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Denise Turner, 34 and her niece, Delenna Williams, and nephew, Derrick Williams. The two children were disfigured in a fire that killed their mother. Four years later, Delenna was shot in the chest, wrist and forehead while she and her aunt were searching for a new apartment to live in. Photo by John Sundlof

Getting Caught Up: Families Pay The Price

CHICAGO–“Oh, he’s a nice-looking young man,” Rose Doyle said softly, of the tall, muscular 24-year-old in jail togs who was being escorted into the courtroom by a sheriff’s deputy. The man was Deron Jones. On the night of March 4, 1993, he pumped

Steve Bogira May 28, 1994
Umulisa is an orphan in the displaced camp in Rutare in northern Rwanda. Too young to know her own name and unaccompanied by relatives, she has been named by people in the camp.

Terror Surrounds Rwanda’s Orphans

By Bill Berkeley and Photos by Mary Jane Camejo Sitting cross-legged on a wooden bench in an abandoned school tucked amid the steep mountain slopes of central Rwanda, 13-year-old Reveriani Rurangwa delicately runs a finger along the smooth, shiny scar that wraps around

Bill Berkeley May 16, 1994
This huge sawdust pile behind this West Athens saw mill shows the prosperity reached in the late 19th century. Photo courtesy of the Athens Historical Society

The Timber Industry and the Felling of West Athens, Maine

Everett York leans back and rests his massive weight on a worn Lazy Boy recliner that belongs indoors but looks right at home amidst the miscellaneous junk, cars and car parts that litter his trailer’s yard. Close by, his wife, Rena, reclines on

Steve Rubin February 24, 1994
Judge Kenneth Turner has ruled the Shelby County (TN) Juvenile Court for 30 years. Photo by The Memphis Commercial Appeal

Misery Funds a Legal Fiefdom

Memphis, Tennessee – Bronze dogs guard the neo-classical facade of the Shelby County Juvenile Court. Mahogany desks and softly-lit oil paintings grace the administration offices. It is immaculate, from the gleam of the main lobby floor to the glare off the bullet-proof glass

Nina Bernstein February 20, 1994
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni gives a speech in Wobulenzi in the Luwero Triangle. The President has put reconcilliation above retribution for the country's past massacres. Perhaps a million Ugandans were killed in the last two decades. Photo by Mary Jane Camejo

Paying for Past Crimes: Uganda’s Murderous Lessons for Rwanda

On a Sunday morning in June in the ravaged Rwandan town of Kabuga, on the outskirts of Kigali, the capital, tens of thousands of hungry and bewildered men, women and children wandered aimlessly amid the wreckage of their lives. In the previous two

Bill Berkeley February 16, 1994
Buddy MacKay points to a headline in his hometown paper, the Ocala Star-Banner, proclaiming he won the Senate seat instead of Connie Mack. The photo appeared in the Palm Beach Post on Nov. 10, 1988 Photo by Bob Shanley, staff photographer, Palm Beach Post

A Tale of Weird Drop-Offs and Jump-Ups: Are Computer Vote Counts Honest?

TALLAHASSEE AND SOUTH FLORIDA–Speaking softly, but with an occasional “damn,” the lieutenant governor of Florida, Democrat Buddy McKay, said last spring in his office in the Florida State Capitol that he believed a seat in the U.S. Senate was stolen from him six

Ronnie Dugger February 16, 1994
Elvin Eldorado Harden, the author's great-grandfather.

Saved by the River

Arno Harden sneaked aboard a boxcar in Great Falls, Montana, in the late summer of 1932. He was twenty-one, fresh out of work, alone, and heading West. Everything he owned he carried with him. He had a bedroll and a pillowcase half-stuffed with

Blaine Harden February 9, 1994
Boggan found that exercising his right to a jury tial resulted in years more imprisonment than most of his fellow inmates who committed crimes where victims were injured or killed. He is scheduled to remain in Illinois prisons until 2025. Photo by John Sundlof

Using Your Rights Means Extra Years in Prison

Vincent Boggan is among the few inmates in the Pontiac Correctional Center–a maximum-security prison in Pontiac, Illinois–who avail themselves of the free classes offered. He has already earned an “Associate of Applied Science”–a vocational degree–and now is working on an “Associate in General

Steve Bogira February 2, 1994
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Traveling for a family: The Remittance Economy

According to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, immigrants are the “tired… poor… the huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore… the homeless, tempest-tossed.” Unfortunately, those words did not fit when Emma Lazarus wrote them in

Roberto Suro February 2, 1994
On the 23rd day of the impassee over adoption of the state budget in 1992, Speaker Willie Brown and Governor Pete Wilson finally started talking to each other again. The meetin gcame after Brown, uninvited, marched to the governor's office and asked to be let in. Facing reporters, Wilson put his arm around Brown and called him "my pal." The budget impassee - over education - continued, however, lasting a record-breaking 64 days. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli

Willie Brown: Power, Money and Instinct

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA–Frank Fat’s is the smallest building on its block. Painted garishly pink outside, the Chinese restaurant is sandwiched between a parking garage and an old brick office building a short walk from the California State Capitol. The napkin from Frank Fat’s restaurant

Jim Richardson February 2, 1994
Under political siege in 1988, Willie Brown listens to two of the five Assembly Democrats who attempted to unseat him as Speaker. The Gang of Five's rebellion eventually fizzled. At left is Assemblyman Steve Peace of Chula Vista and, right Jerry Eaves of Rialto. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli

Willie Brown: The Members’ Speaker

SAN FRANCISCO — Willie Brown, his tuxedo glistening in the spotlight, bounced onto a stage in the ornate ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel, the grandiose citadel of San Francisco’s old-moneyed establishment. California’s most powerful politician began introducing his after-dinner entertainment and his guests

Jim Richardson November 17, 1993
Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago's Cook County jail await a court appearance. Photo by John Sundlof

Pushing Treatment For Prisoners

CHICAGO–A tale of two junkies: Dwight Walker sat in his cell in the Cook County Jail last September, aching, cramping, and spitting up, and worrying about how much time he’d get for his robberies. Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago’s Cook

Steve Bogira November 17, 1993
Chivo, an East Los Angeles gang member, teaches his daughter how to hold a 32-caliber pistol. Her mother, Yvonne, looks on.

Gang Life In Los Angeles: The East Side Story

Photos and article by Joseph Rodriguez I see Los Angeles as a post-modern Wild West where everyone has a gun and they use it. It is like an uncontrolled and slightly scary place, a land of dreams and beauty, playing by its own

Joseph Rodriguez November 16, 1993
An open-air flea market in Houston is frequented by Central American immigrants. Photo by APF Fellow Roberto Suro

Houston Dollars Fuel The Human Traffic from Guatemala

One morning in September, 1978 Juan L. Chanax set out from his village in the Guatemalan highlands of Totonicapan and began a voyage with consequences still unfolding in unimaginable ways. A weaver’s son and a good weaver himself, Juan made one of the

Roberto Suro November 15, 1993
United Nations soldiers escort Cambodian refugees returning to Sisophon, Cambodia, in March 1992. Photo by Peter Charlesworth, JB Pictures

Good Intentions Gone Awry: The U.N. Leaves Cambodia

CAMBODIA–Phnom Penh–Micheline LaJoie, a forty-something, brassy blonde former real estate agent from Quebec, eased her hulking white Land Cruiser through curtains of bamboo into the Khmer Rouge village of Chrey Leung. Two weeks before, the Khmer Rouge had taken four United Nations peacekeepers

Judith Coburn November 15, 1993
A billboard at the southeast corner of the Hanford Site alerts people to its emergency zone. Photo by APF Fellow Blane Harden

Bad Comedy at America’s Biggest Environmental Mess

HANFORD, Washington — The mulberries happened to be ripe. They caught the eye of a hell-raising physicist by the name of Norm Buske. He picked a quart and rushed home to make what turned out to be high-anxiety jam. The berries grew here

Blaine Harden November 12, 1993
Anita Hill Baucus said she called members of the Senate Judiciary committee because whe couldn't tolerate seeing Anita Hill "suffering at the hands of a bunch of thugs, and that was how they were treating her. It was frightening to see them all gang up on her." AP/Wide World Photos

Sexism in Washington: Breaking the Silence

It’s been almost two years since millions of Americans sat riveted in front of their televisions, witnessing the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings before the Senate Judiciary committee. That’s a long time ago by Washington standards, where big stories can become ancient history within

Florence Graves August 20, 1993
A metal detector is used in Mather High School in Chicago to find weapons that students carry. © 1993, John Sundlof, all right reserved.

Jailing Juveniles

A spirit of optimism about children created the nation’s first juvenile court, in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. Kids who got in trouble were still kids, the prevailing thinking went, and the focus ought to be on reforming instead of punishing them. A

Steve Bogira August 19, 1993