Started in a Maine church, WindowDressers relies on volunteer groups to build insulating window inserts for winter. These “community builds” cut costs and strengthen neighborhood ties.

Tribal insurance programs give Native Americans access to affordable health care when the Indian Health Service falls short. Those plans are threatened by the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

From elders struggling with high electric bills to lost economic development opportunities, Trump’s gutting of Solar for All is felt by all on northern plains reservations.

Author of the new book 'Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death of the Family Farm' discusses growing up on a dairy farm, the state of the industry, and what can be done.

A liquid manure truck rollover stirs up murky thoughts about guest worker visas, immigration, ICE, and the price of food.

Childcare options for rural student parents are limited. The executive director of Grays Harbor College Foundation is trying to change that.

The two settings of “Hamnet”, although only around 100 miles away on a map, appear onscreen like different planets. Vivid green woods encircle Stratford-upon-Avon, while London’s streets are bleak, colorless, and racked by sickness.

City budget meetings are about meeting residents’ needs. But in Jacksonville, that goes awry when Florida DOGE makes demands to slash millions in spending. How Trump’s policies trickled down to the local level, this week on Reveal with @thefloridatrib.bsky.social and @dailyyonder.bsky.social:

We paddled 50 miles down the Hudson River and found the region’s legacy of conservation lives on.

Education majors make up a greater share of college graduates in rural counties compared to metropolitan counties. But that number is shrinking among younger age groups.

Despite financial incentives renewable energy offers to small-scale farmers, the hostile attitude of the current administration towards green energy stalls its development.

More than a century of silver mining has left its mark on the landscape – and the people – of North Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Mountains.

Residents of Willmar, Minnesota speak about how ICE has united, divided, and taken an enormous toll on their community.

More than a quarter of the agricultural workforce purchases health insurance through the individual marketplace, a much larger share than the overall percentage of U.S. adults. After a tough year for farmers, the loss of enhanced ACA subsidies is putting health insurance out of reach for many.

Hundreds of people gathered in Dilley, a rural town in Frio County, Texas, to peacefully demand an end to the detention of children. State troopers responded with riot gear and pepper balls.

Making a trip to the post office to get a manual local postmark may not get your outgoing mail to its destination quicker. But here’s when it might be worth the effort anyway.

The new memoirist tells her story of addiction and recovery in eastern Kentucky.

Rural America can pressure Republicans to defect.

In Southeastern Montana, an indigenous buffalo herd restoration program finds sustainability in solar energy.

Texas’s most powerful transmission line threatens pristine river basins and family ranches. Locals and conservationists are fighting to reroute it.

A U.S. House vote to repeal new efficiency standards for manufactured housing is a blow to a region where such homes are common and energy burdens are high.

By converting homes and small-scale commercial spaces into turnkey sites for family childcare providers, small towns across the country are creating new childcare slots, good jobs, and communities where young families actually want to stay.

Every state will receive at least $100 million annually from the federal Rural Health Transformation fund, but some scored millions more based on how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services judged the “quality” of their plans and willingness to pass policies embracing "Make America Healthy Agai

The author of “country noir” novels introduced the Ozarks to popular culture. His hometown of West Plains tells a more complex story.

Concerns over transparency, tax policy, and data centers’ utility usage drive many rural residents to oppose planned developments.

At nearly three and a half hours, "Avatar: Fire and Ash" can be indulgent. But to sit in the theater and don those 3D glasses is to immerse yourself in a visually stunning world with something urgent to say about land, power, and survival.

Non-denominational Christians are on the rise nationwide. Does that hold true in rural America, too?

As ICE enters small towns across Minnesota, rural communities are stepping up.

By being closer to rural communities, students get a chance to get real-life experience with patients they hope to serve after graduation.

A Rural Wisconsin Community Charts a Path for Intergenerational Care  In Walworth County, Wisconsin, a grassroots effort is reimagining what care can look like across generations. A local community group has launched the “Nursery to Nursing Home” campaign, a proposal to transform a vacant wing of…

A dispatch from the Nooksack floodplain.

Rural communities need younger people to step up into leadership roles in local government, volunteer organizations, churches, schools, and families. As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, it's time to let go of old habits that make things harder for them.

The native Minnesotan, now associate director of Activate Rural, shares how her rural roots shape her approach to community development.

Policy changes, training programs, and adjusted pay for family childcare providers are some of the solutions developed through collaboration between non-profits and state and local governments across rural communities.

Trump ran on the promise of ending forever wars abroad. Now he’s starting another one, and rural young people are at risk of once again becoming an extractive resource for America’s imperial goals.

“When [the federal government] starts using my commodity as some sort of leverage, some sort of weapon, I'm the one that suffers.” - Farmers face the aftermath of a soybean showdown between the U.S. and China.

Instrumental in helping establish the Center for Rural Strategies and the Daily Yonder, Katharine Pearson Criss will be remembered for her work in Appalachia, East Africa, and beyond.

The CDC is recommending fewer childhood vaccines, although the ones it has jettisoned from the recommended schedule have successfully battled serious illness for years. Experts warn that if vaccine uptake falls, millions could be hospitalized — or worse — as a result of preventable diseases.

Trains passing through Jackman, Maine, sometimes exceed 200 railcars, stretching more than two miles in length, disrupting road traffic.

Newly proposed legislation seeks to make a Census survey voluntary, something data experts say will reduce response rates to nearly unusable levels.

Big tech eyes coal country as AI demand soars, but rural communities push back.

In 1980, Congress passed legislation that prioritized funding for communities hurt by hazardous waste contamination. Here are the rural communities currently receiving assistance.

In Colorado’s backcountry, the question of wildfire insurance affordability and availability is an existential one. A new state law is aiming to provide some much-needed relief.

Lots of things feel a bit uncertain these days, which makes your decision to read, share, and support our work all the more meaningful.

Last Chance to Support the Yonder in 2025 Donate Before 2025 Ends Dear Daily Yonder reader, Today is your final chance to give to our annual donor campaign. If you’ve been waiting to donate, now is the time. When the clock strikes midnight, our matching challenges — which multiply every dollar we…

The Year in Review — Best of 2025 Our reporters traveled all across rural America in 2025, from Maine to Oregon and many, many places in between. We found people and communities working every day to make rural places more prosperous, facing some of the toughest challenges of our modern world.…

The money in question was designated as nondeployment funds, meaning all broadband needs  other than core infrastructure. If passed, the bill could be a death blow to bridging the digital divide.

There’s plenty of noteworthy rural media that we haven’t been able to write about this year. So before we put 2025 too firmly in our rearview mirrors, we asked the Daily Yonder staff for a final roundup of the year’s best releases. Here are some of their favorite movies, music, TV shows, and books.

NAFTA and other big deals with big trading partners hammer many farms — small deals with many trading partners could save them.

Donate before the year ends to help us continue telling stories that get rural right in 2026.