After a jarring ICE raid at a horse racing track, residents of a tiny Idaho town measure the aftermath

Agents outside La Catedral Arena, a horse track in Wilder, Idaho, 
Oct. 19, 2025. (Idaho Statesman photo via Mother Jones)

Some residents of Wilder, Idaho, say the town hasn't been the same since federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on an off-the-beaten-path horse racing track and detained roughly 100 Latinos who were working or attending the races. 

The horse track, known as La Catedral Arena, had been a place where immigrant families gathered to enjoy food and racing together, reports Anna Griffin of The New York Times. Few whites ever attended the races or questioned track activities.

Wilder is located in Canyon
County, Idaho. (Wikipedia)

Sixty percent of Wilder's 1,725 residents are Latino, and most residents take pride in living in harmony. But on Oct. 19, things changed. ICE agents, including a swarm of gun-toting agents on the ground, a helicopter, and the agency's signature SUVs, descended on the track during the busiest time of day. Agents rounded up nearly 100 Latinos and later deported 75.

The raid did more than "crack an alleged gambling ring and increase deportation numbers," the Times reports. "It shattered Wilder’s innocent belief that its out-of-the-way location and deep-red politics could isolate the town from raids." 

Wilder resident Chris Gross, who farms sweet corn seed and mint, expressed concern about how the raid might limit immigrant farm workers. She told Griffin, "We rely on Hispanic labor." 

"The raid 'nearly destroyed' the community, said David Lincoln, a longtime Wilder resident and executive director of a nonprofit economic development agency serving rural towns in western Idaho," Griffen writes. Griffin adds, "Wilder won’t really know the impact until planting season begins this spring."

The day after the raid, at least half of Wilder's students didn't show up for class. Griffin reports, "Gross, who is white, said anyone who sees a black SUV roll through town, regardless of their race, 'freezes up.'" 

Still, the town's mayor, Steve Rhodes, claims the raid "has had 'zero effect' on the town," He told the Times, "These were not our people. What happened out at that track had nothing to do with Wilder.”

30,000 trees and 2,000 volunteers can restore New Orleans' wetlands

Volunteers from the CRCL plant trees as part of
 their Native Plants Program. (CRCL Photo)

Organizers are working to plant 30,000 trees in New Orleans to restore the wetlands around the city that have remained destroyed since Hurricane Katrina, reports Melina Walling for The Associated Press. 

Native trees like bald cypress and water tupelo will keep the land from slipping further below sea level, cultivate a better habitat for wildlife and provide New Orleans with a protective barrier from storms, Walling explains.

After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made the Mississippi River—Gulf Outlet Canal (MRGO) to use as a shipping channel during the government’s new levee initiative, Walling reports. This canal furthered the damage during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 by letting saltwater into the freshwater ecosystems around New Orleans, killing many of the trees which held the land in place.

Environmental organizations have formed the Central Wetlands Reforestation Collective to start restoring the land after the MRGO was shut down, and the salt levels were able to normalize. “We’re one part of a larger movement to resist this sort of ‘doomerism’ mindset, and to show that recovery is possible,” Christina Lehew, executive director of one of these organizations, told Walling.

The organizers were able to receive federal and state funding for two large grants to work on the tree planting. 

Many of the organizers experienced the hurricane firsthand, so this initiative has helped them to heal and find hope in future generations.

A startling look at the lack of dialysis treatment options for rural Americans experiencing kidney failure

For the roughly 240,000 rural Americans suffering from kidney failure, or End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), getting to a dialysis center that can deliver consistent, quality care is a struggle. The lack of reliable dialysis for rural ESRD patients has been exacerbated by too few providers within a drivable distance, with some rural residents facing travel across several counties to access dialysis.

The most common dialysis clinics near rural ESRD patients are often owned by DaVita, a "for-profit company with a documented history of kickbacks to doctors and involuntary patient discharges," reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. Involuntary discharges are supposed to be extremely rare and regulated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

About 22.8 rural Americans – just over half of the total rural population – live in a county where either DaVita is the only clinic, or there is no clinic at all. (Map by Sarah Melotte, Daily Yonder, from CMS data)

In fact, for 6.1 million rural Americans, DaVita is the only Medicare-certified dialysis clinic in their county, according to Melotte's analysis of CMS data. Melotte reports. "Another 16.5 million rural Americans live in a county with no facility at all."

Overall, DaVita and its German competitor, Fresenius, "tend to have worse health outcomes compared to independent, non-profit clinics," Melotte writes. "Duke University’s research found that, after dialysis clinics were acquired by large, for-profit, companies, the likelihood of each patient being hospitalized each month increased by 4.5%."

Using a CMS dialysis facilities dataset, in 300 counties, 190 of which are non-metropolitan, or rural, "DaVita runs the only clinics in the county," according to Melotte's anaysis. "In rural counties, about 31% of clinics are owned by DaVita."

In some rural regions, the lack of dialysis centers is even more dire. "About 59% of rural counties don’t have a single Medicare-certified dialysis clinic," Melotte writes. "In places like rural Central Nebraska or Western Kansas, patients might be several counties away from the nearest clinic."

Report: Pesticides may be driving Midwestern cancer crisis

Map by Ben Felder, IM, sources from Cancer: National Cancer Institute and the CDC, Pesticides: Pesticide National Synthesis Project, from the U.S. Geological Survey

As cancer diagnosis rates among Midwesterners continue to be higher than the national average, a "growing body of research indicates that pesticides are partly to blame," reports Ben Felder of Investigate Midwest. Pesticide use helped U.S. agriculture become an international commodity powerhouse, but that success may be coming at the expense of Midwestern communities.

Because more than half of U.S. cropland is in the Midwest, Midwesterners who don't live in a major metro area are likely to live near a farm that uses pesticides. Felder explains, "Sprayed from airplanes, drones, tractors and handheld devices, these chemicals can drift through the air or run off into nearby rivers and streams."

"Most of the 500 counties with the highest pesticide use per square mile are located in the Midwest," Felder reports. "Sixty percent of those counties also had cancer rates higher than the national average of 460 cases per 100,000 people, according to an analysis of data from both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Cancer Institute."

Lisa Lawler from Hardin County, Iowa, believes that pesticides are the primary driver of cancer diagnoses in her community, including her mother's and her own. Felder writes, "The county is home to around 800 farms, has a pesticide use rate more than four times the national average and a cancer rate among the highest in the state."

Lawler had extensive testing completed to see if her cancer was hereditary. She told Felder, "The genetic test they ran for me was one that covered 81 genes that are typically related to breast cancer. . . .They told me my cancer is likely not genetic, but likely environmental, based on these 81 genes."

Pesticide manufacturers have continued to reject claims that pesticides have any part in regional cancer diagnosis trends. "But scientific research linking pesticides with certain types of cancers has been growing," Felder writes. A 2024 study published in Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society linked "pesticides to prostate, lung, pancreas and colon cancers. Pesticides have also been associated with lymphoma and Parkinson’s disease."

Smithfield Foods plans $1.3 billion investment in a new pork processing facility in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Smithfield's parent company, WH Group,
is based in China.

Smithfield Foods announced plans to invest $1.3 billion to build a new pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D. "When in operation, the plant is expected to employ about 3,000 workers and be able to slaughter about 20,000 hogs a day," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "The new project replaces Smithfield’s existing, more than 100-year-old facility in the city."

The announcement comes as some U.S. lawmakers and officials have questioned Smithfield's ties to its Chinese parent company, WH Group, which took over the U.S.-owned company in 2013. Thomas writes, "The company has said it is investing in the U.S. and denied accusations that its decisions are influenced by the Chinese government."

Building a new slaughterhouse is expensive and rare in today's competitive market, where meat packers have struggled to glean profits. "Tyson Foods closed one of its largest beef processing plants, in Lexington, Neb., which employed 3,200 people, and cut production at a Texas facility in half."

Compared to 2023 margins, today's pork processors are making a profit. "Over the past year, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker and Smithfield’s top pork rival, has said it is expanding its pork operations in response to Americans’ growing appetite for protein," Thomas explains.

The company's building plans feature "advanced automation technology and a streamlined design," Thomas adds. "The company said the plant will source about all of its hogs from nearby farmers in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota."

Tips and resources for reporting on crime data

The CDC has an active dashboard that maps death rates across the country 
by Census tract, county or state. (CDC map)

Tips from a recent webinar with three crime data experts, narrated by Clark Merrefield of The Journalist's Resource, can help local journalists report on crime trends, fact-check law enforcement, discuss policy, and foster a dialogue about community safety. An edited version of Merrefield's tips from the discussion is shared below.

Get to know The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub, which meets three major needs for crime data research and reporting:

• The help desk, where anyone "can ask questions of reporters and editors at The Trace," Merrefield writes. "Reach out for help understanding gun violence in the areas you cover; collecting, cleaning and analyzing data on gun violence."
• A resource page that houses fact sheets, guides, and a glossary, which can aid in investigations of all sizes.
• The data library for "trustworthy data on a range of gun violence topics, from ghost guns to suicide to road rage," Merrefield notes. "The library includes data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Transportation Security Administration and many others."

Explore data focused on public safety research and data:

• The WONDER database from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes numbers on gun deaths and compressed mortality data.
• The Gun Violence Archive, which "tracks gun violence incidents across the country from more than 7,500 sources, including law enforcement agencies and news media reports," Merrefield writes.
• The Mapping Police Violence provides up-to-date data on police-involved killings in the U.S. 
• The CDC dashboard, which maps violent death rates across the country by Census tract, county or state. 

 Learn which data can help you fact-check statements from public officials.

"Beyond published data on reported crimes, victimization surveys are a major source of crime data that journalists can use to vet statements from officials," Merrefield explains. "The best known is the National Crime Victimization Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. This survey each year reaches a nationally representative sample of roughly 240,000 people and asks whether they have been victims of personal or property crimes — and why the crime was or wasn’t reported to police."

To identify trends in a specific area, aim for at least 5 years of data.

If data doesn't make sense, question it. If it can't be verified, don't use it.

Merrefield's webinar panel experts included: Jeffrey A. Butts, a research professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Executive Director of the John Jay Research and Evaluation Center; Mensah M. Dean, a staff writer at The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that covers gun violence; and George LeVines, editor of The Trace’s Gun Violence Data Hub, which is open to the public. 

America's aging farmers often don't have a family member to take over the family farm

As farmland changes hands, there will be far fewer family
farms in the U.S. (Photo by Johny Goerend, Unsplash)

Whether it's the unpredictable income, politics or little love for manual labor, many children of today's aging American farmers don't want to run the family farm. "There are more farmers 75 and older than under the age of 35. They are facing tough choices," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "Thousands across the U.S. are closing the book on farms that have been in their families for generations."

In today's farming economy, many farmers depend on federal bailouts, and even with that support, some still won't turn a profit. As a result, many farming families are selling their lands or claiming bankruptcy. 

Don Guinnip, a fifth-generation corn and soybearn farmer in Marshall, Illinois, doesn't think the future of family farms and their surrounding communities will be "pretty," Thomas writes. He told Thomas, "When farmers owned the land and lived on the land, they took care of the land and they formed communities that worked together and solved problems and took care of everybody. You’re not going to have that in the future.”

Like many children of farming families, Guinnip's children left the farm to attend college and move to bigger cities for professional careers. Thomas explains, "Children of farmers today have more opportunities to work beyond agriculture than they did decades ago, and families are typically smaller, shrinking the pool of possible candidates."

Seventy-four-year-old Guinnip thinks "he can maintain the current workload for a couple more years," Thomas writes. "He contemplates a day when a Guinnip no longer cares for the land that runs along Guinnip Road."

What will it take to pass a new federal Farm Bill? The last one was approved in 2018.

A new Farm Bill will have to work around political
flashpoints. (Graphic by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

The last Farm Bill was passed by Congress in 2018, but political divisions over Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding and farm subsidies have prevented lawmakers from agreeing on a new Farm Bill, leaving sectors that depend on the massive omnibus package relying on extensions for authorized funding, reports Clare Carlson for Offrange. Farm policy experts say any new Farm Bill will have to navigate around conflicts to address an evolving set of farming and rural needs.

Mike Lavender, a policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, told Carlson that as the number of U.S. farms has shrunk, and the size of the remaining farms has grown, what farmers need in a Farm Bill has changed.

As politicians continue to battle over SNAP and subsidies, those two entities only "make up two of the Farm Bill’s 12 titles, which include research, conservation, forestry, and rural development," Carlson reports. "The programs under those other 10 titles are what get neglected, Lavender said, hurting farmers and rural communities in the process."

With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, SNAP funding was separated from the Farm Bill and "wrapped into budget reconciliation bills," Carlson explains. OBBA cut SNAP’s budget by 20% while "doubling funding to subsidy programs for commodities like soybeans, wheat, and corn."

Michael Happ, a program associate at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, told Offrange, “We might be living in a post-Farm Bill world right now where we just pass farm policy through budget bills and we leave out a lot of really important research and programs that help farmers."

Meanwhile, House Agriculture Chair Glenn Thompson "pledged to complete a five-year farm bill in committee by the end of February, as lawmakers try to bridge political divides that have stalled the legislation," reports Marc Heller of E&E News. "Thompson (R-Pa.) told state agriculture officials that finishing the bill. . . is his top priority."

Carlson adds, "Without a Farm Bill, food and agricultural policy could be left to the whims of whichever party controls the White House. . . . Planning for the future is also a lot harder for farmers without a Farm Bill."

Neighbors in Maine volunteer to build window inserts for each other to fight the winter cold

Students in Vermont build a WindowDresser insert. 
(Photo by Andrew McKeever, The Yonder )

Harsh winters in Maine can make it hard to keep the cold air outside from creeping into the older New England style homes. WindowDressers is a community-based heating solution that keeps warm air inside by inserting an insulated wooden window into a home or commercial window frame, Andrew McKeever reports for The Daily Yonder.

The concept started in a church in Rockland, Maine, which was losing heat due to its leaky aluminum-clad windows. Church member Richard Cadwgan decided to build window inserts for the church windows, which he learned about at a Midcoast Green Collaborative conference, a Maine-based nonprofit organization. Cadwgan told McKeever the window inserts were a “win-win-win – lower heating bills, fewer carbon emissions, and greater comfort in the cold winter months.”

After word spread to other community members, Cadwgan and former congregation president Frank Munro took orders for 185 inserts for homes the next year, and 1,231 inserts the year after. With so many orders, more volunteers were needed, so “community builds” were formed. Now, there are 52 community builds throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Community builds allow for volunteers with no prior carpentry experience to help build the window inserts after just a brief instruction from their team leader, McKeever explains. Jim Salsgiver, one of the original organizers, told McKeever, “I love the builds and getting together, meeting new people. What’s so cool is somebody comes in and says, ‘Okay, well I signed up, but what do I do?’ And, you know, after three hours, they’re acting like pros doing it and excited about it and telling their friends.”

As of 2024, at least 78,600 inserts have been made, saving almost 4 million gallons of heating fuel.

Wyoming officials aim to keep the state's Rural Health Transformation Program award going in 'perpetuity'

Wyoming is the most sparsely populated state in
the U.S. (Photo by Karsten Koehn, Unsplash)

As Wyoming's rural hospitals struggle to make ends meet and hire enough medical providers, state officials have hatched a plan using money from its Rural Health Transformation Program funds to buffer losses, create more robust provider training and incentives, while using investments to help the money stretch for decades, reports Arial Zionts of KFF Health News.

If Wyoming's plan receives federal approval to invest a substantial portion of its $205 million award, the state's "Rural Health Transformation Perpetuity fund could provide $28.5 million for the state to spend every year," Zionts explains. "Wyoming would spend the money on scholarships for health students and incentive payments to help keep small hospitals and rural ambulance services afloat."

The federal RHTP program requires states to spend their awards by established deadlines, or the money will be shelled out to other states. The question is, will the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which manages RHTP, see placing the money in an investment account as "spending it."

Stefan Johansson, the director of Wyoming’s health department, thinks it will. "He said that CMS called in December to specifically ask questions about the fund and that he believes the agency has formally approved it," Zionts reports. "But 'the devil’s always in the details,' he said, as the state works with CMS during the budget review period."

CMA has already told some states that RHTP grants "cannot be used to 'generate income.'" Zionts adds. "Wyoming officials wrote in the state’s application that the perpetuity fund won’t be making or keeping any profit. . . .Other states proposed funds in their applications, but Wyoming’s appears unique, according to a KFF Health News review of state applications."

This robot helps rural seniors stay healthier and allows them to live independently longer

ElliQ is designed to be a companion and helper.
(Intuition Robotics photo)

In more remote parts of the country, residents can go for days without seeing another human. But as people age, going without human connection can be lonely and potentially dangerous. For some rural seniors living in isolation in Washington state, participating in a pilot program that pairs them with a robot companion offers a potential solution, reports Eli Saslow of The New York Times.

Jan Worrell, 85, is participating in the pilot so she can continue living alone in her home, which sits on an isolated strip of the Long Island Peninsula. Firefighters came to Worrell's home and installed her new robot partner: "ElliQ."

One of ElliQ's initial greetings to Worrell sounded like a new friend's introduction. Saslow writes, "'Oh, I’m so thrilled to meet you,' ElliQ said. 'I was worried they’d deliver me to the wrong house! I’m excited to start our journey together.'"

"A few thousand ElliQs have been shipped to seniors across the United States since 2023. . . . by nonprofits and state health departments as an experiment in combating loneliness," Saslow reports. "ElliQ is designed for the most human act of all: to become a roommate, a friend, a partner."

Initially, Worrell didn't want help or company at home. "That’s what she told her relatives whenever they gently suggested that maybe it was time to move into a care center, or closer to family," Saslow adds. "But despite her strength and stubborn independence, her doctors had warned that living alone sometimes came at a cost." Loneliness can be deadlier than many chronic diseases.

Now, ElliQ keeps Worrell company by providing conversation, medication reminders, playing music and asking questions. Saslow writes, "It has been designed to read a room, calculate moods and then decide when to speak and what to say."