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Some former coal towns turn to nature tourism as a new economic driver

Some former coal towns turn to nature tourism as a new economic driver

"There’s a national storyline about West Virginia and parts of Pennsylvania, and it goes something like this: As the steel and coal industries fade, small towns are dying out. But for the past twenty years, some entrepreneurs have quietly been working on a different narrative, one that harnesses the natural beauty in these areas to build the economy. About 10 years ago, after being downsized from a job in computer sales, Rod Darby wanted control of his career. He drew up a business plan for a pub and restaurant in West Newton, a small Pennsylvania town along the still-developing Great Allegheny Passage. The GAP bike trail, as its known, stretches 150 miles, from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland. Darby shopped his pub idea around."

Black Lung Study Finds Biggest Cluster Ever Of Fatal Coal Miners’ Disease

Black Lung Study Finds Biggest Cluster Ever Of Fatal Coal Miners’ Disease

"Epidemiologists at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health say they've identified the largest cluster of advanced black lung disease ever reported, a cluster that was first uncovered by NPR 14 months ago. In a research letter published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, NIOSH confirms 416 cases of progressive massive fibrosis or complicated black lung in three clinics in central Appalachia from 2013 to 2017. "This is the largest cluster of progressive massive fibrosis ever reported in the scientific literature," says Scott Laney, a NIOSH epidemiologist involved in the study. "We've gone from having nearly eradicated PMF in the mid-1990s to the highest concentration of cases that anyone has ever seen," he said.