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Reporter Laurie Udesky interviewed more than 30 parents and children across the United States in her two-year investigation into systemic problems in the nation’s family courts that are endangering children. Her report for 100Reporters, “Custody in Crisis,” exposed the peril faced by thousands of children nationwide as family courts give custody to sexually and physically abusive parents. Udesky found an alarming lack of ...

The town of Tulum, on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, has become a hugely popular tourist destination for “eco-chic” travelers seeking a boutique beach experience, according to a report by Oscar Lopez for Newsweek. But paradise comes at a price: As real estate values have soared, environmentalists and residents have been forced into battle against rich businessmen and powerful politicians who are ...

Foundations, corporations and individual Americans gave $119 billion in 2015 to religious charities. Steve Rabey, reporting for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Religion News Service, found that some of these charities aren’t very forthcoming about how they spend their money. Reporting for the Gazette, Rabey delved into the financials of some of his community’s largest ministries. But not all complied ...

As the need for personal care attendants rises for the country’s aging baby boomers, concern is also rising about the quality of care being dispensed by caregiver placement agencies. Jennifer Margulis, reporting for Oregon’s Jefferson Public Radio, documents how some families are let down by for-profit in-home care agencies that don’t adequately screen their workers – in some cases, failing ...

The trafficking of stolen cultural or historical artifacts is a worldwide concern, but an underreported one. David Hidalgo and the Peruvian investigative site Ojo Público launched an online catalogue of stolen artifacts that could help draw attention to the problem. Four independent teams across Latin America contributed to the cross-border endeavor, which included investigative journalists, computer programmers and data analysts. ...

The death of Jackie Salyers, a pregnant 32-year-old Puyallup tribal member, went mostly unnoticed when police in Tacoma, Washington, shot her in the head in January. As publicity over police shootings intensifies, scant attention has been focused on Native Americans who are killed by authorities, according to Stephanie Woodard’s report for “In These Times.” According to data from the Centers for Disease ...

The Navy’s aging fleet of minesweeping helicopters is in disrepair. In fact, less than a fourth of the 28 remaining Sea Dragons are in flying shape at any given time, according to a two-part report by Mike Hixenbaugh and Jason Paladino in The Virginian-Pilot. In partnership with UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, the pair reported that the Navy needs to ...

No one really knows how many people are buried in clandestine graves across Mexico in the wake of the country’s drug wars. Mexican officials say 662 bodies were found in 201 graves in 16 Mexican states between August 2006 and October 2015. But as Dawn Paley reported for The Nation, the tally could be far more staggering: During the same ...

The role of money is looming larger in San Francisco politics, where nearly $28 million flowed into campaigns last year. Some campaigns had more money than others. In partnership with the TV Archive, a project of the Internet Archive, the San Francisco Public Press examined how the money was spent and analyzed the “half-truths and slanted narratives” being peddled by ...

With no place else to take foster children, social workers in Washington state’s Puget Sound area have increasingly resorted to housing children in hotels at night, then babysitting them in child welfare offices during the day. As InvestigateWest reported, in partnership with “Crosscut” and KCTS Television, the state has grown so desperate that it pays some foster parents up to ...