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Based on “Featured News”.

Opportunity zone funders look to help distressed small towns

Potential tax breaks are encouraging both corporate and private investors to raise tens of billions of dollars this year to invest in distressed rural areas. President Trump’s 2017 tax package includes these tax breaks for “opportunity zones,” which are designated areas around the country—and largely in rural America …

Affordable housing in California remains elusive

Although California lawmakers in 2017 passed several bills to ease housing construction across the state, affordable rental units remain out of reach for many low-income residents. In a new report by the California Housing Partnership, about two-thirds of the more than two million very low-income renters in the state spend more than half their income on rent.

How clean is US groundwater? Researchers remain uncertain

Although the U.S. federal government has monitored the country’s groundwater for the last 30 years, scientists say that only now can they begin to understand long-term pollution in the largest aquifers. The U.S. Geological Survey’s National Water Quality Assessment says concentrations of chloride and sodium are on the increase, and in California, nitrate levels are climbing, according to Circle of Blue.