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Latin America is fighting corruption by opening up government data

Anoush Darabi

June 11, 2018 |

Apolitical |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Argentina, Buenos Aires

Reduce corruption by making public data accessible and transparent. In Buenos Aires, Argentina, information about public works projects is available online, so excess spending is hard to hide. Meanwhile in Brazil, an observatory analyzes government expenditures and investigates suspicious transactions. Credit card expenditure fell by 25 percent after the data was published.

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Schools Lead the Way to Zero-Energy Buildings, and Use Them for Student Learning

Chris Berdik

June 08, 2018 |

Washington Monthly |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Arlington, Virginia

At Virginia's Discovery Elementary, students learn in a unique environment - one of the 89 "net-zero" schools in the country. Instructors creatively incorporate the building's data, on different energy-saving functions, into state standard lesson plans.

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Barcelona Finds a Way to Control Its Airbnb Market

Feargus O'Sullivan

June 06, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Spain, Barcelona

Swamped by short-term vacation rentals, Barcelona pushed Airbnb to share data with government officials and help ensure that only licensed properties are listed on the site. The agreement offers a model for how other cities can respond to the same problem.

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How an RCSD school raised its graduation rate by 20 points in three years with innovation

Justin Murphy

June 05, 2018 |

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle |

Multi-Media |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Rochester, New York

East High High School in the Rochester City School District is three years into an Educational Partnership Organization (EPO) with the University of Rochester and has seen measures of success, most notably the fact that suspensions fell from 2,5000 in 2015 to 300 in 2018. Although there is still work to be done, success strategies include giving more autonomy to the principals and changing how unions and schools bargain with each other.

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How Canadian Cops Ended a Decade-Long Fight Over How to Manage the World's Polar Bears

Katherine Laidlaw

June 05, 2018 |

Pacific Standard |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Differing laws, policing, and management across borders has made it difficult to combat the huge industry that is Wildlife Crime, but a new approach in Canada is showing the way for some common ground. By collaborating with local sellers, a micro-chip can be attached to pelts to track their movement and discern whether the pelt is being sold illegally or not -- even across borders.

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Montana Center Destroys Unwanted Guns—Trying to Make a Dent in 300 Million

Gabriel Furshong

June 05, 2018 |

Yes! Magazine |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Helena, Montana

When a person no longer wants a firearm, they might sell it at a garage sale or give it away, increasing the likelihood that the gun could fall into the wrong hands. The National Center for Unwanted Firearms takes these unwanted guns and repurposes them for law enforcement, gives them to a certified retailer that runs background checks on its customers, or simply destroys them.

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Saving New Zealand's prehistoric giant weta

Yaara Bou Melhem

June 05, 2018 |

Al Jazeera |

Broadcast TV News |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: New Zealand

In New Zealand, the wetapunga is a large insect that is approaching extinction due to human causes. Because the species are critical to the ecosystem, the Auckland Zoo is focusing efforts on expanding education about these insects to younger generations as well as creating an on-site breeding program to support the population.

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Gun Studies: Permit Laws Reduce Murders; Red Flag Laws Cut Suicides

Martin Kaste

June 04, 2018 |

NPR |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Indiana

New research on “red flag laws,” which allow the removal of guns police or courts deem someone is a danger to themselves or others, shows they have been effective at reducing firearms-related suicides when there is effective enforcement. However there is little data on how they affect murder rates, while gun permit laws requiring people to have licenses to buy guns do appear to decrease murder rates, according to another new study.

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Fuel, Oxygen, and Heat

Emily Stifler Wolfe

May 28, 2018 |

Mountain Outlaw |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Boise, Idaho

A diversity and inclusion task force in the Bureau of Land Management is working to change a culture that makes it hard for women to stay in fire-fighting professions. Through creating room for conversation, hosting focus groups, and hiring a full-time diversity and inclusion employee, the culture is on its way to changing for the better.

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Tracing Illegal Guns

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

May 23, 2018 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Albuquerque, Pennsylvania

A publicly available online platform launched by the New York Attorney General fills in big data gaps on guns being used in crimes and trafficked from elsewhere. “We were able to get a snapshot really quickly of where the worst guns are ending up and where they started.” The data can establish groundwork for interstate trafficking cases and also inform policy decisions and New York is happy to share the technology other communities can build their own databases.

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