I spoke with Southlands editor @boyceupholt.bsky.social about his new magazine and the challenges of writing about a region one has adopted as home. This tension sits with me every time I write about Appalachia. commonappalachian.substack.com/p/who-gets-t...

Swain County Commissioners Tuesday unanimously passed a 12-month moratorium on new data centers in the county. www.bpr.org/climate-envi...

Amidst everything else, the Trump regime has quietly killed off the U.S. Forest Service 🌲 “One hundred and ninety-three million acres of your national forests… just handed, on a silver platter, to the people who’ve spent their entire careers trying to destroy it.” www.hatchmag.com/articles/tru...

In hew new memoir, Beth Howard invites white Appalachians to fight for racial and economic justice. “The truth is every single one of us can have a chance at the world we deserve. If working-class white people choose solidarity with Black and brown people instead of siding with whiteness.”

The number of people, and the quantity of decision makers, who attended surprised me. I had the chance to speak with several, and most were very enthusiastic about our chances. Western North Carolina hasn't been this close to getting passenger rail restored since it was discontinued in 1975.

This weekend's nationwide demonstrations look to be historic in number. Many Appalachians in Western North Carolina are expected to show out against what they view as the further "erosion of fundamental constitutional rights." commonappalachian.substack.com/p/no-kings-r...

I'm a sucker for maps of Appalachia. Here's a comparison between what's considered Appalachia according to ARC and where the Appalachian mountains are located.

In its latest research report, the NC Rural Center uses recent data to investigate the status of housing recovery in the hardest hit parts of Appalachian North Carolina. Here's a look at some of the household damage. You can read the rest of their report here: ow.ly/G0iQ50Y8nHY.

Counties throughout western North Carolina are preparing for Winter Storm Fern this weekend. Here's a noncomprehensive guide of shelters that have been announced across the region. www.bpr.org/climate-envi...

Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina has officially released its new documentary, "A Dream for the Future." I have to admit, sitting in the audience last week during the formal launch event, I teared up seeing this area I love showcased on the big screen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkPj...

#DidYouKnow Cherokee and Coosa Counties have the highest prevalence of arthritis in #Appalachian #AL, at 43.6%% & 42.2%, respectively, compared to the state rate of 34.2% and the national rate of 27.7% Learn more: https://www.appli.org/alabama

So this happened in Appalachia! There was some Land Back!

NEW: Publishers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announce they are shutting down the newspaper on May 3, 2026. Hours ago, the Supreme Court of the US declined to extend a stay on a court order for the paper to pay its journalists following the end of a 3-year strike.

North Carolina’s 2026 economic distress designations are here. And several counties in Appalachia, those directly impacted by Hurricane Helene have been downgraded, meaning they are considered more economically distressed than they were in 2025. Source: carolinapublicpress.org/73725/helene...

Burke County has the 4th-highest concentration of state employees per capita in North Carolina. That means changes to the state health plan hit us harder than almost anywhere else in the state. My latest for The Paper on what's at stake: www.thepaper.media/as-state-hea...

$7.7 million of this is going toward rebuilding the municipal golf course in East Asheville. Surely there's an expansive list of better ways to allocate this funding. Folks are still living in temporary housing. Small businesses are still repairing and recovering from damage to their storefronts.

The healthcare crisis is not abstract policy; it's a 69-year-old in Morganton weighing whether to stop taking heart and diabetes meds he cannot afford, and a 20-year-old nephew making $13 an hour who still cannot realistically buy affordable healthcare coverage. www.thepaper.media/federal-stat...

Tom Andrews takes 11 medications. His wife takes 18. They have $6,000 in savings. Due to mounting healthcare costs, Medicare cuts, and expired ACA subsidies, they'll soon have to choose which life-saving drugs to keep My latest for Common Appalachian: commonappalachian.substack.com/p/those-are-...

Vance’s version of Appalachia is full of intentional victims held back by laziness and government dependency. Kingsolver’s Appalachia looks starkly different: a place populated by fiercely independent people whose connection to their land and willingness to work make them easy to exploit. (3/13)

Dozens of pro-immigration demonstrators gathered at four locations around Morganton on Saturday, protesting federal immigration raids that have swept through western North Carolina. I spoke with several protestors in rural, Republican Burke County about what brought them out to protest yesterday.

An investigation by the @washingtonpost.com shows that many areas of the Eastern U.S., including Central #Appalachia, are vulnerable to extreme rainfall and #flooding. Mountains, economic challenges and infrastructure along waterways make preparing for and recovering from floods more challenging.

I will never understand why so many American climate activists are okay with Appalachia — one of the most biodiverse places in the world that has been on the frontlines of fossil fuel exploitation for centuries — getting destroyed by climate disasters because of classism and electoral politics.

Tom Belt views the weekly demonstration as a means of helping others “stay enthusiastic about speaking out." “We want to try to be examples for everybody that drives by here,” he said. “North Carolina is a purple state, and there are going to be some critical elections coming up.”

They've been protesting every week since June 5th. “We pay attention,” Amy Pletcher, a registered Democrat and Buncombe County resident, said. “There are plenty here in Southern Appalachia who vote for those who stand for our rights.” commonappalachian.substack.com/p/buncombe-c...

Roughly 700 people gathered in Morganton, North Carolina, this morning for a “No Kings” protest organized by non-partisan Indivisible Burke NC, challenging President Trump’s executive power and authoritarian policies. That's quite a feat for a rural town whose population is smaller than 18,000.

"Families are terrified," said Carlos Foster, co-founder of the Appalachian nonprofit Hands of Hope. "The raids have been the biggest thing. People don’t know if they’re going to go to work and never come home." theclick.news/nonprofit-ha...

My first piece with The Click. 1 year since Hurricane Helene. The Mountain Aid Project is one of several Appalachian groups that organized to provide relief in the immediate aftermath and is now expanding its mission to meet the long-term needs of the community. theclick.news/mountain-aid...