Perhaps no year in living memory presented greater challenges and opportunities to the press than 2017, and Capital & Main was no exception. In response to the Trump presidency, we expanded our coverage well beyond California, while continuing to investigate the fault lines that undergird the nation’s most populous state. We also deepened our reporting on immigration, hate and white nationalism and climate change – issues that will define the Trump era. And we began a long-term commitment to examining business and social responsibility.
Here are 10 series and stories from 2017 that offer a window into how Capital & Main made sense of an extraordinary year in the history of our nation and state.
New federal data show that America’s homeless population has increased for the first time since 2010.
This week on The Bottom Line podcast, Rick Wartzman talks to Cynthia Figge of CSRHub about the ways companies benefit from sustainable business practices.
» Read more about: The Payoffs of Corporate Social Responsibility »
Today Capital & Main publishes an investigative series on the failure of Sacramento and two state agencies to safeguard the public from the hazards of lead.
A severely disabled boy and his caregiver face an uncertain future with the passage of the American Health Care Act.
For decades white nationalists were a fringe element in American politics. But now anti-immigrant extremists with ties to white supremacists hold key positions at the highest level of government.
Co-published by Newsweek
The Adelanto Detention Facility, operated by a private, for-profit prison company for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is California’s largest immigrant detention center. Recently two detainees died within weeks of each other there.
A video by Marco Amador capturing the optimism of Californians in a time of uncertainty.
A video account by a Bakersfield Sikh who was seemingly targeted for his skin color and turban.
A continuing series on hate and extremism in California and the nation.
Video of protests against the Trump administration’s travel ban.
More than any other place, California is well positioned to push back against the agenda of the incoming president. In a special series, Capital & Main examines why and how the Golden State will both lead the resistance to Donald Trump and continue to advance progressive ideas and policies.
President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t yet sworn his oath of office, but his announced policies have already thrown a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting into pandemonium. BY LEIGHTON WOODHOUSE
Co-published by The Nation
A video by Jennifer Dworkin explores an innovative program for Santa Barbara’s homeless.
Eduardo Vargas enrolled at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park during the fall of 2011 looking to help his financially troubled family, but then found he had to wrestle with a problem he had not foreseen: a crippled community college system.
Parents manage a huge pile of details to guide their children’s education. What, then, happens when a recession hits, state education funding is drastically cut, class sizes reduced, parents are called upon to replace library staff and you’re worried that the teacher who provided crucial support for your special needs student may be laid off?
In the spring of 2008, Underwood was an eager and popular young assistant band director at a high school in Moreno Valley, a suburban enclave in Riverside County, but the first clouds of what would soon be called the Great Recession were gathering in New York — and were clearly visible to Underwood.
Four years ago California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 30 and rescued public schools and community colleges from the Great Recession’s economic free-fall. But the measure is scheduled to expire at the end of 2018, which could again place the state’s still-wobbly public schools on the edge of a fiscal precipice.
With good union training, wages and benefits, Cathy Nichols, a single mother, was able to provide for herself and her son without fear of impoverishment or medical calamity.
“Uncovered California” is a three-part series of stories and videos examining how the Golden State is trying to fill holes in its health care coverage.