'Jane Crow' Foster Care Is Punishing Poor Parents
New York Times
A child wanders off during a parent's moment of inattention, and suddenly the girl is bundled off to foster care. It's not an unusual occurence in New York City: An investigation finds that its child-services agency often takes children from struggling minority mothers with scant evidence, on the ground that a child's safety is at risk. The practice has given rise to a nickname for the criminalization of parenting choices: Jane Crow. What I Know About My Best Friend's Murder
New York Magazine
Ashley Ellerin was the author's best friend growing up in New Jersey -- before moving on to the wild life as a gorgeous stripper supplementing her income with "arrangements." She was found dead at 22 in the Hollywood Hills with 47 stab wounds, in a case that became tabloid fodder because that was the night she had a date with future heartthrob Ashton Kutcher. This memoir excerpt offers few answers in the author's exploration of the death, and much regret: "How odd to see Ashley reduced to a footnote to someone else's meteoric rise." The Dreamy Wisconsin Lake Turned Legal Nightmare
USA Today
Investors bought land around Upper Spring Lake in Wisconsin and spent about $1 million rebuilding the dam that creates it and protects downstream areas. But now the state of Wisconsin is claiming ownership. "We'd never have made this effort if we didn't think we owned it," said one investor. Much more effort, and expense, will be required to resolve the dispute now that the lawyers are at it. Looking for New Antibiotics in All the Gross Places
Atlantic
With 700,000 people dying annually from antibiotic-resistant infections, scientists are scrambling to find new cures. One campaign has people swabbing the world's dirtiest places for bacteria: soccer-stadium toilets, pig troughs, laptop keyboards. Such efforts fill a development void: Pharmaceutical firms are on the sidelines, daunted by how quickly resistance can undermine drugs that may take a decade and a billion dollars to develop. HUD Falls for Section 8 Housing Scam
Washington Free Beacon
The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent over $500,000 on apartments for people who "did not exist." An audit found that managers of Section 8 housing in Jefferson County, Texas, defrauded the feds by stealing the identities of former tenants and falsifying incomes. The managers are now in subsidized housing themselves: prison. How Amish Farmers' Produce Gets to Whole Foods
New Food Economy
Forget the internet, tractors or phones: Here's how Pennsylvania's Amish farmers get produce onto the aisles at Whole Foods, for shoppers eager to "buy local." The process involves pens, paper, printouts and a few trusted go-betweens. Cooperatives managed by "English" people, meaning not Amish, deal with grocery chains -- and help keep devout tillers of the soil comfortably at arm's length from modernity. | 
