Local law enforcement ICE arrests in three Appalachian states hit record-high numbers this summer

Some rural places are benefiting financially from a large number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests because of revenue generated from incarcerating people in their local jails. In Kentucky, “four county jails earned $2 million or more by holding people for ICE during (President) Trump’s second term, as of April 2026,” Morgan Watkins reports for Louisville Public Media.

A review by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting and the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom analyzed ICE open-records data requested by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Los Angeles.

 
They found that ICE arrests by local law enforcement in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia have increased since last year. They were up by 18% in Kentucky in June 2026, 30% in Tennessee in May, and 87% in West Virginia in January. These increases happened following “Operation Country Roads,” a federally assisted crackdown resulting in 650 arrests. 

Watkins reports that ICE conducts arrests in three different ways: taking custody of immigrants who are already in jail or prison for non-immigration reasons, through street arrests, and through 287(g) programs, which deputize local law enforcement officers as immigration agents. Tennessee’s state government incentivizes local officers if they sign up. More officers in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia have signed up in the first nine months of 2026 than in all of 2025.

Immigrants aren't just taken into custody, Watkins writes, they are held in local jails as de facto detention centers. Watkins reports that in Kentucky "ICE earnings help offset the sizable costs of running their jail.”

CDC warns of increase in human and animal rabies cases; USDA to drop vaccine sachets for wildlife in October

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will distribute roughly 6.5 million oral rabies vaccine sachets via airplanes, helicopters and motor vehicles throughout the Southeast in October, reports Mary Van Beusekom for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. The fishmeal-coated sachets will be deployed in hopes wild animals will consume them and become immunized against rabies.

The Centers for Disease Control warns of a nationwide increase in animal and human rabies cases this year. A Health Alert Network advisory was issued after the CDC saw a 17% increase in questions about human rabies exposures from July to August, and an increase of PEP use at eight state health departments. PEP stands for "post-exposure prophylaxis," a $14,000 treatment administered after suspected rabies exposure.

"According to weekly pharmacy data as of September 2, 2026, utilization for the two rabies vaccines and the two rabies immunoglobulins licensed in the United States has increased by an estimated 33% and 76%, respectively, compared with the same time period last year," the advisory notes.

In Brown County, Minnesota, one such case resulted in the death of an infected cow, two barn cats who were euthanized, PEP recommendations for nine people and the observation of more than 40 cattle, a horse and three dogs last month.

The distribution of vaccine sachets is part of an ongoing USDA program. This year, it will target portions of Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia to counter the spread of raccoon rabies — the most common transmitter of the disease in those regions. Past distributions were “successful in targeting canine rabies in coyotes and a variant of the disease in gray foxes.”

Challenges of mail delivery in rural Alaska prevented some in-person absentee ballots from being counted in primaries

In the small southwest village of Naknek, Alaska, Sallyann Hughes sent an in-person absentee ballot 13 days before last month’s primary election. She then received a letter saying her ballot had not arrived in time.

Hughes' absentee ballot was one of 75 cast by rural voters in western Alaska that “arrived too late to be counted in last month’s primary election,” Becky Bohrer reports for The Associated Press.

  

The state accepts absentee votes postmarked by Election Day up to 10 days after the election, but that delay isn’t always enough. Many Alaskan communities aren’t connected to main road systems, and they often have to wait for air travel to transport their ballots.

"The Alaska Division of Elections blamed a 'mail delivery delay’ that affected voters in seven communities, with Kotzebue, Igiugig and Naknek combining for 62 of the ballots," Bohrer reports. "But a spokesperson did not provide more details on the nature of the delay. Absentee in-person ballots are sent to regional offices — in this case, Nome — for review."

The U.S. Postal Service finalized a rule in 2025 stating that postmarks don’t necessarily reflect the date the agency first took hold of a piece of mail, but the day it was handled in a processing center. A spokesperson said any number of factors could delay mail.

Native American voter advocacy group, Get Out the Native Vote, said the delayed ballots "represent a measurable loss in participation," contributing to voter apathy, or the perception that one’s vote doesn’t matter. The group supports a decision made by the Division of Elections to reroute western Alaskan absentee ballots from Nome to Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion care lagged behind in rural communities

Filmmaker Emma Dessau grew up in urban New Jersey with access to sex education and Planned Parenthood, and an understanding that Roe v. Wade was a sacred law. When Dobbs v. Jackson overturned abortion as a constitutional right in 2022, Dessau followed in the steps of others — taking to the streets, posting on social media and donating to charities, she writes for The Daily Yonder.

When she met Caitlin Gaffin, co-founder of Holler Health Justice in West Virginia, she realized Roe was never enough for many rural communities.

Dessau began producing a documentary about Holler Health Justice in 2018. That year — before Roe was overturned — the West Virginia legislature removed Medicaid coverage for abortions, in a state where nearly 30% of people use Medicaid for health care.

"The protection of Roe didn’t make abortion affordable or accessible in West Virginia. It didn’t increase the number of safe clinics in remote hollers or expand the availability of sex education resources," Dessau writes. "After Roe fell, Holler Health Justice adjusted to the new harrowing reality, but its core mission remained the same."

The film underscores the reality of anti-abortion sentiments in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson. Abortion clinics disappeared due to budget cuts while Crisis Pregnancy Centers popped up, intercepting funding from low-income families and creating abstinence-only sex education programs.

"The mission of Holler Health Justice is not to prove that mutual aid is a replacement for the health and safety services provided by state and federal governments," Dessau writes. "Rather, its work is borne from a tradition of everyday people filling in the gaps when their homes and lives are seen as sources to extract and divest from, not invest in."

Newly proposed EPA rule would exempt offshore fishing vessels from pollution requirements

A proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency would exempt certain offshore seafood processing vessels from the Clean Water Act’s pollution discharge permitting requirements, reports Katie Reuther for KUCB. The Clean Water Act's requirements limit how much pollution permitted vessels can release into waters and in which bodies of water they can do so.

Under the Sept. 4 proposal, a vessel that is three miles offshore in federal waters and not attached to the seabed would be exempt.

"That means that most offshore seafood processors would no longer have to keep track of their pollution release,” Reuther writes. “However, an EPA spokesperson said in an email that other federal rules would still apply to offshore processors."

Because pollution emissions from these vessels would not be held to the same monitoring standards as they are now, the information available for public review may be reduced, Reuther writes.

The rule would apply nationwide, but would primarily affect 80 permit holders in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. If enacted, the EPA estimates it could save processors $1.7 million and the agency $50,000 in pollution monitoring and administrative costs.

Submissions for public comment are available here through Oct. 19.