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

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  • LA Foodways: Explore the History of Los Angeles Agriculture

    The history of Los Angeles, a farm town-turned metropolis, leads to the present-day food situation, in which the quantity of food produced is insufficient to feed everyone - yet food insecurity persists. Food Forward distributes produce that might not sell and brings it to partners across the city. Their food justice work has been supported by groups such as the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.

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  • How a Guatemalan Town Tackled Its Plastic Problem

    San Pedro La Laguna, a town in Guatemala, has banned single use plastics including plastic bags and straws after realizing that plastic pollution was ruining the ecosystem of Lake Atitlan and that a new waste facility would be unable to handle the amount of garbage created in the village. To ensure that people follow the new regulation, there are heavy fees - but the town also bought traditionally made biodegradable replacements; the change is being framed as a way to return to traditional, indigenous ways for the communities.

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  • Why Co-op City Confounds Stereotypes About Big Housing Projects

    A racially integrated middle-income housing unit in the Bronx serves both as an inspiration and an enigma in the New York City housing market. Co-op City, which just celebrated its 50th birthday, accepts tenants of all income brackets and ethnicities, serving as a model in an otherwise quickly gentrifying neighborhood.

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  • This old coal plant is now a solar farm, thanks to pressure from local activists

    Turning a coal plant carbon neutral requires a community effort. In Holyoke, Massachusetts, community organizers from the Toxics Action Center and Neighbor to Neighbor, a local Latinx organization, succeeded in getting the coal plant in their city shut down and transformed into a commercial solar farm. Today, Holyoke’s electric utility uses the solar energy as part of a carbon-neutral plan.

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  • How to fix the gender pay gap? The firm that pays everyone the same

    In the midst of controversy surrounding large gender pay-gaps in the United Kingdom, a wholesale company called Suma adopts a "co-op" mentality and pays everyone - regardless of gender, experience, or age - the same salary. The equal structure at Suma encourages employees to take active roles in all departments of the company, allowing them to see operational structure and strategy on all sides of the wholesale process.

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  • Frozen Assets

    In Alaska, the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program, which is meant to provide $1600 to every resident who has lived in Alaska for at least a year, has been proven to reduce poverty and increase quality of life; the program has even been credited for Alaska's status as the state with the second highest income equality in the country. The Fund is meant to disperse wealth from the state's natural resources - but despite it's overall success, decreasing profits from the oil and gas industries has put the Fund in peril as lawmakers cut payments instead of implementing income taxes to generate revenue.

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  • How a Tech Geek Is Using Machine Learning to Hold Human Rights Abusers Accountable

    Patrick Ball, cofounder of the nonprofit Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), has helped use quantitative data to put numbers behind things that were before unprovable — i.e. the difference between genocide and random violence. Ball and HRDAG have analyzed existing data to come up with the "invisible" data, overlaying several sets of statistics with machine learning to come up with stats like the fact that you were eight times more likely to be killed by the army in the Ixil region in the early 1980s if you were indigenous. Ball also advises nine truth commissions, four UN commissions, and more.

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  • With no oil cleanup in sight, Amazon tribes harvest rain for clean water

    Following decades of oil companies contaminating the water, indigenous groups in Ecuador’s Sucumbíos province have built systems for rainwater collection and filtration. These systems have provided people with clean water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and bathing--a potentially powerful tool for other contaminated rural areas.

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  • Finland's 'housing first' homelessness strategy could help ease Toronto's shelter crisis

    As Toronto's local government strives to address the city's growing homeless problem, officials look to a model in Helsinki, Finland that swapped emergency shelters for permanent housing. Folks who move into these apartments pay what they can, and they're able to set down roots rather than move from shelter to shelter.

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  • How One County Became a Lab for California's Prison Reform

    After San Joaquin County adopted a slew of criminal justice reforms, crime dropped by 20 percent, the lowest number in a decade. One of the things that was implemented were speciality courts aimed at decreasing arrest time and helping “former prisoners find jobs, housing and treatment for mental health and addiction problems.” Other measures include ending cash bail and racial bias training. “Crime has always been issue No. 1, but the narrative in this city is one about being a second chance city.”

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