The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients

“Burgeoning marijuana growing operations are sucking millions of gallons of water from coho salmon lifelines and taking other environmental tolls, scientists say.”

tate leaders set out last year to reform the agency tasked with protecting Arizona’s most vulnerable citizens. Twelve months later, Child Protective Services remains overwhelmed by children in need and the toll of budget cuts.

“A reconstruction by the Globe of how the campaign unfolded shows that Romney’s problems went deeper than is widely understood. His campaign made a series of costly financial, strategic, and political mistakes that, in retrospect, all but assured the candidate’s defeat, given the revolutionary turnout tactics and tactical smarts of President Obama’s operation.”

“No matter how hot it got on summer’s hottest day, with all of the Island’s air conditioners at full blast, the Long Island Power Authority wanted to have more than enough electricity to deliver to its customers. And it did just that — even if it meant spending billions of ratepayer dollars on questionable deals,…

For the past 10 years, the State Auditor’s Office has recommended that pay for state law enforcement officers be increased to compete with cities such as Austin, where the mid-range pay for a police officer is $74,705 per year compared to $61,793 for a state trooper. While trooper pay is capped at that level even…

Countless homes and businesses could have been saved by better dune and flood protection – if not for the people, and government, that fought against them.

“Felons prosecuted for firearms face long prison sentences under federal law, and U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan is using the law to crack down on career criminals in Western Washington. Cases referred for felons-with-guns charges have increased 45 percent here in the past three years.”

“In the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and amid renewed nationwide calls for stronger gun control, some Lower Hudson Valley residents would like lawmakers to expand the amount of information the public can find out about gun owners. About 44,000 people in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam — one…

“Biologists predict the number of unwanted organisms moving on the Chicago canal will only grow until the waterway is somehow plugged. And it is much more than a Great Lakes problem because biological pollution travels both directions on this invasive species superhighway.”