audio
Opioid Overdoses Overwhelm South Florida's Addiction Centers / NPR
feature — crisis
Hometown Horse Spurs Buzz At World's Richest Race / WLRN
quick turn feature — sports
Smugglers fuel buffet network with exploited, illegal workforce / REVEAL
investigation
Florida Teacher Embarks On Mission To Teach Students Table Manners / NPR
feature — issue lens
Race Fans Flock For The "Almost-Crashes" / KJZZ
feature — sports explainer
'Honor System' Honey Stand Pollinates Kindness In North Florida / WJCT
feature — curiosity explainer
South Florida Worries About Possible Dike Failure / NPR
feature — news
For Mormons, 'Prepping' Is An Article Of Faith / WJCT
feature — think piece
First Responders Pay Soaring Price For Overdose Reversal Drug / WLRN
investigation
Sediment Is Mucking Up Florida Waterways / WJCT
feature — environment explainer
Abused Children Find Ally In Biker Group / WJCT
feature — solutions/unknown worlds
Caribbean Evacuees Rescued By Mercy Ship Arrive In Florida / WLRN
quick turn feature — crisis
writing
First Responders Pay Soaring Price For Overdose Antidote / WLRN
Mondays were paydays. And they were all the same. Matt Kluckowski would await his direct deposit from Applebee's, where he worked as a cook. Then, grab cash at the ATM, score dope at the trap house, mix up and tie off. Sitting on the couch, the left-hand employed the slim needle to pierce the right arm. Always in the same spot, confessed by the scarred blue vein traversing the shallow crux. The plunger depressed, euphoria delivered. All familiar. But the odd, grey-tinged heroin Kluckowski scored on Sept. 7, 2015 had him in an unfamiliar spot: plunging face-first down a long flight of stairs, dying.
Smugglers fuel buffet network with exploited, illegal workforce / Reveal
The restaurants and the job agencies that supply the workers call them "amigos." The Hong Li agency sent Spanish-speaking recruiters to stand on Bellaire Boulevard in West Houston. They handed out business cards soliciting men and women to work for about four dollars and hour. The agencies advertised openly in Chinese language newspapers like the World Journal. The ads used words like "Hardworking Mexicans and Central Americans," "Transportation provided," and all of it under the table. For restaurant owners, this black market for labor had advantages over your standard help wanted sign. "That amigo is going to work twelve hours a day, six days a week and keep their mouth shut," Baker said.
Stoneman Douglas Senior Nick Dworet Remembered By Friends, Family / WLRN
Nick. The handsome teenager who loved Oreos. The joyful nephew. The champion swimmer. The hopeless romantic. He spent weeks crafting the perfect Valentine’s gift for his longtime girlfriend, Daria. She said he was the perfect man who loved her unconditionally. On the morning of Valentine’s Day, Nick was excited to talk with a fellow classmate and athlete. They’d been friends since kindergarten. Nick had just inked a swimming scholarship to the University of Indianapolis. His classmate would be joining the gymnastics team at the University of Iowa. They bubbled with excitement. When Nick got up and walked to the door for his next class, he turned back to say to his classmate: “I’ll see you later.”
U.S. looking at Canada guest-worker program as model / USA Today
Guillermo Hernandez Alcantar was chilly. He’d arrived in Canada from Mexico three days before. The journey brought him hundreds of miles north on the guarantee of work and stability — to pick the grapes that locals will not. He came as a legal guest worker. “Right now, the Mexican workers have not finished arriving,” Hernandez Alcantar said on a brisk morning in March. “By May, they will all be here.” He needed to buy a jacket, so he mounted a well-worn Huffy 10-speed bicycle, one of many leaning up against the two worker dormitories, and rode off, passing through the vineyards that stretch the length of Line 1 Road.
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About
Peter Haden has been making award-winning audio features and documentaries for more than a decade. He’s a multiplatform journalist and founder of Big Picture Reports, a newsroom that specializes in investigative podcasts.
Haden has covered stories for the BBC, NPR, Marketplace, and CNN, among others, and worked in the newsrooms of Reveal, the Houston Chronicle, NPR affiliates WLRN-Miami and WJCT-Jacksonville, and ECTV News in Ukraine.
He’s received of dozens of professional honors for his work in journalism including the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence, and the National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence. His accountability reporting has spurred state legislation, policy changes and advocacy campaigns, helped push bail reforms in Texas’ most populous county, and sparked televised town hall meetings.
Haden holds bachelor’s degrees in geography and Latin American studies from the University of Iowa and a master’s degree in multimedia journalism from ASU’s Cronkite School. He grew up on a farm wrangling sheep and pitching manure and never met a goat he didn’t like.
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