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Toxic Ash, Trillions in Student Debt and More in MuckReads Weekly

by Adam Harris

Some of the best #MuckReads we read this week. Want to receive these by email?  Sign up to get this briefing delivered to your inbox every weekend.

Arresting America, Fusion

The city of Gretna, Louisiana, has roughly 18,000 residents, and in 2013 its police department arrested 6,566 adults. That's a rate of more than one arrest for every three residents and roughly "14 times the rate of arrests in a typical American town," according to a Fusion analysis. This investigative series delves into police activity in the U.S. to see where it succeeds – and fails.

The True Cost, Talking Points Memo

Phone calls, pre-trial supervision, post-prison re-entry: just about anywhere you look, private industry has found ways to make money from the criminal justice system. This is a deep dive into the scope and scale of the private prison industry – and the cost-cutting measures that jeopardize security at facilities run by for-profit companies.

Who Got Rich Off the Student Debt Crisis, Reveal

This investigation tells the story of the student debt crisis through two people, one is burdened by thousands of dollars in loans, the other wealthy beyond many Americans' wildest dreams from the business of making such loans.  

Coal ash bedevils Oklahoma town, revealing weakness of EPA rule, Center for Public Integrity

Coal ash, which can often contain arsenic, chromium and lead, is a byproduct of burning coal for electricity. Over the last four decades, a battle over the management and disposal of coal ash has dragged along in Washington, and it's not close to being over. This examination of the impact coal ash has had on one Oklahoma town highlights the failure of EPA rules on coal ash dumping.

#MuckReads Local

Inside the deal that shaped San Diego County's power picture, inewsource

Homelessness looks the same as it did 20 years ago, San Francisco Chronicle

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An Idaho Baby’s Unexplained Death Got No Autopsy and a Scant Coroner’s Investigation. State Law Says That’s Fine.

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