Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Arizona was a Covid-19 hot spot a month ago. Here's how it's turning things around

    In May, Arizona began removing coronavirus restrictions after seemingly containing the spread of the virus, but by June, the state's caseload was in a drastic incline. Learning from the mistake of reopening too soon, officials paused the reopening and reimposed measures such as mask wearing and business closures. Since then, the caseload has decreased significantly and earned praise from White House officials.

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  • Roanoke man creates group to unite the region's Black fathers

    Black Father Families unites Black fathers to provide support and education, while also countering stereotypes that Black fathers are not as competent and/or are absent from their children’s’ lives, which is often internalized without realizing it. The Facebook page posts videos of Black fathers sharing their experiences and advice on fatherhood. The group also organized the Black Father Family Festival so fathers could meet in person. Now, the group supports men as they are trying to figure out how to talk with their children about the social issues and civil rights protests going on around the world.

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  • The world has shown it's possible to avert Covid-caused election meltdowns. But the U.S. is unique.

    Several countries successfully held elections during the Covid-19 pandemic and can offer insights for how the U.S. can hold a safe presidential election. These include providing more funding for additional polling places and poll workers, expanding ways for people to vote so that it is easier, requiring protective equipment and social distancing at the polls, allowing officials to process mail-in ballots before election day, and informing the public about any changes to contradict misinformation campaigns. It could be harder in the U.S. due to its size and the complexity of electoral laws across the states.

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  • The old-school organizers who got it done on Zoom

    The Industrial Areas Foundation, the country’s oldest community organizing group, adapted to coronavirus restrictions by using technology to win relief for immigrants without legal documentation in California. Organizing a diverse coalition over zoom had many challenges, but they successfully won the expansion of the California Earned Income Tax Credit to include people who file taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, rather than a Social Security number. This applies to about one-tenth of California’s workforce who mainly work in hard-hit service and agriculture industries.

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  • Welcome Back to Germany. Now Take Your Free Virus Test.

    Since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany emerged as "one of the highest testers per capita in the world," due to decentralizing the creation and distribution of testing kits, requiring that tests be fully covered by insurance, and prioritizing the processing of coronavirus tests above all other lab work. Combined with other efforts – such as mandatory quarantine protocols, contact tracing, and new testing stations for travelers – the country has been able to better prepare for a second wave of cases while also recording fewer deaths than other countries.

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  • Program offers alternative for youth who commit misdemeanors

    Choose 180 channels Seattle-area young people into an alternative to court and jail when they commit relatively minor offenses. This "offramp" from the traditional justice system, serving a disproportionately Black and brown clientele, helped 400 clients in 2019, 87% of whom did not commit new offenses. Research shows such diversion programs have a better track record for preventing future crimes. A Choose 180 "sentence" comes in the form of a workshop introducing young people to mentors and giving them a chance at the stability and frame of mind they need to seek more lasting change in their lives.

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  • After Intake Pause, City's Supervised Release Program Set for Large Expansion

    New York City's supervised release program stakes a middle ground in the debate over abolishing cash bail systems by paying outside agencies to monitor and help people released from jail while their criminal charges are pending. More equitable than requiring cash bail for release but more restrictive than simply releasing defendants with no oversight, the program in its first three years boasted an 88% rate for participants complying with court dates while 8% in early 2019 were arrested on new felony charges while freed. The program, on hold during the early pandemic months, is budgeted for a big expansion.

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  • Surveillance Planes Watch Over Baltimore, But Catch Few Criminals

    In the first half of a six-month experiment, Baltimore's "wide-area surveillance" using video cameras flying above city streets to aid in crime investigations has led to only one arrest. The city's police commissioner doubts the city will agree to pay for the surveillance once private funding for the pilot project runs out, but he says he'll know more after the six-month experiment. The experiment is aimed at Baltimore's high rates of gun violence. Besides its effectiveness, critics worry about its privacy implications and that it targets mostly Black neighborhoods.

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  • How Reedsburg Got Broadband

    Along with electricity, water, and phone, the Reedsburg Utility Commission provides internet access in rural Wisconsin. The fiber network was built almost two decades ago and provides affordable internet access at high speeds. The project started for internal needs and grew to accommodate the school and then eventually the whole region. Current municipal legislation inhibits the type of private-public partnerships that allowed Reedsburg Utility to once build what is now considered an essential service.

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  • Searching with the Mothers of Mexico's Disappeared

    Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte is a group of about 200 members, mostly mothers whose children are among the more than 73,000 people who have disappeared and presumably were murdered in Mexico's long drug war. Las Rastreadoras search the countryside for the unmarked graves of the missing, hoping to find their own children, often finding others'. In six years, they have found 198 bodies, 120 of whom were identified. What began spontaneously as one woman's search, then a group effort, has become a way to heal from the pain of what a psychologist calls "ambiguous loss" as well as an act of political activism.

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