Democrat Beto O'Rourke lost his Senate bid in 2018, but his failed campaign led to a major overhaul of the criminal justice system in Texas's largest city, writes The Marshall Project's Keri Blakinger. BBC NEWS
Read MoreJust 30 years ago, getting cross-party support to change sentencing, policing or the death penalty would have been almost unthinkable. Today, though progress remains slow, the costs of tough-on-crime policies are prompting a change of heart. THE CORRESPONDENT
Read MoreThe political scientist Hélène Landemore asks, If government is for the people, why can’t the people do the governing? THE NEW YORKER
Read MoreBack in 1999, Portugal experienced 369 overdose deaths and in 2016, the number was just 30. The number of new HIV diagnoses due to injecting has plummeted from 907 in 2000 to 18 in 2017. The new laws have also had an impact on incarceration with the number of people behind bars for drug offences falling from 3,863 in 1999 to 1,140 in 2017. STATISTA
Read MoreDesigner Nina Montgomery offers up three innovation challenges for leaders who say they want to broaden the purpose of business. FAST COMPANY
Read MoreAbhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo are immigrants themselves — and they both think the evidence shows we need more people like them. VOX
Read MoreThough her nonprofit Model Alliance, Sara Ziff is tackling the dark side of the fashion industry, from child labor and low wages to sexual harassment and trafficking. FAST COMPANY
Read MoreAs protest and environmental alarm escalate, a new breed of business is prioritising values other than money and growth. THE GUARDIAN
Read MoreTim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, has launched a plan to stop the world falling into a "digital dystopia". Sir Tim unveiled a set of standards that good internet companies should abide by, in the hope of preserving the promise of the internet and stopping it being misused. THE INDEPENDENT
Read MoreUK’s ‘extreme’ pattern of company ownership can prevent clear, purposeful social leadership by firms, says expert. THE INDEPENDENT
Read MoreA newly elected socialist city councilman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wants to make the bus and train system his city shares with Boston free for its residents. HUFFPOST
Read MoreAn A+ for accountability? How one school grades students’ “character data” as much as their homework, and gets a decent report card on future success. REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
Read MoreIn the US, Marjorie Kelly and the Democracy Collaborative are working to foster a more democratic economy—starting with employee ownership. FAST COMPANY
Read MoreThe three researchers work on global poverty, studying interventions in a range of areas: combating teacher absenteeism, direct cash transfers to the extreme poor, policing drunk driving, and studying the effects of access to textbooks on students, among others. They’ve also made extraordinary contributions to developing the methods used to study these subjects, with a focus on randomized controlled trials (RCTs). VOX
Read MoreA new report from the Center for American Progress shows how that massive transformation could take place in the U.S., drawing on plans from states that are making the transition to zero emissions. FAST COMPANY
Read MoreThey’re the medical system’s eyes and ears, yet they’re treated as crisis managers. Now some cities are letting their paramedics get to know their patients, with remarkable results. REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
Read MoreThe broken US prison system is in desperate need of reform and prisons are now trying to find answers overseas. Recidivism rates in Norway are among the world’s lowest. Around 20% of those released from prison are arrested within two years. THE HUFFINGTON POST
Read MoreWith faith in politics at an all-time low and thorny and divisive issues aplenty in these volatile and politically corrosive times, is it time to reinvent the way we interpret democratic ideals? Sortition Foundation’s co-founder Brett Hennig believes that the practice of ‘sortition’ – once favoured by the ancient Greeks – could revive the legitimacy of government. ATLAS OF THE FUTURE
Read More