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Thursday, January 01, 2015

Postal plant closures to resume, further slowing mail; rural newspapers worry about impact

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Mail delivery is likely to get even slower soon as the U.S. Postal Service goes through with its plans to close dozens of regional mail-s...
Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Reliable trend data on police shootings doesn't exist, but rural areas are part of the phenomenon

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A recent rash of reports about shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers, including some in rural areas, "feels like a n...

Agriculture, forestry and fishing is the industrial sector with the highest rate of workplace fatalities

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The highest rate of fatal injuries in any U.S. industry sector is in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting. More than 100 children die...

Wages declined in 1/3 of counties in last decade; what happened in your county? This map shows

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Even before the Great Recession, there was concern about wage stagnation, which has left millions of households with effectively less incom...
Monday, December 29, 2014

Do you like The Rural Blog? Now is a good time to support its publisher with a donation

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By Al Cross Director, Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues As you choose the tax-deductible contributions to make befor...

Montana, West Virginia among states considering laws to fight methamphetamine production

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State lawmakers in Montana will consider a bill to create a database for purchases of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine—ingredients used to make...

With help from Walmart, new devices and stagnant wages, U.S. sock makers ramp up production

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The American sock industry, once all but dead, has been revived by "changes in technology, attitudes and costs," James R. Hagerty...

English researcher says putting digital collars on livestock could increase rural broadband access

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Sheep could help bring broadband to rural areas. English researchers are studying how digital sheep collars, sensors on riverbanks and ra...
Friday, December 26, 2014

New editor in a shrinking town reports the bad news and challenges it to shape up

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A big part of a newspaper's job is to hold up a mirror to its community, to make it confront its problems. Too many newspapers aren...

Mild December cuts natural-gas price 29 percent

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A mostly mild winter might be good news for many people who hate cold and snow, but so far it has spelled bad news for the natural-gas indu...

Study puts least healthy states in a contiguous swath, much of it rural, from Okla. to W.Va.

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Hawaii is the nation's healthiest state, while several states with large rural populations—including most of the South—are the country...

U.S. drinks the most alcohol during the winter; Iowa has highest average blood-alcohol content

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Americans drink the most alcohol during the winter, says the BACtrack Consumption Report , a report created by a company that manufacture...
Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Rural areas, women have been under-represented in debates about net neutrality, study finds

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Most Americans favor Internet neutrality, and the news media have played the issue as a technical and political story and largely ignored i...

FAA fears Santa will be delivering drone aircraft to inexperienced and/or irresponsible users

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AP photo by John Locher The Federal Aviation Administration is playing Scrooge this Christmas, as agency officials fear that one of th...

Rural Minnesota school says 4-day week cuts costs; state says it negatively impacts students

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Star Tribune photo: Maynard-Clara City schools A west-central Minnesota school district that joined many others around the country in s...

States step up incentives to attract young lawyers to rural areas, where they are often scarce

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It's hard to find a lawyer when you need one in many rural areas. That lack of rural lawyers is forcing some states to think outside th...

Former journalist has saved hundreds of horses through retirement facility in Kentucky

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Michael Blowen and Sandy Hatfield with new arrival, 1997 Kentucky Derby winner Silver Charm (Old Friends photo) How did a former B...

Six million self-described whites have African American ancestry; numbers are highest in South

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About 6 million Americans who describe themselves as white actually have African American ancestry within the past seven generations, says ...
Monday, December 22, 2014

Coal-mine deaths are on pace to set a record-low year, but health issues remain a major concern

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While health concerns remain about dust that leads to black-lung disease, U.S. coal mines are on pace to have a record year in terms of fat...

EPA rules on coal ash don't treat it as a hazardous material, rely on citizens to report violations

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The Environmental Protection Agency 's long-awaited rules on coal-ash disposal, written in response to a huge ash spill in Tennessee ...