All posts tagged: Rural

Irish government loses key rural voice in surprise resignation amid fuel-price fury – POLITICO

Irish government loses key rural voice in surprise resignation amid fuel-price fury – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Rising to his feet from the government benches, Healy-Rae said he’d spent Monday night talking to aggrieved voters in the Plough Bar in his County Kerry constituency — and had come away persuaded he should stop supporting Martin. “I met tractor men, lorry men, farmers, telling me how unhappy they were. The leader of the country should have listened,” Healy-Rae told a hushed chamber. “Because I believe this government have let the people of Ireland down, I will be voting no confidence in the leader of the country, and I will be tendering my resignation as a minister of state from now,” he said. Healy-Rae accused the government of lacking sympathy for farmers and truckers struggling to pay runaway diesel prices. “People cried at the protests — and they were workers! They were respectable people!” he shouted. He then exited the Leinster House parliamentary building to cheers from the hundreds of fuel-price protesters, mostly middle-aged men, who had gathered outside behind security barriers. Healy-Rae — who invariably dons an Irish flat cap — is the …

Smart tech is recharging rural Europe

Smart tech is recharging rural Europe

Published by skeptic

Improved connectivity is transforming daily life in rural Europe, from safer school runs to cleaner energy, while supporting local economies and cutting emissions. Getting children ready and on time for school can be stressful. In Finnish Lapland, where winters are long and snowy and some students travel long distances by bus, the challenge is even greater. In two Lapland communities, a school transport app developed through an EU-funded initiative called AURORAL has streamlined school bus pick-ups, reducing morning stress for parents and making life easier for bus drivers. Behind the app lies a digital backbone developed by the AURORAL team. This shared foundation allows all kinds of rural services – from school buses to dairy farms and local energy schemes – to plug in, share data securely and work together, without each community having to build its own system. Using the Koulukyyti app, parents in the municipalities of Kemi and Tornio can see at a glance if their children, aged 6 to 15, have arrived safely at school. Bus drivers get instant alerts if a …

FEMA funds delayed by Trump admin leave rural towns in peril : NPR

FEMA funds delayed by Trump admin leave rural towns in peril : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

A neighborhood near Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is flooded in September 2011, after heavy rain caused the Susquehanna River to rise dramatically. Mel Evans/AP hide caption toggle caption Mel Evans/AP The town of Duryea, Pa., is on the banks of the Lackawanna River. Residents can see the low, placid water from their churches, schools and houses. But when there’s a lot of rain, the river rises and can cause catastrophic flooding. Since the 1970s, a tall earthen levee has protected Duryea from floodwaters. But the river gets higher than it used to. Changes in the river due to development, combined with the effects of climate change, which makes heavy rain more common, mean that Duryea faces more water now than in the past. “We are seeing increased storms and increased water volumes,” says Laura Holbrook, the director of the flood protection authority for Luzerne County, Pa., where the town is located. The levee in Duryea needs to be raised by about 3 feet to adequately protect the town, she explains. The clock is ticking to get the …

I finally switched to Starlink — it fixed my rural internet and costs less than I expected

I finally switched to Starlink — it fixed my rural internet and costs less than I expected

Published by skeptic

I’d been with the same local cable provider for many years. The service worked, the price remained predictable, and switching to satellite internet felt like a hassle involving upfront costs I was not interested in paying. Then, slowly, my provider hiked the rates. With each passing year, the service seems to degrade as the bill grows. My neighbor couldn’t stop talking about his Starlink setup, and I decided to try it. Worst case, I’d send it back within the 30-day window. I didn’t send it back. Related I separated my 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands and I should have done it sooner A simple router setting was holding back my home network’s full potential, and I wish I’d made this change sooner. What made me finally pull the trigger? One bill undid years of cable inertia. The yearly rate hike became the tipping point that prompted me to explore alternatives. The rate hike wasn’t dramatic. It was the principal, the reminder that I was stuck in a relationship with a company that lacked the incentive to …

Orbán’s still winning over older rural voters — but not the young – POLITICO

Orbán’s still winning over older rural voters — but not the young – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Yet, Tisza is sure this time will be different, partly because it’s fielding local star László Gajdos as its main candidate here. Hungarians cast two votes — one for the national party list and another for their preferred candidate in single-member district constituencies. Of the 199 seats in the National Assembly, 106 are filled by winners of the district races, while the remaining 93 seats are distributed among winners of the party lists. And Gajdos, a highly popular director of the Nyíregyháza Zoo, is running on both. Even pro-Fidesz observers like Mráz Ágoston Sámuel, director of the research consultancy Nézőpont Institute, expect Tisza to win more national list seats “because opposition voters are very much concentrated in the cities, especially in Budapest. From the party list, we estimate Fidesz will get about 40 seats,” he told POLITICO. But the real fight will be in the districts, and Fidesz will still win the majority there, he said. Tisza disagrees. Péter Lajos Szakács, one of the party’s candidates in Nyíregyháza, told POLITICO he’s confident the party will …

California GOP Lawmakers Are Incensed Over a Gas Tax Study. Rural Groups Say They Need It

California GOP Lawmakers Are Incensed Over a Gas Tax Study. Rural Groups Say They Need It

Published by Sam Flores

For more than a month, Republican lawmakers in California have blasted a legislative proposal to study alternatives to the state’s gas tax, declaring it a dishonest ploy by Democrats to hike taxes on drivers — a claim that’s gone viral on social media and is frequently repeated by conservatives nationally. Ironically, though, several of California’s biggest conservative interest groups and rural Republican officials support the legislation, some from the very districts those critical GOP lawmakers represent. Assembly Bill 1421, introduced by Assembly Transportation Chair Lori Wilson, a Suisun City Democrat, would order the California Transportation Commission to summarize all existing research and recommendations on how to charge drivers by how much they use the road instead of how much fuel they consume. With the shrinking revenue and growing road needs, the commission concluded that the state could fall $216 billion short of what is needed for maintenance over the next 10 years, which means roads and highways could fall further into disrepair. “(The bill) responds to a reality that we can no longer ignore,” Wilson …

ESA funding call to strengthen rural transportation networks

ESA funding call to strengthen rural transportation networks

Published by skeptic

A new European Space Agency (ESA) programme offers up to €75,000 per study to support satellite-enabled solutions for Europe’s transportation systems. ESA’s new funding call aims to improve rural transportation networks across Europe and partner countries, inviting businesses to develop space-enabled services that address long-standing mobility challenges in remote areas. The initiative, released under ESA’s “Kick-starts” programme, focuses on early-stage concepts that integrate satellite data and space technologies into transportation systems serving rural communities. Selected teams can receive up to 75% co-funding from ESA, capped at €75,000 per project, to conduct feasibility studies lasting 6 months. Addressing structural gaps in rural connectivity Rural transportation networks remain critical for linking remote communities with economic centres, healthcare services and supply chains. Yet these systems often operate under constraints including sparse populations, limited infrastructure investment and difficult terrain. Across Europe, policymakers have stepped up efforts to close these gaps. Funding streams such as the EU Cohesion Policy and the UK Government’s Future of Transport: Rural Strategy reflect broader attempts to modernise transportation systems while supporting ageing populations and …

China’s retired rural workers are finding rest impossible

China’s retired rural workers are finding rest impossible

Published by Sam Flores

Wearing an ushanka and an anorak, Zhang Huahua (name has been changed), age 63, hunched over, her face weathered by the years, and struggled to push her floor-cleaning machine across the basalt tiles of Beijing’s trendy Sanlitun Soho district. “The hardest part is setting up. The supervisor gives us extension cords that are too short, so we have to connect them end to end, sometimes for 40 meters, crouching down,” she explained. Before becoming a cleaner and scrubbing up the vomit left by Beijing’s night owls at dawn, Zhang produced cashmere. “My husband and I raised 700 goats near Chifeng, in Inner Mongolia. But the authorities imposed longer and longer bans on grazing, and we no longer had enough money to buy extra fodder, not to mention the cost of medicine. With the price of wool still falling, we sold off the animals and that’s how I ended up here.” Zhang is paid 4,000 yuan a month (€488) for days that stretch from 7 am to 10 pm, six days a week, and rents a …

Tell us: how well is your rural community adapting to extreme weather? | UK weather

Tell us: how well is your rural community adapting to extreme weather? | UK weather

Published by Jenni Sidey

Persistent rain and repeated flooding are testing the resilience of rural communities across the UK, impacting daily life, work and people’s livelihoods. In recent years, repeated storms and long periods of rain have overwhelmed drainage systems, cut off villages, damaged roads and disrupted power and broadband services. Scientists warn that heavier winter rainfall is arriving earlier than expected, while councils and the Environment Agency face funding pressures and difficult decisions about where to prioritise protection. We would like to hear from people living in rural areas about how resilient your community feels to climate change. Have flood defences been strengthened? Are roads repeatedly flooded? Are businesses struggling because of unreliable infrastructure? How is it impacting your work and livelihood? Do you feel enough is being done to prepare for more frequent extreme weather? Though we’d like to hear from you, your safety and security are most important. When recording, or sharing your content with us, please put your welfare and the welfare of others first. Extreme weather events can be very unpredictable and carry very …

Rural MPs accuse regulator of ‘gaslighting’ countryside communities | Politics | News

Rural MPs accuse regulator of ‘gaslighting’ countryside communities | Politics | News

Published by Sam Flores

Rural MPs have accused regulator Ofcom and mobile operators of “gaslighting” countryside communities over the state of signal coverage. They warned that official statistics do not reflect everyday reality in large parts of Britain. MPs have argued that dropped calls, dead zones and failing card machines remain routine despite official data suggesting progress. Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said one constituent had told her that “finding 4G is like striking gold”.  She added that rural residents “have to put up with being gaslighted by the companies saying the signal is fine” despite their daily experience suggesting otherwise. Gaslighting refers to when someone manipulates you into doubting your reality. John Lamont, the Conservative MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, said unreliable coverage was “deepening the divide between rural and urban Britain”, adding that rural communities “do not seek special treatment, only fair treatment”. Regulator Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations report showed urban 5G site coverage at 48% and suburban at 38%, rural coverage has edged up only marginally from 16% to 20%, with …