News from rural America.

Despite lawmaker efforts, rural communities still short of crucial broadband, new Trump administration priorities force USDA grant recipients to reapply, and Appalachia's traditional broom-making craft gets an economic boost from an international nonprofit.

TRANSCRIPT

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

Years of federal efforts have failed to connect much of rural America to broadband.

That's left West Virginia's Atta Carol Atkins and nearly three million others in dead zones, where healthcare and telehealth are both spotty.

The fiercely independent retired school cook doesn't want to leave her home, but struggles with constant outages along with health issues following a stroke.

I'm deep rooted, but things are failing me.

My house is failing me.

Phone service is a little wacky sometimes if I would have to call 911.

According to KFF, a quarter of West Virginia counties are short on both healthcare and broadband, a first-term Trump program aimed to connect where private companies didn't see profits.

But one former FCC director describes it as a disastrous failure.

And Ross DeVol with Heartland Forward says to save money, a Biden era program is forbidden from fixing problems with earlier grants.

If you don't have access to high speed internet, you're simply at a distinct disadvantage.

It's a form of economic discrimination and many parts of rural Heartland suffer from it most.

A deadline to resubmit proposals for $11 billion in USDA rural energy grants has been extended.

Anya Slepian reports.

To keep their grants, recipients have to rewrite their plans to fit Trump administration priorities by the end of the month, eliminating DEI and climate language.

Maine farmer Kevin Levitt says it took months of fighting to get $50,000 reimbursement for investments he'd already made on a grant he'd already won.

It sounded like it was a way to dupe people into getting screwed.

Does it feel great?

Not really.

Maine Congressman Shelley Pingree says it's illegal to block USDA funding previously appropriated by Congress. and unfair to demand time-strapped farmers start all over.

It breaks people's faith and trust in the United States government, and it goes against decades of history with the USDA where farmers considered a trustworthy organization.

I'm Anya Slepyan.

Kentucky's traditional art of broom making is getting an economic boost from a craft-focused international nonprofit.

Nest has an Appalachian program to help local artisans with business development.

Nest founder, Rebecca Van Bergen, says Sunhouse Craft, maker of handmade brooms, is a good example of folks keeping those skills alive.

It is very rooted in their place, in their legacy, in their history, in their culture.

Van Bergen says Sunhouse is adapting in creative ways, using locally grown and milled wood for the handles and natural dyes from a local producer.

In terms of the raw materials, they're sort of saying they learned the craft, the storytelling and meaning they see and want to share from their craft.

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

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.