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Medical copays reduce health care access in MS prisons; Israel planted explosives in pagers sold to Hezbollah according to official sources; Serving looks with books: Libraries fight 'fast fashion' by lending clothes; Menhaden decline threatens Virginia's ecosystem, fisheries.

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JD Vance calls for toning down political rhetoric, while calls for his resignation grow because of his own comments. The Secret Service again faces intense criticism, and a right to IVF is again voted down in the US Senate.

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A USDA report shows a widening gap in rural versus urban health, a North Carolina county remains divided over a LGBTQ library display, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz' policies are spotlighted after his elevation to the Democratic presidential ticket.

Treating Internet as a Utility Called Step Forward for Rural Kentucky

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Thursday, February 5, 2015   

WHITESBURG, Ky. - The head of the Federal Communications Commission says the Internet should be treated like telephone service, a utility everyone is guaranteed access to.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler calls his proposal "the strongest open Internet protections ever proposed by the FCC." Mimi Pickering is an Appalshop media producer in Whitesburg, a town situated in broadband-starved eastern Kentucky.

"For us it's just even a first step of being able to get on the Internet lanes, let alone the fast lane," Pickering says.

Pickering is a member of the National Rural Assembly Broadband Working Group.

She says nearly one out of every four households in Kentucky does not have access to the Internet, most of them in rural parts of the state. She says that's not acceptable.

"We can't compete in the state, national, international market with that kind of reality," says Pickering. "It's just proven over and over that the big telecommunications companies are not going to invest in rural areas and poor communities."

Pickering says that's why reclassifying the Internet is so important because it would require providers to build out in rural places.

Whitney Kimball Coe, program associate with the Center for Rural Strategies, says of the 19 million Americans who don't have Internet access, more than 14 million are rural Americans, so reclassifying ...

"Would really close that digital divide that exists between rural and urban" she says. "It would also allow the FCC to regulate the Internet that would make sure that we have service, that rural areas have service"

But, opponents argue the proposal is overreaching and would stifle investment and customer choice. The five-member commission is scheduled to vote on the proposed rules on Feb. 26.


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