We always hear that guns don’t kill people. But obsession with guns and fear about the future might. As a kid I’d get off the bus at our country house south of Eveleth, Minnesota, to the sound of gunfire. The shots didn’t ring every day, but most days. My dad […]
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Rural America Gains Population For First Time in Six Years
Nonmetropolitan counties saw an increase in population over the last year — the first such gain since 2011. The increase was slight and confined to rural counties that are closest to cities, according to a report from the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy. Rural American counties reversed a six-year […]
Read MoreTrader Woes: Region’s Bourbon, Beans And More Could Suffer Under Tariffs
Bottles of bourbon make their way through the assembly line at Maker’s Mark, one of ten distilleries on the Kentucky bourbon trail. They’re cleaned, filled, capped and then dipped in the company’s signature red wax, a tradition that started with the wife of the distillery’s founder, Bill Samuels. “She took red […]
Read MoreTrump’s Dangerous Dance Around the Steel and Aluminum Tariffs
According to a Brookings study, among the 13 states considered part of Appalachia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Maryland and Kentucky are among nation’s top importers of aluminum, with Georgia joining the group for some of the highest steel imports in the country. In many respects, these metals are central […]
Read MoreFixing Appalachia Is The First Step To Fixing America
People see Appalachia as the “other America,” but that blinds them to the causes of inequality in the region — and throughout the American system. When the majority of Appalachians turned out to vote for Donald Trump in 2016, the region was held up as a symbol of our broken […]
Read MoreOn the Ginseng Patrol in Appalachian Ohio
On a warm day in the middle of an unseasonably dry October, I drive past cornfields, ranch homes, and hollers to meet 70-year-old farmer Tom Johnson. Johnson and his wife, as well as two grown sons and their families, live on the same land that his great-great-great grandfather homesteaded, nearly […]
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