Ticks, including the dreaded lone star, becoming a concern over wider region of the country; season could last into fall

At top, the female lone star tick exhibits a “star” 

on her back (CDC image), and above, the male is 

black and red (Erik Kartis via Unsplash.com).

It’s tick season and public health officials are urging caution over a wider region of the country, particularly with respect to the lone star tick with a bite that can cause a red-meat allergy, or Alpha-Gal Syndrome. While the risk is still believed to be low, Maggie Astor reports in the New York Times that the spread of alpha-gal has increased in recent years due to a “warmer climate, land use changes and growing deer populations.”

Residents of the Northeast should be more concerned about blacklegged ticks and the spread of Lyme disease, Astor reports, but being aware is important still. The lone star is prevalent mainly in the South. Experts quoted in the story note the aggressive nature of lone star ticks, which “seek people out by sensing carbon dioxide … and may travel a few meters in pursuit.” Blacklegged ticks generally wait for contact.

For Stateline.org, Amanda Wartford reports an increase in emergency room visits for tick bites this year, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “This year’s current figures are preliminary and subject to change, but if they hold, this year’s rate may be the highest since 2017.” More states are increasing their monitoring of tick bites, so public health officials can make more accurate predictions.

Due to warmer weather across the country, tick season is expected to last into the fall.

Consumers turning to local growers for produce as investigators seek source of intestinal virus

Consumers are turning to produce from local farmers 

in light of a quickly spreading intestinal virus. (Shelly Paul, Unsplash.com)

The source of a virus quickly spreading throughout the United States has yet to be identified, though lettuce is believed to be a likely suspect. The Food and Drug Administration identifies Cyclosporiasis as an intestinal illness caused by parasites associated with all kinds of fresh produce. It occurs only in humans and the most common symptom is diarrhea. 

Produce farmers are facing scrutiny as investigators look into their methods and hygiene, and as consumers turn to trusted local growers, reports Austin Mirmina in CT Insider. Mirmina visited the DeFrancesco farm in Northford, CT, and learned that the farm’s produce stand has been very busy. “I noticed yesterday our lettuce cooler was completely cleared out,” said co-owner Mike DeFrancesco. “I’m seeing a lot of people buying three or four heads of lettuce at a time, when normally people would buy just one head.”

Sara Moniuszko reports in USA Today that as of July 15, 1,645 cases of the illness had been confirmed with more than 5,100 being investigated across 34 states. A cluster of cases in Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia are likely linked, according to the CDC. The outbreak in those states is believed to be directly tied to shredded lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants and distributed by Taylor Farms.

Jamey Lee reports in Market Watch that the illness may have more than once source and might not end until August, and this outbreak appears to be the largest on record.

Bill to increase black lung benefits gets bipartisan local support, faces uphill climb in Congress

Black lung disease, as depicted in the above 

X-ray photo, has affected thousands of coal miners. 

Efforts to increase those benefits have been ongoing 

but have thus far failed. (Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com)

Efforts to increase benefits to coal miners suffering from pneumoconiosis, commonly known as “black lung disease,” have stalled in Congress despite bipartisan support at the local level across coal-producing states. Liam Niemeyer reports in the Kentucky Lantern that “dozens of county and city governments — comprised of both Republicans and Democratic leaders — across multiple Appalachian states have passed resolutions to urge an increase in benefits to support the approximately 25,000 recipients of black lung disability benefits.”

The Save Our Miners Act was introduced June 30. The Lantern story notes that it “would seek to increase benefits all the way back to the same funding level, relative to inflation, as miners received in 1969.” The average monthly benefit in 2026 is $794 or about two thirds of what the check would have been in 1970, adjusted for inflation. But while local officials from both parties sound the alarm, partisan ideologies on Capitol Hill have prevented change.

The trust fund pays miners when coal companies deemed responsible can’t be identified or have gone out of business. The revenue comes from a tax on mined coal. “That fund has taken on hundreds of millions of benefit liabilities because of coal mine bankruptcies, a larger trend seen with the rapid decline in the state’s coal mining industry,” Niemeyer reports.

Republicans are hesitant to support the increased spending, citing concerns about the solvency of the fund, and they accuse Democrats of waging a war on coal companies who pay into the fund. Democrats say their proposals would require only modest investment to provide the needed benefit increases.

The Save Our Miners Act is sponsored by Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) and co-sponsored by Rep. Chris DeLuzio (D-PA) and Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-KY). It goes next to the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Pending closure of community health center in Iowa evidences strength of healthcare as a midterms issue

Health care access has become a major issue approaching the midterm 

elections, no matter the political party. (Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com)

While Republicans tout Medicaid cuts as cost-saving and necessary to reduce fraud and waste, Democrats see the issue as an opportunity for gains in November. Rural voters have leaned reliably Republican for years but with the threat of hospital and clinic closures looming, and in the midst of an already existing crisis of access in many small communities, constituents are questioning the GOP’s strategy.

Reuters reporter Nathan Layne spoke to Shannon Gooden, a receptionist at the River Hills Community Health Center in Centerville, Iowa. The center is closing on July 31. Layne reports that even though the cuts have not been cited as the reason for the closure, it’s not a stretch to draw that conclusion. Layne quotes Gooden as evidence: “I was raised a Republican, and I’ve always voted Republican, but it’s gotten to the point now, more what are you going to do for us? … Something needs to change.”

Layne also cites a Reuters/Ipsos poll from June that showed healthcare costs at the top of all other issues that voters want Congress to address. In response, Republicans point to a $50 billion rural health fund established to help states prop up healthcare access in rural communities. The fund came in the wake of the Medicaid cuts that resulted from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and provides $10 billion in each of the next five years to qualifying states. But Democrats and some state officials claim the fund won’t solve the problem and offers little help to rural hospitals.

The Medicaid cuts go into effect in 2027. Some states and institutions already are making cuts in preparation.

A look back at fracking, from a leading reporter on the beat; environmental questions remain as industry shifts

Mike Soraghan started out with Energy and Environment News, which was bought by Politico, so now he writes for both. His latest opus is a look back at the history of horizontal hydraulic fracturing of deep shale, better known as "fracking," which has had a big impact on parts of rural America. Soragahn has covered it for more than a decade.

Mike Soraghan (Politico photo)

"Shale promised riches, and in some instances, it delivered, saving farms," he writes for Politico Magazine. "Fracking birthed tales of instant 'shale-ionnaires' and oilfield strippers tucking four-figure handfuls of cash in their garter belts for a night’s work. And it also fundamentally changed the United States’ position in the global energy economy, in ways that have been on prominent display over the first half of 2026.

"But a lot of the people you’d expect to profit from fracking . . . were instead crushed by it. And drilling wells could wreak environmental havoc, triggering earthquakes, ruining farmland, polluting airways and contaminating household water to the point it could catch fire. In short: Fracking rewrote the book on American energy, globally and domestically. . . . Today, even if you walk everywhere or drive an electric vehicle, fracking is responsible for keeping your grocery and electric bills down."

But now, "That tumultuous chapter is coming to an end, just as a war-driven energy crisis offers — or threatens — to rewrite the script once again. The irony is that the U.S. is outdoing the petro-kingdoms of the Middle East — just as the world is accelerating its turn toward renewable energy. The easy oil is getting harder to find. Even as production continues to climb, the rate of growth is slowing. Automation is replacing oil workers the way it did coal miners. Environmental protests have moved on to data centers. America’s wildcatters are again starting to scan the horizon for new discoveries abroad. Even Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chair who coined the term, 'Drill, Baby, Drill,' thinks the phrase has outlived its usefulness."

Environmental questions remain, especially "the long-term impact of pumping chemicals from the nearly 2 million fracked wells — questions that may not be answered for years or decades," Soraghan writes. Environmentalists are mostly against fracking shale, but Christopher Knittel, the associate dean for Climate and Stability at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Soraghan that greenhouse-gas emissions have been cut mainly by power plants’ switch from coal to natural gas. More broadly, Knittel worries that the U.S. backoff from electric vehicles means the American industry could be “islanded off” from the rest of the world. "Perhaps the model for the United States’ energy future isn’t Saudi Arabia, but an actual island," Soragahn concludes.

Developers of data centers target rural America but face widespread opposition, pushback among local residents

Massive high-impact data centers are threatening to invade rural America and 

developers are facing growing opposition from residents. (Geoffrey Moffett, Unsplash)

BURGIN, Ky. — Residents of this small Mercer County town are up in arms over their city council’s refusal to accept public comments against a proposed data center. Two Lexington television stations and social media posts from those in attendance report that the council ignored a raucous overflow crowd at the local school and approved the first reading of an ordinance annexing enough land to double the size of the city to accommodate the center. A second reading was scheduled to push through the annexation. Burgin has no planning and zoning laws, and the council can respond to annexation requests from property owners.

The Burgin controversy is among the most recent in rural America’s battles over the construction of data centers, the workhorses of the expanding digital age. Brookings reports that increased demand for the energy to operate artificial intelligence (AI) has rural communities “weighing promised economic gains against short-and long-term costs related to land-use change, water demand, electrical grids, and public services.”

In the Kansas Reflector, columnist Max McCoy shared the story of a late June public hearing in Emporia that also was heavily attended by opponents of a proposed center there. Activists petitioned the city to “adopt an ordinance banning high-impact data centers or to put the measure to a public vote.” The headline to his column urges politicians to “take heed” of a growing national coalition against the centers.

And in Triple Pundit Tina Casey says the issue is pitting the ultra-rich against ordinary Americans and is quickly becoming a midterm election issue. She cites a June Ipsos poll that claims only 14 percent of Americans would welcome a data center to their community.

8 rural-related stories win Sigma Delta Chi awards, including reports on ICE, inequalities, firefighters, environment, etc.

Illustration from ProPublica story about Hurricane Helene and Yancey County, North Carolina

Eight rural-related stories were among winners of Sigma Delta Chi Awards for 2025, announced Thursday night by the Society of Professional Journalists (formerly Sigma Delta Chi) and the SPJ Foundation.

Investigate TV+, a unit of Gray Television, and KFF Health News won the award for broadcast coverage of inequalities in society with a package of three stories called "Dead Zone," explaining that millions of Americans "live sicker, shorter lives in hundreds of rural counties where doctor shortages are the worst and poor internet connections mean little or no access to telehealth services."

The award for public-service radio reporting in small markets went to North Country Public Radio of upstate New York for its report on the ICE raid on a dairy farm, which led to the release of a motherf and three children who were in a detention center awating deportation. "This issue is one that's forcing dairy farmers to sell their herds," the judges wrote. Here's the summary of the coverage and reaction.

Jennifer Berry Hawes, Cassandra Garibay and Mollie Simon of ProPublica won for "Helene's Unheard Warnings" in the category of non-deadline reporting in a publication with a print circulation of more than 40,000 or an online-only piublication. Their package of stories spotlighted the lack of evacuation orders, the hurricane's devastation and survival stories in Yancey County, North Carolina.

Hannah Dreier of The New York Times won the Public Service in Journalism award for her stories on the suffering of firefighters sent into fires by the U.S. Forest Service without warnings of toxic smoke and gases, and with a ban on wearing masks.

Dave Biscobing of KNXV in Phoenix won the large-market TV feature reporting award for his investigation of the sheriff in Prescott, Ariz., pop. 46,000, and "one man’s fight to prove self-defense against a top small-town fire official," as the report describes it.

The award for TV feature in small markets went to Kevin Kelly of KLRT in Little Rock for his story about a family in Vilonia, Ark., who saw their home and classic-car collection devastated by a tornado that killed nine people and injured dozens more in the town of 4,500. They restored the four cars a second time.  

Elise Plunk of the Louisiana Illuminator, Eva Tesfaye of WWNO in New Orleans and Chas Sisk of the Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk won an award for a story on how an accidental delta taught scientists how to rebuilt wetlands. They won in the category for science or environment reporting in a publication with a print circulation up to 40,000 or an affiliated website.

The broadcast award in that category also went to a Louisiana story, "The True Cost of Fertilizer,"
by Garrett Hazelwood and Eric Schmid of "Sea Change" at WRKF in Baton Rouge and WWNO, with support from the Mississippi River Basin Ag and Water Desk, based at the University of Missouri.

The awards program also included announcement of the top Mark of Excellence Award for College Journalism, which went to a rural story: "Broadband’s broken promise: How federal failures and funding fights keep Native and Black farmers offline," done by Melissa Dai of Northwestern University during her summer internship with Investgate Midwest. The story had won the MOE award for investigative reporting, then was judged to be the top piece of college journalism in 2025.

Rural areas lead decline in Obamacare policies' enrollment

As enrollment in Obamacare health-insurance policies declines nationwide, rural areas are leading the fleeing, Sarah Melotte reports for The Daily Yonder and its Rural Index.

The Affordable Care Act policies have become less affordable because Congress did not renew premium subsidies that were implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic and extended in the Biden administration.    "People who are no longer eligible for these subsidies have accounted for a disproportionate share of health insurance coverage drops, resulting in increases in monthly premiums for nearly all consumers." Melotte reports.

Melotte looked at the 30 states that used the national marketplace platform for Obamacare policies and found a 12 percent drop in rural counties, defined as those outside metropolitan areas, "representing 29,000 consumers," she writes. "Small metropolitan counties saw a drop of 11%, representing about 154,000 consumers, the next largest decrease in enrollment among all of the county types."

(Charts by Sarah Melotte, The Rural Index)

New study helps explain why rural Americans die younger: chronic ills, food deserts, health-care access, outmigration

Starting in the 1990s, life expectancy in rural areas fell below that in urban areas, and "The gap keeps growing . . . mainly among prime working-age adults (ages 25–54), which has important implications for rural health, productivity, and economic development," says a new study from the University of Illinois and the Agriculture Department, which tries to explain why. 

It "points to the structural, economic, and retail environments of the counties they live in," writes C.J. Miller of Hoosier Ag Today. The increasing rural death rate is increasingly driven by chronic illnesses such as "heart disease and diabetes, rather than external crises like suicides or drug overdoses. Crucially, the study found that these health disparities largely vanish when accounting for specific county-level characteristics, suggesting that the 'place' itself dictates survival. . . . when the researchers ran linear regression models that adjusted for the local environment—including the density of grocery stores, recreational facilities, local labor force participation, and per-capita income—the statistical significance of a person’s “rural” status virtually disappeared."

Past studies have usually pointed to personal choices; this one looks at the assets (or lack of them) in rural counties that contribute to health and wellness, as Miller describes:

• Food and retail deserts: Rural counties often feature a higher concentration of fast-food establishments relative to full-service grocery stores, making nutritional compliance a geographic challenge.
• Health care access: Decades of rural hospital closures and a persistent shortage of physicians mean chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease are frequently caught later and managed poorly.
• Socioeconomic stress: Lower personal income and suppressed labor force participation rates contribute to an elevated “allostatic load”—the medical term for the cumulative biological wear-and-tear caused by chronic stress.
• Digital divide: Modern health literacy increasingly relies on a robust information environment. A lack of high-speed broadband internet in rural areas limits access to telehealth services and health education.

"The study also touched on the complicated role of internal migration, noting that urban centers frequently attract healthier, upwardly mobile individuals from rural communities — a phenomenon known as the 'healthy migrant hypothesis,' leaving behind a rural population that is older, poorer, and less biologically equipped to withstand structural neglect," Miller reports.

The study was done by researchers at UI Urbana-Champaign and the USDA's Economic Research Service and published in the peer-reviewed journal Economics & Human Biology. It used "restricted-use files from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey spanning 1999 to March 2020. This allowed them to link individual health metrics, including objective laboratory indicators like blood-drawn cholesterol levels and glycohemoglobin (blood sugar tracking), with the specific federal county codes of the participants," Miller reports.

Opinion: Local newspapers' lawsuit against AI companies is a righteous battle against people stealing their work

Huge AI companies are stealing the work of others, especially news organizations, as they train their AI systems to make them more reliable -- and more valuable, Brier Dudley writes in an opinion piece for The Seattle Times. 

Dudley, who is editor of the Times' Free Press Initiative, writes: "It’s hard to keep track of everyone suing AI companies for stealing their work.Those gleaming AI platforms, the costliest computer systems ever built, are peddling more stolen goods than a seedy pawnshop."

But it's a June 24 lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft by a group of 35 publishers representing about 400 newspapers that has Dudley championing the need for journalists to stand up against these companies. This is just the latest lawsuit filed by news organizations against AI companies. The New York Times has spent nearly $30 million since 2023 on a copyright infringement lawsuit it filed. 

Dudley writes: "Even when AI companies began paying a few large papers and wire services, small papers were left out. Yet they are often providing their communities’ only local reporting, making their work valuable to companies purporting to be universal sources of current knowledge."

News organizations previously were hurt -- often unfairly -- by having their content taken by others in the digital world. Dudley hopes this time there will be a different result. 

He writes: "I’m glad to see these publishers fighting back. Perhaps they won’t get shafted like the previous generation was during the rise of search and social media."

Entries for Best in Rural Writing Contest can be submitted by Sept. 1; fiction and nonfiction entries are encouraged

Entries for the 2026 Best in Rural Writing Contest can be submitted by Sept. 1 for a chance to win up to $500 and be considered for publication in a future Best in Rural Writing anthology. 

Submissions can be entered in the fiction and nonfiction categories, and can be up to 7,000 words. 

Submission information is available through the The Milk House, a rural writing collective that features stories, essays and poems on rural subjects.

"Contest submissions may be previously published, and will also be read within 3-4 months of submitting with an eye towards publication on the site (themilkhouse.org), as well as the forthcoming Best in Rural Writing print anthologies," according to the website.

The first place winner will receive $500, and second place will receive $200. 

If you have questions about entering the contest, please contact Ryan Dennis at RyanDennis@themilkhouse.org.

Regenerative-ag farmers had to persuade Trump to sign order over opposition from Farm Bureau boss in Oval Office

Cattle farmer Will Harris shared this photo of the meeting by White House photographer Parick Witty.

"A group of farmers walked into the Oval Office last week expecting to smile as the president signed an executive order supporting the popular farming practice called regenerative agriculture, a method cheered by the Make America Healthy Again movement as an alternative to pesticides. Instead they were greeted by a virtual buzzsaw as President Donald Trump also brought in a top advocate who opposed the policy, prompting a live debate between top advisers, Cabinet secretaries and farmers," reports Politico's Cheyenne Haslett.

Zippy Duvall (Farm Bureau photo)

After an hour of back-and-forth between the farmers, the president, and American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall, Trump signed the executive order, "which directs government agencies to promote holistic farming practices that rely on natural land rehabilitation over chemicals," Haslett reports. Also in the room were Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who supported the order.

“I thought the farmers … were going in there just for a photo opportunity,” Jonathan Lundgren, a former Agriculture Department scientist who runs a regenerative farm in South Dakota, told Haslett. He and two other farmers said Duvall told Trump "he was concerned that the order would insinuate a negative impact from pesticide use and said he would not be able to advocate for Trump on behalf of farmers if he signed it," Haslett reports.

A Farm Bureau spokesman denied that Duvall said he would forsake Trump. "Trump went back and forth with Duvall, asking him what he opposed, to which Duvall said he hadn’t been able to fully read the order, the three farmers said. Trump eventually told him he didn’t think the order posed a threat to farmers," Haslett reports.

Regenerative farmer Rick Clark of Indiana told Haslett, “President Trump was just making sure that he had everyone’s opinion and was given all the information before he signed that document,” Clark said. “Was there passion in the room? Yeah, most definitely passion.” Cattle farmer Will Harris of Georgia shared on his blog what he told Trump.

Earlier that day, the Supreme Court shielded Bayer, maker of the weedkiller Roundup, from "thousands of lawsuits that claim the company failed to warn people about the health risks associated with its products," Haslett notes. Lundgren told Trump that families were being “poisoned by these chemical companies and didn’t have recourse anymore.” He "found the president to be concerned," Haslett reports. "Trump turned to Rollins and Duvall, who explained the ruling to him, Lundgren said."

Kennedy and senior adviser Calley Means "framed the ruling as a black eye to MAHA, two of the farmers said, and Kennedy said the executive order on regenerative agriculture would be an important part of repairing relations with the MAHA supporters," Haslett reports.

Bats help farmers by controlling the insect population, but many bat species are in danger of extinction

                                                                              Photo by James Wainscoat for Unsplash

Despite fears many people have about bats, they provide a lot of benefits to society, especially farmers. 

“There was a study some years ago that estimated that insect pest control provided by bats, the economic value of that was over $8 billion,” Alex Silvis, the endangered species coordinator for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, told Eric Douglas for a report by West Virginia Public Broadcasting. “It is a significant benefit to have bats for just insect control alone” -- which protects many crops.

Bats are in serious danger, however. According to Douglas' report: "In North America, more than 50% of all bat species have a “moderate to very high risk of extinction” in the next 15 years" because of diseases, pesticides and climate change. 

Douglas reports: "To learn more about bat populations, researchers must first find their caves. Even when they live within earshot of a paved road, getting to their front porch takes some work."

Silvis is among those researchers, and he spends time hiking into hard-to-reach places to identify where the bats live and provide estimated counts of the population.  

“The ecosystem is incredibly linked to one another in very complex ways,” John Moredock,
of the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, told Douglas. “One small change has big implications across many different areas of an ecosystem, many that are hard to predict.

Rural hospital CEOs cite their biggest concerns -- staffing, ever-changing government policies and tech challenges

CEOs at rural hospitals say "fast-advancing technology, ever-changing government policies and staffing shortages top the list of concerns" they face today, according to a report by Jim Massey for Farm Progress. 

According to the article, rural hospitals "often struggle because they tend to care for an older population, and federal Medicare reimbursement doesn’t cover the actual cost of care."

In addition, it's hard to hire and retain enough nurses, and staffing shortages can lead to higher stress and burnout among existing employees. 

Massey reports, "Many rural hospitals operate on razor-thin margins, which has prompted some facilities to move away from services such as maternity care or dialysis. 

"A total of 146 rural hospitals closed or stopped providing inpatient services from 2005 to 2023 in the U.S., according to the Economic Research Service, requiring rural residents to drive farther for their basic healthcare needs."

According to Massey's report, "Rural hospital officials say there is considerable uncertainty when it comes to the future of their organizations, yet they remain optimistic." 

“With large health systems, you can get stuck in the mud, but in rural healthcare, we get things done,” said Dan Rohrbach, CEO of Southwest Health in Platteville, Wis. “We can see things change in real time. We get to see that happen every day.” 

Rural journalists can apply for funding to attend Radically Rural Summit; deadline is July 12

Journalists who work in rural newsrooms are can apply for funding to attend this year's Radically Rural Summit, scheduled for Oct. 6-8 in Keene, New Hampshire. 

The deadline to apply for funding, which includes lodging, admission to the summit and a stipend for travel expenses, is Sunday, July 12. The application is available here. 

Radically Rural identifies itself as a "grassroots movement founded in Keene, NH, that aims to amplify collective rural impact by connecting folks with each other and with ideas," including an annual summit. 

This year's summit includes a community journalism track of sessions on Oct. 7. 

If you have questions, please contact Cecily Weisburgh at cweisburgh@keenesentinel.com or Emily Lytle at lytle@opencampus.org. 

Ruralites worry most about data centers' impact on electric rates; urbanites join in concern about use of water and land

Results are from a national poll of 1,000 people.

Rural Americans are more concered than their urban and suburban neihbors about the proliferation of data centers needed for the computing for artificial intelligence, according to the latest Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey by agricultural economists at the University of Illinois and Purdue University.

Rural residents' greatest worry is that data centers will raise the cost of electricity. More than half in the poll said they are very worred about it. They are also concerned about overuse of water (but slightly less than urban residents are) and data centers' use of agriculatural land (but only slightly more than urban residents).

For a larger version of any image, click on it.

The poll indicates that rural residents' "greatest concerns focus on the impacts that most directly affect their personal finances—particularly rising energy costs," the authors write. "While these individual-level concerns were significant, community leaders must take a broader perspective. In addition to the consumer impacts, they must also balance broader implications, including planning for future energy demand and infrastructure capacity, managing public finance and tax implications, evaluating opportunity costs relative to alternative land uses, and addressing land-use planning and zoning issues, among others. . . . Local leaders must better understand these potential issues so that they can make more informed decisions about siting data centers in their community and ask the right questions."

Data centers "can generate significant property tax revenue," but that can be reduced by tax incentives offered by state and local governments. "Not all data centers are the same, and the employment benefits of data centers vary, but the jobs impacts are often overstated," the authors write, citing recent research. "Many unknowns remain about the full impacts associated with data center growth and expansion.. . . In addition to the greater demands on energy generation and transmission, these developments will also impact water usage, wastewater discharge, and land use. Additionally, communities must also consider how these developments will affect air quality, noise pollution, and the economic trade-offs associated with data center development."

The Pew Research Center says 87 percent of data centers are in urban areas, "but 67 percent of planned facilities are slated for rural communities," the authors write. "Moreover, 39 percent of planned data centers are in counties that currently have none . As these developments become more rural, data centers will increasingly affect farmland, as well as rural electricity and water systems. 

Here's an earlier Rural Blog item with story ideas and resources for reporting on data centers. Penn State has a list of common questions for communities to ask.

A new way to hit the hay: Camp on a farm

There's a new form of agri-tourism: Farms are using their pastures and parking lots for commercial camping, Ashley Stimpson reports for Offrange, which bills it as "a new way to hit the hay."

Several start-ups specialize in connecting farms with people looking for campsites. One is Harvest Hosts, which also connects campers with vineyards and breweries. "In lieu of a site fee, guests are required to make a minimum purchase of $30 from the business where they’re bunking — a bottle of wine, a bag of apples, maybe a gunny sack of pecans," Stimpson reports. "The host can charge a small fee for electricity or water hook-ups." Other firms include Hipcamp, Harvest Hosts, The Dyrt and Farmstay.

The demand for campsites is increasing, Stimpson notes: "More than 53 percent of campers nationwide had trouble finding an available campsite in 2025. Five years earlier, that number was only 11 percent."

Chaffee County, Colorado, has the nation's first ordinance governing commercial camping on farmland, "crafted with input from groups like the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Trust, the U.S. Forest Service, and local recreation outfitters," Stimpson reports. "When it was adopted at the end of 2024, more than 250 Chaffee County landowners became eligible to apply for a permit, and now stand to make anywhere from $5 thousand to $25 thousand in additional income, according to internal data provided by Hipcamp, which advocated for the legislation." So far, though, only a few ranchers have applied for or obtained permits.

Floods in places that have never had floodplain maps are latest evidence of how far FEMA's mapping needs to go

Recent floods in Northern Michigan surprised residents who didn't think they were at risk and didn't have insurance though rainfall amounts had been rising for many years. That's the latest example of outdated floodplain mapping by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, report Tammy Webber and M.C. Wildeman of The Associated Press.

"The federal government's mapping method is arguably outdated and does not account for actual risks as climate change increases the odds of more extreme weather," AP reports. FEMA "develops and updates maps that determine who's in a flood plain and must buy insurance, and to help communities plan. But it hasn’t developed maps in many less-populated areas, including some Michigan counties that experienced unprecedented flooding. . . . 

"Another issue: FEMA’s maps are based on risks of rivers, streams and other waterways overflowing their banks. But they don’t account for flooding caused strictly from increasingly heavy rainfall that overwhelms stormwater infrastructure in urban areas and inundates rural towns where there's nowhere for the water to go. First Street, a company that researches the financial implications of climate change, found more than twice the number of properties at significant flood risk nationwide after incorporating that rainfall data into its own models and by mapping the whole country, including smaller streams that FEMA does not."

FEMA, whose mapping has been criticized for years, wouldn't give AP an interview or respond to questions about whether it's updating its mapping methods and if this year’s flooding adds urgency to mapping less-populated areas, instead issuing a statement saying that 95% of the U.S. population lives in areas with floodplain maps, which are “snapshots in time.”

Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said FEMA has made little progress creating new maps in rural areas where development could occur, despite a 2012 congressional mandate. He said the agency has prioritized places with the greatest population and risk, while leaving "about two-thirds of the country’s streams, rivers and coastlines unmapped," AP reports. "Some of those areas are unpopulated federal land that likely won't be mapped."

The state floodplain managers' group estimates that full mapping of the nation would cost $4 billion to $12 billion money FEMA has never had. The group worries that FEMA "could fall even further behind due to significant staffing losses under the Trump administration," AP reports.

Local journalism crisis may be more in quality than quantity

Map from Rebuild Local News Coalition shows the equivalent ranges of local journalists by county. 

Discussion of the crisis in local news has focused more on quantity than quality, perhaps because the number of newspapers is much easier to measure than the quality of coverage. But new research shows a serious quality problem when it comes to coverage of education, supposedly a staple of local news, and health, which is a bigger problem in rural areas than the rest of the nation.

The latest Local Journalist Index, an annual study by Rebuild Local News and the artifical-intelligence communications platform Muck Rack, and "finds a dramatic lack of education and health care coverage in most communities," reports RLN, which seeks public policies to strengthen community news. "There is shockingly little education and health coverage."

The research examined 4.2 million local-news articles, looking for education stories that mentioned a community by name, indicating a story was local. In 77% of counties in the first quarter of 2026, there were no such stories. The share without a local health story was virtually the same: 76%. The same pattern was seen in lack of stories about the environment (77%) and transportation (82%).

The number of local reporters continued to decline. "The national average now stands at 7.8 local journalist equivalents per 100,000 residents, an 81% decline from roughly 40 per 100,000 in 2002," RLN reports. "Last year, we found 8.2 LJEs per 100,000 residents. Approximately 70% of U.S. counties, home to an estimated 209 million people, fall below even the already-anemic national average. Only 33 counties match the average number of journalists from 2002."

Perhaps because covering crime is easier than education, health and some other topics, "When there are fewer journalists, the portion of coverage devoted to crime actually goes up," RLN reports. "In counties with fewer than five LJEs per 100,000 residents, nearly one in five local articles about crime and justice, roughly 50% more than in counties with higher journalist density."

The report also includes a ranking of reporting capacity by state; analysis of local news and loneliness levels, which can rise with a decline in local news; comparisons with the Civic Information Index; and an analysis of LJEs and municipal borrowing costs, which tend to rise when coverage of local governments decline. Muck Rack and RLN make the full dataset available to researchers and others interested in doing their own analyses.

“This report is difficult to stomach,” said Steven Waldman, founder and president of RLN. “The shortage of local reporters remains so severe that communities are being left in the dark as coverage of education, healthcare, and core civic issues thins out or disappears altogether.”

The Institute for Rural Journalism, which publishes The Rural Blog, is on the steering committee of the Rebuild Local News Coalition.

 

Trump loses support among rural voters; farm troubles cited

North Carolina farmer Michael McPherson says diesel-fuel
and fertilizer costs, and drought that halved his wheat
yield, "are really putting us into a bind." (W.Post photo)

President Trump is losing support among one of his stoutest groups of supporters, rural voters, and farmers' troubles appear to be the leading reason.

"Rural voters backed Trump’s economic policies by a 45 percent to 43 percent margin early last year but now disapprove of them 61 percent to 31 percent, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll released this month," notes David Lynch of The Washington Post. Trump's overall approval among rural voters in the poll was 50 percent, down 10 points from the beginning of his second term. "A separate Purdue University-CME Group survey this month showed that agricultural producers in particular have grown more downbeat. From a high of 75 percent in December, the percentage of those surveyed saying the country is headed in the right direction fell to 52 percent in May."

"Trump’s February decision to join Israel in attacking Iran aggravated the farm economy’s struggles," Lynch reports. "Soybean growers, who were already suffering from the president’s tariffs, are expected to lose money in 2026 for the fourth straight year." Lynch notes that urea fertilizer now costs less than it did just before the war began, "but the financial damage has been done."

"More than 300 farms filed for bankruptcy last year — up 46 percent from the year before and the second year in a row that the number has climbed, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that total farm sector debt will rise to $624.7 billion this year — the highest on record — to weather current economic conditions, writes Matthew Choi of the Post. "The multiple crises in the agriculture sector have not yet translated to a massive conversion to Democrats, but they have energized some Democratic bids in rural areas and forced Republicans to defend their handling of rural issues. If farmers decide to stay home in November, that could have outsize consequences in a year when Republicans are fighting uphill to maintain control of Congress."