From Ana Radelet for The Connecticut Mirror: For eight years – until the law changed under Obamacare – state regulators in Connecticut never rejected Aetna’s requests to raise health insurance rates. Read more. [Reporting sponsored by The Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.] ...
From Rone Tempest, a follow-up to his investigation of a failed Wyoming energy project and the waste of taxpayers’ money invested in it. Now Tempest has learned the federal government has demanded a refund of $5.7 million. The energy project was suspended “due to apparent serious mismanagement or misuse of funds.” Read the full story at www.wyofile.com. ...
For the Indian Country Today Media Network, Stephanie Woodard monitored enforcement of voting rights reforms for historically disenfranchised Alaska Natives. Alaska Natives had won a language assistance lawsuit and had organized early voting – better suited for subsistence hunters and fishermen who cannot plan trips to distant voting locations on Election Day. The result: turnout soared. But at the Pine ...
From Peggy Orchowski for The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine, the story of Hispanic students who want to pursue graduate degrees in engineering but are frustrated by the preference given to international students – in the form of research and teaching positions that underwrite the costs of their education. “Latino students have to learn how to find their own ...
From Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones, the story of tankers filled with volatile crude oil extracted through fracking operations in North Dakota, traveling by rail through Canada and the U. S. Five shipments of crude have exploded during the past two years. The railroad cars are old and defective, wooden rail structures are crumbling, and 47 residents of a Canadian ...
Roza Hovhannisyan reports from Armenia for Iragir.am on the frustrations of people evicted from the old town center of Yerevan, waiting more than ten years for decent housing. An excerpt: The European Court of Human Rights will resume the examination of applications of three families evicted from 25 Buzand Street at the center of Yerevan. These families were deprived of ...
From the investigative team at KBOO Community Radio, Portland, an investigation of the influence that the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC] has on laws passed in the state of Oregon. KBOO reporters found that ALEC model bills are introduced, virtually word-for-word, to benefit the corporate-profit mission of ALEC, at the expense of consumer and environmental protection. The reporting team cited ...
From Mariah Blake, for Mother Jones, the story of “energy diplomacy” that promotes drilling in foreign countries. An excerpt: “Clinton then sent a cable to US diplomats, asking them to collect information on the potential for fracking in their host countries. These efforts eventually gave rise to the Global Shale Gas Initiative, which aimed to help other nations develop their ...
From Joseph Sorrentino, for In These Times and The Santa Fe Reporter, an investigation of working conditions at diaries in New Mexico. Workers routinely work overtime without extra pay, and are subjected to dirty, dangerous conditions. But since most New Mexico dairy workers are undocumented immigrants, they are afraid to complain. Sorrentino tells the story of a worker who, despite ...
From Wallace Roberts, for The Crisis Magazine, an investigation of the demise of nursing homes serving poor and minority neighborhoods, due to historic underfunding rooted in Jim Crow decision-making. Roberts probes the case of the Lemington Home for the Aged, a microcosm for a national problem. The Pittsburgh home, a long-standing community-based institution, closed after a death investigation found chronic ...