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 ...
Earlier this year, President Obama announced an offshore drilling plan that excluded the Atlantic. As Facing South reported earlier this year, it was a major setback for the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, which Facing South described as “a secretive group founded in 2011 to revive and expand offshore drilling in the wake of the BP disaster.” As part of ...
While some evangelicals might dismiss talk about diversity, others say it’s a theological imperative. Steve Rabey, writing for Religion News Service and the Colorado Springs Gazette, reports that women and people of color aren’t well represented in the leadership ranks of so-called parachurches — the thousands of religious nonprofit groups involved in various forms of Christian ministry. (Photo of Jane ...
Concern over people being wrongly imprisoned has prompted the rise of conviction review units across the country, now in 24 jurisdictions nationwide, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. But as Christopher Ketcham reports in CounterPunch, the attempt by prosecutors to self-police may only be a stopgap measure in what he and others call a broken justice system. [Reporting sponsored by The Park Foundation.] ...
As Liz Navratil reported for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, federal data shows more than 4 million people in the United States are on parole, probation or similar programs. In 2014, more than 350,000 returned to jail, with nearly 100,000 of them for new crimes. Research shows that addressing violations quickly reduces the probability that probationers and parolees will go on to ...
Kent Paterson of Frontera NorteSur, in the first of a series on small town governance, describes how the excessive levels of arsenic in water supplies along the southern border of New Mexico, a longstanding problem, was exacerbated by the complete break-down of two water treatment plants. The utility in charge of delivering clean water belatedly notified residents of a consistent pattern ...
From inewsource reporters Chris Young and Ingrid Lobet, an investigation into how a buying binge of power plants led to a boost in electricity rates for San Diego residents, now among the highest in the nation. Deals were struck that may have also set the stage for ongoing criminal investigations. Inewsource is a San Diego based nonprofit news organization. [Reporting sponsored ...
By Rosalia Omungo NEW ORLEANS — It all began with a tweet from a lady working in an organization concerned about governance of water bodies such as rivers. On responding to the tweet, she informed me of the danger that was being posed to Lake Turkana in Kenya due to the construction of Gibe 111 dam in Ethiopia, urging me ...
Throughout the year, the Georgia News Lab has been responsible for stories that expose unethical practices in Georgia government. The Georgia News Lab is an innovative model for training diverse journalists from historically black universities. It combines classroom training with the real-world practice of journalism side-by-side with professionals at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) and WSB-TV. The results are impressive: student reporting ...
Scott Reeder of Illinois News Network reports that taxpayers in Illinois are increasingly footing the bill for public sector union officials. It’s a policy called “release time” for public employees, who are paid up to $141,000, and is written into contracts to ensure labor peace. At least forty Illinois counties follow this practice. [Reporting sponsored by The Ethics and Excellence ...