A state program to compensate people who were sterilized in California prisons has rejected most applications for compensation, according to an investigation by Cayla Mihalovich, with support from the Fund. For 18 months, Mihalovich has been investigating the flawed implementation of the reparations program. Her latest story, published in Cal Matters and KQED and republished in other outlets, includes the ...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently vetoed a bill intended to protect farmworkers when employers violate state outdoor heat-safety law, Robert J. Lopez reported with support from the Fund. The report was published in Capital & Main. It followed an investigation by Lopez, also supported by the Fund, that detailed how California sharply cut back on enforcement of outdoor heat-protection laws ...
For decades, police agencies in California have hidden evidence that officers engaged in misconduct and criminality – even paying the officers six-figure settlements to leave without a fight and then lying in reference checks when the officers apply for jobs in other places – according to an investigation by Katey Rusch and Casey Smith for UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, ...
Rhode Island’s largest school district failed to tell students and parents that their private information was obtained by cyberhackers and posted online, according to an investigation by Mark Keierleber for the nonprofit education news site The74, with support from the Fund. Keierleber’s story was also published in the Boston Globe. He reported that a ransomware gang uploaded the private information ...
Seven years after the devastation of Hurricane Maria – and with continued blackouts caused by storms and spotty coverage – the government of Puerto Rico has not created a comprehensive plan to identify and notify people with special needs who could die without electricity to run dialysis machines and other equipment. With support from the Fund, the nonprofit Centro de ...
Chicago police officers who knowingly lie or conceal evidence in criminal cases are supposed to be put on a list that the State’s Attorney’s Office maintains, so that defendants can question their credibility if they’re called to the stand. But in an investigation for the Chicago Reader and the Invisible Institute, with support from the Fund, reporters Max Blaisdell and ...
A collaborative report from several news organizations, with support from the Fund, examines the prevalence of misinformation on Spanish radio stations in the U.S., tracing how misinformation is spread, its potential impact on the upcoming election, and the role of foreign actors (notably Russia) in creating and spreading disinformation. Feet in 2 Worlds partnered on the six-part series with WNYC’s ...
A new documentary digs into an unsolved murder in 1968 that was reportedly racially motivated. “The Girl in the Yellow Scarf,” produced by Sandra Chapman with support from the Fund, explores the murder of Carol Jenkins in Martinsville, Indiana. Jenkins, who was Black, was 21 years old when she was murdered while selling encyclopedias door to door. In reporting the ...
The Tucson Sentinel, with support from the Fund, has published a series of reports on inmate deaths in the Pima County, Arizona, jail. Last year, lead reporter Natalie Robb uncovered the case of a man who died at the jail – and whose family was never notified of his death. That story led Robb and others at the Sentinel to ...
Intense lobbying led the City of San Francisco to adopt a series of policies that will make it harder for companies to use electric vehicles in the city – and, as a result, will make it harder for the city to achieve its goals to stop all greenhouse gas emissions within the next 15 years. With support from the Fund, ...