The Rural Blog

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. Links may expire, require subscription or go behind pay walls. Please send news and knowledge you think would be useful to benjy.hamm@uky.edu.

The Rural Blog

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A high school public health care boarding school is planned in Alabama; part of its mission is to serve rural counties

Opinion: To become Mississippi's next governor, Brandon Presley must bridge the rural-urban divide

Groups seeking more democracy and better service for the poor from rural electric co-ops in the Southeast rate them

Reader's query answered: Big spending bill, infrastructure package have money for rural septic systems and wells

USDA and EPA officials tour Black Belt county to see chronic sewage problems, a disproportionately rural issue

Gaps in weather radar coverage leave Delta and Black Belt more vulnerable, but it's not necessarily driven by race

Study says covid-19 death rates are higher in rural counties with larger shares of Black and Hispanic residents

Residents in town of 300, without public water for over a year, getting it after investigative reporter sounds alarm

Quick hits: How pandemic is creating a rural employment crisis; Irish support hard-hit Native American communities

Poverty journalist says rural Black Belt deserves more federal funding and attention, like Appalachia has received

Rural Alabama editor who called on KKK to ride is finally out

Black editor, who replaced Alabama publisher who called for KKK to night-ride, steps down after he asserts control

Rural, poor, black students not prepared for four-year colleges, indicates study of one Ga. school

Poor Black Belt residents fighting coal-ash landfill are hit with $30 million defamation suit from it

Senate sends House bill to give black farmers $1.15 billion, Native Americans $3.4 billion

Appalachia, Black Belt highest in diabetes, obesity; CDC has first national, county-by-county maps

Ala. studying good rural schools to see what works

Will black nominee boost low rural black turnout?

Economic woes, out-migration of young people shrink rural communities in the Black Belt

Women's life expectancy drops in 180 U.S. counties, mostly in the Deep South and Appalachia