Yana Kunichoff

Wealthy Ranchers Profit From Public Lands. Taxpayers Pick Up the Tab. A ProPublica and High Country News investigation found that government programs supporting grazing on public lands prop up a wealthy few while harming the environment. The Trump administration is supe...

Wealthy ranchers in the Southwest benefit from subsidy programs that let them graze cattle on federal lands at a steep discount.

Roughly two-thirds of all the livestock grazing on BLM acreage is controlled by just 10% of ranchers

www.propublica.org/article/graz...

A neighborhood union uses community-led organizing to build safety and leadership with Amphi women and girls - AZ Luminaria As Erica Prather and 24 others gathered at Catalina State Park trailhead, she began advising the hikers not to pick any of the park’s native flora. Moments later, 18-year-old Khadija Saboor ran up hol...

My colleague @cacuella.bsky.social went on a hike with the Amphi Women and Girls Union, a space for teenage girls in a historically disenfranchized Tucson community to hike, talk and learn

azluminaria.org/2026/02/12/a...

RTA Next vote explained: What Props 418 and 419 mean for Pima County - AZ Luminaria A guide to the RTA Next tax vote in Pima County: what Props 418 and 419 would fund, how the sales tax works and what a yes or no vote means

I dug into the transit tax proposal that Pima County residents can vote on in the next month, and how to weigh your vote depending on what transit future you're looking for:

azluminaria.org/2026/02/13/r...

ASDB parents sue to halt vote on moving Tucson campus - AZ Luminaria Parents sue to block a Thursday vote to close the Tucson campus of ASDB and relocate students to Oro Valley

My colleague
@shannonconner.bsky.social
has been at the forefront of breaking some of the biggest stories in education in southern AZ lately.

Her latest is about parents lawsuit over a plan to move Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind out of Tucson

azluminaria.org/2026/02/03/a...

My time with The Washington Post is up. I was laid off with hundreds of folks I am so honored to call my colleagues.

I covered it all at The Post (really), so now I'm looking for my next adventure.

➡️ kbellware [at] gmail dot com
Website update coming soon

@postguild.bsky.social
forever

Here is the User Guide for ELITE, the Tool Palantir Made for ICE 404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for ELITE, which lets ICE bring up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address.

404 Media is publishing a version of the user guide for the Palantir-made tool called ELITE, which lets ICE bring up dossiers on individual people and provides a “confidence score” of their address.
www.404media.co/here-is-the-...

Since last year, we’ve been reporting on ICE extensively. But every week brings new information, and it’s getting harder to keep track of what’s happening, let alone remember what’s already happened.

So here’s a quick thread to help.

Trapped inside: A Minnesota refugee family’s life on hold amid ICE arrests A Minnesota refugee family has stopped leaving their home after visits from immigration agents, as a new federal operation begins re-examining refugee cases across the state. A judge has ordered a tem...

The adults in the family stopped going to work. Volunteers now drop off groceries. The only members of the household who go outside are nephews and nieces who catch the bus to school. However, they struggle to concentrate in class, worrying that ICE might return while they're gone.

‘I don’t have words’: 2 more kids from Liam Ramos’ Columbia Heights school taken into ICE custody The children were taken into ICE custody after their mother was detained at a court appointment. School leaders say the mother asked them to bring the kids to the detention center because there were n...

“We had to deliver them to a detention center,” principal Jason Kuhlman said about the second grader and fifth grader.

A long way home - AZ Luminaria One Tucson family’s harrowing journey from Venezuela through the heart of the anti-immigrant policies of México and the U.S.

Yesenia had walked thousands of miles through the Darién Gap and through Mexico to get a modicum of safety and security for her children in Tucson. Then a traffic stop destroyed it all

@jwashing.bsky.social follows the story of one family after deportation

azluminaria.org/a-long-way-h...

One human rights observer in Maine said agents followed her home, blocked off her street, and came to her door to say they know where she lives. Her children are now staying elsewhere, to keep them safe.

I've seen a lot of upsetting images in the past .. well, I guess years, but this one from Richard Tsong-Taatarii is immediately burned into my memory. Here's the photojournalist's insta if you want to follow him. www.instagram.com/rtsongphoto/...

I recently met a widowed 71-year-old woman still working two jobs and living at an extended-stay hotel because even two jobs don't pay her enough to afford rent.

This is what "one more year of work" looks like in America.

“There Is a War Against Us”: Worker Leader, Released from ICE Custody, Speaks Out Willian Giménez González is free, but he worries about thousands of others who were abducted from the Chicago area.

Willian Giménez González, Chicago day laborer and beloved worker leader in Chicago, has been released from ICE custody. I spoke to him about his 47-day detention, and what solidarity looks like in this moment. "I owe my freedom to being organized," he says.

We've removed the paywall from this guide so everyone can access it. 👇 Stay safe.

One of my biggest takeaways from reporting this story was how much media reports in the aftermath of police shootings, in particular with the police union spokesperson putting forward a narrative of an incident, were then used as key pieces of evidence for a future investigation.

Seattle Investigated a Cop for Attending Trump’s Rally on Jan. 6. Phoenix Hired Him. As Phoenix PD rushed to fill open positions, the department may have overlooked red flags in recruits' backgrounds.

lots of cop hagiography today, while this is also a big part of the story of police and J6:

He was at Jan. 6. The Phoenix Police Department hired him anyway Scotty Bach was a Seattle cop when he went to the "Stop the Steal" rally in D.C. Now he carries a badge in Phoenix.

Police officers move to new departments all the time. What is the responsibility of local agencies to make sure they're not hiring officers accused of misconduct?

@samstecklow.bsky.social and I look at the hiring of one officer in Phoenix

www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix...

He was at Jan. 6. The Phoenix Police Department hired him anyway Scotty Bach was a Seattle cop when he went to the "Stop the Steal" rally in D.C. Now he carries a badge in Phoenix.

In the first of three stories, @yanak.bsky.social and I report on how self-imposed pressures on the Phoenix PD pushed officials to hire increasing amounts of "lateral transfer" officers from other departments — or other states.

@invisible.institute + @theappeal.org + @phoenixnewtimes.com

I don’t ever want to hear anyone say “the raids aren't as bad.” this is the last 2 days.

lataco.com/daily-memo-d...

LOOKOUT Report: Maricopa HIV Deaths Reveal Gaps in Care for the Unhoused Nearly a quarter of HIV-related deaths in Maricopa County involved people who were housing insecure, but limited data and threatened housing programs leave the scope of the crisis largely unseen.

Nearly a quarter of HIV-related deaths in Maricopa County involved people who were housing insecure, a @lookoutnews.bsky.social investigation of medical examiner data found

www.lookoutnews.org/lookout-repo...

Housing instability can be deeply interconnected with Nevada child welfare • Nevada Current This story is the first in a series on the connections between housing instability and child welfare. This project was supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship...

The number of children in Nevada taken from their families due to housing has been rising since eviction moratoria and pandemic supports went away nevadacurrent.com/2025/12/03/h...

@nodesertdatacenter.com has been one of the most energetic and fast-growing organizing efforts I've covered - this summer it was a loose group of people opposed to a water-heavy development, and its closing out 2025 as a national model for fighting data centers

azluminaria.org/2025/07/21/t...

When jail becomes the mental health treatment plan - AZ Luminaria Arizona’s competency restoration system pushes people with mental illness into jail. Stacey Brooks’ case shows the dangerous consequences.

Nearly 1400 people have been ordered into Pima County’s Restoration to Competency program to see if they can stand trial

That can mean more than a year in jail, waiting. My colleague @jwashing.bsky.social writes about when jail becomes a mental health facility

azluminaria.org/2025/11/24/w...

Today, Tucson City Council is discussing a proposed ordinance that would create a new offense of "drug-related loitering". Indications that could trigger an arrest for this include officer knowledge of a prior drug conviction, or the so-called "fent fold." tucsonaz.hylandcloud.com/221agendaonl...

As Tucson drafts new drug-use law, a rare joint meeting points to multiple approaches  - AZ Luminaria As the Tucson City Council weighs whether to target public drug use through a new pathway to misdemeanor arrests, a rare city-county summit highlighted a central dilemma; how to address addiction as b...

A new ordinance under consideration in Tucson would allow police to arrest people who raise a “reasonable suspicion that they are about to engage” in public drug use

azluminaria.org/2025/11/18/a...

Contractor Paying Random People $300 to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE “The more I listened to it, the more I’m like, something doesn’t sound right,” a person who was briefed on the pilot plans told 404 Media.

NEW: a contractor is paying random people $300 to physically track immigrants for ICE. They're given addresses, vehicles, told to monitor the target. That information then goes back up to ICE. These are not licensed private investigators; members of the public

www.404media.co/contractor-p...

Sister JoAnn Persch, Trailblazing Immigrant Rights Activist, Dies At 91 Sister JoAnn Persch spent decades with the Sisters of Mercy, fighting for immigrant and refugee rights in Chicago and across the country. She prayed the rosary outside the Broadview ICE facility every...

Rest in power to Sister JoAnn Persch - I met her at the Broadview detention center circa 2010-ish, where she was among a group that lay down in front of a deportation bus

blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/18/s...

‘The city that draws the line’: one Arizona community’s fight against a huge datacenter Questions grow over water and energy costs of warehouse of computers in Sonoran desert – but will Project Blue be stopped?

Wrote about the contentious Project Blue — a massive proposed data center in Tucson AZ — for my first feature with @theguardian.com!

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...