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The Medill Fact Check

The Medill Fact Check

The Fulcrum has partnered with the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications to co-publish students' fact-checks on public statements about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on civic engagement. The Fulcrum will also publish related stories, podcasts and videos in partnership with the journalism school, a part of Northwestern University.

The Covid-19 Analyzer includes an interactive database that allows users to research stories, public statements and social media reports for accuracy, listing them as true, mixed or false, accompanied by an explanation and links to further information.


The 13-member Politics, Policy and Foreign Affairs Reporting Project team is also producing an updated national scorecard on voting practices called the 2020 Election Tracker, with an interactive map of the 50 states' regulations for in-person and mail-in balloting, as well as candidate filing and voting deadlines.


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Despite Court Order, NYPD Failed to Properly Monitor Stop-and-Frisks by Aggressive Unit

Members of the New York City Police Department’s Community Response Team conduct a raid on a smoke shop in lower Manhattan in 2024.

Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Despite Court Order, NYPD Failed to Properly Monitor Stop-and-Frisks by Aggressive Unit

More than a decade ago, a federal court found that the New York City Police Department had been unconstitutionally stopping and frisking Black and Hispanic residents. The ruling laid out required fixes, including something quite basic: The NYPD would review officers’ stops to make sure they were legal.

But for most of the past three years the nation’s largest police department failed to do that for a key part of an aggressive and politically connected unit as it stopped New Yorkers.

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America Is at an Impasse. What’s the Breakthrough?
As political violence threatens democracy, defending free speech, limiting government overreach, and embracing pluralism matters is critical right now.
Getty Images, Javier Zayas Photography

America Is at an Impasse. What’s the Breakthrough?

Our country and our politics are at an impasse. Just consider our past four presidents: Obama, Trump, Biden, and back to Trump. The country keeps swinging from one end of the political spectrum to the other with no clear, sustained direction.

Which begs the question: what’s the breakthrough we need to get us out of this impasse and moving in a more hopeful way—together?

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Tourists gather at Mather Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, enjoying panoramic views of the iconic natural wonder

National Park Service budget cuts are reshaping America’s public lands through underfunding and neglect. Explore how declining park staffing, deferred maintenance, and political inaction threaten national parks, local economies, and public trust in government.

Getty Images, miroslav_1

They Won’t Close the Parks. They’ll Just Let Them Fail.

This summer, before dawn, the Liu family from Buffalo will load up their SUV, coffee in hand, bound for a long-planned trip out west. The Grand Canyon has been on their list for years, something to do before the kids get too old and schedules get too tight. They expect crowds. They expect long lines at the entrance. That is part of the deal. In recent years, national parks have drawn more than 325 million visits annually, near record highs.

What they do not expect are shuttered visitor centers and closed trails, not because of weather but because there are not enough staff to maintain them. What they do not see is the budget decision in Washington that made those trade-offs, quietly, indirectly, and without much debate.

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