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Zoom Funerals, Outdoor Classes: Jails and Prisons Evolve Amid the Pandemic

Keri Blakinger

January 19, 2021 |

The Marshall Project |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

When the pandemic forced jails and prisons to ban educational classes and cut off visits between outsiders and their loved ones behind bars, some jailers opened their facilities to remote-learning and -visiting tools. The result is a boom in the use of video conferencing for literacy classes, vocational training, family visits, and even to enable incarcerated people to attend family funerals. Some advocates for the incarcerated worry that in-person interactions could permanently be replaced by video, even after the risk of viral infection has eased.

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Plotting the future: the ‘seed guardians' bringing variety to UK gardens

Alexander Turner

January 19, 2021 |

The Guardian |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom

Hundreds of seed-saving initiatives across the UK support the cultivation of “open pollinated seeds” in small plots and gardens to preserve future seed diversity. In contrast to static seeds in a bank, these seed-saving efforts focus on actually growing and sustaining seeds to provide security and more resilient crops. Open pollinated seeds reliably produce viable, true-to-type plants year after year so new seeds do not have to be purchased every season. Many “seed-savers” participate in seed circles where they exchange surplus seeds among small groups, enhancing the security and diversity of seeds.

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Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

Damian Carrington

January 19, 2021 |

The Guardian |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Israel

Batteries that can be fully charged in five minutes have been created for the first time, allowing electric cars to recharge faster. The Israeli company StoreDot produced 1,000 of these new lithium-ion batteries, which can be recharged for 1,000 cycles while retaining 80 percent of the original capacity. It could be a few years before they are mass produced, but the CEO of the company says that this feat “demonstrates it is feasible and it’s commercially ready.”

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A Thin Green Line With Global Impact

Robert McClure

January 18, 2021 |

InvestigateWest |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

For over a decade, environmentalists, Indigenous tribes, ranchers, politicians, scientists, and fishers in the Pacific Northwest have been able to defeat more than 20 proposals from coal and oil firms to ship fossil fuels from their ports. Through protests, public hearings, and petitions to government agencies, activists blacked almost every fossil fuel effort in the region between 2004 and 2017.

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How Solar Panels Could Help Save Struggling Farms

XiaoZhi Lim

January 18, 2021 |

The Huffington Post |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tucson, Arizona

As the amount of farmland decreases in the United States and climate change brings hotter and drier conditions, many farmers are turning to agrivoltaics — growing crops and installing solar panels on the same land — as a way to make ends meet. Research on a garden in Arizona showed that certain crops like tomatoes and chiltepin peppers were able to thrive under the shade of solar panels, while also improving the solar panels’ productivity. “It’s a very unique positive feedback,” said one of the researchers.

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More Dayton residents have conflict during COVID-19. Mediation comes to the rescue.

Cornelius Frolik

January 18, 2021 |

Dayton Daily News |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Dayton, Ohio

In Dayton, neighbor disputes and other conflicts ended up in mediation far more often in 2020, thanks to the Dayton Mediation Center's online services at a time when local court operations were limited by the pandemic. A 23% increase in cases can be seen as both bad news and good: more conflicts among people frustrated by social distancing, but more willingness to address conflicts constructively through dialogue mediated by trained volunteers. Dayton police, who are often called to intervene in neighborhood and domestic spats, will be trained to refer cases to the free mediation center in 2021.

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In the age of social distancing, Sudanese open their homes to Ethiopian refugees

Hadeel Imad al-Deen

January 18, 2021 |

The National |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Sudan, Hamdiyet

Tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees fleeing to Sudan to escape the war in their home region ended up in the border town of Hamdiyet, where a refugee camp and its supplies were quickly overwhelmed. So local residents, despite the pandemic, opened their homes to the refugees, housing and feeding at least 16,000 in the town of 6,000 over a two-month period. So far, COVID-19 has remained under control. Even though thousands of refugees have eventually transferred to camps elsewhere, hundreds more arrive every day.

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With women-only transport, South African city tackles sexual abuse

Kim Harrisberg

January 18, 2021 |

Thomson Reuters Foundation |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: South Africa, Cape Town

To combat high rates of sexual violence in the Cape Flats neighborhood, an entrepreneur steeped in activism founded a women-only driving school. Hundreds of women have learned to drive without having to fend off assaults or harassment from male instructors, while gaining a skill that frees them from the risks inherent in taking public transportation or taxis. To tackle the latter risk, the same entrepreneur, Joanie Fredericks, recently started Ladies Own Transport, an all-female taxi service.

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This L.A. project shows that homeless housing can be done quickly and cheaply

Doug Smith

January 18, 2021 |

Los Angeles Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

A housing complex in Los Angeles was approved and constructed with unprecedented speed and at a much lower cost than traditional homeless housing projects. Using up-cycled shipping containers, the project will include amenities such as bathrooms and refrigerators for each room. Teamwork and collective action from the county’s public works department resulted in the successful project.

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How a diverse school district is using a strategy usually reserved for ‘gifted' students to boost everyone

Joy Resmovits

January 18, 2021 |

The Seattle Times |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

In order to mitigate the “pandemic slide,” a term that describes the educational loss that happened during the pandemic, Highline Public Schools implemented a strategy known as “acceleration.” The strategy is often reserved for gifted students and involves moving students along to more advanced lessons. “The strategies that we often reserved for ‘gifted and talented kids’ are great strategies that work for every student.” Data shows the strategy worked.

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