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In local news
- Since 2019, at least 26 Oklahoma women received felony child neglect charges connected to marijuana use during pregnancy, a Frontier report revealed. (Go deeper: Oklahoma has one of the highest female incarceration rates in the country, and women are often punished more harshly than men for child neglect or abuse.)
- The New York City Council is considering a measure that would require homeless shelters that serve kids to have on-site mental health professionals. The bill has prompted concerns that it could lead shelter residents to have increased contact with child protective services.
- An Oregon Public Broadcasting investigation found that Portland police had evidence to identify a suspect in the murder of activist Sean Kealiher within days of his death, but the department waited two years to make an arrest.
- Out of the workers who won wage theft claims through California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office in 2017, just 1 in 7 have been paid the full amount from their claims, CalMatters reported.
- At least 23 jails in the Midwest have been constructed or proposed to be built on toxic land, according to an analysis from Capital B.
- Adnan Syed, who gained national attention from the “Serial” podcast, was released from prison after a judge overturned his murder conviction.
Onward and upward
- Hundreds of sites on federal land have received new names to remove a racist slur against Native Americans.
- How a Netflix adaptation of the video game “League of Legends” breaks from “copaganda” narratives
- Why nonprofit newsroom Prism made the move to a four-day workweek
New from BigIfTrue.org
- The US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) grant office is under-resourced, leading to funding delays for a HUD program that serves older, low-income adults who live in affordable housing. Funding for the program, which provides Section 202 housing with service coordinators to help residents live independently, is months behind schedule. The delay has forced grant recipients to lay off service coordinators, defer maintenance to cover salaries and reconsider participating in the program. (As of this week, HUD still hasn’t sent the money.)
- Women in Oklahoma can face lengthy prison sentences, an issue that came up during an interim study last week in the state House of Representatives. Leigh Goodmark, a professor in the University of Maryland’s law school, said that after a push to prosecute domestic violence during the 1970s and 80s, abuse survivors were increasingly arrested for intimate partner violence committed in self-defense against their abusers. Mandatory minimum sentences block judges and juries from selecting sentences under the minimum, even when abuse and self-defense are factors in the charges.
Thank you for reading Hard Reset. You can reach me here at bryant@bigiftrue.org and 405-990-0988.
– Mollie Bryant
Founder and editor, BigIfTrue.org
