News from rural America.

EV charging stations are harder to find in rural America, improving the mental health of children and teachers is the goal of a new partnership in seven rural states, and a once segregated Mississippi movie theater is born again.

TRANSCRIPT

♪♪ For the "Daily Yonder" and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

Electric vehicles are selling in rural America, but charging them can be tricky.

The "Daily Yonder" found that 45 percent of rural counties had at least one fast EV charging port, compared to more than 75 percent of metropolitan counties, with the Trump administration cutting funds that would close that gap.

Lauren McDonald with EV analytics firm Perrin says it's a catch-22.

The deck is stacked against those rural areas because there aren't, A, the trends, and, B, the economic viability to motivate private industry to put them there.

There are now some 60,000 fast-charging ports nationwide, but Congress is poised to end tax credits for buying an EV, as well as support for building out the charging network.

There are some things that literally require government help, or otherwise it's never gonna happen.

Meanwhile, EV sales are still on the rise in the U.S.

A mental health group says it's focusing on early childhood education in seven states to build comprehensive support for community mental health and well-being.

LaMeda will partner with Save the Children's rural early educators with what they call an ecological approach.

Lynn Knox with LaMeda says supporting caregivers will help with Save the Children's goal of kids reading by third grade.

We partner with organizations like Save the Children to make sure that their staff has the training and the tools necessary.

Knox says the ecological approach recognizes that community, family, and economic stress impacts children's well-being and can burn out the adults who care for them.

Being able to support them allows us to then support the communities.

More than two-thirds of U.S. mental-health-care deserts are in rural or partially rural communities.

A once-segregated Mississippi movie theater is getting a new life.

Anya Sepian explains.

The historic Paramount Theater in downtown Clarksdale was abandoned in the '90s, but along with an empty department store, the space is being transformed by Griot Arts, a local nonprofit.

Rebecca Pleasant-Patterson is the executive director.

We need more spaces.

We need more opportunities to engage with our youth and our community members to tell their own stories.

The theater was segregated for nearly 50 years, and the metal stairway that served as the entrance for Black patrons is still standing.

Griot Arts' deputy director, Ben Lewis, says addressing this history up front is a critical part of the project.

How do we take a place that was built to be segregated and turn it into a place where everybody feels not just welcome but they have a place at the table that it was set for them?

I'm Anya Sepian.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.