Rural Economy
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Pascual Pedro-Pedro not the only one: Immigration arrests, deportations triple in Iowa
Immigration arrests and deportations in Iowa have tripled. You think Iowa is hollowing out now? It’s about to get worse.
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Ottumwa Job Corps program, training 240 at-risk youth, faces Trump axe
Despite its success, Ottumwa Job Corps is among the 99 programs the Trump Administration is shutting down. The closure eliminates over 100 jobs in small town Iowa, displacing the 240 at-risk youths served by the program. When Ajai Long finished high school, she found herself spiraling. Instability at home led her to couch-hop. Couch-hopping left…
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Reynolds vetoes bill protecting landowners from eminent domain
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds vetoed a bill restricting private pipelines’ use of eminent domain, against the wishes of Iowa landowners and farmers.
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‘I know I have a dust problem’: ADM repeatedly failed to prevent potentially deadly grain explosions
[Editor’s Note: This investigation is republished with permission from Investigate Midwest. Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Its mission is to serve the public interest by serving as a watchdog over influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism.] In the past several years, safety regulators have repeatedly told one of…
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JBS workers at 2 Iowa plants win back pensions in national contract
Meatpacking workers at JBS plants across the country, including two in Iowa, just ratified a first-ever national contract across all plants.
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Rural America fights back: Iowa summit calls for fair funding, stronger communities
Organizations from across the country gathered in Des Moines for the 2025 Rural Policy Action Summit, where leaders demanded fairness for working families
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651 laid off at Whirlpool in Amana
On Tuesday, news broke that 651 Iowans are soon to be laid off by June 1 from Whirlpool in Amana. That’s about a third of its workforce.
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Gwen Frisbie-Fulton: ‘The people closest to the problem are often the ones who can find the solution’
About two years ago, tents started to show up in my neighborhood along the creek beds and in small stands of trees. Most only became visible when the leaves fell, exposing their orange rainflies and blue tarps. This increase in houselessness didn’t feel surprising to me or to my neighbors: The rent has nearly doubled…
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A love letter to the working class, from Gwen Frisbie-Fulton
It started in the back seat of my family’s Jeep Cherokee, the one with the broken AC and vinyl seats that stuck to my thighs in the late summer heat. After school we would wait, all the doors flung open, for my dad to get off work. My mother reading in the front seat, her…
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‘Some people work their butts off and other people get rich’: Gwen Frisbie-Fulton’s view from rural America
My dad raised us to work hard and do good for our families, but he was also going to make damn sure we didn’t step on anyone else along the way.
