From Sunland Park, New Mexico, a series by Kent Paterson of Frontera NorteSur on the uneven efforts to reverse years of neglect and environmental degradation of border town areas known as “colonias.” In Part One, Paterson reports on critically needed flood control measures that are improving conditions near affluent subdivisions, while the poverty-stricken Anapra neighborhood of Sunland Park waits its ...
Leading up to the 2012 elections, Facing South, the online journal of The Institute for Southern Studies, investigated energy politics in North Carolina, producing dozens of reports. Among their findings: the negative impact on home values from gas drilling in communities dependent on well water, the dangers that fracking poses to workers, and efforts by utilities to pass expensive costs of new nuclear reactors on to consumers. Because ...
From Sarah Hadley and Sujin Kim of IowaWatch, a two part series on the unsustainable growth of landfills in the state. An excerpt from part one: “More than half of what Iowans dump into landfills could have been recycled or composted. In some areas, that amount is as high as 75 percent, landfill operators said. An IowaWatch investigation revealed that ...
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 ...