Some key takeaways from 's exhaustive investigation into the black box of COVID-19 testing (via ):
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Dave Mann
@ContrarianDave
Senior editor with American Public Media, . Formerly & . Die-hard Philly sports fan. Still Trusting the Process.
St. Paul, MNJoined October 2009
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Vault Health previously specialized in men’s health care. IBX was a Rutgers-affiliated lab spun off into a private company.
Both expanded into Covid testing backed by private equity and signed no-bid, emergency contracts with Minnesota last year.
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BIG NEWS: Each year, the Texas Democracy Foundation and the Texas Observer hand out national journalism prizes named for Molly Ivins. We’re thrilled to announce we have our MOLLY Awards finalists!
For investigative work, they are: 1/
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How could a cop mistake a gun for a Taser? Cause they look similar.
Why are Tasers shaped like guns? Cause that's what police wanted.
Fascinating thread by my colleague Curtis Gilbert on the evolution of the Taser.
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The Minnesota police officer charged today with killing Daunte Wright isn’t the first cop to mistake a gun for a Taser. It happens every year or two. Departments have tweaked policies to reduce the confusion, but one thing hasn’t changed: Tasers are still shaped like guns.
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More news - Curtis Flowers is getting married. His fiancé grew up near Winona & started writing to him in prison. Curtis told us today, “I’m living every day to the fullest now ... I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m doing everything I can to make sure it’s a good one.”
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MS Circuit Judge George Mitchell just ordered the State of Mississippi to pay Curtis Flowers a half million dollars in compensation for being wrongfully imprisoned for more than 20 years.
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We’re pleased to announce that we are now accepting submissions for our 2021 MOLLY awards. This year, we’ll be handing out two different awards: one for investigative work ($5,000 prize) and another for political commentary ($2,000 prize). texasobserver.org/molly-awards/s
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Imagine discovering your housing complex was built on a Superfund site.
And the gov't won't monitor pollution/tell you if there's a health threat.
For thousands of public housing residents, that's the reality. Story by & .
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Superfund sites are some of the most polluted places in the country, and more than 9,000 subsidized housing properties sit within a mile of one.
Our investigation with shows govt has failed to inform many residents of potential threats.
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Later this month, I’ll be talking to about his brilliant forthcoming book, “Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of The Death Penalty.”
Join us for this virtual event on Jan 27th! You can register here: bookpeople.com/event/virtual-
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Couldn't be more proud to work with these incredible journalists.
If you'd like to support their work, you can donate here: support.americanpublicmedia.org/ITD-web
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The ‘In the Dark’ podcast analyzed court data that revealed the prosecutor that tried Curtis Flowers six times had a history of disproportionately excluding Black people from juries. Flowers was released from prison after the podcast reported on his case. cbsn.ws/2X3EqP4
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If you're new to the podcast because of , welcome! Here's the best place to start learning about Curtis Flowers' case:
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1/ Today, we are thrilled to announce a that we’ve received funding from the #GNIChallenge program for a new Observer engagement program that will be lead by our new Director of Engagement, .
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👇 Thorough explainer here on how Mark Zuckerberg's money was used to help elections run smoothly.
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Remember how long it took for Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia to count the ballots after the November election?
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More impact from story on youth treatment centers.
States severing ties with Sequel after investigation by my colleague found pattern of abuse.
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Washington state will stop sending children to treatment centers run by Sequel Youth & Family Services following a review of the company that raised concerns about the treatment of kids at two facilities. apmreports.org/story/2020/12/
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is one of more than 2,500 communities to receive a grant. Here’s a map of the jurisdictions that received a grant, according to This interactive map from APM Reports shows all grants and known funding. Click on a city or county to see what they got
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#Election2020: Pandemic—& Congress’ neglect—necessitated unprecedented bailout of election offices with private money—including $350M from ’s Zuckerberg—funneled through little-known nonprofit—and cash proved “indispensable,” finds:
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The highest-ranking Black woman at MNPD quietly retired this fall. She says MNPD culture is "really, really toxic." More than a dozen current and former minority employees say they feel similarly. My latest investigation 4
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This is the untold story of the election.
Mark Zuckerberg stepped up and donated hundreds of millions to local elections offices that likely prevented a meltdown during vote counting.
All because Congress & Trump admin. dropped the ball.
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After Congress failed to help local elections, a nonprofit provided critical funds — including $350M from Mark Zuckerberg — that paid for staff, ballot-scanning machines and rental space that helped the presidential election run surprisingly smoothly. apmreports.org/story/2020/12/
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GOP legislators don’t have a role in seating electors. There are laws on the books passed by the legislatures that determine how electors are chosen, and legislatures are not part of that process.
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"The anger out there in these red states is so deep and palpabale that GOP legislators may have a difficult time seating Biden electors,” Fox News’ John Roberts casually says on air
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Dallas’ , leading pro-Trump evangelical conservative, says ‘Biden is president-elect'
While that's a 'bitter pill,' he says, it's reality and Christians must not be hypocrites, but rather support and pray for as new president.
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Philadelphia GOP city commissioner: "Bad actors" are "lying" about election fraud hill.cm/KfSYeRT
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Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt (R) says on CNN he saw a conspiracy bouncing around about a list of 'dead' voters who voted in Philadelphia. During a break, his team looked up each person's vote history. "Not a single one of them voted in Philadelphia after they died."
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Last week’s Senate and Presidential races were decided on the same ballots.
You can’t accept the results of one without the other.
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McConnell acknowledges that the election led victories to GOP senators and House members. But for presidential race, he says "no states have yet certified their election results" and Pres. Trump is "100% within his rights" to weigh legal options. He makes no mention of Joe Biden
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It's funny cause it's true.
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Creative nonfiction writers be like:
I first ate a hotdog when I was six years old. I remember the taste, the scent, the summer.
SECTION BREAK
Hot dogs were invented in 1693 by Steven Hotdog. According to Scientific American, the hotdog is
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Trump campaign sent 23 emails today seeking donations, w/messages like "mysterious ballots" and "STOP COUNTING ILLEGAL BALLOTS."
The fine print says 60% of donations go to "retirement of general election debt." Which suggests debt and no incentive to concede until it's retired.
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"The legislation was sparked by an investigation by WABE and APM Reports that revealed the harmful effects of predatory investor practices in longtime Black neighborhoods where new development is raising home values."
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BREAKING: Lawyers can't find the parents of 666 kids separated by Trump, a higher number than previously reported. With .
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"It wasn’t PA’s major urban centers that set 2020 apart from 2016. It was Erie County and other places like it, where minor shifts across a wide swath of small, industrial cities, growing suburbs and sprawling exurbs added up, and made all the difference."
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Big part of Biden's PA win: regaining lost Dem ground in Scranton, Erie, and now Allentown:
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New Lehigh Co. ballot count stretch Biden's PA lead to 12,390. Biden is winning Lehigh Co. by 7.4% w/ 189k ballots counted. In 2016, Clinton won Lehigh by just 4.7% w/ 163k ballots cast.
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Important from — the limits of any Trump bid to get a different result out of PA through the Supreme Court
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Tonight's lying on Fox News is out of control. Hannity, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham & Pam Bondi have all repeated Trump's lie that Philadelphia is blocking his poll watchers from observing the ballot counting. Bondi herself has been watching the ballot count. I watched her walk in.
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The last 3 hours on Fox News has been a parade of fire-breathing Republicans ranting and raving about dark rooms and troves of ballots and a lack of transparency... and it's obvious that none of them have any actual knowledge about the specifics of what's happening on the ground.
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New : one day out, we now believe the race for the TX state house is a toss up, w/ potentially massive implications for 2021 redistricting & beyond. Read 's final legislative update: cookpolitical.com/analysis/gover
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Reporters for APM Reports fanned out across Wisconsin in the first week of early voting to see how the swing state was handling its pandemic election.
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Wisconsin is a critical swing state that had a disastrous April primary. It's enduring 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.
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My 1st person account of being hospitalized with COVID-19:
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It's too late to mail ballots — but you can still vote. Here are your options if you haven't returned your ballot yet. #Election2020
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"...on a frigid October morning, when temperatures plummeted into the low 50s..."
Oh, Texas.
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More than 10,000 night owls, graveyard shift workers, and just generally busy folks took advantage of 24-hour voting in Harris County, including this dude who showed up in a welding mask & said he was motivated to vote b/c voter suppression ticked him off
texasmonthly.com/politics/harri
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