A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism, based at the University of Kentucky.
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After months of debate, the U.S. House and Senate voted to rescind $9 billion in public broadcasting and foreign aid funding that Congress had already approved. The 216-213 final vote passed the House early Friday morning. "It now goes to Trump for his signature," report Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press. "The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programs."
The vote "marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress," AP reports. "Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda."
"The cuts are expected to weigh most heavily on smaller public media outlets away from big cities, and it’s likely some won’t survive," report Mark Thiessen and David Bauder of The Associated Press. "Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, estimated as many as 80 NPR stations may face closure in the next year."
Smaller media outlets often serve more remote areas in states such as Alaska, Mississippi and Maine, which have numerous rural communities that frequently lack access to reliable news and educational programming.
Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already begun making cuts. AP reports, "It decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children’s programming like 'Caillou' and 'Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood' to the state’s youngsters 24 hours a day, said Taiwo Gaynor, the system’s chief content officer."
The rescinded funds erase roughly $2.5 million from Maine's public media funding, but Maine Public hasn't announced any immediate cuts. "The system is preparing to reinvent itself to make certain it continues serving the state’s residents," Thiessen and Bauder write. "Maine’s rural residents rely heavily on public media for weather updates and disaster alerts."
Earlier this week, KMXT in Kodiak Island, Alaska, kept its community up-to-date on tsunami warnings after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake hit some of Alaska's coastal islands. (NPR photo)
In Alaska, KMXT public radio station’s general manager, Jared Griffin, "called the Senate vote a 'devastating gut punch,'" Thiessen and Bauder add. "Griffin said the station’s board has already agreed on a plan to furlough staff members one day a month, and he’s taking a 50% pay cut."
Securing state support to fill funding holes isn't an option for many stations. AP reports, "At least five states have reduced their own outlays for public media this year, either for budget or political reasons."
Braceros congregating at Rio Vista (Library of Congress photo via Offrange)
A look back at American history reveals a significantly different perspective on Mexican immigrants coming to the United States to fill labor shortages. Beginning in the 1940s and stretching into the mid-1960s, the U.S. recruited thousands of Mexican immigrants to work on U.S. farms.
In Texas, the National Historic Landmark "Socorro’s Rio Vista Farm" operated as the "Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center," which was a designated point of entry for thousands of Mexican workers who entered the U.S. as "part of a temporary labor program," reports Marianne Dhenin for Offrange. "The arriving Mexican workers were known as braceros from the Spanish word for arm, brazo, roughly translating to 'one who swings his arms.'"
Mexican farm worker recruits were able to enter the U.S. by signing up for the Bracero Program. "The program was designed to recruit skilled agricultural laborers from Mexico to mitigate labor shortages in the United States resulting from American farm workers enlisting during World War II and, later, the Korean War," Dhenin explains. During World War II, the U.S. government incarcerated thousands of American Japanese farm workers, which increased the need for Mexican labor.
Workers who wanted to join the Bracero Program "applied at intake stations across Mexico," Dhenin writes. These men "made significant sacrifices in pursuit of economic opportunities in the U.S. Many hoped that higher wages across the border would allow them to provide for those they left behind."
Becoming a Bracero wasn't as easy as just signing up. Applicants were required to undergo extensive medical and psychological testing in Mexico before "being invited to make the trip northward through Mexico and across the border," Dhenin reports. Braceros were often transported into the U.S. in cargo trains "without seats, windows, or water stops along the way."
During the 1950s and early 1960s, the "barracks on Socorro’s Rio Vista Farm served as dormitories, offices, and a mess hall to house and process the more than 80,000 braceros who passed through each year," Dhenin explains. "It was one of five long-term bracero reception centers in California, Arizona, and Texas. . . . Over the lifespan of the Bracero Program, more than 4.6 million contracts were issued." A total of 30 states participated in the Bracero program.
Read water safety warnings before diving in. (Photo by Joseph Two, Unsplash)
Want to go for a swim? Sounds appealing, but it's best to see what's in the water before donning your flippers and face mask.
"A stark 1,930 out of 3,187 beaches sampled across the nation in 2024 experienced at least one day on which indicators of fecal contamination exceeded federal safety levels, a new report has revealed," Sharon Udasin of The Hillreports. "The Gulf Coast had the biggest share of beaches with at least one unsafe day in 2024, reaching 84%, followed by the West Coast, with 79%, and the Great Lakes, with 71%."
The list of diseases swimmers can get from contact with contaminated water includes "cryptosporidium, some forms of filariasis (not elephantiasis), Legionnaires' disease, swimmers' itch, swimmers' ear, typhoid, giardiasis, salmonella, schistosomiasis, campylobacter … and more," reports Joseph A. Davis for the Society of Environmental Journalists. Many of the listed diseases are spread when swimmers swallow fecal-contaminated water. Research confirms almost all recreational water activities cause swimmers to ingest at least a small amount of beach, lake or pool water.
Historically, the U.S. strives to maintain "fishable, swimmable waters. That’s the stated goal of the 1972 Clean Water Act," Davis adds. "The nation certainly hasn’t met the goal yet — but it is still trying. . . . Under the CWA, the Environmental Protection Agency sets nationwide 'criteria.' These state how clean water must be for any particular use (like swimming or total body contact recreation)."
Each state has its own water pollution control agency that determines "specific uses (like swimming) for each lake, stream or estuary within its borders, and regulates discharge permits to reach the criteria for those uses," Davis explains. "That’s the theory, anyway."
For community journalists, reporting on local "water hole" quality could be information readers will appreciate. Story ideas by Davis are shared below:
Where do people in your audience area go to swim in the summer? How far away are they willing to go? Go there and talk to people.
Are there beach closings in your area? Why? It’s often storm discharges from sewer systems. What are the records of your local sewage and stormwater agencies on storm discharges? Have they ever been cited for permit violations?
What do your state and local health agencies say about the incidence of waterborne illness from local swimming areas? Are the diseases common or uncommon?
Talk to managers and patrons of local pools, public and private. Talk to the swim coaches. Have they ever had a swimmer out because of waterborne illness?
Are there ever algal blooms in your local swimming waters? Are they harmful?
Talk to people whose water recreation mainly involves things other than swimming: sailors, skiers, parasailers, etc.
Is there a community health center near your swimming area? Go there and talk to the staff about water contact diseases.
Following the unexpected death of their mayor, residents in rural Coffee County, Tennessee, split into factions that began with arguments over real estate development and spiraled into heated debates over what it means to be politically conservative in a deeply red county.
Coffee County, in green, is nested between several urban centers. (Caliper maps)
At 55 years old, Judd Matheny was a pro-growth mayor busy working to develop farm-based Coffee County as a haven for suburbanites fleeing expensive living in Nashville, Chattanooga, and Huntsville, Ala. "Rural Coffee County was poised to become Tennessee’s next boomtown, with subdivisions rapidly replacing farmland," reports Cameron McWhirter of The Wall Street Journal.
Upon Matheny's death, his plans were diverted by county officials "pushing hard to limit development across the area’s vast farmlands. In March, the county imposed a three-month moratorium on all large subdivision projects in areas zoned for agriculture," McWhirter writes. After the moratorium expired, officials passed a ruling that limited "property owners in agricultural areas to selling land in a minimum of 5-acre-lot increments, effectively halting large subdivisions in those areas." The median lot size in Tennessee is roughly half an acre.
While county officials have sided with multi-generational farmers and residents who want to limit growth to preserve the region's rural identity, the area's strong pro-development faction isn't going quietly. McWhirter explains. "Rival camps have hired lawyers and clash on social media through dueling Facebook pages. . . . Planning commission meetings, typically mundane affairs where leaders wear jeans and work boots, now draw heated crowds and viewers on streaming.
Judd Matheny
The duel extended to what it means to be conservative. "An anti-moratorium sign at a local meeting read: 'Vote like a conservative! Less government. Less rules. Less regulations. Lower taxes," McWhirter reports. "A pro-moratorium group responded in a post that, 'Historically, conservatism has emphasized order, prudence, stewardship. . . .It’s about preserving traditional values and communities — not selling them off for short-term gain."
Even with the current restrictions, Coffee County continues to expand. "Construction crews dig and drill throughout Tullahoma and Manchester, the county seat; real estate for-sale signs line roads," McWhirter writes.
Meanwhile, both sides seem to agree that if Matheny were still alive, things wouldn't be so contentious. McWhirter adds, "Matheny’s death unleashed one of the county’s biggest political conflicts in memory."
While other papers have transitioned to computer technology, the Saguache Crescent remains the country's last linotype machine newspaper, reports Jared Ewy for The Daily Yonder. While other newspapers use keyboards, this small-town Colorado paper continues to use heat and metal to produce the news, just as it has since 1882. "News outlets from around the world have come to visit and pay tribute to the century-old linotype machine," Ewy reports. "At the Crescent, a keystroke sends us through time and into an America dominated by heavy, hot industry. When even the words were made of molten labor. Letters and characters are hammered with Steampunk gusto on different-sized mattes and assembled into information."
In a bid to protect minors from downloading apps with questionable content, Louisiana became the third state "to pass what it described as an 'app store accountability' law, joining Texas and Utah in instituting such legislation," reports Christ Teale of Route Fifty. The bill requires app stores conducting business in Louisiana to "identify when users are children and obtain parental consent before apps can be downloaded." Louisiana's law also requires app stores to include age-appropriate ratings and "prevents them from enforcing terms of service on minor users without parental consent."
The U.S. Postal Service and its brave mail carriers helped shape the nation, and some would contend, it's part of the glue still holding the country together. "The Postal Service is America’s first miracle and among its most endangered, threatened by private delivery services, email, texting and the pensions owed to retired carriers," writes David Von Drehle for The Washington Post. "Memoirist Stephen Starring Grant offers a highly personal, utterly charming tribute to this American treasure in his new book, Mailman. . . .The Postal Service, he convincingly argues, is far from outdated; it is the embodiment of an indivisible nation."
A drama pitting anti-sprawl conservation against a beaver-booming, mega-gas station continues to unfold in the small western town of Palmer Lake, Colorado. "Emotions have boiled over in Palmer Lake since the Texas-based Buc-ee’s chain — featuring a grinning beaver mascot — targeted undeveloped land along Interstate 25 for a new outlet: a 74,000-square-foot store with 60 gas pumps and parking for nearly 800 cars, open 24 hours a day," reports Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal. "It has become an epic battle over the soul of the American West — and it has descended into accusations of harassment, slashed tires, crude name-calling and vicious private texts made public."
Thousands of American children have type 1 diabetes, which, when treated, can mean a lifetime of carrying equipment and a list of activity restrictions that can make kids feel self-conscious. To help ease some of those challenges, Mattel released a Barbie with the disease. "The latest Barbie slays in a chic blue polka-dot crop top, ruffled miniskirt, chunky heels and an insulin pump. She is the brand’s first doll with type 1 diabetes," reports Brenda Goodman of CNN News. "Dollmaker Mattel worked with Breakthrough T1D, formerly known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, to design the doll, which aims to represent the roughly 304,000 kids and teens living with type 1 diabetes in the United States . . . . The new Barbie comes with an insulin pump, a glucose monitor and snacks to help her control her blood sugar."
With all the business of life, it's still important to take time to look up and see what going on in our skies. On the mornings of July 21 and 22, the Moon, Venus and Jupiter will provide a beautiful scene "with the crescent Moon and Venus, plus several bright stars. And if you have a clear view toward the horizon, Jupiter is there too, low in the sky," writes Preston Dyches for NASA. During the entire month of July, the Eagle constellation, Aquila, "appears in the eastern part of the sky during the first half of the night. Its brightest star, Altair, is the southernmost star in the Summer Triangle, which is an easy-to-locate star pattern in Northern Hemisphere summer skies."
The spherical measles virus is one of the most infectious diseases on the planet. (CDC photo via Unsplash)
Brought on by decreasing vaccination rates in communities, measles is making an unwelcome comeback in the United States. The disease was considered "eliminated" in 2000, but following an outbreak in Texas earlier this year, the highly contagious disease has cropped up in 38 states.
"Researchers often think of measles as the proverbial canary in a coal mine," report Teddy Rosenbluth and Jonathan Corum of The New York Times. "It is often the first sign that other vaccine-preventable diseases, like pertussis [whooping cough] and Hib meningitis, might soon become more common."
For many adults and children, catching measles can be likened to having a cold accompanied by a very itchy rash. But for others, the disease can cause severe medical conditions, including "pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, especially children, to get oxygen into their lungs," the Times reports. "It may also lead to brain swelling, which can cause lasting damage, including blindness, deafness and intellectual disabilities."
The disease also decreases an individual's ability to fight off germs they had previously been immunized against. "Scientists call the effect 'immune amnesia.' During childhood, as colds, flu, stomach bugs and other illnesses come and go, the immune system forms something akin to a memory that it uses to attack those germs if they try to invade again," reports Denise Grady of The New York Times. "The measles virus erases that memory, leaving the patient prone to catching the diseases all over again."
Although the U.S. has dealt with "large measles outbreaks in the past, a confluence of factors has made it particularly difficult to rein in the virus this year," Rosenbluth and Corum report. "Nationally, the measles vaccination rate fell during the Covid-19 pandemic and has not rebounded to the 95% mark required to stem the spread of the virus in a community. . . . In Gaines County, the center of the Texas outbreak, just 82% of the population received the MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine that year."
Other countries are struggling with measles outbreaks as well. Rosenbluth and Corum explain, "Large outbreaks have spread through Mexico and parts of Canada, which has had a record number of cases this year. This spring, the World Health Organization announced that Europe had reported the highest number of measles cases in more than 25 years."
Find the Times' measles tracking tool for the U.S. here.
Food banks have already been impacted by USDA cuts. (Photo by Aaron Doucett, Unsplash)
With food prices continuing to climb higher than overall inflation, many Americans have turned to food banks to make ends meet. But food pantry organizers say they are already strapped by increasing needs and fear that when Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, changes start pinching people's budgets, pantries won't have enough food to meet the demand.
Food bank shortages are likely to become more common for rural pantries because they rely more heavily on Department of Agriculture programs and have fewer private donors to lean on for assistance.
"Food banks across the country were already straining under rising demand. Now, they worry many more Americans will go hungry," reports Dan Frosch of The Wall Street Journal. "Some food banks and pantries are pushing for more state, local and private funding. Others are considering cutting back services and the amount of food they can distribute."
Food pantry leaders "say the SNAP reductions included in the new budget
bill will strain resources by pushing more people whose benefits have
either been cut or reduced toward pantries to get food," Frosch reports.
"Republicans say changes to the SNAP program will ensure people
receiving the benefits are working, as required."
Changes that have already gone into effect significantly shift age and
work requirements to receive benefits. The new budget "expands work
requirements for SNAP, raising the upper age limit for able-bodied
adults from 54 to 64, meaning those people will typically have to work
for 80 hours a month to qualify for food benefits," Frosch writes.
Individuals caring for children 14-17 will now have to work to qualify
for SNAP.
Just as pandemic-era aid tapered off throughout the U.S., food inflation began to spike, which led to more people relying on food pantries. While most food banks were able to meet their community's needs, they now have to contend with cuts. Frosch explains, "Earlier this year, the Department of Agriculture canceled millions of pounds of shipments to food banks that were part of its emergency food-assistance program for low-income people."
A USDA spokesperson told the Journal that regular food deliveries had continued, but "food banks say they are already feeling the impacts of federal cuts," Frosch adds. "For Sarah Aragón, the head of programming for Roadrunner Food Bank, New Mexico’s largest charitable food operation, that has meant losing more than seven million pounds of food she had been counting on."
Some pantries are planning to make cuts if needs overwhelm their supply, but others already run out of food sometimes. Aragón, from Roadrunner Food Bank, told Frosch, "When we have to tell people that we have no more left, the look on their faces when they walk away is like, ‘What am I going to do now?' I don’t have an answer.”
Community Hospital is the only health clinic in Curtis. It will close in September. (Community Hospital photo)
A rural Nebraska hospital will close in September, and its CEO tied the closure to President Donald Trump's new Medicaid-cutting budget. "But residents of Curtis — a one-stoplight town in deep-red farm country — aren’t buying that explanation," reports Hannah Knowles of The Washington Post. Curtis resident April Roberts told her, "Anyone who’s saying that Medicaid cuts is why they’re closing is a liar."
How Medicaid cuts are received in Curtis could indicate a broader trend in rural America "where voters vulnerable to Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill law are reluctant to blame the president or congressional Republicans who approved it," Knowles explains. "Many people in Curtis have directed their frustration at their hospital system instead of their representatives in Washington."
Curtis is in Frontier County, Neb. (Wikipedia map)
Some Democrats and health care advocates say the town's hospital closure is "a model of what’s to come for rural hospitals around the country," Knowles writes. "Close to half of rural hospitals nationwide already lose money, and analysts expect Trump’s tax and spending law to add more strain."
Community Hospital, the nonprofit owner of the Curtis Medical Center, "announced on July 2 — one day before the bill’s passage — that a confluence of factors had made its Curtis outpost unsustainable," Knowles reports. "It cited years-long financial challenges, inflation and 'anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,' the public health insurance program for lower-income and disabled Americans."
Many Curtis residents "know that Trump’s bill will impose work requirements for Medicaid recipients," Knowles writes. "And some think — inaccurately — that the legislation was designed to end Medicaid coverage for undocumented immigrants."
Although Community Hospital had been losing money for years, the timing of Curtis closure announcement "has stoked suspicions in the town, leaving some residents convinced their health provider was using the president as a scapegoat," Knowles reports.
"Nationwide, far more people oppose Trump’s bill than support it in polling. . . . Even in Curtis, some unease at the Medicaid cuts is percolating," Knowles reports. Brenda Wheeler, a Republican and 2016-Trump voter, told Knowles, "When we talked about making America great again, I don’t think this is what we all had in mind."
Graph by Hannah Heiskell, data from West Virginia First Memorandum of Understanding
In 2021, West Virginia lost more than one thousand residents due to opioid overdose deaths. Between 2021 and 2024, the state ramped up its prevention and treatment efforts, some of which now benefit from opioid settlement dollars. As investigative student reporters from West Virginia University’s Reed School of Media discovered, how those funds are spent varies widely throughout the state.
"West Virginia will receive about $980 million from the settlement, split into payments over 18 years," reports Hannah Heiskell for Mountain State Spotlight. "The West Virginia First Foundation – a nonprofit created by the state Legislature – will control the spending of 72.5% of the funds, local governments 24.5%, and the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office 3%."
How local governments spend their chunk of settlement funds is limited by state guidance, but includes "increasing access to treatment or prevention-education programs."
With those constraints in mind, WVU student reporters looked at "how local governments oversee that money, including the process through which they take applications, make awards and account for spending," Heiskell explains. Since each local government can make its own decisions, "oversight and accountability built into local spending can be markedly inconsistent from county to county – with some doing very little to collect the advice and opinions of addiction experts or people with lived experience."
Local funding is often decided by county commissioners, who are not subject to the oversight by the West Virginia First Foundation. "While county commissioners are not required to have expertise in substance use disorders or follow a specific application, review, or awarding process, Laura Lander, addiction therapist and associate professor at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, said this thinking confused her," Heiskell reports.
"Without input from external sources and stakeholders, Lander said funding awards are subject to a commissioner’s individual bias," Heiskell writes. Lander told her, "Clearly, in other counties, based on what I’ve seen, the money used for law enforcement has the county commissioner’s ear, and we see lots of money going towards police vehicles."
Kanawha County Commission has opted to share some details by "posting all applications to their website for the public and other organizations to review," Haskell writes. "In contrast to many counties in the state, the Preston County Commission has taken a more deliberate approach to its spending. . . . It's one settlement and 55 systems."
Hospitals are busy planning how to lobby for changes in the new law. (Photo by P. Guillaume, Unsplash)
Since President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" became law, news headlines have warned how its Medicaid cuts will devastate local hospital systems. But many of those changes don't take effect until 2028, giving "hospitals [and] their armies of lobbyists and many allies on Capitol Hill. . . two and a half years to persuade lawmakers to rescind them," report Robert King, Amanda Chu and David Lim of Politico. "And 2028 is not only an election year, but a presidential one."
Chris Mitchell, the head of the Iowa Hospital Association, told Politico, "We’re going to talk to our delegation early and often about the impact of these cuts and how looming cuts down the road impact how hospitals run in the interim. . . . Are they really going to want to cut rural hospitals in an election?"
Congress does have a history of "delaying or repealing the painful parts of major legislation," King, Chu and Lim write. "Congress, for example, never allowed a tax on high-end 'Cadillac' insurance plans in 2010’s Affordable Care Act to take effect, and rescinded a tax on medical devices."
The stretch from now until 2028 gives hospital executives and health care advocates time to push Congress into making changes or to pull back cuts. Politico reports, "Several state-based hospital associations say they will ramp up meetings with lawmakers to stress the need for an off-ramp before the 2028 elections."
Eliminating Medicaid cuts comes with a downside for the U.S. economy and cost-weary consumers. "It’ll mean the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will be even more expensive than the Congressional Budget Office expects: $3.4 trillion in deficit spending over a decade," Politico reports. "That will have ramifications across the U.S. economy, exposing Americans to higher interest rates and slower economic growth, budget experts warn."
