Sam Levin

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Sam Levin

Sam LevinThu, April 10, 2025 at 3:00 PM UTC5 min readA 42-year-old man on South Carolina death row is fighting to stop his execution by firing squad, with his attorneys arguing he endured prolonged torture as a child and did not receive a fair trial. Mikal Mahdi is due to be killed on Friday, nearly 20 years after he was sentenced to death for the 2004 killing of James Myers, a 56-year-old off-duty public safety officer.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Sam Levin

Thousands of drug tests used by a major US diagnostic company in California prisons last year are suspected to have generated false positive results, an enormous error that has jeopardized the parole requests of some incarcerated people, according to civil rights lawyers and prison medical records. California prison officials have known about the issue for months, but have failed to clear people’s records or reverse the consequences people have faced from the tests.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Sam Levin

Oregon has for years struggled with a drug crisis, reporting one of the highest rates of substance use disorders in the US and ranking last in the nation for access to treatment. The problem is systemic, rooted in decades of failure to invest in the level of behavioral health services needed for people with mental illnesses and addiction. The Pacific north-west state’s significant affordable housing shortage has compounded the challenges, as people languish on the streets without care.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Sam Levin

At 7.45am on a cool February morning in Medford, Oregon, six police officers pulled up to a desolate road lined with tarps and a shopping cart and began making arrests. The officers directed four adults to sit on the sidewalk, handcuffing them behind their backs and rifling through their pockets. They were being detained for illegal camping, but the officers were also searching for evidence of drugs. “Love you!” a husband and wife shouted at each other as they were separated to be taken to jail.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Sam Levin

A Tufts University student who was detained by US immigration authorities this week, in an arrest that caused widespread outrage, cannot be deported without a court order, a US judge ordered on Friday. Rümeysa Öztürk, 30, was detained by masked, plainclothes officers as she walked in a Boston-area suburb on Tuesday, an incident that was captured on surveillance footage that has since gone viral.