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Youth jail needs more money to hire more staff, county juvenile jail and court leaders told the county council at a meeting this week.

Artificial intelligence could be used to disrupt U.S. election campaigns, members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration said during a Wednesday hearing. But the hearing showed that imposing laws and regulations on campaign content without violating constitutional rights to political speech will be difficult. Elections pose a particular challenge for AI, an […]

The post U.S. Senate panel weighs free speech and deep fakes in AI campaign ads appeared first on Missouri Independent.

EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville Field Hockey team is having an outstanding season under head coach Kristina Johnson. The varsity roster includes Morgan Angle, Jaylinn Bell, Chase Chrenka, Hannah Feather, Jayden Henschen, Samantha Huffman, Marie Kaman, Megan Kalb, Samantha Kourinos, Addyson Moore, Brianna Miller, Kyra Miller, Maggie Moseley, Emily Pollack, Andrew Salter and Mia Schomber. The Edwardsville field hockey girls are Johnston Law Firm Female Athletes of the Month. Moseley recently fired in two goals in a Tigers win. Marie Kaman has also been a playmaker for the Tigers this season. Johnson singled out Chrenka and Angle for their strong play and said all her girls had contributed to the team’s success this fall. Coach Johnson said she is very pleased with her team and the Tigers have had some key wins. As of this week, the Tigers had amassed five wins. “We have had some key wins that were confidence boosters,” she said.

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GLEN CARBON - Father McGivney Catholic High School Fellowship of Christian Athletes invited students and staff to a prayer by the flagpole at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 27, 2023. “See You At The Pole” is a student-led, nationwide time of prayer on the fourth Wednesday of September. It is a time to lift up students, teachers, friends, families, and our country in prayer.

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by Debbie Cenziper, ProPublica, and Michael D. Sallah, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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

Interested in learning more about this investigation? Join us for an upcoming virtual conversation. Register today to save your spot.

Millions of people in the United States and around the world were affected by the June 2021 recall of Philips Respironics ventilators and CPAP and BiPAP machines. ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on how the company kept complaints about the devices secret for years. As part of that reporting, the news organizations found answers for consumers trying to navigate the crisis.

We are not providing medical advice and encourage patients and their family members to seek guidance from trusted health care providers.

Why Did Philips Respironics Recall These Breathing Machines?

Foam that the company embedded in millions of ventilators and sleep apnea machines to reduce noise was found to break down, in some cases because of heat and humidity.

The material is polyester-based polyurethane, which is used to stuff mattresses, seat cushions and sofas. Tests for the company have found that when the foam degrades, it can release chemicals at dangerous levels.

After receiving thousands of complaints, Philips announced a recall of about 20 models of ventilators and CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) and BiPAP (bi-level positive airway pressure) machines. The Food and Drug Administration said that as many as 15 million devices with the sound-abatement foam had been sold since 2009.

The FDA, which oversees the medical device industry, declared the recall a Class 1 — the most severe type, reserved for device defects that can cause serious injury or death.

Was My Ventilator, CPAP or BiPAP Machine Recalled?

The recalled machines were sold not only in the United States but around the world, including in Canada, Australia and Brazil. Most of the affected devices were DreamStations, the company’s signature CPAP machine.

Continuous Ventilator, Minimum Ventilatory Support, Facility Use

• E30

Continuous Ventilator, Non-Life Supporting (BiPAP)

• DreamStation ST, AVAPS
• SystemOne ASV4
• C Series ST, AVAPS, also known as System One BiPAP AVAPS (C-Series), System One BiPAP S/T (C-Series)
• OmniLab Advanced Plus (sleep lab) CPAP
• OmniLab Advanced Plus

Noncontinuous Ventilator (CPAP)

• System One 50 series
• System One 60 series
• DreamStation CPAP
• DreamStation Go
• Dorma 400, 500

Mechanical Ventilators

• Trilogy 100
• Trilogy 200
• Garbin Plus, Aeris, LifeVent Ventilator
• A-Series BiPAP Hybrid A30
• A-Series BiPAP V30 Auto Ventilator
• A-Series BiPAP A40
• A-Series BiPAP A30

What Does the Government Say About the Health Risks?

The FDA has reported that when the foam breaks down, the material can move through the device and be inhaled or ingested. The agency said users can experience headaches, asthma, inflammatory conditions, respiratory tract problems and “toxic or cancer-causing effects to organs,” among other health complications.

The FDA has advised consumers with recalled machines to consult their doctors about the best course of action, noting that some users may face greater health risks if they stop using their machines altogether.

The agency is providing safety updates and has continued to categorize the recall as Class 1.

What Does Philips Say About the Health Risks?

When the recall was announced, Philips reported that the defect had the potential to cause both short- and long-term health risks, including life-threatening conditions. Previously, two internal health hazard evaluations launched by Philips had concluded that the risk to people who used the machines was “unacceptable.”

In recent months, Philips has reported that initial testing was limited and based on a “worst-case scenario,” and that new tests on the DreamStation and similar devices have found the foam breakdown is “unlikely to result in an appreciable harm to health in patients.”

Medical experts who reviewed the findings on behalf of ProPublica and the Post-Gazette raised concerns about the company’s safety claims. The experts said that far more devices need to be tested to capture clear-cut patterns and that human studies examining exposure levels over time are critical to assessing long-term harm.

The experts also pointed out that the machines tested positive for genotoxicity, the ability of a chemical to cause cells to mutate, a process that can lead to cancer. Philips has said that a third-party assessment still concluded the DreamStations and similar machines are unlikely to cause harm. Testing on ventilators is ongoing.

Are Ozone Cleaners to Blame?

Philips has said that unapproved ozone cleaners customers use to clean their devices can accelerate foam degradation.

The FDA has advised consumers to avoid ozone or ultraviolet light cleaners on CPAP and BiPAP machines. But in a letter to the company last year, the agency said the blame for the crisis ultimately lies with Philips.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the risk associated with the devices was not caused by the failure of a person other than Philips to exercise due care in the installation, maintenance, repair, or use of the devices at issue,” the FDA wrote.

How Can I Register for a Replacement CPAP Machine or Other Device?

Customers whose machines were recalled are supposed to be able to get replacements from Philips, which has a patient registration site.

Though Philips has said millions of replacement devices have been sent out, customers have reported the process is riddled with delays.

To register, Philips requires the name of the recalled device and its serial number. The company also requires a current doctor’s prescription.

Philips is offering new machines, refurbished machines or financial payments in lieu of a new device, depending on the situation. The company advises customers who have retained lawyers to consult with them before making a decision.

Patients in the United States can register their recalled devices online or by calling the company at 877-907-7508.

Once you register, you should receive a confirmation number, which you can use to track the status of your request.

How Can I Tell the Government About a Problem With My Breathing Device?

The FDA maintains a database known as the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience that tracks reports about malfunctions, patient injuries and deaths linked to medical devices.

Under the law, manufacturers, importers and certain facilities are required to report such events. But patients can report them too, as can their relatives, doctors and other health care professionals, either through the FDA’s online MedWatch portal or by submitting FDA Form 3500B.

Is the Information on Social Media Trustworthy?

Many patients whose devices were recalled have taken to social media to gather information, including tips about safe ways to continue using the devices and where to find replacements.

Videos by YouTube personalities purport to show customers how to tear the foam out themselves, but safety regulators have warned against doing that because it can dislodge potentially toxic material.

The recall also helped fuel an online market for secondhand devices. Experts say that customers should seek proof that any recalled machine being sold online has been properly repaired.

While online forums can be helpful, public health experts say sleep and respiratory care doctors are in the best position to give you good advice.

Help ProPublica and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Investigate the Recall of Philips Respironics Breathing Machines

Michael Korsh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contributed reporting.

Paul Rodgers, frontman of such classic bands as Free and Bad Company, recently released the new album Midnight Rose. But what folks might not know is that he recorded it following a major health scare. Four years…

Source

How a culture of gross sexism in the airlines created America’s most militantly feminist union

The agency and its prospective nominees are adopting stricter ethics standards following a 2021 investigation.

President Biden joined striking workers on the picket line. Former ‘car czar’ Steve Rattner is furious.

by Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico, and Byard Duncan, ProPublica

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Source New Mexico. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

On a recent sunny morning in the high pastures of northern New Mexico, Tito Naranjo greeted a pair of federal surveyors on a patch of gravel where his traditional adobe home once stood.

Naranjo used his walking stick to show them the outline of where his sunroom had been before it burned up in a wildfire accidentally set by the U.S. Forest Service last year. They walked slowly to the edge of the property, past a blackened willow tree that once held a tire swing, and stepped over a creek now empty of trout.

The tour confirmed what satellite imagery hinted at: This 97-acre property was a total loss. The home Naranjo and his wife had shared for 50 years, a stand of aspen trees, a small apple orchard, miles of fencing and a bridge he had built himself, all gone.

Naranjo, 86, hasn’t laid the first adobe brick of a replacement home, hammered a fence post or planted a single tree. And with congestive heart failure raising the risk of a stroke, he worries he won’t live long enough to do so.

First image: Tito Naranjo, left, points to the edge of his property during a visit with Cody Townsend, a conservationist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Second image: Naranjo slowly walks up what used to be a road on his property before post-fire flooding washed it away. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)

Seventeen months after losing their homes and livelihoods in the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire, Naranjo and thousands of others in the aging, rural communities in New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains are still waiting for money to rebuild.

As the fire swept across the mountains for five months in mid-2022, the Federal Emergency Management Agency responded as it would to any disaster. It provided roughly $6.2 million to about 1,100 households for short-term expenses like housing and evacuation and, in some cases, for limited damage to housing and possessions.

But even for people who lost everything, those payments were capped at about $38,000. Most people got far less, and some got nothing. Few people were given temporary housing. Farmers and ranchers are struggling to earn a living.

The money for the far more difficult and expensive task of rebuilding is supposed to come from a $4 billion fund set up by Congress just for this fire — an acknowledgment of the Forest Service’s culpability in triggering the blaze. But the FEMA office handling those payments didn’t start sending checks as quickly as expected, and it has yet to spend 98% of the money.

FEMA has defended its rollout of the claims office, saying it is moving as fast as a federal agency can. Normally, FEMA offers only short-term disaster aid. This is only the second time it has been tasked with paying survivors so they could rebuild after a federal agency lost control of a prescribed burn meant to prevent a wildfire. FEMA established policies, hired staff and opened offices in eight months.

Faced with delays in getting paid and questions about what FEMA will ultimately cover, a local attorney representing Naranjo and several hundred other survivors recently convinced a federal judge to allow some of her aging, infirm clients to testify under oath about what they have lost — an unusual move intended to preserve knowledge that their relatives don’t have.

Antonia Roybal-Mack, the lawyer, said she wants to make sure these victims are made whole if they die before they get a check from the federal government. If they end up filing suit to get what they believe they deserve, “these clients will likely expire before they get their day in court,” she said.

Her clients include farmers and ranchers who lived off land that was burned in the fire or that was washed out in the floods that followed. According to sworn court filings, they include a Vietnam veteran who said he was “blown to hell” in the war, a salon owner who said her doctors told her that her recent lung disease came from “chemicals and smoke,” and a former police chief who recently was treated for cancer for the fourth time.

In an excerpt from a court filing, an elderly fire victim seeks permission to testify under oath about his losses in case he dies before FEMA pays him. (Obtained by Source NM. Redacted by ProPublica.)

Many survivors have lived in these tight-knit communities for decades, some their whole lives. Their way of life — captured by the Spanish word querencia, which people here use to express their love of the land and their obligation to it — was under threat even before the megafire. Naranjo is one of the last fluent speakers of Tewa, the language spoken in the Indigenous pueblo he grew up in. The population of Mora County, where he now lives and one of two counties that were badly burned, declined 15% from 2010 to 2020, to about 4,200, according to census figures.

Now living at his son’s home two hours away, Naranjo is trying to figure out what, if anything, he can do for his land. His wife, Bernice, said the instability of life since the fire and their sudden reliance on the government has made his final chapter distressing and chaotic.

“He doesn’t show his emotions very clearly, but he does feel the loss tremendously,” she said. “And he knows that he may never be able to rebuild.”

Naranjo at his sister’s home in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica) Before a Check, the Fine Print

The $4 billion Congress set aside is supposed to compensate survivors, businesses, local governments and nonprofits for damages in the 534-square-mile burn scar. But the claims process is long and complicated, and the vast majority of victims haven’t gotten anything yet.

FEMA wrote its first check to a survivor in June, according to the claims office. That’s a year after the fire raced through the mountains. As of Sept. 15, it had paid $67 million, just under 2%, most of which went to individuals. The pace has picked up in recent weeks, however. (New figures are expected next week.)

Though the Forest Service said 430 homes burned in the fire, a maximum of $2 million has gone to housing as of Sept. 15, according to FEMA’s figures. FEMA said it is processing “a fairly small number” of claims for housing, though officials have declined to say exactly how many.

The problem is twofold: Some people held off on filing claims as they waited months for FEMA to finalize its rules on exactly what it would pay for. And for those who did file, the checks have not come quickly.

Source New Mexico and ProPublica spoke to about 30 survivors about the claims process. A little under half said they had not yet filed a claim. They said they were desperate to start rebuilding but needed clarity on the claims process.

Until late August, the claims office operated under interim rules largely copied from the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000 — the only other time FEMA has paid for damages for a wildfire accidentally started by the federal government. FEMA officials acknowledged differences between the fires but said they started with those rules because they were in a rush to get moving.

Some of those residents told us they didn’t want to file claims under those rules, believing they would miss out on additional money if the final rules were more generous. FEMA officials told survivors that would not happen, but lawyers and residents told Source and ProPublica they feared that the formulas in the interim rules would determine their payments regardless.

A big sticking point was the value of the trees that once covered these mountainsides. Residents and lawyers said the interim rules undervalued those trees, which are harvested for timber, Christmas trees, and latillas and vigas — ceiling rafters commonly used in Southwestern homes. While the claims office issued partial payments for other damages, it held off on paying for trees until it could figure out how to value them.

The final rules released on Aug. 28 offered far more for trees than the interim rules, which finally assuaged those concerns. Based on that formula, Angela Gladwell, the head of the claims office, said she expected tree losses to top $1 billion.

Scorched trees cover Holman Hill in New Mexico. The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire ravaged 534 square miles, about the size of Los Angeles, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico. (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica)

Residents who didn’t wait for the rules to be finalized faced different obstacles. After a claim is filed, FEMA must formally “acknowledge” it. But FEMA has no deadline by which that must happen. The agency started encouraging people to file claims in November, but none were acknowledged until April. The delays continued through the summer.

FEMA told Source and ProPublica that it tries to acknowledge claims within 30 days, but that it took time to create a new office and train staff. The agency also said its office had at times received a lot of notices at once, which delayed the process.

The claims office is catching up: As of Sept. 14, it had acknowledged about 80% of the 2,214 claims filed. But those survivors face a new round of waiting. Once FEMA acknowledges a claim, it has 180 days to make an offer to pay for those damages. People can decide to take the money or to fight for more through arbitration or in federal court.

The pace of payouts is slower than it was for the Cerro Grande Fire. After a similar amount of time since a law went into effect to compensate those victims near Los Alamos, FEMA had paid about $162 million out of $545 million allocated — about 30%. That included about $84 million to individuals.

FEMA says payments are taking longer this time because this fire was bigger, the communities are poorer and have less insurance, and the claims are more complex, with agricultural and ranching losses to consider along with burned homes.

The agency plans to distribute $1 billion — a quarter of the total allocated — by January 2025. It did meet a recently set internal target of spending $50 million by Oct. 1, a spokesperson pointed out.

Regardless of whether they have filed a claim yet, survivors face uncertainty over whether all their costs will be covered. People who accept a payment must sign a form saying they won’t seek additional compensation or sue the government for “past and present and future claims” for the category of loss they’re being paid for. But more than a year after the fire was extinguished, people don’t know if they’ve seen the last of the damage.

The fire burned root systems and topsoil, creating a landscape where dirt and debris sloughs off the mountainside when it rains, particularly after spring snowmelt and during the summer monsoon season. That’s expected to continue for several years.

Since the fire, “I’m constantly doing flood control and mitigation,” said Felicia Ortiz, whose hillside property is eaten away during rainstorms. FEMA acknowledged her claim on Aug. 18 and has yet to pay her.

She estimates she’s spent roughly $8,000 on recovery, much of it to divert floodwaters. “Cleaning up messes from the flooding — it happens, you clean up, it happens again, you clean up again.”

Mud and debris pushed over fences on Felicia Ortiz’s property in Rociada, New Mexico, after a rainstorm in July 2022. Since the fire, she said, “I’m constantly doing flood control and mitigation.” (Courtesy of Felicia Ortiz)

Despite the form that survivors must sign, FEMA says victims like Ortiz need not worry about ongoing damage after they’ve accepted a check. Any loss that occurs afterward could be eligible for reconsideration, the agency says; Gladwell, the claims office head, has sole discretion on whether to reopen a particular claim.

All these obstacles leave some fire victims wondering whether they can trust the federal government that burned their property, denied short-term aid to many of them and then promised to make them whole.

“I do believe that Angie Gladwell is really trying to serve the people,” said Kayt Peck, who waited until the final rules were released to file a claim for her destroyed home. “But she’s just one cog in the FEMA wheel. And when you’re working with someone that you know from the past that you couldn’t trust, and they’re telling you to trust them, don’t trust them.”

FEMA has stressed that the claims office is separate from the program that provided limited assistance when people were fleeing their homes. Staffers with the claims office regularly show up at community events, handing out brochures encouraging people to file claims. The claims office advocate holds meetings to combat “half-truths and misinformation” about what FEMA will and won’t pay for.

“We know that trust is earned by doing what we say we are going to do, and delivering results,” FEMA spokesperson Deborah Martinez said.

A Year of Waiting

Most of the people who spoke with Source and ProPublica said they can’t rebuild before FEMA pays their claim. Few of those displaced by the fire had insurance. Some said they’ve already spent their temporary aid; others never got any.

A state agency said in February that people are leaving for urban areas such as Albuquerque and won’t be able to return without financial help. Calls from fire victims to a mental health hotline shot up this spring. And in August, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján greeted President Joe Biden on a visit to New Mexico by handing him a letter criticizing delays in payments.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said on a recent visit to the burn scar that the message from FEMA is to wait, just as it was last summer: “That’s what you’re hearing from everyone: ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m waiting.’”

Martinez, the FEMA spokesperson, said the claims office recognizes that the recovery “has been a uniquely challenging and often frustrating experience for many,” and it is providing “unwavering support” to survivors.

FEMA has partnered with other federal agencies to help survivors. A Department of Agriculture program provides free estimates for some types of losses. FEMA will pay up to five years of flood insurance premiums for those expecting post-fire flooding. And the claims office recently announced it would pay survivors’ Small Business Administration disaster loans, including interest.

Brian and Nell Rodgers lost not just their home on a hilltop 5 miles east of Hermits Peak, but their carefully planned life of self-sufficiency. They raised trout in an indoor pond. Brian had converted a few vehicles to run on biodiesel; when the waste vegetable oil he was processing into fuel exploded during the fire, he said, it could be seen for miles.

They put their disaster aid toward an RV and moved to Santa Rosa, 80 miles away in the desert. For six months, the couple “itemized every detail of our life” in anticipation of a larger payout, said Nell Rodgers, a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher. They filed their claim in July. The claims office acknowledged it quickly, but the money has yet to arrive.

When Nell experienced chest pains after a surgery in July, she wanted to go to an emergency room in Santa Fe, more than an hour away. Because they were short on cash, Brian Rodgers had to ask his ex-wife, who lives nearby, for $20 in gas money.

The government “took away our retirement — and took away our possibilities,” Nell Rodgers said. “And so now, the only thing we can count on is compensation. And that doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.”

Brian Rodgers, center, interrupts a U.S. Forest Service district ranger during a town hall meeting in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in March, where the agency discussed how it was managing the removal of burned trees that could fall down. (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica)

Sam Arthur, the owner of a clothing boutique in Las Vegas, New Mexico, lost the home he shared with his wife, Tamara Fraser, in April 2022 — the day the fire suddenly surged across the mountains. Dozens of homes were destroyed in one day.

He said he promptly received the maximum amount of emergency assistance, but it was nowhere near enough to repair his home or restore his acres of scorched property. He submitted a notice of loss to FEMA on Jan. 6, seeking to be paid for the destruction of his home, relocation costs, debris removal, cleanup and other expenses. The agency didn’t acknowledge his claim until Sept. 1. Under the rules, it has until the beginning of March to make a payment offer.

In the meantime, he and his wife are living in a “tiny home” on wheels in the parking lot behind his store. “At least it’s ours, and we don’t have to pack up and leave again,” he said. “Those things were starting to take a toll.”

First image: A pickup truck and trailer on the site of Sam Arthur and Tamara Fraser’s former home in Rociada, New Mexico. Second image: Arthur in front of the burned land on his property. (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica) Neighbors Step Up

While victims wait, they’re getting help from a local volunteer group that has raised funds to pay for essentials like refrigerators, generators and wheelchair ramps.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors got its start when Janna Lopez, a retired state worker, began bringing hot food to a shelter at a former school gym as the fire raged in April 2022. After the fire was contained and survivors’ needs grew more complex — unpaid rent, flooded driveways, contaminated wells — she and fellow volunteers kept at it.

By July, the organization had handed out about $300,000 to about 65 households — about as much as FEMA had provided to households by then, said Bob DeVries, a volunteer and track coach at the local university. (Since then, FEMA has increased its payments.) Now, payments from the volunteer group are approaching $500,000.

Every Thursday, the group’s two case managers gather at a local church with representatives of four local religious and philanthropic organizations. They decide how much to give each victim, no strings attached, typically capped at $12,000.

Janna Lopez, Hap Escue and Chip Meston, from left, during a Neighbors Helping Neighbors meeting at First United Methodist Church in Las Vegas in August. Lopez, founder of the volunteer aid group, helped with two applications for assistance that Escue and Meston reviewed. (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica)

One day in early August, they handled “Case 260,” a man in his 60s. His refrigerator was damaged when the power had been shut off, and the ojito, the natural spring he used for farm animals, was destroyed by flooding.

He didn’t have insurance, and his claim hadn’t been paid yet. He had gotten just $800 in disaster aid. “He’s, in essence, exhausted what he can get from the federal government,” said Chip Meston, who runs a local beef processing plant and represents one of the churches.

The committee quickly agreed to pay the entire request: $3,068.55.

Though the immediate crisis has passed, the number of people seeking help hasn’t dropped. There are about 45 active cases, with a backlog of more than 270. About 20% of households in the area were below the poverty line before the fire, and if they got any short-term aid from FEMA, it’s long spent, DeVries said.

If you or someone you know needs help, here are a few resources:

• Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
• Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. to reach a crisis counselor: 741741

Rosie Serna, 75, said Neighbors Helping Neighbors pulled her out of despair. She’d gotten by on Social Security since her husband died. The fire took the home where she hosted big outdoor gatherings for kids and grandkids.

For a while, FEMA helped her with rent as part of its disaster aid, but it stopped after she accepted temporary help from an aid group. By April, the $700 rent came due. She had no way to pay. She felt overwhelmed.

“I was just thinking of so many things: ‘Why me?’ ‘What am I going to do?’” she recounted, moved to tears. “And I said, ‘Maybe it’s better if I just don’t exist anymore.’ I thought, ‘Nobody cares about me.’ I felt so alone.”

Rosie Serna at the house she is renting in Mora, New Mexico. When Serna evacuated her home, the only item she took with her was her statue of the Virgin Mary. (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica)

One day in early April, Serna got a call from Gloria Pacheco, a retired schoolteacher and volunteer who was checking on her FEMA case. Serna seemed to have lost hope.

Worried, Pacheco drove 45 minutes to see her, the first time they had met in person.

After a long conversation, Pacheco connected Serna to a therapy service for fire victims, which Serna said has been helpful. Neighbors Helping Neighbors gave her a few hundred dollars for propane.

FEMA recently denied Serna’s appeal for rental assistance, but Pacheco said she’ll keep trying. Serna calls Pacheco “my angel.”

“I Really Have to Prepare”

As Naranjo waited to be sworn in for his deposition in a hotel conference room on July 20, he glanced at his watch. “We’re running 21 minutes behind,” he said to the lawyers gathered to question him.

Over the next two hours, he testified about the life he and his wife had built near their childhood pueblos, the monstrous fire that made ash of his journals, FEMA’s denial of any short-term aid, the future of his land.

“Is it your goal to restore the property as best you can to the way it was before the fire started?” asked Roberto Ortega, an assistant U.S. attorney.

“That can never happen,” Naranjo answered. “I would like to see it, but I saw it in its glory. It was a paradise. That paradise can never be rebuilt.”

The site of Tito and Bernice Naranjo’s former home (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica)

As he prepares to leave his land and any compensation he ultimately receives to his wife and children, he’s made his priority the 3-mile fence that once encircled his property. He’s tired of his neighbor’s cows eating his grass for free. Most of all, he wants a permanent demarcation of what he will leave behind.

A few days after the deposition, he walked his property with Department of Agriculture employees to assess the damage. “I really have to prepare. You need to have permanent markers on it, so people know where your boundaries are,” Naranjo told them. “That’s why I want the fence. That’s my priority. Because my children don’t know the boundaries of our property.”

During a tour of the damage to Naranjo’s property with the USDA employees, he points to a mountainside the fire descended. (Patrick Lohmann/Source NM)

But rebuilding the fence, as with everything else FEMA has been involved with, isn’t as simple as he hoped. If he wants the full replacement cost, he’ll have to prove the fence was his by submitting affidavits from his neighbors or receipts — for a fence he built himself, 50 years ago, with timber from his property.

Back then, he felt energized by the land, waking early to run a 7-mile loop around the property and occasionally discovering prayer shrines left by early Pueblo peoples. Now everything is exhausting — walking up the washed-out road, dealing with the fence, hearing his kids’ ambivalence about whether they want to rebuild.

“I just haven’t got the strength, or the energy, or the outlook, or the dreams that I had at the time,” he said.

He no longer plans to have his remains spread on the property. He once envisioned his ashes scattered among the aspens and ponderosa pines. Instead, blowing through those blackened trees will be ashes of the paradise he lost.

A blackened willow tree on Tito and Bernice Naranjo’s property in Chacon, New Mexico (Adria Malcolm for ProPublica)

Were You Affected by the Massive Wildfire in Northern New Mexico? We Want to Hear From You.

With a little art, a little science, and a lot of luck, the niche well-plugging industry is hoping to pick up steam.

As Congress delays reauthorization, the National Flood Insurance Program faces dueling lawsuits.

As demand for aluminum grows, a new report calls for tighter pollution controls and more recycling.

by Anna Clark, ProPublica, and David Jesse, The Chronicle of Higher Education

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Among the people streaming onto Baker College campuses early this fall were some new faces: federal investigators conducting an unusual review of the marketing and recruitment practices of the Michigan private college.

The investigators looked at records and asked questions about admission interactions, including what prospective students were told about cost, financial aid and post-graduation salaries, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge who spoke anonymously because they said they could lose their jobs if they talked to the news media. Questions from the investigators focused on student experiences at Baker and whether the school lived up to promises made in the recruiting process.

The investigators’ presence is the latest sign of precarious times at the nonprofit college. The U.S. Department of Education, whose investigation into Baker was made public in June, could penalize the college by jeopardizing its accreditation or access to federal student aid. At the same time, Baker’s finances are spiraling down: Revenue and enrollment have declined precipitously in the past decade. Its Michigan footprint has shrunk from nine traditional campuses to five.

In a 2022 investigative report, ProPublica and the Detroit Free Press detailed the college’s low graduation rates and the heavy debt that many students shoulder. The college regularly spent more on marketing than on financial aid, and experts identified conflicts of interest in the college’s governance structure.

As the 2023-24 school year gets underway, not all students are aware of the peril their college could be in. Over several days in August, at Baker’s new Royal Oak campus, outside Detroit, only one of more than two dozen students interviewed knew about the federal investigation.

Over in southwest Michigan, Meayah Haselhuhn learned about it from news reports — and she’s concerned. The 25-year-old mom has been taking online classes at Baker while working full time, with hopes of graduating in a business program and landing a better-paying job by the time both her kids are old enough for school.

But now, she plans to find a different college.

“I cannot risk it,” she said.

Six weeks after Haselhuhn expressed those worries, federal investigators showed up.

Baker’s public relations manager confirmed that federal investigators were on site last week at two campuses, Owosso and Royal Oak. “We knew they were coming,” she wrote in an email, adding that “we are and will remain fully cooperative with any requests made from the Department of Education.”

Baker declined to answer additional questions about the inquiry. The federal government would not comment on the visits or the investigation. In a public disclosure notice in late August, Baker’s accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, said the college must file a report on the status of the investigation every 90 to 120 days, but those reports are considered private and not available to students, faculty or staff.

Nonprofit schools like Baker aren’t typically subjected to such scrutiny.

Michigan, unlike most states, has no mechanism to oversee private colleges. But even states with such a system rarely use it, unless the school is close to shutting down. Accreditation agencies, meanwhile, generally have small staffs and rely on volunteers from other colleges who conduct site visits and read reports.

That leaves the federal government. But it has largely refrained from direct oversight of nonprofit colleges, except in extreme cases.

When it launches investigations, the focus has been on for-profit institutions. The unit investigating Baker was gutted under the Trump administration but reconstituted under President Joe Biden.

While high-profile investigations of schools like ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges led to their closure and loan cancellation for former students, there are no known completed investigations of nonprofit private institutions for marketing and recruitment practices in undergraduate programs.

Baker College is undergoing one of the most extraordinary periods of change in its 112-year history. Founded as a for-profit business college in Flint, and serving as a training ground for many auto industry employees, it converted to nonprofit status in 1977 and grew fast, propelled by federal Pell Grants and federally subsidized student loans. It became a pioneer in online learning, opened multiple campuses and grew to be the largest private nonprofit school in Michigan.

Money flowed into Baker’s accounts as the college grew. At the end of the 2013-14 academic year, Baker was bringing in $219 million in revenue and had $226 million in expenses. By the end of the 2022-23 school year, revenue was $58 million and expenses had shrunk as well, to $93 million.

From a high of about 45,000 students in 2011-12, enrollment is now about 4,000.

Baker’s officials have attempted a turnaround by orchestrating a radical shift in its target market, closing campuses in historically industrial places like Flint and Allen Park and building a new one in the more well-off suburb of Royal Oak. The rebranding from an open-enrollment college to a more traditional school includes being more selective in which students are admitted and devising a new mascot — the Baker College Bees.

For the 2018-19 school year, 2,107 prospective students applied to Baker. According to federal records, the college offered admission to about 80% of applicants and 745 of them enrolled.

By contrast, in the 2022-23 school year, about the same number of prospective students applied to Baker. The college offered admission to just over 35%, and 323 enrolled.

But the reality of its finances has meant steep cuts in spending. It chopped $10 million in spending on educational and instructional expenses between 2021 and 2022, audited financial statements show.

Baker has a large endowment, yet the proceeds remain largely untouched. Organized as the Jewell Educational Fund, it grew even as the college’s finances declined, rising 127% between 2011 and 2021.

Baker had about $350 million in its endowment in August 2022, the most recent numbers available. But its earnings have been lightly used, even as Baker closed campuses, and students took on sizable debt.

Records show that the extent of the endowment’s spending was $7.4 million on scholarships, or about 1.9% of the total on hand at the beginning of the 2021-22 fiscal year. Nationally, the average spend rate for endowments the size of Baker’s was 4.6%, according to a study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

With lower-income students lacking sufficient access to scholarship money, ProPublica and the Free Press reported in 2022, they often turned to federal loans. Former students described how they had left Baker without the skills necessary to succeed in a well-paying career but burdened by crushing sums of debt.

Some former Baker students have filed what are known as borrower-defense claims with the Department of Education, asserting that deception had led them to take out loans and that the loans should be forgiven. Data from 2020 showed that the number of claims about Baker was unusual for nonprofits. For-profits usually are the subject of such complaints. The Department of Education wouldn’t comment on how it is handling those claims.

Another place disgruntled former students have turned to is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Between 2016 and mid-2023, about 60 complaints were received by the FTC involving accusations of misleading claims by Baker, ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education found.

Among the complaints from 2022 was one from a student who wrote: “Baker College is a supposed non-profit institution, but they have made false claims about their employability of graduates, finances, and programs.”

Another wrote: “I was lured into a sense that I would be attending a college that valued their students only to learn that they valued my financial asset to the college and not my education. I feel that I have been deceived and used for their financial gain.”

The FTC declined to comment. It does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigations because the agency’s investigations are not public.

While Baker did not respond to detailed questions for this story, it said in previous statements to reporters that the college is not allowed to restrict student borrowing. It also emphasized a commitment to improving student outcomes and reducing their loan debt. It has defended its governance structure and marketing practices.

Haselhuhn, the mom who plans to leave Baker, also is concerned about departing with too much debt. She earned an associate degree from a community college at no cost, in part, she said, because she came out of Michigan’s foster care system.

For a year in Baker’s online program, she has about $13,000 in student loans, she said. “It’s hard to imagine paying it.”

Kevin, a Baker graduate who asked that his full name not be used, said he’s conflicted about the investigation.

He has a good job and remembers many excellent teachers at the Flint campus, he said. But he also saw problems, including students who, believing Baker’s marketing, took on debt for programs that wouldn’t lead to successful careers.

It’s “shameful,” he said, and he thinks Baker should be held accountable.

At the same time, he’s concerned that the investigation — and its possible consequences, including accreditation loss — will hurt Baker graduates.

Even as he pays down $55,000 in student-loan debt, he has one question: “Is my degree going to be worth nothing?”

Bobby Greenlease is kidnapped in Kansas City in a case that will travel across the state when the kidnappers flee to St. Louis.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In order to bring a plurality of voices to our storytelling, the Missouri Historical Society frequently asks guest writers to contribute to History Happens Here. The views and opinions expressed by guest contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missouri Historical Society, its affiliates, or …

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