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When Google Fiber launched back in 2010, it was heralded as a game changer for the broadband industry. Google Fiber, we were told, would revolutionize the industry by taking Silicon Valley money and disrupting the viciously uncompetitive and anti-competitive telecom sector. Initially, things worked out well; cities tripped over themselves offering all manner of perks to the […]

by ProPublica

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ProPublica will once again organize and host the Diversity Mentorship Breakfast at the Online News Association conference in Los Angeles this September. This is the eighth year of the program, which is designed to connect people from backgrounds that are historically underrepresented in journalism with people at the top of the field. After two years of virtual events, we’re back to gathering in-person. The breakfast will take place at 8 a.m. PDT on Friday, Sept. 23.

Professional networks are crucial to advancing a journalist’s career. The goal of this event is to help promising journalists build these networks in order to make the industry more inclusive.

Past mentors have included newsroom leaders, startup founders, highly accomplished reporters, producers, designers, editors and more.

We pair mentees with mentors based on their backgrounds, challenges and interests in journalism. Mentees also have an opportunity to network with one another.

We aim to pair mentors with at most two mentees for this event, and are planning to accept about 20 mentees. Our event will kick off with a short group discussion and then will transition to guided networking between mentors and mentees.

Anyone is welcome to apply to be a mentee, and people from underrepresented groups — including people of color, women, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities — are especially encouraged. Applicants must be attending ONA22 and must be available Friday, Sept. 23, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. PDT.

If you’re interested in participating as either a mentor or mentee, apply via this form. The deadline to apply is Monday, Sept. 5. We’ll let you know in mid-September if you’ve been matched with a mentor. We’ll do our best to match each applicant with a mentor, but space is limited.

Past mentors have found the experience easy and rewarding, and they have let us know they appreciate meeting with ambitious journalists in the early and middle stages of their careers and sharing their knowledge with them. We will provide some guidance for beginning and maintaining a relationship with your mentee.

Questions? Email diversity@propublica.org. For more about ProPublica’s commitment to helping make our newsroom and journalism at large more inclusive, see some of the steps we’re taking.

Because of her ocean freight shipping and global supply chain expertise, Caitlin Murphy was appointed by Governor Mike Parsons to the Missouri Supply Chain Task Force to help identify potential improvements to supply chain issues.

EDWARDSVILLE - A new commander for the Cross River Crime Task Force was named Wednesday in the lobby of the Madison County Administration Building in Edwardsville. Major Jeff Connor has led the Cross-River Crime Task Force comprised of law enforcement officials from federal, state, county, and local agencies for the past year. As he steps into the role of Madison County Sheriff, a new commander was unanimously chosen to lead the task force with the goal of combining resources and manpower to protect Madison County from criminals who cross state lines to commit violent crimes. Granite City Police Department's Assistant Chief Nick Novacich was announced on Wednesday as the new Commander of the Cross River Task Force. Novacich's deputy commanders will be Madison County Sheriff's Office Capt. Brian Koberna and Alton Police Department Capt. John Franke. On a steering committee for the Cross River Crime Task Force will be Pontoon Beach Police Chief Chris Modrusic, Alton Deputy Police

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The St. Louis plant-based meal company is expanding its offerings from its headquarters at the Saint Louis Galleria.

In January 2020, just eight years into her stint with Spencer Fane LLP, Amy Mistler took over as managing partner of the firm’s St. Louis office.

As vice president of engineering and business development for Missouri American Water, Rebecca Losli oversees $400 million in capital investment projects, including updating the state’s water mains and treatment plants.

TOPEKA — For Ashley All, the effort to defeat a constitutional amendment that would have eliminated abortion rights is the most consequential campaign the Kansas political veteran has worked on. The issue is personal, All told news reporters during a conference call Wednesday morning. “I have four daughters, and this” — All paused. “I don’t […]

The post Kansas abortion-rights activists emphasized attack on personal rights to defeat amendment appeared first on Missouri Independent.

by Kiah Collier and Maya Miller

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced plans to “engage and inform” nearly two dozen communities across the country where air pollution from commercial sterilizer plants has significantly increased lifetime cancer risks for nearby residents. The facilities use a toxic gas called ethylene oxide to sanitize medical and dental equipment and fumigate certain food products. The announcement comes after the EPA’s inspector general and news publications including ProPublica and The Texas Tribune highlighted the agency’s yearslong failure to inform communities of their risks.

The EPA said that its analysis of the industry’s self-reported emissions data showed that about a quarter of the nearly 100 commercial sterilizers the agency regulates are exposing nearby residents to unacceptable cancer risks from ethylene oxide. It posted risk maps and other information online for each of the high-risk facilities and announced dates for national and community-specific webinars and in-person meetings in the coming weeks.

“Today EPA is taking action to ensure communities are informed and engaged in our efforts to address ethylene oxide, a potent air toxic posing serious health risks with long-term exposure,” EPA administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement. “Under my watch, EPA will do everything we can to share critical information on exposure risk to the people who need and deserve this information, and to take action to protect communities from pollution.”

The EPA is also putting the finishing touches on a proposal to place stricter limits on how much ethylene oxide commercial sterilizers can release into the outside air; it plans to unveil the plan later this year. The agency said Wednesday that it is planning to propose limits on ethylene oxide usage inside such facilities to better protect workers who handle the chemical, as well as people who work or attend school nearby.

Existing regulations on commercial sterilizers, as well as other facilities that manufacture or use ethylene oxide, do not account for the EPA’s latest research on the chemical that shows it is far more toxic than the agency knew.

In 2016, the agency concluded that ethylene oxide was 30 times more carcinogenic than previously thought for people who continuously inhale it as adults and 50 times more carcinogenic for those who are exposed since birth. The conclusion fueled a backlash from the chemical and sterilizer industries, which say that the EPA’s findings are deeply flawed. They have made it clear they plan to fight the EPA’s forthcoming regulatory proposals.

The EPA has known since at least 2018 that some of the communities it identified on Wednesday are at risk from ethylene oxide pollution and has even directed regional offices to hold public meetings. Those occurred in many places; in some more affluent and white communities, residents used the information to pressure elected officials to sue and even shutter sterilizer plants and enact stricter regulations of the chemical at the state level.

The EPA played catch-up last year, holding meetings in several additional communities, though it left out others. One of those communities was Laredo, a city of 260,000 on the Texas-Mexico border.

Last year, an unprecedented analysis of five years of industry data by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that a 38-year-old commercial sterilizer located in close proximity to an elementary school in Laredo was the most toxic facility of its kind in the country. Yet none of the more than 100 residents contacted by reporters, including local officials, were aware of the risk; all but one said they didn’t even know the plant existed.

The EPA told ProPublica and the Tribune last year that it was holding off on public engagement in certain communities while it gathered more recent emissions data from each of the nearly 100 commercial sterilizers that it regulates. This data collection is a key step in the agency’s work to craft updated regulations of the facilities.

The agency’s analysis of that data served as the basis of Wednesday’s announcement. It found that ethylene oxide emissions from 23 sterilizers across the country created an excess cancer risk for nearby residents of at least 1 in 10,000. That means that if 10,000 people are exposed to that amount of ethylene oxide over their lifetimes, at least one of them would likely develop cancer as a result of the exposure. (That’s in addition to any cancer risk caused by factors like lifestyle and genetics.) The EPA stressed that the amount of ethylene oxide the facilities are emitting is not high enough to pose short-term health risks.

The Laredo facility, owned by Midwest Sterilization Corporation, was one of those 23. So was the company’s other sterilizer plant in Missouri, which the ProPublica/Tribune analysis found to be the second-most toxic sterilizer plant in the country. Midwest, the country’s largest privately owned contract ethylene oxide sterilizer, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Its Missouri facility moved to reduce ethylene oxide emissions after the EPA identified it as high-risk in 2018, triggering the agency’s regional office to contact the facility and meet with local leaders. Yet its ethylene oxide emissions remained high enough for it to make the EPA’s list of high-risk facilities.

In a news release Wednesday, the EPA noted that “medical sterilization is a critical function that ensures a safe supply of medical devices for patients and hospitals” and that it is “committed to addressing the pollution concerns associated with EtO in a comprehensive way that ensures facilities can operate safely in communities while also providing sterilized medical supplies.”

According to the EPA’s webpage detailing cancer risk at the Laredo facility, the agency will hold a community meeting in that city on Sept. 15.

Last year, Laredo’s lone environmental group, which first learned about the Midwest facility from ProPublica and the Tribune, spearheaded the formation of a clean air coalition that has pushed for emissions reductions and worked to inform residents of the risks associated with ethylene oxide exposure.

The group, the Rio Grande International Study Center, urged the EPA on Wednesday “to go beyond informing the public, and require immediate third-party fence-line air monitoring in neighborhoods and schools that are most impacted by Midwest.”

“Laredo has been a sacrifice zone for long enough,” said Sheila Serna, the group’s new climate science and policy director, who previously investigated a serious complaint against the Midwest facility while working as an inspector for Texas’ environmental agency. “We demand that our voices be heard and that any and all actions be taken to protect the most vulnerable in our community, which means phasing out the emissions of this highly dangerous and carcinogenic air toxin.”

Yaneli Ortiz, who grew up 5 miles from the Midwest sterilization plant in Laredo, gets ready for her quinceañera. In 2019, she was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer that’s been linked to ethylene oxide exposure. Her hip bone has deteriorated due to steroids that diminished the blood supply through her leg and joints, leaving her in constant pain. (Kathleen Flynn, special to ProPublica/Texas Tribune) State Study Finds High Cancer Rates in Laredo

On July 19, the Texas Department of State Health Services published the results of a cancer cluster study requested earlier this year by the Laredo health department. (The state health department only conducts cluster studies by request.)

The study examined rates of four different types of cancer that have been linked to ethylene oxide exposure in three different census tracts nearest the Midwest plant, focusing on diagnoses from 2006 to 2019.

It found that rates of one type of cancer associated with ethylene oxide exposure, extranodal non-Hodgkin lymphoma, were “significantly greater than expected” given the population. It also noted higher-than-expected numbers of cases of breast cancer and nodal non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which have also been linked with the chemical, though not at rates that are statistically significant. None of the rates were high enough to trigger an investigation into possible causes, a state health department spokesperson said.

The head of the Texas Cancer Registry told ProPublica and the Tribune last year that cancer rates may be higher in certain areas due to chance alone and that “cluster investigations in a community setting have rarely led to the identification of associations between cancers and environmental exposures” including air pollution.

However, the state study was limited to the areas closest to the Midwest plant, and the ProPublica/Tribune analysis showed the potential risk extends beyond that. It also didn’t examine rates of other types of cancer linked to ethylene oxide exposure, such as acute lymphocytic leukemia, citing the need to protect patient privacy because there were so few cases in the three census tracts examined.

It’s likely that the incidence rates the state examined in its Laredo study were an undercount, as many residents are low-income or uninsured and travel across the border to Mexico to seek more affordable care. (Doctors in Mexico are not obligated to report cancer diagnoses to the Texas registry.) The city, where nearly every resident is Latino, also has limited health care options, with few oncologists and no children’s hospital.

Last year, ProPublica and the Tribune told the stories of two children in Laredo battling acute lymphocytic leukemia: 9-year-old Juan “JJ” Nevares and 15-year-old Yaneli Ortiz.

Ortiz, who lives just outside the census tracts covered in the state’s cluster study, has been in remission since January. However, the steroids she took during treatment led to the deterioration of her hip bone, and she recently had hip replacement surgery.

JJ, who attended the elementary school close to the Midwest facility and lives nearby, was diagnosed four years ago and continues to undergo treatment in San Antonio.

Sara Montalvo Saldaña, JJ’s aunt and one of his primary caregivers, said she hopes officials take a closer look at rates of acute lymphocytic leukemia. She wonders why it has taken so long for federal and state regulators to inform residents of the risk posed by Midwest.

“They don’t have a sense of urgency. They have not seen it firsthand,” Saldaña said.

The results of the state health department study stand in stark contrast to what a toxicologist hired by Midwest told the local environmental group last year during a one-on-one meeting: Rates of all types of cancer in Laredo were below state averages. She assessed data from the entire county, which state officials and health experts have said is too large of an area to draw firm conclusions about the impact of a single industrial plant’s emissions.

On Wednesday, the EPA said it was working with the 23 high-risk sterilizers, as well as state and local agencies and stakeholders, to reduce ethylene oxide pollution. The agency didn’t say whether those conversations had already resulted in any emissions reductions, but information it provided on the individual facilities indicated that some have plans to install controls that will significantly reduce emissions. The Laredo facility is not one of them.

It’s unclear if Texas’ environmental regulatory agency is cooperating with that effort.

While only two of the commercial sterilizers the EPA identified are in Texas, the state is the largest ethylene oxide polluter in the country thanks to the numerous petrochemical manufacturing facilities clustered on the Gulf Coast. The EPA plans to propose updates to the regulations that limit air pollution at those facilities in coming years.

The historically industry-friendly Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has openly challenged the EPA’s latest ethylene oxide science, even launching its own review, which ruled that the chemical was significantly less toxic than the federal agency had found. That resulted in Texas enacting a new standard in 2020 that could allow plants to emit more of the chemical; the EPA in January formally rejected that standard.

“TCEQ fundamentally disagrees with EPA’s exposure estimates and risk characterization associated with sterilization facilities,” the commission said in a statement to ProPublica and the Tribune. “EPA overestimates both the exposure concentration at which ethylene oxide may cause cancer (cancer potency) and the predicted ambient concentrations of ethylene oxide near sterilization facilities.”

The commission did not respond to questions about whether it would cooperate with the EPA’s effort to reduce ethylene oxide emissions at facilities in Texas.

Even so, Saldaña is grateful about this next set of steps. “It gives me hope,” she said. “Instead of being mad or thinking maybe this would have never happened to JJ, I’m hoping that this will make sure others don’t have to go through it.”

Update, Aug. 6, 2022: This story was updated to add more information about some facilities’ plans to reduce ethylene oxide pollution after conversations with the EPA.

Correction

Aug. 6, 2022: This story originally misstated whether a plant was identified by the EPA as being high-risk. Midwest Sterilization Corporation’s Missouri plant was among the facilities given that designation.

Tamara Keefe, the “Flavor Temptress” at Clementine’s Naughty and Nice Ice Cream, leads a team of 130 employees. Together, they tickle the sweet tooth of folks in and around St. Louis, with big expansion plans for the Midwest

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), introduced the Reproductive Healthcare Accessibility Act to help ensure women with disabilities—who face discrimination and extra barriers when seeking care—can access reproductive services and get the informed care they need to have control over their own reproductive lives. “For too long, Americans with disabilities have faced persistent barriers to healthcare services, equipment and providers—and with right-wing efforts underway to go even further to undermine these rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe—many are rightfully worried about having an even harder time accessing the reproductive care they need,” said Duckworth. “Today, I’m proud to join Senator Murray and colleagues in introducing the Reproductive Healthcare Accessibility Act to

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As founder of Erin Joy Companies, Erin Joy helps female entrepreneurs across the nation with their businesses. Under the company umbrella, she operates several businesses, such as Erin Joy’s Elevate Mastermind and Erin Joy’s Inner Circle.

CHICAGO –Today Governor Pritzker announced an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates for abortion services and a new expansion of Title X funding through the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) for family planning and reproductive health service providers across the state. The 20% Medicaid reimbursement rate increase will give additional resources to providers facing new burdens in the wake of increased restrictions on reproductive care in surrounding states. The Governor also eliminated a requirement for providers to receive a Medicare denial before requesting Medicaid payment, expanding provider options for patients receiving both Medicare and Medicaid. “Illinois abortion providers have been working overtime since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “They need support as they take on this new burden on the frontlines of this fight. Supporting them with reimbursement increases allows them to focus on their important

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GRANITE CITY - Granite City Community Unit School District No. 9 is partnering with the Madison County Health Department to host a Back to School Physical and Vaccination Clinic on Thursday, August 11 from Noon-4 p.m. at the Granite City High School Gym Annex. This event will be held to help protect students and others by meeting vaccination and school physical requirements. All incoming kindergarteners, 6th graders, and high school freshmen are required to have a school physical and updated shot records. Schedule your appointment: https://form.jotform.com/221856470445156 INFORMATION: • Who is eligible: Preschool-12th graders • Appointments preferred, walk-ins welcome • Patient’s Insurance including public insurance (Medicaid) will be billed for service • No out-of-pocket fees for those who are eligible • If you do not have insurance, or have questions about vaccines please call Madison County Health Department at 618-692-8954, Ext. 2 WHAT

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ELSAH - The first Village of Elsah Festival in three years will be held Saturday, August 27 from 1-5 p.m. Live music, local vendors, food and drink, self-guided wetland trail tours and historic tours of the village will be available for anyone looking for the best chance to explore Elsah, which was voted the #1 Top Scenic Spot in Illinois by the Illinois Top 200 project. Connie Davis, Elsah tourism committee chair and co-owner of the Green Tree Inn with her husband Gary, said they started the festival as a way to put Elsah on more people's radar and the event has grown immensely since it began. “My husband and I started this several years ago, just ourselves. We were just trying to get the word out, because there are so many people who live in this area that have no idea that Elsah is even here - they drive up and down the River Road and they don’t know that we’re here,” Davis said. “So we started the festival just to kind of get the word out, have

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Beginning Friday, the state sales tax on school materials, including clothing, will be 1.25% for 10 days, down from the usual 6.25%.

The addition of the coffee chain location — and that of an urgent care facility — comes with redevelopment of a prime corner.