Work and Money
The mechanics who keep ancient school buses running on dirt roads
The bus that collects children on the county roads east of here was built in 2004.
Reporting on the people and places that rarely make national news.
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Latest stories
Voices
Surviving a carbon monoxide leak in a rental home
The calls come in the first cold week. Every year, without fail, the first week people turn the heat on.
Work and Money
The community college students balancing night shifts with daytime classes
I teach an introductory journalism course at a community college, at eight in the morning, which means I have spent several years watching people...
Communities
The volunteer divers who search Wisconsin rivers for lost belongings
They are not looking for bodies. That work belongs to the sheriff's dive teams and it is a different thing entirely, done by different people under different rules.
Work and Money
Why local water wildcatters are drilling deeper in Cochise County
The well that served a house for forty years goes dry in August.
Work and Money
How independent truck stops survive against interstate chains
I put close to three million miles behind me before my knees decided the matter, and I stopped at a great many places that no longer exist.
News
How Sacramento County decides where to build new suburban parks
The decision is made years before anyone digs anything, in documents almost nobody reads, and by the time there is a groundbreaking with a ribbon, every meaningful choice has already been settled.
Work and Money
What it takes to run a single-pump gas station in rural Nebraska
The margin on a gallon of fuel is a few cents. That number is the beginning and the end of the story, and everything else follows from it.
Communities
What happens to pets left behind during emergency hospital visits
Somebody collapses at home. An ambulance takes them. The door is locked and there is a dog inside, and nobody at the hospital knows.
News
Why Milwaukee dispatchers are learning sign language and text protocols
For most of the history of the emergency number, if you could not speak on a telephone you could not reach help directly.
News
Why Tucson mobile home parks are forming cooperatives to buy their land
If you own a mobile home in a park, you own the home and you rent the ground it sits on.
News
What happens when a small town loses its only ambulance service
The service does not usually collapse dramatically. It resigns, or the contract is not renewed, or the volunteer roster falls below the number needed...