The harvest is plentiful and the workers are robots. That's the plan for some U.S. farms. "A growing number of companies are bringing automation to agriculture. It could ease the sector’s deepening labor shortage, help farmers manage costs, and protect workers from extreme heat."
In most parts of the country, last year's winter was mild. So mild, in fact, Wisconsin snowmobile enthusiasts dubbed it the "lost winter" because there was so little snowfall, reports Cheyenne Kramer of Drovers. "But according to Eric Snodgrass, senior science fellow at Nutrien Ag Solutions, the consensus is that the months ahead are going to look a lot different."
A new approach is helping mothers recovering from opioid addiction and newborns with opioid exposure stay together after birth. Historically, babies born with opioid exposure have been separated from their mothers and received heavy medications in neuro-intensive units, but "research has since indicated that in many, if not most, cases, those extreme measures are unnecessary.
Across the country, rural fire departments are struggling to attract, train and retain volunteer firefighters. In Oglethorpe County, Georgia, the small unincorporated town of Vesta had a fire department facing closure until they put a call out to the community for help.
An Appalachian student from West Virginia heads off to college at the University of Pennsylvania, dubbed "Penn" by most students, and encounters a community where she doesn't know how or when she will ever fit in and keep up with her urban counterparts.
Voters in 41 states will have at least one important item on the ballot this November in addition to all of the local and federal candidates running for office.
Montana's heated senate race between incumbent Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) and first-time Republican candidate Tim Sheehy has put the presidential race in the rearview mirror.
After the H5N1 bird flu virus was detected in California in August, the virus spread aggressively and has infected at least 124 dairy herds and 13 dairy workers, reports Susanne Rust of the Los Angeles Times. "And according to dairy experts, the spread of the virus has yet to abate."
Even as independent pharmacists face low or no profits from medication sales, pharmacy middlemen reimbursements favor large drugstore chains. The Federal Trade Commission and several lawmakers are starting to take aim at prescription benefit managers' power and repayment practices.