21 h. ago ‘The damage is terrifying’: Barbara Kingsolver on Trump, rural America and the recovery home funded by her hit novel

Demon Copperhead, the author’s retelling of Dickens during Virginia’s opioid crisis, was a global success. Now she has used royalties from the novel to open a recovery residenceIn the spotless kitchen of a white clapboard house in the Appalachian mountains, a retired deacon, a regional jail counsellor and I form an impromptu book club. The novel under discussion is Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning Demon Copperhead, which is set in this area, Lee County, Virginia, during the 1990s, at the beginning of the opioid epidemic. I say that I loved the novel, that it was vivid and brilliant, heart-warming and tragic. Their reaction is more complex – there’s a real sadness behind it. Julie Montgomery-Barber, the jail counsellor, tells me she found the book “hard to read”. The Rev Nancy Hobbs agrees that reading it was painful, “because I felt like: I knew these people. At every level, from foster care to the football coaches to Demon. I knew Demon.”Hobbs and Montg...

Events

42 h. ago Trump’s Medicaid cuts are coming for rural Americans: ‘It’s going to have to hit them first’

Experts worry the tax-and-spending bill will gut healthcare and hospitals, especially in states like North CarolinaWhen Hurricane Helene drowned western North Carolina in muck and floodwater last year, it caught folks off-guard.Now, local leaders in places like Asheville expect the Republican-led reconciliation bill – called the “big, beautiful bill” by Donald Trump – to bear down on rural America. And they wonder whether people are missing the warning signs. Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago Rural schools feel the pinch from Trump administration's cuts to mental health grants

School districts around the country are cutting back plans to expand their staffing of mental health specialists because of Trump administration cuts to federal grants

Politics

1 week ago Liverpool legend John Barnes racks up debts of £1.5MILLION in media firm as documents reveal he has 'no funds' to pay off taxman after being hit with three

The ex-player, who made a number of appearances for England and spent a decade at Anfield, owes the enormous sum to HMRC and other creditors. He has so far paid back £60,000.

Economics

1 week ago Liverpool legend racks up debts of £1.5MILLION in media firm as documents reveal he has 'no funds' to pay off taxman after being hit with three

The ex-player, who made a number of appearances for England and spent a decade at Anfield, owes the enormous sum to HMRC and other creditors. He has so far paid back £60,000.

Economics

1 week ago UK defence funding will hit 5% of GDP by 2035, Starmer to tell Nato summit

New target includes 1.5% of spending on security related infrastructure such as cyber and border protection

Politics

2 w. ago Jane Goodall chimpanzee conservation project in Tanzania hit by USAid cuts

US agency had pledged almost $30m over five years to Hope Through Action initiative, which was launched in 2023The US government funding cuts will hit a chimpanzee conservation project nurtured by the primatologist Jane Goodall.USAid has been subjected to swingeing cuts under Donald Trump, with global effects that are still unfolding. Now it has emerged that the agency will withdraw from the Hope Through Action project managed by the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). USAid had pledged $29.5m (£22m) over five years to the project, which was designed to protect endangered chimpanzees and their habitats in western Tanzania. Continue reading...

Events

4 w. ago If Trump cuts funding to NPR and PBS, rural America will pay a devastating price

Much of the country has little access to local news, with public media filling the void – and serving as a lifelineWhen Hurricane Helene walloped North Carolina last fall, residents were hit by a second threat at the same time: the dire need for accurate information.The loss of electric power amid the widespread flooding meant that people – especially those in isolated areas – were deprived of basic news. They needed to know about everything from road closures to the whereabouts of their family and friends to sources of drinkable water.Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture Continue reading...

Economics