Across the country, mom-and-pop markets are among the most endangered of small-town businesses, with competition from corporations and the hurdles of timeworn infrastructure pricing owners out. In Minnesota, 14 percent of nonmetropolitan groceries have closed since 2000. In Kansas, more than 20 percent of rural markets have disappeared in the last decade. Iowa lost half of its groceries between 1995 and 2005. The phenomenon is a “crisis” that is turning America’s breadbaskets into food deserts, said David E. [node:read-more:link]

 U.S.-initiated negotiations to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement are bound to be long and hard. Canadian officials maintain that Mexico is the real target of President Donald Trump’s determination to renegotiate what he considers to be a bad deal for America. Nevertheless, there are a number of issues bound to spark friction between Canada and the United States. Here’s a primer on five of them:Dispute resolution mechanism, Dairy, Wine, Investment, Duty Free Cross Border Shipping. [node:read-more:link]

The most critical commentary came from a columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. A. Barton Hinkle wondered whether state government should even bother trying to help rural communities. “If [rural residents] can improve their economic circumstances by moving to urban areas, then why not let them?” he asked.If that means rural communities depopulate themselves, so what? “You could argue that, environmentally speaking, it might be better to keep some swaths of the state unpopulated,” Hinkle wrote. [node:read-more:link]

The efforts of eight states to enact work requirements for Medicaid recipients could create special problems for rural participants, according to a new study.  Researchers Andrew Schaefer and Jessica Carson at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire found that one in four of potentially impacted Medicaid participants already worked at least part of the previous year or were motivated to work but could not find a job.“As state policymakers consider Medicaid-related work requirements, it is worthwh [node:read-more:link]

When communities sit down to set economic goals, they should expect realistic results. Communities may get excited about attracting data centers, for example, which you can’t entice without high-speed Internet. But data centers don’t require a lot of workers, it’s easy to lose money operating them. On the other hand, such a business could generate other jobs indirectly. [node:read-more:link]

In the last six years, three small towns in northeast Iowa have built whitewater courses, creating an unlikely Mecca for paddling and tubing enthusiasts in the Midwest. The projects get credit for helping support local economies and reviving the region’s historical focus on waterways. In all, three towns, the courses run through the middle of downtown, which makes for a unique whitewater experience. “When you’re in the wave, you look up river to the stone bridge and through the waterfalls up river,” says Pollock. [node:read-more:link]

Ask advocates of marijuana legalization how their cause fared during the 2017 state legislative sessions and they’ll tell you that though the gains were incremental, they’re hopeful that several legislatures will eventually make possession and sale of the federally prohibited drug legal. [node:read-more:link]

Massachusetts police do not have the authority to detain illegal immigrants solely to buy time for federal law enforcement officials to take them into custody the state's top court ruled.  The decision amounts to a rejection of requests by the federal Immigration and Customs and Enforcement agency for courts and law enforcement agencies to hold illegal immigrants, who are facing civil deportation orders, in custody for up to 48 hours after their cases are resolved. [node:read-more:link]

The price of marijuana is going up — for Ohio taxpayers.The State Controlling Board, a legislative panel that oversees state expenditures, on Monday approved an additional $6 million to pay for startup expenses for the Ohio Medical Marijuana Program. That brings the total to about $11 million so far that taxpayers have paid for the program. In separate votes, the board approved an additional $1.6 million for the Ohio Board of Pharmacy and $4.4 million for the Ohio Commerce Department. [node:read-more:link]

The Trump administration is proposing to completely repeal Obama-era standards governing hydraulic fracturing on federal land. The proposal from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is due to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register.The landmark 2015 regulation set standards in areas such as disclosure of fracking chemicals and integrity of well casing.It was the Obama administration’s attempt to update decades-old regulations to account for the explosive growth in fracking for oil and natural gas in recent years. [node:read-more:link]