Quick hits: Purude Pharma pleads guilty to charges in opioid crisis; rural real estate searches up 235% from last October

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Online searches for rural homes increased 235% from October 2019 to October 2020, according to a new report by real estate company Redfin. Read more here.

Purdue Pharma pleads guilty in its role in the opioid crisis as part of a deal with the Justice Department. Read more here.

President Trump's appointee to lead the Voice of America acted unconstitutionally in investigating what he claimed was bias against Trump by his own journalists, a federal judge ruled. Read more here.

A federal appeals court upheld a 2018 jury verdict of damages to North Carolina plaintiffs who said the noise and smell of Smithfield Foods' hog operations were unbearable. Read more here.

Vulture suggests a list of things to read, watch and listen to instead of Hillbilly Elegy. Read more here.