Lois Parshley

Public health crisis unfolding in Minneapolis as residents avoid healthcare Providers are arranging home visits and telehealth as neighbors pick up prescriptions, groceries and diapers

People targeted by federal agents - for their skin color, accents, or immigration status - are afraid to seek healthcare; healthcare staff are fearful for their safety at work. Here's how Minnesota providers are responding to an unfolding crisis - my latest:

The Rabbit Hole: Dockets Die in Darkness Among the 17 counties in Georgia that don’t have a single local news source, 12 of the counties are in the Middle District of Georgia’s jurisdiction. This week, we sought to highlight the dockets dyin...

We dropped our paywall for this new piece.

Court Watch picked one of the largest ‘news deserts’ in the South and examined all the new court dockets that went unreported to tell a larger story about the need for local journalism

‘Dockets Die In Darkness’

www.courtwatch.news/p/the-rabbit...

Climate change is increasing landslide risks in the U.S. too. I reported on how out of date some landslide maps were last year (and how hard it is to find the will to update them).

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Carpenter Media's ominous takeover of local news. In just a few years, a publisher based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest.

In just a few years, Carpenter Media has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest. Read @loisparshley.bsky.social with support from @economichardship.bsky.social.
www.cjr.org/feature/carp...

Carpenter Media's ominous takeover of local news. In just a few years, a publisher based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest.

In just a few years, a publisher based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest. (Just ask Homer, Alaska.)

www.cjr.org/feature/carp...
By @loisparshley.bsky.social via @columjournreview.bsky.social

Carpenter came in to Oregon like a wrecking ball and immediately closed at least one community’s paper, laid off many experienced journalists, and at the same time required more output from the ones they kept, leading to low quality stories. All in the name of “preserving local news”.

In Hawai'i, Carpenter Media owns the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Midweek, the Hawai'i Tribune-Herald and West Hawai'i Today.

Notably, West Hawai'i Today no longer has any reporters and is essentially a ghost paper.

Carpenter Media's ominous takeover of local news. In just a few years, a publisher based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest.

For years I’ve been begging for a comprehensive look at Carpenter Media and their whole deal and it dropped this morning; tales about an existential threat to local news in my hometown and others like it. From the Alaska resignations to mass layoffs to unrealistic quotas and ghost papers.

Crucially, this project was supported by a grant from @economichardship.bsky.social, which supports independent journalism.

Carpenter Media's ominous takeover of local news. In just a few years, a publisher based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has become the country’s fourth-largest newspaper operator. Some reporters wonder if it isn’t the cruelest.

The loss is cumulative: Fewer local reporters means a public discourse increasingly detached from the full geography of American power and responsibility. It also leaves the journalists who once filled those pages with nowhere to go.

Read more here: www.cjr.org/feature/carp...

In Alaska, four staffers resigned after Carpenter pulled a story on Charlie Kirk and republished a changed version—without a note or consulting the reporter or editor. In Hawaii, @kjknodell.bsky.social says staff cuts followed Carpenter’s takeover.

Its acquisitions have come with widespread layoffs, staff treatment leading to repeated widespread resignations, and editorial interventions. Carpenter Media’s funding and business decisions are hard to track. “Where’s this money come from?" asked the executive director of @pacnwguild.bsky.social.

Which is why what’s happening to local news across the country should worry anyone who cares about journalism and its role in a functioning democracy. I spent the last several months reporting for @columjournreview.bsky.social on the rapid consolidation of American newspapers under Carpenter Media.

As public discourse feels increasingly unstable and official accounts can't be trusted, local reporters who know the ground they're covering are more important than ever.

When something sudden breaks, they’re not parachuting in. They’re already rooted in their communities.

3M also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for the bill, allowing the U.S. to build its detention centers in exchange for tax breaks. lda.senate.gov/filings/publ...

The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Endorsements Discover the growing list of businesses and organizations endorsing the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act that addresses tax relief, energy production, and regulatory reform.

This is a list of American companies who endorsed the Big Beautiful Bill, and its $45 billion for ICE detention capacity and $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement and deportations. Notably, it includes Minnesota's 3M. www.whitehouse.gov/obbb/endorse...

Ways to Support Minnesota’s Immigrant Communities as ICE Activity Escalates Food drives, fundraisers, trainings, restaurant specials, and other resources to support immigrant communities during ICE's massive Operation Metro Surge.

A good list of resources and action items here to help you support immigrant communities in Minnesota. Would appreciate it if you helped me boost. ❤️ mspmag.com/arts-and-cul...

The StarTribune live blog is paywall free:
- The man shot by federal agents this morning has died
- Several witnesses have already been transported to the Whipple building.
- ICE attempted to order local police from the scene, but O’Hara refused, sources said.

www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...

Protests and Power Plays: From Tehran to the Arctic Circle Podcast Episode · The Intercept Briefing · 01/23/2026 · 49m

NEW POD 🎧: "After 120 years of looking for democracy, can we just do that? Can we just get a democracy?" Hooman Majd joins us on Iran's brutal crackdown. And @loisparshley.bsky.social takes us through the billionaires behind Trump's obsession with Greenland podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

The 5-year-old arrested by ICE In Minnesota is detained at Dilley. We reported on conditions there in the below article.

Parents said the food was contaminated with mold and worms & that children were so under so much stress that they were hitting their own faces & wetting themselves.

Americans by Name, Punished for Believing It - Bolts In a small Alaska town, American Samoans face prosecution for voting in the only country they’ve ever known. They live in a limbo, created by colonial expansion, that now confuses even public official...

Alaska officials gave false info to American Samoans, telling them they can vote. (They can’t, due to a unique status.)

Now, the state is threatening them with years in prison, part of GOP’s voting fraud panic.

@burness.bsky.social spent months reporting the story; spend some of your w-e with it.

How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela Chevron met with Trump and spent millions lobbying him to let it continue operating in Venezuela. Now it is uniquely positioned to profit from the country’s vast oil reserves.

How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela

How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela Chevron met with Trump and spent millions lobbying him to continue operating in Venezuela. Now it is uniquely positioned to profit from that.

This isn’t just about barrels of oil. It’s about how corporate interests shape geopolitics. We’re watching the lines between corporate strategy and national policy blur in real time.

Read more @grist.org.

Maduro had long challenged the project. After Trump’s strike, one of the last major political obstacles to the Guyana field disappeared. As Trump claimed U.S. control of Venezuelan oil — with proceeds routed outside the Treasury — Energy Sec. Chris Wright said Chevron activity would “grow quickly.”

This summer Trump's FTC also gave the company another victory: A long-sought merger with Hess Corporation, run by a close friend of Trump's. This bought Chevron’s entry into the decade’s most consequential oilfield, in Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor.

Wirth also sat down with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and the National Security Council. After spending almost $4 million on lobbying, in July the gamble paid off: The administration let Chevron resume operations.

When Trump returned to office, his administration revoked Biden-era licenses that had allowed it to operate. Though told to stop producing by April, the company made no attempt to wrap up contracts, pull out personnel, or wind down supply chains. Instead, Wirth met with Trump.

After Chávez nationalized the industry in 2007, almost every major U.S. oil company left, Chevron stayed. The company preserved its infrastructure, personnel, and legal foothold — giving it geopolitical leverage in the ongoing tug-of-war over the country's oil.

How Chevron played the long game in Venezuela Chevron met with Trump and spent millions lobbying him to continue operating in Venezuela. Now it is uniquely positioned to profit from that.

A deep dive into how Chevron maneuvered alongside the Trump administration — and how that strategy left it uniquely positioned after last weekend’s U.S. strike.

As the only U.S. oil major still operating in Venezuela, CEO Mike Wirth says, “we play a long game.” Here’s what that looks like ↓

Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods 404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or t...

ICE has recently bought the capability of monitoring the location histories of entire neighborhoods worth of phones. The data is likely harvested from apps that sell your data, which filters up through data brokers and eventually to companies that sell to ICE:

www.404media.co/inside-ices-...