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FIJ’s Board Member, Clarence Page, is celebrating his 50th-year anniversary as a syndicated columnist at the Chicago Tribune. “Few writers across the country approach politics, culture, and race with the depth and scholarship that Page brings to each of his columns,” Tribune editors wrote in an editorial celebrating Page’s tenure. His long-time editor, Marcia Lythcott, who retired from the Tribune ...

Even as the immigration court system becomes more and more backlogged — rising to more than 1 million cases in September — and detention facilities managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have hit record levels, holding more than 50,000 people nationwide, officials are seeking much higher bonds for immigrants or refusing them altogether, FIJ grantee Paul Ingram reports for ...

In 1988, Erin Hunter was convicted of a murder in New Orleans he claimed to know nothing about after a trial that took place in a single morning. Years later, the detective who investigated the case went to federal prison for extortion, the prosecutor remembered the single eyewitness as being of “dubious character,” and investigators suggested Hunter was set up. ...

For decades, anti-government and white supremacist groups have been attempting to recruit police officers – and the authorities themselves aren’t even certain about the scale of the problem, FIJ grantees Varnham O’Regan and Maddy Crowell, report for The Guardian. Hank Willis Thomas’ Raise Up statue at the National Memorial For Peace And Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Photograph: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images ...

(Washington, D.C.) December 12, 2019–The Fund for Investigative Journalism, in partnership with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) and the Miami Herald Media Company, is proud to announce the selection of Romina Ruiz-Goiriena as the new diversity fellow for FIJ’s latest investigative reporting fellowship. Ruiz-Goiriena will work on a three-month project with staff and editors of the Miami Herald ...

For local law enforcement, health care for inmates can be a burden. For one doctor, it has been the opportunity of a lifetime. FIJ grantee Max Blau spent a year investigating how Dr. Carlo Musso, Georgia’s former deathrow doctor, built a medical empire in Southern jails. His stories were published in Atlanta Magazine and the Georgia Telegraph. Illustration by Mike ...

Despite alarmingly high levels of lead in the soil of a mostly poor, largely African American community in Atlanta that is now an EPA Superfund “removal action” site, there has been no effort by state or local officials to test children for contamination.  An investigation by Georgia Health News, the Georgia News Lab and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution brought the story ...

Nearly one in four Detroit homeowners owes more in delinquent property taxes than they did three years ago despite being a part of a county program designed to help them get out of debt and avoid foreclosure, according to a Detroit News analysis. The payment plans, with lower interest rates and an extended five-year repayment deadline, were a solution devised by officials, including Mayor Mike Duggan, to get homeowners ...

Most police shootings in New Hampshire over the last three decades have been ruled justified by the state Attorney General’s Office perhaps because investigations were completed by the New Hampshire State Police. Nancy West of inDepthNH.org investigates how the state is now considering a civilian review board to determine whether police have acted appropriately when using lethal force against citizens. ...