Locally sourced, collaborative reporting from and for rural America.
Featured Story
Bella Biondini for High Country News
Can ice climbing bring life to an isolated Colorado town in the dead of winter?
Lake City’s ice-climbing park is transforming the local economy.
LATEST NEWS FROM THE NETWORK
-
Farmers Tell FTC Chair to Block Koch Industries’ $3.6 Billion Acquisition of Iowa Fertilizer Plant
“We’re looking for intervention,” say farmers as ag industry consolidation fuels calls for antitrust action.
-
Feds reject plan to pump Moneta oilfield waste into potential drinking water
Federal environmental officials have rejected a request by Aethon Energy to pump Moneta Divide oilfield wastewater into the Madison aquifer, saying the deep reservoir could be used for drinking water, especially by tribal nations on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
-
Company deemed ‘future of education’ for rural schools to falter without cash infusion, founder says
The Global Teaching Project that helps bring free college-level science courses to poor, rural public schools, many in the Mississippi Delta, will lose federal funding after the Biden Administration did not renew its grant last year.
RNN Highlights
-
Illustration by Hanscom Park Studio
Who’s Buying Nebraska?
A Flatwater Free Press series focused on the answer to that question, and diving deeper into the corporate farms, multinational corporations, famed billionaires and even a powerful church who are buying huge swaths of Nebraska farmland.
-
Todd Gearhart for Barn Raiser
Falling Short
With on-the-ground reporting and data analysis assistance from USA TODAY and Big Local News at Stanford University, seven RNN newsrooms explore what significant new federal staffing requirements would look like for residents.
-
J. Carl Ganter for Circle of Blue
Toxic Terrain
This multi-part series examines the rampant overuse of farm fertilizers in U.S. agriculture, and the dire consequences for human and environmental health.
MORE NEWS FROM THE NETWORK
-
Mill closures ‘shock’ industry, but officials say demand for wood remains
April 22, 2024
More than 30 mills have closed in western Montana since 1990, with two more in Missoula County calling it quits this spring.
-
How to protect your community from the toxic lead lurking in soil
April 22, 2024
Our detailed toolkit offers ways to find and address this danger. Download it and join us at a training session to learn more.
-
Use of antipsychotics in Maine nursing homes climbs
April 21, 2024
After an initial crackdown and decline, the rate of the powerful medications given to nursing home residents has ticked back up in recent years.
-
Five takeaways from our reporting on Montana State Hospital
April 18, 2024
Medical practitioners and other staff at the state psychiatric hospital in Warm Springs (Pop. 1,432) are raising alarms about new leadership and policy changes at the public facility — with one employee describing current working conditions as “like being stuck in a recurring bad dream.”
-
Why no one knows exactly how much old-growth forest we have left
April 18, 2024
To use older trees to fight climate change, we need to know where they are. But new maps created by the Forest Service aren’t that detailed.
-
These Republicans wanted a Medicaid work requirement but couldn’t get approval. So they got creative.
April 18, 2024
Knowing the feds wouldn’t allow the work requirement, North Carolina Republicans went to the drawing board to determine if they could come up with a Medicaid expansion bill that still promoted work without requiring it.
-
Torn apart by chaos in Afghanistan, a refugee family is reunited in Bennington
April 18, 2024
As Musa and Zakia Muslim Yar and their three sons made their way to the Kabul airport to fly to the U.S. in 2021, the couple got separated from their two boys amid the crush of people trying to flee the country.
-
Wolf policy set the stage for tragedy of tortured animal and public outcry
April 18, 2024
The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and state Legislature should revisit the wolf “predator zone,” address animal welfare and increase transparency.
-
Oklahoma researchers find Native Americans underrepresented in CDC database
April 18, 2024
A new study says the CDC reclassified Native American participants who self-reported their race in a survey, causing the total number of Indigenous respondents to be underreported, affecting funding for health, social, and behavioral resources for Indigenous people.