Coronavirus spreads to Trump country

The Hill logoThe coronavirus pandemic that has hammered some of America’s largest cities is now spreading to smaller rural areas, a progression that will bring a virus President Trump once downplayed to the doorsteps of voters who sent him to the White House.

Early epicenters of the disease in the United States have concentrated in urban settings. The first major outbreaks struck Seattle and San Francisco, followed by the greater New York City area that has suffered hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases.

But in recent weeks, the coronavirus has spread to rural areas, especially southern states like Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and the Midwest, hitting Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Continue reading.

In Trump Country, a season of need on family farms

Washington Post logoBERKSHIRE, N.Y. — The grocery list took Anne Lee hours to make, an exercise in her increasingly desperate effort to feed her family of seven.

“Chicken noodle soup?” she wondered as she sat at her kitchen table with a pen and notepad. “No, I’ll make chicken and biscuits. That’s more filling.”

These days, Anne has only about $175 each month to spend on food, beyond the eggs, milk and meat that her family’s dairy operation supplies. So this has become her monthly ritual, going through several drafts to create an affordable meal plan that keeps her husband and five kids from going hungry. Continue reading