Five years ago, Williston, North Dakota, was a hedonistic mess. Busloads of oil workers who’d moved here to work on Bakken oil rigs revived by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, would clear supermarket shelves in minutes. Strippers were flown in from Las Vegas to meet demand in the male-dominated town. In March 2013, one man was shot dead following an argument outside a club.

Today, ground zero of North Dakota’s oil patch is a very different place. In late 2014, the price of oil dropped by half, prompting most transient, single male workers to pack up and leave. Families of professionals on long-term contracts in the local energy sector moved to Williston, creating a demand for services female entrepreneurs have since successfully filled.

At Mesabi Academy in Buhl, Minnesota, former inmates say boys were forced by employees to battle in a so-called Fight Club — but only in rooms without security cameras. Other children were allegedly sexually abused by staffers. Between 2009 and its closure in 2016, Mesabi generated 64 complaints about conditions and treatment, far more than any of the other 60-plus juvenile facilities overseen by the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Mesabi Academy was owned and operated by the Pennsylvania based nonprofit KidsPeace. In addition to Mesabi, KidsPeace owns and operates a collection of behavioral health centers and foster programs across the country, including residential treatment centers like Mesabi in Georgia, Maine and Pennsylvania. And while KidsPeace Director of Communications Robert Martin told OZY that allegations against the facility were investigated and no maltreatment was found, attorney Jacob Reitan — who is representing 17 plaintiffs, some as young as 12, in a suit against Mesabi — says exactly the opposite is true. The report itself has not been made public.

At first glance, Usune Etxeberria looks like the Spanish version of a California “Valley girl.” With a continual bright smile and clothes as lively as a Miró painting, she seems the opposite of the stereotypical lab scientist with three advanced degrees. Yet no one could have been more fated, given her personal background, to become one of the world’s leading researchers in the exploding field of what’s variously termed “personalized,” “specialized” or “precision” gastronomy — with major implications for the fight against obesity, diabetes and more.