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The Rural Blog

Voters in rural towns and counties are working to break away from their state's blue-voting big cities and create their own governments. The "breakup" process has already begun in Illinois and California and is gaining momentum in "other states where vast swaths of red, rural counties are dominated by a few blue cities.
Even before the pandemic years, the number of vaccination exemptions issued for kindergartners entering public schools was on the rise. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when allowances from school years ending in 2012 to 2022 were tallied, the "nationwide median rate of kindergartners with vaccine exemptions nearly doubled."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "unveiled its Rural Public Health Strategic Plan, which outlines the priorities, objectives and outcomes the agency hopes to see over the next five years as it collaborates with stakeholders on how to improve the health of rural residents," reports Liz Carey of The Daily Yonder. This plan is the overarching guide for CDC and its Office of Rural Health to use as it works to address health disparities between urban and rural areas. 
Over the past decade, the rate of U.S. adults and teens who smoke has hit its lowest level since 1965, but "disparities remain among the 36 million adults and 760,000 kids who smoke," reports Ken Alltucker of USA Today. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released a report that outlined identifiers for those who continue to smoke, which are often the same descriptors used to depict American rural populations: Poorer, less educated, Native American, and lacking access to medical care.
A new program in Oklahoma is using a mobile drug unit to distribute harm reduction and drug safety supplies to rural Cherokee Nation members struggling with addiction, reports Elyse Wild of The Guardian. The traveling service is part of the tribe's overall "Native people taking care of Native people" effort to address the severe risks and lack of access facing Native Americans with substance-use disorders.
While Veteran's Day is in November, the entire month can be a time for Americans to express their appreciation and care for military veterans.
The U.S. opioid epidemic isn't over, but national totals for overdose deaths have declined for 12 months in a row, with current numbers "slowed to the lowest levels since 2020," reports Alexander Tin of CBS News. The decrease in deaths is attributed to several factors; however, experts warn that now is a time to "double down" on current efforts and keep looking for new ways to prevent drug abuse from starting.
U.S. Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez would like Democrats to take a long look in the mirror and reconsider who they're villainizing and how that tactic has alienated voters.
It's small and somewhat weird, but let's protect it. Say what? If day-to-day environmental journalism is difficult, reporting on barely-known species, which often look like sci-fi inventions, can be more challenging.

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