Rural News

This week's rural roundup: federal Wi-Fi cuts leave students offline, sheep-and-solar deals bring farmers extra cash, a $679M wind port fund vanishes, and floods wreck villages on two continents.

Dollar General is rolling out one-hour delivery to thousands more rural stores, a deadly shooting in remote Australia has exposed gaps in rural policing, and a new study found sheep grazing under solar panels produce perfectly fine wool.

A recent study shows sheep can graze happily among solar panels with no hit to wool quality — good news for farmers eyeing a second income from renewables.

An Arkansas engineer figures out how to stop lightning frying rural electronics, a Minnesota drone search finds a missing man, young South Koreans ditch Seoul for communal village life, and Meta drops $10 billion on Louisiana data centers.

A small intentional community in rural South Korea is drawing young professionals out of Seoul with a mix of shared spaces, remote work, and old-fashioned neighborliness.

Tech giants keep building massive data facilities in small towns like Quincy, Washington. The jobs and tax money are real, but so are the water and energy bills.

AOL is finally pulling the plug on dial-up, a solar setup kept one homeowner powered through a 36-hour blackout, microschools are popping up in tiny towns, and wildfires hit rural areas on two continents.

SpaceX is testing a community sharing option that halves the cost of satellite internet — right as AOL finally kills dial-up.