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The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
In North Carolina, access to federal disability insurance eludes those who need it most. Fred Kelly of The Charlotte Observer found bureaucratic snags hold up disability payments. “The disability program is supposed to provide a safety net for workers who become injured or mentally ill, but an Observer investigation found the system is flawed for…
Read MoreChuck Neubauer and Robin Fields of the Los Angeles Times report that Norman Hsu, a fugitive for over a decade, has been hiding in plain sight as a prominent Democratic fundraiser. Fifteen years ago, Hsu pleaded no contest to charges of grand theft agreeing to serve up to three years in prison. His identity was…
Read MoreThe Arizona Republic‘s M.B. Pell reports that one out of every five taxis in Arizona failed state inspections in the past year. Inspectors from the Department of Weights and Measures “conducted nearly 1,570 field inspections of cabs, citing 120 taxis and limousines for having improperly sealed, calibrated or installed meters. Among other citations, 126 vehicles…
Read MoreRuth Teichroeb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on sexual misconduct by employees at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center. “At least 20 sex-related incidents involving correctional staff and inmates have been reported at the prison in the past five years, according to Department of Justice records obtained through public disclosure. The allegations ranged from groping during…
Read MorePaul Nussbaum and Dylan Purcell of The Philadelphia Inquirer report that nearly 60 bridges in the Philadelphia area are rated structurally “deficient” with traffic on those bridges ranging from 25,000 to 160,000 vehicles daily. Six thousand bridges are rated “deficient” in Pennsylvania, the greatest number in the nation. Included in their report is an interactive…
Read MoreKen Dilanian of USA Today reports that many executive branch officials regularly still accept trips from companies and associations which stand to benefit from the agencies’ decisions. Although members of Congress cannot accept these sorts of gifts according to the newly passed ethics bill, the restrictions do no apply to other branches of government. “More…
Read MoreAn investigation by Frank Bass of the Associated Press shows that the use of pain medication has nearly doubled in the U.S. over the past eight years. According to the latest figures from the Drug Enforcement Adminstration, “More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores…enough to give…
Read MoreMargret Newkirk of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on Georgia’s Cobb EMC, one of the largest electric co-ops in the nation and described as “an aggressively expanding conglomerate.” “While most co-ops reimburse that invested money to customers over time, Cobb EMC hasn’t returned a nickel of it in more than 30 years: It was sitting on…
Read MoreFollowing the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster, Lee Davidson of the Deseret Morning News did a couple of quick-hit stories on mine safety in Utah. The stories detail repeated safety violations in Utah mines and those violations specific to the Crandall Canyon Mine, which were fewer than average for Utah mines.
Read MorePalm Beach Post reporter Jeff Ostrowski reports that “trophy properties” in Florida are changing hands, legally, for $10 and costing the state millions in tax revenue. Commercial property deals are being recorded as “transfers of assets” instead of actual sales. In the case of a $600 million property, 70 cents in taxes were collected as…
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