Some States Shore it Up
Pew Charitable Trust | Posted on January 30, 2018Nationwide, premiums for average-priced policies — according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis — offered on and off the health insurance exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act rose by more than a third compared with 2017. The biggest statewide hikes were in Iowa (88 percent), Utah (78 percent), New Hampshire (78 percent), Wyoming (72 percent), and Virginia (66 percent). The underlying cause of the rate hikes is clear: efforts last year by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress to dismantle the Affordable Care Act — and promises of further attempts in the year ahead.California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Maryland are considering legislation that would recreate the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate by requiring nearly all residents to enroll in a health plan or pay a fee. Massachusetts has a mandate on the books that it said it intends to enforce.Taking a different tack — one that has been endorsed by members of both political parties — Alaska, Minnesota and Oregon have created so-called reinsurance programs designed to cover higher-than-average claims with state money and thereby reduce overall risk for insurance companies so they can offer consumers lower premiums.
The DEA is trying to help rural Americans get better access to addiction treatment. Will its plan work?
Pacific Standard | Posted on January 30, 2018More types of health-care providers—not just doctors—will now be able to apply to prescribe an effective but potentially addictive medicine for treating opioid addiction, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced Tuesday. The rule change was intended to help more Americans, particularly those living in rural areas that lack doctors, get treated for opioid use disorders. "This action provides more treatment options for addicts in rural parts of the country," the DEA said in a press release. Advocates are hailing the change as a good first step, but note that more is needed to make sure it works as expected. Otherwise, it could languish as a regulatory move that makes little practical difference.The new policy allows nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants to prescribe and dispense buprenorphine, a medication that helps people manage cravings, ward off withdrawal, and keep from relapsing. Buprenorphine plus counseling is considered a gold-standard treatment for addiction to prescription painkillers or heroin. But the medication is itself an opioid. It can create a euphoric high when used improperly, and has some street value. That's why anybody in America hoping to prescribe buprenorphine for addiction has to get a special waiver from the DEA, which, until this week, only physicians could apply for.
Veterinarians talk new opioid prescription regulation for pets
WECT | Posted on January 30, 2018Under North Carolina's STOP Act, doctors across the state are changing the way they prescribe opioids. According to Associate Doctor Kara Duffy with Atlantic Animal Hospital, veterinarians are now following suit. Duffy said that the new regulations limit doctors to prescribe just 5 days worth of controlled substances in an effort to curb opioid misuse by owners.“We’ve always kind of just tried to pay attention to how we’re dispensing controlled drugs and making sure that nothing seems suspicious when we’re filling them but we weren’t legally required to do as much as what we’ve done in practice,” she said.Duffy said some prescription medication used by people are also prescribed to pets, especially after surgery or injury. She said that those medications cause the greatest concern of abuse, along with certain anti-anxiety medicines.
Interior cancels decades-old protections for migratory birds
High Country News | Posted on January 30, 2018one recent action by the Interior Department drew unprecedented protest from a bipartisan group of top officials who go all the way back to the Nixon administration: a new legal opinion that attempts to legalize the unintentional killing of most migratory birds. Under the new interpretation, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act forbids only intentional killing – such as hunting or killing birds to get their feathers – without a permit. The administration will no longer apply the act to industries that inadvertently kill a lot of birds through oil drilling, wind power and communications towers. Critics fear that these industries might now end the bird-friendly practices that save large numbers of birds. The 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to kill birds without permission, though hunters can obtain permits. For decades, the threat of prosecution gave industries that unintentionally kill a lot of birds an incentive to collaborate with the federal government on minimizing bird deaths. For instance, hundreds of thousands of birds die each year from getting poisoned or trapped in the toxic muck of drilling companies’ wastewater pits. To remedy this, oil and gas companies can store the waste in closed tanks or put nets over their pits to limit the number of deaths.In other industries, fishing boats that drag long lines with baited hooks accidentally drown albatross, petrel and other seabirds. After working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, fishing companies started attaching weights to their lines so they descend more quickly into the water. At communications towers, neotropical songbirds, especially warblers, are attracted to the steady red lights that warn pilots, and as a result millions are killed each year. So the industry, working with several government agencies, figured out that flashing lights — which don’t attract birds — are just as good at preventing airplane collisions. It’s a cheap fix, because the towers already have strobe lights; they just have to turn off the steady ones.Companies that refused to cooperate risked criminal prosecution. Duke Energy and PacifiCorp Energy both were prosecuted during the Obama administration for failing to take steps to protect birds at their Wyoming wind farms, despite the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s efforts to get them to do so.
New bill would set up rural broadband task force
Agri-Pulse | Posted on January 30, 2018A new bill introduced in the House and Senate would support efforts to advance rural broadband and precision agriculture across the country. The Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act of 2018 would require the Federal Communications Commission to set up a task force to evaluate the effectiveness of existing rural broadband programs, identify gaps in coverage, and develop policy recommendations to address those gaps.The task force also would have to come up with specific actions the FCC, USDA and other agencies can take to fill the coverage gaps.
Walker Proposes $50M In Rural Economic Development
Wisconsin Public Radio | Posted on January 30, 2018Gov. Scott Walker is proposing a new $50 million annual investment in rural economic development projects. On Wednesday, Walker outlined plans to re-purpose a former dairy grant program into a new "Family Farm Fund."The initiative would include low-interest loans for dairy businesses, more money for state marketing efforts, and a new college scholarship program for students to take agriculture classes at state colleges.Walker announced the proposal hours before he was to deliver his State of the State address. He said the new money would primarily be used to stimulate private investment, improve productivity and fill open jobs in rural parts of the state.