Kathleen Ann Rhoad Kathleen Ann Rhoad passed away peacefully
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Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
My students don't have a local newspaper. Making their own changed everything.
As a pre-teen, I explored features neighboring the comics: horoscopes and advice columns. (For the record, dear readers, I never agreed with Ann Landers on how to hang toilet paper.) Later came movie listings to set up dates and classified ads to find summer jobs. As an English major, I eagerly awaited the book and movie reviews as much as I once had anticipated the arrival of the Sunday comics. By college, I had graduated from sitting cross-legged on the floor with the funnies to sitting at the kitchen table, legs crossed, with the arts section and a cup of coffee. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up On occasion, I thrilled to see my name published as part of my high school's graduating class or my college's Dean's List. Sometimes, there were candid shots of me or friends at a public event we had attended. Such mentions were small but significant gestures on our newspaper's part to show its readers, not only that we were seen, but that our existence mattered. Advertisement In time, my reading habits expanded to include the front-page news, and I was so hooked on print that I became a reporter. The job was not glamorous: I mostly attended government meetings and listened to police scanners, but I provided a service by recording daily small-town history. The more I spoke to residents, the more I came to care for them, and I hoped that, through my coverage, my readers would know that they mattered to me. Advertisement I kept each of my bylined stories and placed them neatly in a binder. To me, they were gold. That was the old way. Little of it proved sustainable when news readership declined and many small newspapers were bought out by hedge funds and media conglomerates. For subscribers today, news usually arrives on a screen instead of at a doorstep. I now teach high school English in Sharon, and it pains me that there's often no household print edition for students to grow up with. The news they read, if they read the news, largely comes from social media and shared memes. Recently, I started teaching journalism and advising the school newspaper club. I didn't expect my old reporter instincts to kick in. Soon, the school became my 'beat.' I suddenly made time for varied conversations with colleagues and students. I began to ask more questions. Who is that student — the table tennis champion? What's that new teacher working on? Tell me all about that School Committee proposal to institute club fees. Even better, my journalism students are asking such questions. They're even watching local government meetings. Their town became a news desert in recent years, and my students are jumping in to fill the void, with stories about the arrival of a nearby Costco and the building of a new library and the opening of new restaurants. Advertisement Although we regularly publish stories digitally, my newspaper club students longed to create a full print edition; they wanted something tangible: something to herald their presence and relevance to the community. Our first print edition came out this spring, and when I distributed copies to my sophomore English classes, students completely hushed, absorbed in the stories and the photographs, intrigued by the crossword puzzle that was created by a graduating senior. After about 20 minutes, I could hear them whispering to each other. One student had read a restaurant review and concurred, 'The pad Thai is so good.' Another read a story about the local history of nearby Lake Massapoag and cried out, 'There was an ice house there?' And another exclaimed, 'There are book reviews!' Some asked how to join the newspaper staff. One girl said that reading the paper made her feel 'professional.' For a few minutes, I was transported to the old days, when printed local news was something we could physically hold onto and when readers felt that their hometown lives had been documented. They had been seen. Lori Ayotte is a Massachusetts public school English teacher and a freelance writer. Send comments to magazine@
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Washington Post
Oaxacan family welcomes DACA recipient back to Mexico
World Oaxacan family welcomes DACA recipient back to Mexico August 18, 2025 | 1:33 PM GMT Lidia Sánchez was welcomed home in Oaxaca with a community lunch. She was a DACA recipient in L.A. and moved back with her three kids and mother-in-law.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Another gold rush could bring open pit mines to South Dakota's Black Hills
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A gold rush brought settlers to South Dakota's Black Hills about 150 years ago, chasing the dream of wealth and displacing Native Americans in the process. Now, a new crop of miners driven by gold prices at more than $3,000 an ounce is seeking to return to the treasured landscape, promising an economic boost while raising fears of how modern gold extraction could forever change the region. 'These impacts can be long term and make it so that tourism and outdoor recreation is negatively impacted,' said Lilias Jarding, executive director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. 'Our enjoyment of the Black Hills as a peaceful place, a sacred place, is disturbed.' The Black Hills encompass more than 1.2 million acres, rising up from the Great Plains in southwest South Dakota and extending into Wyoming. The jagged peaks are smaller than those of the Rocky Mountains, but the lush pine-covered hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux people and serve as a destination for millions of tourists who visit Mt. Rushmore and state parks. One gold mine now operates in the Black Hills, but companies have proposals before state and federal agencies for another one, plus exploratory drilling sites that they hope will lead to full-fledged mines. That has prompted opposition by Native American tribes and environmentalists who argue the projects are close to sacred sites, will contaminate waterways and will permanently scar the landscape. Gold extraction has changed dramatically in the decades since prospectors first began panning for gold in the Black Hills. The industry now typically relies on massive trucks and diggers that create deep, multitiered pits and use chemicals including cyanide to extract the gold. The land can never return to its original state. The Homestake mine, once the largest and deepest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere, now sits barren in Lead, S.D., and is used for scientific research. Interest in Black Hills gold mining has soared along with the price of the metal. When the Homestake mine closed in 2002, gold sold for about $300 an ounce. Now it goes for about 10 times as much. Joseph Cavatoni, senior market strategist at the World Gold Council, attributes the price surge to global economic uncertainty. 'Gold tends to be a stable asset,' he said. 'That actually performs well in inflationary times and holds its value in recessionary times. That's why gold as an asset in investment.' President Trump also boosted the industry by issuing an executive order in March to increase American mineral production, calling for expedited permitting and reviews. Colin Paterson, professor emeritus of geological engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, notes that Black Hills gold is encased in rock. To extract it, the rock is crushed and then a chemical such as cyanide is used to dissolve the mineral and remove it. Coeur Mining runs the single active mine in the Black Hills, but the company Dakota Gold has plans for an open pit mine to begin operating in 2029. Dakota Gold is also targeting the area near the old Homestake site to build an underground mine where workers would descend hundreds or even thousands of feet into shafts. Jack Henris, president and chief operating officer of Dakota Gold, estimated the open pit mine would create up to 250 jobs and result in the company paying the state up to $400 million in taxes over the life of the mine. Dakota Gold will conduct an environmental study and surveys of soil and vegetation to ensure safe operation, Henris said. 'Most of the people that work here are from this area and just love to live here,' he said. 'So we're a big part of the hills and we love them just as much as other folks.' To a great extent, gold mining helped create the modern Black Hills region. The U.S. government signed a treaty in 1868 that recognized the Sioux Nation's right to the Black Hills, but the government seized the land after the discovery of gold and allowed settlers into the region. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the Sioux were entitled to compensation, but they have not accepted any and maintain their claim to the land. Tribes have largely opposed mining in the Black Hills. 'There's a central truth about mining in the Black Hills in that it was never the most mineral-rich place there ever was,' said Taylor Gunhammer, local organizer with the Indigenous advocacy group NDN Collective and an Oglala Sioux, one of the Lakota people. 'It's not even the actual mineral content of the Black Hills that is so attractive to mining companies. It's the permissive nature of the officials who oversee mining.' Some proposed projects, such as Dakota Gold's mine, are on private land and subject only to state rules, not the U.S. Forest Service regulations required for projects on public acreage. Environmentalists have focused their opposition on the possibility of chemicals leaks. They note that Coeur's Wharf mine has had nearly 200 spills and that the former Homestake mine was closed because it contaminated a nearby creek. Coeur's environmental manager, Jasmine McCauley, said in a statement that each spill was 'thoroughly investigated, mitigated, and corrective actions are put in place to prevent reoccurrence.' The company is always improving its processes, she added. Jarding, of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, said she remains concerned about the number of projects in the works. 'It's really important that people understand the exponential growth in mining activity that's been happening in the Black Hills over the last five years or so,' Jarding said. 'There are currently active mining claims on 271,000 acres in the Black Hills. That's 20% of the whole Black Hills that is potentially going to be subject to mining.' Raza writes for the Associated Press.
