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Remote Learning Progress Report: Broadband proves to be major issue

Emily Duggan

September 08, 2020 |

Concord Monitor |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Rochester, New York

Rochester School District previously used hotspots on buses to help students traveling to extracurricular events, but once the pandemic showed how many families were struggling to stay virtually connected, the buses were turned into traveling hotspots for different neighborhoods. The district was able to get all but 20% of its student population connected and is looking for more ways to minimize the digital divide.

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How Efforts To Save Hawaii's Forests Are Preventing A 'Freshwater Crisis'

Claire Caulfield

September 06, 2020 |

Honolulu Civil Beat |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Hawaii

Landowners, state employees, environmental groups, and local hunters are working together to protect Hawaii’s forests and drinking water by eradicating invasive plants from the state’s protected forests. By allowing native plants to flourish, these forests could help combat climate change by sequestering carbon and allowing freshwater quivers to recharge with rainfall. Since 2013, the state has built 132 miles of fence to keep grazers away from forests to prevent the spread of seeds of invasive plants. However, this method can be expensive; a 1,400-acre fence cost over a million dollars.

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Why Pennsylvania is ground zero for mail-in voting debate

Christa Case Bryant

September 04, 2020 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Pennsylvania

Learning from the failures of the 2020 Pennsylvania primary, where a sharp increase in mail-in voting led to a 2-week delay in certifying election results and many ballots being invalidated, officials introduced a bill to address those problems. Anticipating 3 million mail-in presidential election ballots, the bill would allow mailed in ballots to be opened before election day, which is currently prohibited. The bill would also notify voters and allow them to prove their identity in the case of signature mismatches. While officials are optimistic, there is not much time left to pass and implement the bill.

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How New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo failed, then succeeded, on Covid-19

German Lopez

September 02, 2020 |

Vox |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York

Although public health experts agree that New York was initially slow to implement protocols to protect citizens from COVID-19, they also agree that the state was able to gain control over the virus due to the actions the governor and the public eventually took. Protocols that have proved successful for the state include a mask mandate, a stay-at-home order and a delay in reopeneing businesses despite a decrease in cases.

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Wisconsin voters should request ballots now for mail-in voting

Max Witynski

September 02, 2020 |

Wisconsin Watch |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Wisconsin

In the 2020 Wisconsin primary, increased mail-in voting overwhelmed the system and last-minute decisions to vote by mail led to voter confusion. This increased ballot rejections, which can systematically disenfranchise some populations. Learning from these failures, officials will send absentee voting guidelines and applications to 2.6 million voters and use barcodes to track ballots. Due to mail delivery issues, officials also publicly urged voters to request and submit ballots well before the deadline. Critics believe the state could do much more to make voting safe and easy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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We Can Solve the Coronavirus-Test Mess Now—if We Want To

Atul Gawande

September 02, 2020 |

The New Yorker |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: South Korea

The United States is facing a coronavirus testing problem that is due to both governmental inaction and an inefficient health care system, but the nation has faced a similar problem before. When determining how best to distribute electricity, the creation of the national electric grid decentralized access, which in turn increased supply and lowered costs. To follow a similar path in regards to COVID-19 testing access, South Korea provides an example for what "a functional national grid can deliver when it comes to public health."

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New York Police Change Attitudes After Implicit-Bias Training

Ben Chapman

August 30, 2020 |

Wall Street Journal |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

Mandatory implicit-bias training for all New York Police Department officers influenced the thinking and behavior of a majority of the department, but there is no proof that it reduced racial and ethnic disparities in the department's enforcement practices. A survey conducted after the $5.5 million, 2018-19 training program found that 70% of officers reported a better understanding of the problem and 58% said they attempted to put the coaching they received into practice. The training was aimed at increasing officers' awareness of their racial biases in order to improve relations with the community.

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They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won't Anybody Listen?

Elizabeth Weil

August 28, 2020 |

ProPublica |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, California

California’s wildfires historically were contained through periodic but limited burning. But “misguided fire police” over many decades, focused on overzealous fire suppression, has accumulated more dry fuel, resulting in wildfires that have grown progressively larger and more dangerous. Climate change only increases the likelihood of more fires. And the inventory of unburned acreage that has accumulated is now so great that it makes it increasingly difficult to ever catch up.

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An incomplete picture

Emma Athena

August 27, 2020 |

Boulder Weekly |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Boulder, Colorado

Housing First, an approach that has helped many cities address homelessness, has failed to make much impact in Boulder thanks to a shortage of permanent housing and complaints that the program suffers from a lack of coordination and ignorance of the views of the community it's trying to serve. Boulder County housing authorities and non-profits teamed up in 2017 to shift toward permanent housing and other services for people experiencing homelessness, rather than the previous policy of providing temporary shelter beds. But most people remain unserved by both temporary and permanent solutions.

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Want to reopen schools? Summer camps show how complicated it'll be.

Michael Greshko

August 27, 2020 |

National Geographic |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

80 percent of overnight camps across the country have shuttered down due to pandemic. Camps that reopened had to change how they operate, by using a range of practices from apps to field guides, some have been able to safely reopen.

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