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Billions spent, miles to go: The story of California's failure to build high-speed rail

Benton Graham

September 08, 2025 |

Grist |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, California

California's troubled high-speed rail project—hampered by inexperienced management, inadequate upfront funding, and poor route selection—demonstrates why successful infrastructure mega-projects require experienced agencies, full financing commitments, and streamlined implementation strategies.

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Can filtering seawater provide for a thirsty world?

Chico Harlan, Nada Talbi

September 08, 2025 |

The Washington Post |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Morocco

Morocco's implementation of seawater desalination plants has successfully provided drinking water to 1.6 million people and enabled record agricultural exports for large-scale tomato producers, while simultaneously revealing the technology's limitations in addressing broader water needs due to high costs, geographic constraints, and environmental impacts that benefit only well-funded farms near coastal facilities.

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"One City" to Cut Poverty

Courtney DuChene

September 05, 2025 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Richmond, Virginia

Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building helps coordinate anti-poverty programs between different departments and offers a wide range of job services, such as career counseling, vocational programs, work-based learning initiatives, and adult education courses. The office is the cornerstone of the city’s efforts to drastically reduce its rate of poverty, which has decreased by roughly 10 percent over the past 13 years.

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Stop me, Minnesota shooter wrote. Missed clues sidelined state's red flag law.

Patrik Jonsson

September 05, 2025 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Minnesota

A Minnesota law allows both citizens and members of law enforcement to petition for someone’s guns to be taken if they’re showing signs that they may be a threat to themselves or others, otherwise known as a red flag law. But though the shooter in a 2025 attack made social media posts that could have triggered the law, no one reported these concerns, and most of the state’s 87 counties have yet to use the law at all.

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How drones and AI are changing the way we fight wildfires

Emily Senkosky

September 02, 2025 |

Grist |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

The U.S. Forest Service's drone program has rapidly scaled from 734 flights in 2019 to over 17,000 in 2024, enabling safer and more efficient wildfire management by replacing dangerous pilot reconnaissance missions with unmanned thermal imaging that can detect hotspots and guide ground crews more precisely.

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Plateau Farmers Turn to Land Documents to Reclaim Their Fields Amid Violence

Johnstone Kpilaakaa

August 29, 2025 |

HumAngle |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Nigeria

The Norwegian Refugee Council's land documentation project helped over 2,000 farmers in Plateau State obtain formal land tenure documents, providing legal security and reducing land disputes, but cannot protect them from ongoing violent attacks that continue to threaten their lives and livelihoods.

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The invisible 'giant nets' that catch the smallest songbirds

Kylie Mohr

August 27, 2025 |

High Country News |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada

The Motus network—a collaborative system of 2,200 radio towers across 34 countries that track tiny migratory animals using lightweight tags—has successfully mapped previously unknown migration routes for over 55,000 animals across 450+ species, revolutionizing conservation research for small songbirds and other creatures too tiny for traditional GPS tracking.

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University Brains To Solve City Problems

Malcolm Burnley

August 26, 2025 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

To improve traffic flow, the city of Pittsburgh partnered with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University who helped develop an AI-powered traffic signal system that helped significantly reduce emissions and idling time at stop lights. The collaboration grew into a long-term initiative called Metro21 Smart Cities Institute that brings academics and public officials together to work on municipal issues.

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Fifty Years After Mount Laurel, Affordable Housing Is Gaining Ground in New Jersey

Roshan Abraham

August 21, 2025 |

Next City |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New Jersey

In 2024, New Jersey passed a new law that formalized longstanding requirements that municipalities periodically submit affordable housing plans to the state. The law also created a new mediation program for municipalities that want to dispute the state’s calculation of its affordable housing requirements, and the new system has helped cut down on lawsuits that slow down the process of getting new housing approved.

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"Cinq minutes pour se laver, c'est suffisant" : au camping d'Arradon, les douches sont chronométrées pour économiser l'eau

Robin Prudent

August 19, 2025 |

Franceinfo |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: France, Arradon, Morbihan

Au camping municipal d'Arradon, les rénovations ont été l’occasion de réduire l'usage de l’eau en installant des douches qui limitent les utilisateurs à cinq minutes par douche. Grâce aux nouvelles installations, la consommation d’eau est passée de 109 litres par personne par jour à 71.

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