News from rural America.

The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget would cut housing programs for millions of low-income Americans, from rural Maine to rural Iowa, independent medical practices and physicians are becoming rare and New Mexico maintains its democratic governance of acequias.

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

Housing programs that serve rural folks face deep cuts or elimination in a draft 2026 federal budget.

The Daily Yonder's Joe Belden says the GOP plan ends USDA housing vouchers and Section 502 home loans, which are generally repaid and have helped low-income folks buy homes for three-quarters of a century.

Over the years, that program has helped over two million families become homeowners, this budget proposed totally.

HUD rental assistance would be halved and aid to folks building or rehabbing homes terminated.

Rural development would be moved and probably reduced.

Belden says rental assistance and help for people with disabilities was cut eight years ago, but not like this.

This budget is of another order in the eliminations and zeroing out of programs.

The White House says reducing discretionary spending is needed to cut the deficit.

The budget's increases to defense dwarf the savings in housing, and it also would extend tax cuts that mostly go to the wealthy.

Independent medical practices are getting rarer in rural America.

A new analysis by the Physicians Advocacy Institute says over five years, the number of independent rural physicians fell by more than 40 percent.

The Midwest and Northeast saw the most, with 10 states losing more than half.

In all, the Institute's Kelly Kenney says the rural U.S. lost one in 10 doctors' offices.

We know that rural areas lost 2,500 physicians outright.

We know that 3,300 medical practices closed.

The more than 7,000 practices either closed or were acquired by big entities.

Then, Kenney says, market forces can leave rural communities underserved.

They tend to consolidate with other like practices, and then they will cut where things aren't profitable.

For centuries, community irrigation ditches have brought water out of the mountains to the high desert of Taos County, New Mexico.

Alana Newman visited.

Carlos Arguello is a commissioner for his Taos County acequia, which has irrigated fields since the late 17th century.

As an elected manager, Arguello is charged with keeping the ditch flowing for everyone.

The governance of the acequias is the longest historical practice of democracy in the U.S.

Every spring, the neighbors gather to clean out the ditches together before the water starts to flow.

Arguello says maintaining and using the acequias has been a northern New Mexico way of life for generations.

It's part of what we call around here, "cadencia," the love of land, the love of heritage, the love of place.

I'm Alana Newman.

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

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.