NPR and Member stations in Appalachia and the Mid-South have launched a collaboration aimed at strengthening local news coverage and bringing more stories from this region to the rest of the country. The new Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom is a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU Public Media in Kentucky.
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In some communities, elected leaders are actively pursuing data centers, or are at least open to them, in part to help make up for coal’s decline and counter rising electricity prices. -
In the late 1800s, tales of a creature that bounds between rooftops emerged in Old Louisville — The Demon Leaper. -
Consumption of raw milk has been increasing across the country in recent years. But in some states like Kentucky, direct-to-consumer sales are illegal — leading some farmers to find a legal, though unregulated, means of meeting demand. -
Around campfires in Dickson County people tell passed-down tales of two local cryptids — one a werewolf and the other the White Bluff Screamer. -
It’s been 50 years since the release of “Harlan County USA,” the Academy Award-winning film from director Barbara Kopple that shined a light on an eastern Kentucky coal mining community. Its echoes can still be heard in Appalachian music, documentaries and modern labor movements. -
Many cryptids are said to lurk in the shadows of Appalachia, including West Virginia’s Flatwoods Monster. -
In three Appalachian states, data show state and local police arrested more people for ICE in recent months, including during a national surge in immigration arrests this summer. -
Newspapers are shutting down and shedding reporters across the country, especially in Central Appalachia. Andrew Henderson sat down with a Lexington Herald-Leader reporter who was recently laid off alongside a dozen colleagues. -
Wendell Berry made famous his community of Port Royal, Kentucky, through his writings about agrarian philosophy. The Appalachia Mid-South Newsroom caught up with his hometown newspaper to reflect on Berry's life and legacy in Henry County. -
The mayor of Gallatin, Tennessee says a hyperscale Meta data center is the city’s largest taxpayer and has done a lot of charitable giving in the community. But two years into operation, residents in the northern Tennessee town still have concerns about its effect on utilities, the environment, and property values.
