Civil asset forfeitures has boosted the budgets of South Carolina law enforcement agencies by millions of dollars between 2014 and 2016. TAKEN, a two-year long investigative series looks into the controversial practice and the difficulty citizens face when their money and property is wrongfully seized.

Video produced for The Greenville News

Asylum seekers bussed from the southwest to New York arrive with hope and a desire to work, but are often stuck in the city’s strained shelter system.

Since June, more than 20,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in New York City on buses from Texas and Arizona. Other buses have ferried migrants to Washington and Chicago. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined the fray briefly in September when he authorized flights of asylum-seekers from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, sparking widespread outcry. 

Officials in Texas and Florida maintain that they only transport migrants who choose to reach those destinations. But after the buses roll away, asylum-seekers are left to navigate a foreign city without speaking the language, find a place to live with no relatives or sponsors to help them and feed themselves with no work lined up. 

The result, in New York, means that thousands of those migrants end up in the city's homeless shelter system, already strained near capacity with thousands of New Yorkers who had lost jobs and homes during the coronavirus pandemic and a decades-old housing crisis, advocates said. As of Oct. 24, more than 63,000 people crowded the city's homeless shelter system – a new historic high. Last month, Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency to deal with the crisis and directed workers to erect large temporary tents to handle the overflow.

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Melvin Graham reflects on the life and legacy of his sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, on the seventh anniversary of the Mother Emanuel AME mass shooting.

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Three Upstate South Carolina athletes talk about their love for the sport of rodeo.

Video produced for The Greenville News

This investigative series is the result of a yearlong project that looked into the stories behind court cases unfolding in South Carolina involving the illegal buying and selling of military benefits that left veterans and investors in financial difficulties. The Greenville News reviewed more than 60 lawsuits from across the nation; tracked down experts on military benefits, personal finance and the law; and interviewed dozens of veterans and investors caught up in the schemes.

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The fish fries began as a promise to her mother to keep the doors of Soapstone Baptist Church open. Now, after 22 years, Mable Clarke says it is time to move on. 

Video produced for The Greenville News

Officer-involved shootings can come with the job, but the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office pulls the trigger more than any other agency in the state. ‘Lethal Force’ examines 10 years of police shootings in South Carolina and the human cost associated with each incident.

Video produced for The Greenville News

A look at Operation Streamline, the system of mass deportation through the federal court system for undocumented migrants, in Tucson, AZ in 2012.

The Oceti Sakowin camp near Cannon Ball, N.D. is the largest of four set up in opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would ship Bakken Oil Patch crude oil to a Patkoa, Ill. The gathering is the first time the seven nations of the Sioux have gathered since the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 and is the single largest gathering of Native American tribes in more than a century. The Standing Rock Sioux and the thousands that have traveled to the encampment are concerned about the pipeline and the harm a spill could bring to those who rely on the Missouri River as their main source of water. But for tribes who have endured a long history of land losses and broken treaties, the fight also means much more. 

 Video produced  for the Argus Leader

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