Detroit targets old industrial sites to improve neighborhoods
DETROIT — One of the first things 84-year-old Mahalie Wilson sees when she steps out of her home on Detroit's east side is the brick, steel and concrete skeleton of the long-vacant Packard plant that looms over the neighborhood. Built in the early 1900s and still churning out high-end cars into the 1950s, the massive [...]
Add rent to the rising costs bedeviling small businesses
The rent has come due for America’s small businesses and at a very inopportune time. Landlords were lenient about rent payments during the first two years of the pandemic. Now, many are asking for back rent, and some are raising the current rent as well. Meanwhile, most of the government aid programs that helped small [...]
Midwestern farms struggle to increase fish business
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When drastic increases in food costs spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic left Andrew Caplinger struggling to find fresh catfish for his restaurants, he decided to try “an experimental” solution — growing his own. In the coming months, the Indianapolis restaurant chain Caplinger’s Fresh Catch Seafood will begin sourcing its second most popular [...]
Ruling could dampen government efforts to rein in Big Tech
The Supreme Court’s latest climate change ruling could dampen efforts by federal agencies to rein in the tech industry, which went largely unregulated for decades as the government tried to catch up to changes wrought by the internet. In the 6-3 decision that was narrowly tailored to the Environmental Protection Agency, the court ruled June [...]
Challenges await companies covering abortion travel costs
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning its decision in Roe. v. Wade, companies such as Amazon, Disney, Apple and JP Morgan pledged to cover travel costs for employees who live in states where the procedure is now illegal so they can terminate pregnancies. The companies, however, gave scant or no details on how [...]
Ruling leaves dwindling paths for Biden’s climate mission
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 500 days into his presidency, Joe Biden’s hope for saving the Earth from the most devastating effects of climate change may not quite be dead, but it’s not far from it. A Supreme Court ruling last week not only limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate climate pollution by [...]
Researchers use new method to help assess soybean fields
When the algorithms they were using failed them, Ohio State University researchers investigating the source of soybean defoliation came up with their own neural network — a type of artificial intelligence — to help with their work. If adopted widely, the network, which is called Defonet, could transform the agriculture industry’s decision-making process in addressing [...]
Arts Council doles out grants to area cultural organizations
The Greater Columbus Arts Council recently approved approximately $8.5 million in operating support and general support grants for local arts and cultural organizations. The council’s board of trustees awarded 15 general support grants, totaling more than $667,000, and 22 operating support grants, totaling more than $7.9 million. “Funding from the Arts Council will go toward [...]
Many states seek to untangle conflicting abortion legislation
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — In Arizona, Republicans are fighting among themselves over whether a 121-year-old anti-abortion law from the pre-statehood Wild West days, when Arizona was still a frontier mining territory, should be enforced over a 2022 version. In Idaho, meanwhile, it is not clear whether a pair of laws from the early 1970s making [...]