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From Stephanie Woodard for Indian Country Today Media Network, a story of Native Americans coping with life-altering cultural changes in Alaska, which increases the risk of suicide, especially for teenaged boys and young men. An excerpt from Woodard’s report: The data shows that Alaska Native suicide occurs primarily among 15-24–year-olds. It’s also a recent phenomenon—rare until the 1960s, [scholar Lisa] Wexler says. By ...

Journalist Eliván Martínez, reporting for the Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico, discovered a scheme by the City of San Juan to illegally collect money from property owners under the false pretense that it would be used to conserve green space. At least 648 private parcels, comprising nearly 3,000 acres in the southern green belt of San Juan, are crucial ...

Just released by Metropolitan Books, based on classified documents and first person interviews, “Kill Anything That Moves” by author Nick Turse, is a startling history of the American war on Vietnamese civilians. From the book jacket: Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were isolated incidents in the Vietnam War, carried out by ...

From Stephanie Woodard, for Indian Country Today Media Network: “On the Standing  Rock Sioux Reservation, tribal members who’ve lost family to suicide heal by  grieving together… [Native] youngsters kill themselves at a rate at least triple the United States average… ‘American Indian and Alaska Native youth have the highest suicide rates in  the country,’ said Richard McKeon, chief of the suicide ...

The Texas Tribune has launched an online database that allows citizens to investigate their legislators’ financial interests. “The Lawmaker Explorer is a first-of-its-kind interactive tool that gives Texans a window into the personal interests of the state legislators elected to represent them. The Explorer, a nine-month research endeavor, is the linchpin of the Tribune’s Bidness as Usual project, a session-long look at ethics ...

Freelance journalist Heather Smathers reports that progress on a Chinese solar power manufacturing project in Nevada is slow-going. “The company [ENN Group of Langfang, China] is still working on obtaining its power purchase agreement, which is needed before the land can transfer..” “Failure to secure a power purchase agreement with a qualified buyer could make the deal null and void. ENN ...

Isaiah Thompson, reporting for the Philadelphia City Paper, exposes how law enforcement authorities seize money from innocent people. Here is an excerpt: “By way of a process known as “civil asset forfeiture,” carried out in Philly by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, the DA may sue to take ownership of confiscated property and, if successful, keep it. The law’s intent is ...

Barbara Moran, reporting for the Connecticut Health I-Team, discovers a toxic, overlooked environmental concern in industrial laundry facilities. An excerpt: Laundering shop and print towels, which are cloths used to wipe oil, solvent and other chemicals off machinery can fuel the release of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) above federal limits. The use and processing of shop towels is largely under-regulated, despite ...

From Sierra Leone, Paige McClanahan and Felicity Thompson report for the Christian Science Monitor on the conflict between preserving nature and developing the economy through an environmentally risky gold mining operation. In this impoverished nation, gold wins. “Tax revenue from the export of all of that gold could mean more money for schools, roads, hospitals, and the meager power grid in this infrastructure-poor country…. “But ...

Reporting for Indian Country Today, 100Reporters.com, and NBC.com, Stephanie Woodard begins a series on young Native Americans who commit suicide, and the efforts to prevent those deaths. “Native teens and twenty-somethings are killing themselves at an alarming  pace. For those 15 to 24, the rate is 3.5 times that of other Americans and rising, according to the Indian Health Service (IHS). ...