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KERA is a finalist for a national Online Journalism Award , for just the second time in the station's history. The honor — for breaking news among medium-sized newsrooms — is for coverage of the Dallas police shootings of July 7, 2016. Two other North Texas media outlets are also finalists for coverage of the shootings: NBCDFW.com in the same category as KERA, and the Dallas Morning News in the large-newsroom category. The Texas Tribune, a partner of KERA, is a finalist in five small-newsroom categories, including general excellence . NPR is a three-time finalist; PBS Frontline is also a finalist. Here is a complete list of the OJA finalists. The awards, to be presented Oct. 7 at the annual Online News Association conference in Washington, D.C., are the most prestigious honors in digital journalism . KERA won an OJA for topical reporting in 2015, for its Breakthroughs series, "The Broken Hip." KERA has won a station- record 39 awards this year, including a nation-...

Every metropolitan area in the nation is racially segregated, and Los Angeles is no exception. We tolerate residential segregation because we’re convinced that it happened informally — because of personal choices and private discrimination. But what cemented our separate neighborhoods is something most of us have forgotten — government’s unconstitutional and systematic insistence on segregated housing in the mid-20th century, establishing patterns that persist to this day. The 2010 census data show that 60% of Los Angeles’s African Americans live in neighborhoods where few whites are present. The exposure of blacks to whites is as minimal as it is in Chicago or Newark; concentrated African American poverty is as common in L.A. as in New York or Pittsburgh. The New Deal created the nation’s first civilian public housing in the 1930s, segregated not only in the South, but nationwide. In his autobiography, the African American poet Langston Hughes recounted his adolescence in Worl...

Roughly 220 children in lower-income families in Bloomington qualify for but do not have access to affordable pre- kindergarten education . In an effort to change this, Alex Crowley, director of the city’s Economic and Sustainable Development Department , said a state-sponsored initiative, On My Way Pre-K pilot program, which provides funding to programs serving 4-year-olds from families with household incomes at or below 127 percent of the federal poverty level , is coming to Monroe County next year, and it is estimated it can help about 50 children. That begs the question: What can the city and others do to make sure no children who are eligible for pre-kindergarten are left out? As part of that answer, the city is proposing investing $100,000 to support quality child care for lower-income families. “Every dollar initially invested in early education programs for children from low-income families is estimated to generate $4 to $11 in economic benefits over a child’s lifetime,” May...

The 11th-hour deal that put the United Nations on a midtown site long covered by East River slums and slaughter-houses came in a frantic rush on Tuesday the 10th of December 1946, just the day before the General Assembly 's deadline for decision. All at once, John D. Rockefeller Jr. had offered to buy the land from developer William Zeckendorf and donate it to the UN. "If this property can be useful to you in meeting the great responsibilities entrusted to you by the people of the world," the old philanthropist told the delegates, "it will be a source of infinite satisfaction to me and my family." As it happened, the good deed would not only please the famously generous family , it would eliminate a potential rival to Rockefeller Center: Zeckendorf had announced plans to fill the site with a center of his own, with apartments, offices and a new Metropolitan Opera House . As it also happened, there was some question whether Zeckendorf had suffic...

- Some university vice chancellors in Nigeria have condemned the new cut-off marks introduced by JAMB - Also the Academic Staff Union of Universities has rejected the new cut-off of 120 for UTME - According to those critical of the new directive, it is said that it would mean a lowering of educational standards in the country Following the announcement that the cut-off marks for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) has been reduced to 120, there has been some backlash from Nigerians and those in the educational sector. Vice-Chancellors and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have spearheaded the rejection of the decision of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to peg admission cut -off mark at 120 for universities and 100 for polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education. ASUU said the action was in tandem “with the dream of the present government to destroy public universities in the country.” Below are some quotes from some vice chanc...

BRIT tourists are experiencing a Europe-wide backlash against their boozy antics as party hotspots across the continent crack down on drunken debauchery . Thousands jet off from UK airports every year to destinations on the Mediterranean to blow off steam and enjoy the summer sunshine . Boozy Brits have been accused of wreaking havoc across southern Europe But some are better behaved than others and despite the amount of cash they bring in, their presence is not always welcomed by locals. Many residents take offence at seeing their streets filled with foreigners fighting, vomiting, urinating and getting frisky. Some also complain of holidaymakers driving locals out by either pushing prices up or making their towns and cities unbearable to live in. To add to the trouble, tourism to resorts in southern Europe has skyrocketed this year amid security concerns in other destinations like Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey. The sudden spike in numbers has sparked a backlash against visitors – man...

The same day it voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a park — a move that white supremacists descended on the city to protest — the City Council did something that got much less publicity. It unanimously approved a $ 4 million spending plan to address racial disparities . Over the next five years, about $2.5 million is to be used to redevelop public housing ; $250,000 will go to expanding a park in a black neighborhood; and $20,000 a year will pay for G.E.D. classes for public housing residents . Photo K. Ian Grandison, a University of Virginia professor, with a map of what the rapidly gentrifying city looked like in the 1920s. Credit Matt Eich for The New York Times Activists call it reparations for the destruction of Vinegar Hill and other black neighborhoods here. “I’m hoping that other elected officials and policy makers from across the country can see it’s not enough to just move a damn statue,” said Wes Bellamy, the vice mayor, who proposed the plan. “I think symbol...

A judge ruled Thursday that web hosting company DreamHost must turn over data from an Inauguration Day protest website to federal prosecutors looking to find evidence against people charged with rioting during the event. D.C. Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Morin said there would be safeguards in place to address First Amendment concerns raised by the company, which said it was “problematic” to turn over such sensitive information. As a result of the ruling, investigators will be able to review emails related to the website DisruptJ20 .org and identify those who sent and received communications through the domain. But the judge, who ruled from the bench, ordered the government to abide by strict rules to minimize the collection of information about individuals who communicated through the website but committed no crime. “I am going to be supervising their search,” Judge Morin told the lawyers. The Justice Department said it’s no longer looking for casual visitors to the websit...