Social issues
Lost opportunities in foster care
Jenifer B. McKim of The Orange County Register writes about lost opportunities to save a 10-month-old foster child who was returned to his mother and brutally murdered. “The investigation found that nearly two dozen abused or neglected children who had been under protection of the Juvenile Court in Orange County have died over the past…
Read MoreA tale of elderly exploitation
In a unique investigation built as a narrative, Lee Hancock of the Dallas Morning News reports on a troubling trend of finacial exploitation of the elderly. This series details the experiences of Mary Ellen Bendtsen. “Her crumbling mansion is now a battleground for her relatives and two art-deco antique dealers with a history of befriending…
Read MoreRacial Diversity in adoptions on the rise
Lynette Clemetson and Ron Nixon of The New York Times looked at federal records and data maintained by Cornell University to identify a rise in interracial adoptions. “In 2004, 26 percent of black children adopted from foster care, about 4,200, were adopted transracially, nearly all by whites. That is up from roughly 14 percent, or…
Read MoreAmerica’s Racial Expulsions
In the story “Leave or Die: America’s Hidden History of Racial Explusion,” Elliot Jaspin of Cox News Service used Census Data and other documents to expose the systematic expulsion of blacks from counties across the U.S. “Beginning in 1864 and continuing for approximately 60 years, whites across the United States conducted a series of racial…
Read MoreMinorities denied for loans more often
Mc Nelly Torres and Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for 2000-04 and found that “blacks and Hispanics who have applied for conventional mortgage loans in South Florida were denied more often than white applicants, even when income levels were about the same.” The analysis also…
Read MoreUFW strays far from Chavez’s legacy
Miriam Pawel of the Los Angeles Times examines the current state of United Farm Workers to find that Cesar “Chavez’s heirs run a web of tax-exempt organizations that exploit his legacy and invoke the harsh lives of farmworkers to raise millions of dollars in public and private money.” Pawel’s reporting finds there is little to…
Read MoreChildren die in spite of Okla. abuse reports
Ziva Branstetter, Curtis Killman, Nicole Marshall, Omer Gillham and Ginnie Graham of the Tulsa World report in a three-part series on Oklahoma’s failure to save at least 30 children who died from abuse and neglect in the past five years. The series detailed cases in which the Oklahoma Department of Human Services had prior reports…
Read MoreMost Tasered suspects unarmed
Richard D. Walton and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star examined the use of Tasers by Marion County law enforcement officers. “At least 112 unarmed suspects were Tasered while fleeing IPD or sheriff’s deputies. At least 87 people were shocked while handcuffed. And only one in 12 Tasered suspects was reported to have been armed.”…
Read More‘Guest workers’ suffer from exploitation, neglect
A nine-month investigation by Tom Knudson and Hector Amezcua of The Sacramento Bee “has found pineros [Latino forest workers in the United States] are victims of employer exploitation, government neglect and a contracting system that insulates landowners — including the U.S. government — from responsibility.” The report, “based on more than 150 interviews across Mexico,…
Read MoreWash. program’s flaws exposes public, vulnerable adults
Ruth Teichroeb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer investigated state records to show the flaws in a state-funded program that pays for-profit companies to supervise dangerous developmentally disabled adults. The program has the state paying for-profit companies to look after developmentally disabled people placed its Community Protection program. "While the program does protect the public in many…
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