December 19, 2025

In Heart of Rand Paul Territory, Public Investment For Public Purposes

by Keith Schneider0

BOWLING GREEN, KY. – When Gary Ransdell, the president of Western Kentucky University, invites alumni to view this city’s redeveloping downtown from his hilltop campus, the response is almost always exclamations of surprise. Just below domed Cherry Hall, one of the 108-year-old university’s grandest buildings, are nearly 200,000 square feet of new student housing, built at a cost of $24 million. There’s also a 30,000 square foot, $10 million alumni center, and a 72,500 square-foot …

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Olmsted Locks and Dam, Despite $Billions in Overruns, Keeps Rolling Along

by Keith Schneider0

OLMSTED, Ill. –- Engineers constructing the mammoth Olmsted Locks and Dam spent the summer of 2014 lowering colossal concrete blocks in place on the bottom of the Ohio River. Submerging each piece, which form the base of a half-mile long dam that is largely underwater, is an exacting convergence of digital measurements, floating cranes, groaning towboats, and divers working in murky waters that takes over two weeks to complete. Like everything else about the two …

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World Water Week Beckons For Answers To Scarcity, Pollution, Security

by Keith Schneider0

STOCKHOLM — Of all the world’s developed nations, none faces a more urgent confrontation between rising energy demand and scarce water supplies than South Africa. Just as in other desert African nations, parched South Africa is desperate to generate more energy while somehow bypassing ecological limits on its water supply. One in every ten of South Africa’s 51 million residents do not have ready access to clean supplies of drinking water, according Christine Colvin, a …

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In Detroit, Scales of Finance and Fairness Have Tipped Over

by Keith Schneider0

On July 18, 2013 Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, acted on the remarkably broad authorities afforded him by an eight-month-old state law and filed a petition to launch the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Orr’s intent, he said, was to reduce the beleaguered city’s operating costs, reduce the cost of servicing the city’s debt, and set Detroit on a fresh course to redevelopment and prosperity. During a news conference that evening, Detroit’s elected one-term …

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Circle of Blue Honored by Society of Environmental Journalists

by Keith Schneider0

Credit: Photo © Matt Black / Circle of Blue Kettleman City resident Maria Salcedo’s ten-month-old daughter, Ashley Alvarez, died from complications stemming from multiple birth defects during a rash of such occurrences between 2007 and 2008 in this small farmworker town in the Central Valley. Contaminated drinking water is viewed as one of the potential causes. Photo © Matt Black / Circle of Blue. Click image to enlarge.   Circle of Blue, where I’ve worked …

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Louisville and Carmel in New York Times Articles That Confirm First Principle of U.S. Economic Development

by Keith Schneider1

CARMEL, Ind. – James Brainard, the 60-year-old mayor of Carmel, Indiana, is not the kind of public official who deplores change. He’s just the opposite, in fact. In 1994, this prosperous suburb just north of Indianapolis held a planning workshop, inviting its 31,000 residents to consider ideas to redevelop Carmel’s crossroads downtown, parts of which date to the city’s founding in 1830. The next year Mr. Brainard, a moderate Republican, was elected to the first …

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ROMP Bluegrass Festival Honors The Masters and Advances Compelling New Artists

by Keith Schneider7

OWENSBORO, KY — Bill Monroe, a virtuoso mandolin player and the father of bluegrass music, was born in 1911 and raised on a ridgetop near Rosine, Kentucky about 40 miles south of the bluff on the Ohio River where Owensboro is located. With every passing year the connection between Monroe, his birthplace, and this river city gets closer. That’s never more true than during the last weekend in June when Owensboro hosts ROMP, the River …

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LeBron James’ Letter Is Celebration of Superb Writing

by Keith Schneider1

Four years ago, when he both challenged the self-effacing values of his Midwestern roots and embraced the youthful self-absorption of his generation, LeBron James announced his departure from Cleveland in a nationally televised broadcast viewed by millions. I was in a diner in Antrim County, Michigan watching the interview while hydrating with a cool beer after a 60-mile summer bike ride. On Friday James explained his return to Northeast Ohio, his intent to finish his …

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Narendra Modi, India’s New Prime Minister, Can’t Overlook Faltering Energy Production

by Keith Schneider0

India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept into office in May on a message of aspiration, and a reputation for action. During the nearly 13 years that Modi served as chief minister of Gujarat, before arriving in New Delhi, his successes included drastically curtailing the number of hours that manufacturers in India’s premier industrial state went without electricity. The state’s transmission grid was strengthened and Modi promoted the development of 900 megawatts of solar generating …

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Peru’s Recession and Insurgency Revives Its Democracy; Example For the U.S.?

by Keith Schneider2

CAJAMARCA, Peru – North of Lima, 350 miles, this regional capital is spread across a high mountain valley near the northern terminus of the Andes Mountains. Spanish conquistadors began their conquest of Latin America here in the early 16th century when they murdered the last Incan emperor. The room where the Incan chief is said to have spent his last days is a half-block from Cajamarca’s central square. Roman Catholic cathedrals flank the southern and …

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