Social issues
San Diego County’s social welfare programs lacking
San Diego County’s social welfare safety net is riddled with gaps. A voiceofsandiego.org investigation has found that the county government’s historical resistance to provide social welfare programs has left a wide chasm between last-resort aid and those on the bottom rungs of economic survival.
Read MoreLegislation proposed to help protect young runaways
Ian Urbina of The New York Times reports that “state and federal lawmakers from around the country are pressing a variety of new laws that would make sweeping changes in the way runaways and prostituted children are handled by police officers and social workers.” Much of the new legislation was prompted by a Times series…
Read MoreDisabled workers paid cents-per-hour for work at state-run homes
Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register reports that more than 300 mentally retarded wards of the state are being paid less than the minimum wage for work performed at two state-run homes for the disabled. Seventy-four of the workers are paid an average hourly wage of 60 cents or less, and some of the…
Read MoreHuman Trafficking in America series
A series by The Kansas City Star explores the problem of human trafficking, and how the U.S. is failing in its promise to end trafficking and other human rights abuses. Their investigation “found that, in spite of all the rhetoric from the Bush and Obama administrations, the United States is failing to find and help…
Read MoreAgent Orange series
A series by The Chicago Tribune traces the lingering impact of the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The evidence of exposure can still be seen in the many who suffer serious health issues, and birth defects have carried the legacy forth into a second generation. With assistance from the Fund for Investigative…
Read MoreDomestic Silence series
A Columbus Dispatch investigation of domestic violence by Stephanie Czekalinski, Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner shows flaws in Ohio laws and policies that create a culture of tolerance and indifference about the top crime in the state. Among the findings in the four-day series are that animals receive more protections than people, restraining orders for…
Read MoreFelon awarded $1 million to supply AIDS/HIV services
In the third part of “Wasting Away,” an investigation of D.C.’s AIDS program,The Washington Post found the city awarded a $1 million AIDS contract to a woman who had just been convicted in federal court for a mortgage fraud scheme that bilked lenders out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over three years, the city…
Read MoreWasting Away series
In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS case in the nation, the D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as sick people searched for care or died waiting. A ten-month Washington Post investigation found AIDS money was…
Read MoreInternational adoptions fraught with problems
David Shaffer of the Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.) presented a detailed look at how foreign adoptions often lead to nothing but heartbreak for everyone involved, from the birth mother to the adoptive parent. The two-day series also exposed a glaring loophole in a newly implemented treaty aimed at cutting down on corruption in the international…
Read MoreChildren failed by Los Angeles County child welfare system
A report by Kim Christensen and Garrett Therolf of The Los Angeles Times reveals that the Los Angeles County child welfare system is riddled with problems. In many cases, children died with little notice by the system or the public. “At least 268 children who had passed through the child welfare system died from January…
Read More