Frank Morris

Thick ice breaking trees and power lines cut electricity to four out of five homes and businesses in several North Mississippi counties.

Matt Hackworth, a Presbyterian minister in Oxford, Mississippi, is huddling with his wife, son and parents in a chilly, dark house.

While the storm should be letting up, restoring power to the hardest-hit parts of the South is likely to take weeks.

Frank Morris, NPR News, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The bailout will go mostly to row crop farmers, people growing primarily corn, wheat, cotton and soybeans.

They'll get $11 billion.

Well, specialty crops, nuts, fruits and vegetables will fight over the remaining $1 billion.

Farms with gross revenue of $900,000 a year are supposed to be ineligible.

But Anne Schackinger with the Environmental Working Group says farmers know how to skirt that threshold.

Schackinger says past bailouts have gone overwhelmingly to the largest farms, which are also the ones growing the most food.

For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.

President Trump's trade wars aggravated a bleak equation for U.S.

farmers.

His tariffs jacked up the prices of the supplies and equipment they need to buy.

And retaliatory tariffs cut export sales and drove down grain prices.

Many Midwestern farmers lost money this year.

Missouri farmer Richard Oswald says the bailout will help cover bills and loan payments, but won't make up for this year's losses.

The U.S.

Department of Agriculture says it will distribute bailout funds by March, with row crop farmers taking $11 billion and other farmers splitting another $1 billion.

For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.