Tech Company Free Meals Beget a Lot of Leftovers. Meet the Man on a Mission to Rescue Them.
Marisa Endicott I meet Les Tso on a corner in San Francisco’s SoMa district on a wet Thursday afternoon. He pulls his silver Isuzu SUV into an alley. “Today because it’s the first rain, people are going to be driving cluelessly—there are a lot of Uber and Lyft drivers that come from out of the…
Books Have the Power to Rehabilitate. But Prisons Are Blocking Access to Them.
Behind the walls of California State Prison, Sacramento, six inmates gather in the library for their weekly short-story club. The librarian introduces the day’s pick, Doris Lessing’s A Sunrise on the Veld, and the men take turns reading it aloud. Some of them lean forward in their chairs as they listen; one traces the words…
Health Officials in “Cancer Alley” Will Study if Living Near a Controversial Chemical Plant Causes Cancer
Louisiana health officials plan to knock on every door within 2.5 kilometers of the controversial Denka Performance Elastomer plant in St. John the Baptist Parish in hopes of determining exactly how many people in the neighborhood have developed cancer. Neighbors say the inquiry, first announced in late August, is long overdue. The Denka plant is…
When Your Rape Doesn’t Count
Something about the knock at the front door made Mary-Scott Hunter think a neighbor was in trouble. She had just arrived home from her job at a corporate training company, and she was mulling over an earlier fight with her girlfriend, but the sound jolted her out of it: five loud, fast raps. She could…
Fort Worth Police Officer Fatally Shoots Black Woman in Her Own Home
RiverNorthPhotography/Getty Images The Fort Worth police department is scrambling to explain how and why an officer shot and killed a woman in her own home over the weekend. Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old black woman, was declared dead early Saturday morning. The police received an “open structure” call around 2:30 a.m. from a neighbor who was concerned…
A Radical Approach to Helping Former Prisoners Start Over: Let Them Into Your Home
Sabina Crocette and London Croudy in the backyard of Crocette’s West Oakland townhouse. Cayce CliffordWhen she first got out, little things like crossing the street were difficult for London Croudy. “When you’re in prison, the only thing you’re thinking about is going home. You plan all these things in your mind, and then all of…