Frank Morris

Most remote towns are shrinking, whether they like it or not. But if they take inspiration from industrial Eastern Europe after the Cold War, they can improve even as they get smaller.

GateHouse Media is thriving in the beleaguered newspaper industry. Critics say GateHouse makes money by decimating news operations. The company says it's saving newspapers with efficiencies of scale.

"It's like little by little, more and more, the life of the newspaper is leaving," laments Avis Little Eagle, who publishes a paper on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

China's retaliatory tariffs would hit farmers, who rely on exports to keep their business models going, harder than any other group, especially those raising hogs, nuts and fruit.

In 1954, Linda Brown was the lead plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregated public schools for black and white students. Brown was 76.

Militia members accused of plotting to bomb a mosque and apartment complex in southwest Kansas go on trial Tuesday. The alleged plot laid bare tiny pockets of potentially violent racism in the region.

Three militia members go on trial Tuesday for plotting to bomb Somali immigrants working in the Kansas Meatpacking Triangle, a constellation of minority-majority, hardscrabble pioneer towns, that depend on foreign labor. Somali immigrants have all but abandoned one town, despite civic and police efforts to reassure them that they're safe there. Some residents want them to return.

For many immigrants an H-1B visa, available only to highly-skilled workers, is a step on the path to citizenship. That's not the case for many from India because of a cap by country.

Package delivery is up around 15 percent this year, deliveries are running late and companies are struggling to catch up.

Dollar General stores thrive in low-income rural towns, and the deep-discount chain has opened hundreds of new shops in the past year.

Farmers survive by sending food to cities, and when they die their assets often leave just as fast, going to heirs living in urban areas. That financial drain helps accelerate small town decline. So, some states are working systematically to keep a fraction of that outward bound money — billions each year — at home.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl spoke for the first time at his sentencing hearing. He apologized to those he harmed by deserting his unit in Afghanistan.

In Immokalee, Fla., a former migrant farm worker has set up an impromptu aid station for farm workers who lost their homes and livelihoods to Hurricane Irma.

A new museum in Topeka, Kan., is dedicated to daredevil Evel Knievel. Many of Knievel's stunt bikes have been restored, and his white and blue leather suits are on display.

A South Dakota meat processor has settled its defamation and libel suit against ABC News after a disputed 2012 report on the company's "finely textured beef" that ABC called "pink slime."

The second largest Native American city in North America may have been in Kansas. In 1601, a group of Spanish conquistadors stumbled on a vast city. By the time French explorers showed up in the area a century later, the inhabitants had been decimated by European diseases and the city was gone. It's in Arkansas City, Kansas, where locals had been pulling "literally tons" of artifacts from plowed fields for years. But it wasn't until a high school kid with a metal detector found a Spanish cannon shot, that a local archaeologist knew he had a match.

Ten years after a tornado, Greensburg, Kan., rebuilt with high environmental standards. But it's still struggling to attract residents.

It's been 10 years since a tornado nearly wiped Greensburg, Kan., off the map. It's rebuilt to energy-efficient standards, primed for a comeback. What it lacks is people.

President Trump has proposed spending cuts to programs that prop up rural areas that voted for him. While some policy experts bemoan that, there are rural voters who fully support those cuts.

Decades ago, Garden City, Kan., embraced the meat industry, and immigrants flocked there for jobs. The city worked hard to absorb newcomers, but now its economy and diverse community are in jeopardy.