ALICE: Study of Financial Hardship-Pacific Northwest: Idaho, Oregon and Washington

Through a series of new, standardized measurements, the United Way ALICE Reports present a broad picture of financial insecurity at the county and town level, and the reasons for why. What we found was startling -- the size of the workforce in each state that is struggling financially is much higher than traditional federal poverty guidelines suggest. The United Way ALICE Project is a grassroots movement stimulating a fresh, nonpartisan national dialogue about how to reverse the trend and improve conditions for this growing population of families living paycheck to paycheck

ALICE: Study of Financial Hardship-Louisiana

Through a series of new, standardized measurements, the United Way ALICE Reports present a broad picture of financial insecurity at the county and town level, and the reasons for why. What we found was startling -- the size of the workforce in each state that is struggling financially is much higher than traditional federal poverty guidelines suggest. The United Way ALICE Project is a grassroots movement stimulating a fresh, nonpartisan national dialogue about how to reverse the trend and improve conditions for this growing population of families living paycheck to paycheck

‘The Rest is Silence’:Psychogeography, Soundscape and Nostalgia in Pat Collins’ Silence

Guy Debord defines the term psychogeography as 'the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals' (Debord 1955: 23). Similar to the belief of psychogeographers that the geography of an environment has a psychological effect on the human mind, proponents of acoustic ecology such as R. Murray Schafer hold that humans are affected by the sound of the environment in which they find themselves. Further to this, they examine the extent to which soundscapes can be shaped by human behaviour. Recently a body of Irish films has emerged that directly engages with the Irish soundscape and landscape on a psychogeographical level. Rather than using landscape as a physical space for the locus of action, these representations of the Irish landscape allow for an engagement with the aesthetic effects of the geographical landscape as a reflection of the psychological states of the protagonists. Bearing this in mind, this article examines how Silence (Collins 2012) arguably demonstrates the most overt and conscious incursion into this area to date. It specifically interrogates how the filmic representation of the psychogeography and soundscape of the Irish rural landscape can serve to express emotion, alienation and nostalgia, thus confronting both the Irish landscape and the weight of its associated history

Alice in the Crosscurrents: An Update on Financial Hardship in Mississippi

The report Alice in the Crosscurrents: An Update on Financial Hardship in Mississippi highlights that financial hardship remains a significant issue in Mississippi, with 52% of households below the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) Threshold in 2022. While the number of households in poverty decreased slightly, the number of ALICE households increased, indicating that many working families struggle to meet basic needs. Key factors include rising costs of living, the expiration of pandemic-related assistance, and wage increases that have not kept pace with inflation. Certain groups, including single-parent families, elderly households, and communities of color, face disproportionately high levels of financial hardship. The report emphasizes the need for systemic policy changes and cross-sector collaboration to address financial instability

U.S. Billion-ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry

The Report, Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply (generally referred to as the Billion-Ton Study or 2005 BTS), was an estimate of “potential” biomass within the contiguous United States based on numerous assumptions about current and future inventory and production capacity, availability, and technology. In the 2005 BTS, a strategic analysis was undertaken to determine if U.S. agriculture and forest resources have the capability to potentially produce at least one billion dry tons of biomass annually, in a sustainable manner—enough to displace approximately 30% of the country’s present petroleum consumption. To ensure reasonable confidence in the study results, an effort was made to use relatively conservative assumptions. However, for both agriculture and forestry, the resource potential was not restricted by price. That is, all identified biomass was potentially available, even though some potential feedstock would more than likely be too expensive to actually be economically available. In addition to updating the 2005 study, this report attempts to address a number of its shortcoming

Panel Review of the USGS 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Time-Independent Earthquake Rupture Forecast

In August 2024, the NSHM Steering Committee appointed a 14-member panel to review the time-independent earthquake rupture forecast (ERF) for the 2025 update of the Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands (PRVI) component of the National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM). This report summarizes the Panel’s findings and recommendations. The primary materials for Panel review were nine papers documenting the PRVI25-ERF draft model. The Panel was also informed about the ERF updating process in three briefings by the USGS development team. The PRVI25-ERF model is a substantial improvement over the current model, which was released in 2003. The USGS Team has incorporated substantial new information obtained about the region and its tectonic environment over the past twenty years, and they have combined this information with state-of-the-art probabilistic seismic hazard modeling techniques to produce a complete probabilistic ERF that, for the most part, reflects the best available earthquake science. The publications and reports on the model development are generally excellent and comprehensive. State-of-the-art techniques have been employed in the neotectonic and paleoseismic evaluations of fault activity, in the analysis of earthquake catalogs, and in the incorporation of slip-rate estimates from geodetically constrained tectonic block models. The model of fault slip rates has been generalized to a probabilistic representation, and the epistemic uncertainties of these rates have been incorporated into the logic-tree formulation using a novel stochastic sampling method. The fault system inversion techniques developed for the CONUS-ERF23 have been successfully applied to the PRVI fault systems. The Panel raised questions about the adequacy of the PRVI seismicity data, which are compromised by magnitude inconsistencies; the structure of the crustal fault model and its accommodation of strain partitioning; the weakness of the geodetic constraints on seismic coupling factors; and the low amplitudes of the epistemic uncertainties derived from the ERF logic tree. Several of the Panel’s 16 actionable recommendations are directed towards a more complete assessment of the ERF uncertainties. Of particular concern is the bias and uncertainty related to the seismic coupling factors. The Panel also offers 19 aspirational recommendations for model improvements that could be implemented in future PRVI updates. The Panel recommends that, after suitable responses to the actionable recommendations in this review, the PRVI25-ERF model should be adopted as a component of the NSHM

Addendum to Panel Review of the USGS 2025 Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Time-Independent Earthquake Rupture Forecast

In its April 2025 review of the earthquake rupture forecast (ERF) proposed for the Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands component of the NSHM (PRVI25-ERF-beta2), the ERF Review Panel made 16 actionable recommendations for improving and validating the ERF prior to its official release. The Panel also offered 19 aspirational recommendations for model improvements to be considered in future PRVI updates. The USGS Team provided the Panel with their written responses to the 16 actionable recommendations at the end of May 2025. The Team has subsequently made a series of major revisions the ERF. In this addendum to its April report, the Panel assesses the main changes to the reviewed model, focusing on the USGS implementation of the Panel’s actionable recommendations and two model modifications: the use of a surrogate event procedure to relocate earthquakes assigned fixed depths in the catalog, and new logic-tree branching level to represent the uncertainty of the intraslab Mmax. The Panel recommends that the revised ERF be adopted as a PRVI component of the NSHM