Utah has become a national center for youth treatment, and it goes easy on the industry. At one facility, teen girls were forced to sit in a horse trough as punishment, and state regulators chose not to punish the people who did it.
Over the course of hundreds of inspections, regulators marked the programs as “compliant” 98 percent of the time. And in recent years, the state noted even fewer violations than before.
An investigation reveals that more than 9,000 federally subsidized housing properties sit within a mile of a Superfund site, and the government has failed to inform many residents of the potential threats they face. As a result, low-income renters are paying for government inaction with their health.
After Congress failed to aid local election offices, a nonprofit provided critical funds — including $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg — that paid for staff, ballot-scanning machines, protective gear, and rental space that helped the presidential election run surprisingly smoothly.
The critical swing state that had a disastrous April primary endures a divisive election with long lines at the polls and battles in the courts — all amid a raging coronavirus outbreak. Yet voter turnout has been surging.
In a major shift, the controversial figure in the fight over how to teach reading now says that beginning readers should focus on sounding out words, according to a document obtained by APM Reports.
During three years investigating the Curtis Flowers case, we’d talked to nearly everyone involved: lawyers, witnesses, jurors, family members, investigators, politicians, and many, many people around town. But there was one person we hadn’t yet interviewed — Curtis Flowers. That is, until one day in early October, a few weeks after he’d been cleared of all charges. For the final episode of Season 2, we at long last talk to the man at the center of it all.
A yearlong investigation led by APM Reports finds the company took in some of the most difficult-to-treat children while keeping costs low in pursuit of profit and expansion. The result was dozens of cases of physical violence, sexual assault and improper restraints. Despite repeated scandals, many states and counties continue to send kids to Sequel for one central reason: They have little choice.
The Mississippi man who was tried six times for the same crime and whose case was the subject of Season 2 of the APM Reports podcast In the Dark sees his two-decade saga come to an end.
Large cities in key states — Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee — have sub-par delivery records; a former deputy postmaster general estimates tens of thousands of mailed ballots will be at risk for late delivery.
A false assumption about what it takes to be a skilled reader has created deep inequalities among U.S. children, putting many on a difficult path in life.
The pandemic is making getting through college harder for students on the wrong side of the digital divide. In rural Arizona, when campuses closed, some students couldn’t log on from home, because they had no access to the internet. A local sheriff flew laptops and hotspots to community college students on the Navajo Nation.
The long tradition of students attending small, residential liberal arts colleges around the country was already shaky before the pandemic. Students are choosing less expensive options and more practical degrees. Experts warn that 10 percent of American colleges — about 200 or more institutions — are on the verge of going under. The pandemic is accelerating that trend.
Colleges and universities are under pressure to reopen, but bringing students back on campus safely means dealing with dizzying logistics. As the virus surges in Miami, a large commuter campus gets ready.
Voters there missed the fine print and the elections staff was overwhelmed. As November nears, a by-mail vote surge — due to virus safety — will spotlight the ballot counting in other presidential battleground states with slim voting margins.
In a city with some of the most glaring health disparities in the country, District officials were slow to help Black residents deal with the pandemic.