Inequality
Formerly Incarcerated People Shared What It's Like To Readjust To Society After Prison
"When you’re released, everything has changed. You can be in long enough for people to die, people to be born, for the beeper to become the smartphone."
Pia Peterson
She Smuggled Women In Kabul To Safety. Now She’s Hiding From The Taliban.
Though the Taliban have blacklisted Nilofar Ayoubi, she has insisted on speaking out about women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Nishita Jha
Stitch Fix Took Away Flexible Scheduling For Employees. Hundreds Of Them Just Quit.
Employees are departing the personal styling company, while those who remain fear their jobs are gradually being replaced by an algorithm. “We know the ultimate goal of Stitch Fix was to get rid of us,” one employee said.
Caroline O'Donovan
Some California Cities Can’t Keep Up With Demand For Rental Assistance, Putting Tenants At Risk Of Losing Their Homes
Tenants who didn’t file their applications before the programs closed in the spring face growing rental debts and no clear legal recourse when the eviction bans end.
Venessa Wong
Pandemic Rental Debts Are Ballooning — Even For People With Jobs
Even as the economy recovers and the unemployment rate declines, millions of people with jobs are scrambling to pay off rental debts before the eviction bans end.
Venessa Wong
The Biden Administration Is Rejecting “The War On Drugs” And Turning To “Harm Reduction”
“To have the Office of National Drug Control Policy talking about ‘harm reduction’ is important,” said one public health expert. “I remember when you couldn’t say those words there.”
Dan Vergano
How Is Housing Debt Impacting You?
BuzzFeed News wants to know how the pandemic has impacted your ability to pay for housing and what options you might have now if you've fallen behind.
Venessa Wong
Photographs Of Asylum-Seekers On Their Journey To Another Life
“We are running away from one place, and we end up coming to an even worse one.”
Pia Peterson
Prisons Have Been Restricting Family Visits For Years. The Pandemic Showed Just How Fragile Those Policies Can Be.
Before the pandemic, Christina Mendoza visited her husband in prison almost every week. But as the coronavirus spread through California’s prisons, sending cell blocks into lockdown, not even phone calls were assured.
Victoria Valenzuela
“Protected Again And Again”: How A Fencer Made It To The Tokyo Olympics Despite Sexual Assault Allegations
The US Center for SafeSport was tasked with investigating sexual abuse claims at Olympic programs. But in the first Summer Games since the agency’s creation, Team USA fencers say the system failed them.
Brianna Sacks
Atlantic City Is Just The Latest Place To Shut Down Its Needle Exchange Amid A Deadly Rise In US Overdose Deaths
The move comes as overdose deaths have jumped nearly 30% nationwide and HIV outbreaks have been reported among people who use injection drugs.
Dan Vergano
US Life Expectancy In 2020 Dropped By More Than It Has Since World War II
“We have built a house of cards to live in, and the pandemic was a wind that just blew the house down,” said one expert.
Dan Vergano
A Former Sony Employee Says She Was A Diversity “Token.” She’s Suing For Discrimination
Monica Hill was among the employees Sony filmed to promote the company’s diversity. But she says she experienced racism in the workplace and was driven out for speaking up.
Venessa Wong
She Was Sent To Prison For Losing Her Baby. Now She Wants To Clear Her Name.
In 2012, Sara was sentenced to 30 years in prison under El Salvador’s strict anti-abortion laws. Last month, she was freed thanks to a growing movement to defend the women facing decades in prison on similar charges. Now she hopes to clear other women’s names.
Karla Zabludovsky
A CDC Investigation Says West Virginia Needs Needle Exchanges — Which The State Outlawed — To Stop Its HIV Outbreak
A CDC investigation obtained by BuzzFeed News shows “low-barrier” needle exchanges are needed to stop an HIV outbreak in West Virginia. “There's a lot of suffering documented in this,” one expert said.
Dan Vergano
These People Of Color Are Anxious About Racist Microaggressions When They Return To The Office
While experiences still vary, many people of color have found peace in the isolation of the pandemic, which has allowed them to avoid racism from superiors and colleagues in corporate environments.
Venessa Wong
These Photos Show How Los Angeles’s Koreatown Adapted To The Pandemic
"As I wandered around the streets of Koreatown, I realized there were so many stories that were untold."
Pia Peterson
The EPA Just Announced A $50 Million Push To Help Underserved Communities Tackle Pollution And Get Jobs
“This is the most aggressive approach to tackling environmental injustice and equity issues,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told BuzzFeed News.
Zahra Hirji
The Pacific Northwest’s Upcoming Heat Wave Could Be Especially Deadly
Extreme heat has killed more than 11,000 people across the US since 1979, and heat waves are only getting worse.
Zahra Hirji
The Media Pays Attention When Trans People Die, But The Living Are Struggling With Grief
Violent attacks and discriminatory laws have taken a toll on the mental health of trans people. Many wish there was as much attention on the well-being of those living with traumas as there is on those who have been killed.
Lauren Strapagiel
Photos Of How People Celebrated Juneteenth 100 Years Ago
Juneteenth is now a federal holiday. How have Americans been celebrating it since the end of the Civil War?
Pia Peterson
This Louisiana Town Is A Bleak Forecast Of America's Future Climate Crisis
In one year, people in southwestern Louisiana lived through five major disasters on top of a pandemic. Another bad hurricane season is already here, and thousands still have holes in their roofs.
Zahra Hirji
Struggling Hospitals Could Explain Why So Many Black Patients Have Died Of COVID-19
For Black patients hospitalized with the coronavirus, the quality of the hospitals they are admitted to may play an outsize role in determining whether they survive.
Stephanie M. Lee
These Young Asian Americans Felt Helpless, So They Turned to Online Activism
Recent racial justice protests and anti-Asian hate crimes have served as wake-up calls. Now these young people are seeking to effect positive change in ways that would’ve exceeded their imaginations not long ago.
Michael Tamsuriyamit
Did Your Credit Score Get A Lot Worse Or Better Over The Last Year? We’d Like To Hear From You.
BuzzFeed News wants to know how the pandemic impacted your credit score, and how that score has impacted you.
Venessa Wong
Black Freedmen Hope The Tulsa Reparations Proposal Sparks A Wider Effort To Address America’s Sins
Black Freedmen in Tulsa hope the national attention on the Greenwood massacre means that more Americans are willing to reckon with the scale of the country’s sins.
Joseph Lee
A School District Announced Guidelines To Protect The Rights Of Trans Students. Some Locals Tried To Storm The School Board Meeting.
When locals protested a Florida school district’s plan to protect the rights of trans students, 16-year-old Andrew Triolo decided he could no longer stay silent about his experience — no matter the cost.
Ema O'Connor
“It Feels Like We’re Profiting Off Of Black Death”: Tulsa Residents See Civil Rights Tourism But No Reparations
One hundred years have passed since the Tulsa massacre, but little has been done to make amends or improve the lives of Black residents, whose fate can be decided by their zip code.
Amber Jamieson
The Pandemic Has Left Us With A Lingering Trauma About Money
Expanded inequality, an inexplicable stock market, and a whole bunch of weird habits — this is how the pandemic will change our financial lives forever.
Scott Lucas
Debt Didn’t Disappear During The Pandemic. Meet A Man Whose Job Was To Collect It.
An American debt collection agency paid agents in Tijuana $150 a week to collect from delinquent borrowers in the US. We spoke to a person who did that job during the pandemic.
Venessa Wong
