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  • Cities Want Green Spaces. Here's How to Make Them More Fire-Resistant

    November 06, 2020 |

    Next City |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Ashland, Oregon

    A 20-year project by the nonprofit Lomakatsi Restoration Project to restore native plants helped to spare Ashland, Ore., from the worst destruction of a wildfire. Along the Bear Creek greenway in Ashland, the restoration project's work to replace dense thickets of invasive Himalayan blackberries with native shrubs and trees is credited with slowing the speed and severity of the Almeda Fire. Traditional firebreaks and the greenway at other points on the creek failed to slow the fire, and in some ways even sped its destruction.

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  • Analyzing the risk

    November 05, 2020 |

    Boulder Weekly |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Boulder County, Colorado

    The Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool uses a formula to weigh the risk of releasing someone from jail while they await trial. While prosecutors say the tool is better than nothing, critics, backed by a study of the tool's effects, say it disproportionately harms people of color and people experiencing homelessness. Risk assessment algorithms consider a number of facts about a defendant's past and present to predict whether they can leave jail without committing new crimes or failing to make court appearances. But because they penalize already-overpoliced populations, they are not considered objective.

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  • Unhoused: Status Quo

    November 05, 2020 |

    Boulder Weekly |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Boulder County, Colorado

    Housing First has successfully been implemented in cities across the world to reduce the number of people sleeping on the streets but in Boulder County, the approach has not been nearly as effective. The lack of affordable housing has resulted in just a small percentage of unhoused people accessing a place to live, while services for those who do not make the cut have been drastically reduced. While plans to create more affordable housing are in place, the Housing First approach in Boulder County has led to a reduction in homelessness services and only one homeless shelter stands.

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  • How effective are China's attempts to reduce the risk of wildlife spreading disease to humans?

    November 05, 2020 |

    Ensia |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: China, Shebu, Guangdong

    In order to get a handle on the spread of COVID-19, and to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks, China introduced temporary regulations banning commercial breeding of wildlife for meat consumption. These have hit farmers hard, with at least 20,000 farming operations shutting down by the end of February. With the bans on their way to fully becoming a law, local governments are trying to provide training and loans to help farmers transition to new products, but some claim the process is slow and doesn’t go far enough to prevent the breeding of the banned creatures for fur farming and traditional medicine.

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  • What the US can learn from how African countries handled Covid

    November 03, 2020 |

    CNN |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Senegal

    The death toll and infection rate from the coronavirus pandemic have been extravagant in the U.S., especially compared to that of other countries. The difference is largely explained in how different governments handled the early days of the pandemic. In many African nations – such as Senegal, which has been touted as having one of the best COVID-19 responses – "leadership, disaster preparedness, conformity to scientific advice, and coherence in pandemic response strategies" have played a significant role in the outcomes.

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  • Inside Democrats' efforts to fight election security threats

    November 02, 2020 |

    Politico |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States

    The Democratic National Committee (DNC) built up its digital defenses, successfully protecting the 2018 midterm election from the cyber-hacking that occurred in 2016. The DNC now trains staff to spot cyber threats, conducts simulated phishing campaigns to test employees’ vigilance, and security staffers regularly meet with their House and Senate campaign counterparts to offer their security expertise. The DNC also requires protections, such as two-factor authentication, which requires a temporary code in addition to a user’s password and conducts regular “spot checks” of Democrats’ cybersecurity practices.

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  • On Tribal Land, Banishment, Rehabilitation and Re-entry Add Up to Justice

    November 02, 2020 |

    70 Million |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Toksook Bay, Alaska

    Remote Alaskan villages traditionally followed the native practice of banishing members of their communities for serious, chronic wrongdoing. Created in the absence of a functioning criminal justice system of police, courts, and jail, banishment provided safety for families and communities from people prone to violence. Though rare, the practice persists even when limited forms of law enforcement and state justice processes are available. People who are incarcerated or on parole who are also banished can be denied the rehabilitative benefits of their family and cultural home.

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  • Biden embraces drug courts, but do they actually work?

    November 02, 2020 |

    The Boston Globe |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States

    Drug courts can help some people with serious drug problems who face serious criminal charges, if such court programs are run carefully, based on evidence-based approaches. But, too often, such courts – which push criminal defendants into treatment as an alternative to incarceration – can do more harm than good. The proof of drug courts' effectiveness is mixed, and fairly thin. Thousands of such courts exist, based on widespread political support for an approach seen as less punitive. But many critics say the courts' track record overall is weak and their approach can be just another form of punishment.

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  • Philly police rebuffed offers from crisis response center to work together, director says

    October 29, 2020 |

    Billy Penn |

    Text |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

    Since early 2019, a mental-health crisis response center, the West Philadelphia Consortium, has worked to get the police to call in the consortium's mobile crisis team to de-escalate crises and get people into treatment. In more than 1,200 cases in 2019, police made only six arrests and no one died. After police shot and killed Walter Wallace, Jr., during a mental-health crisis, the consortium revealed that it had worked with Wallace but wasn't called for help when police were summoned to his home. The consortium seeks to formalize its relationship with the police department to prevent more violence.

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  • Joe Biden Should Stop Bragging About the Violence Against Women Act

    October 29, 2020 |

    Reason |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States

    The Violence Against Women Act was billed as a way to make a patriarchal society, and policing profession in particular, take domestic violence more seriously. It encouraged policies making arrest of alleged abusers mandatory, even to the point of punishing victims who refused to cooperate in prosecutions. This has backfired on many victims, especially women of color who distrust police and their punitive approaches to solving family problems. The law also prioritizes punitive approaches in its awarding of federal grants, thus denying victim aid to women who do not wish to cooperate with arrests.

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