Elaine Korry
Elaine Korry is an NPR contributor based in San Francisco. From August 2004-June 2007 she worked as an NPR senior reporter covering social policy for NPR, with a focus on education, and on the lives of the nation's most vulnerable citizens — the homeless, those living in poverty, working in low wage positions, and trying to find their way to a more stable life.
In 2007, she reported on hospitals struggling to serve chronically homeless people in Los Angeles; the debate over pulling welfare mothers out of school in favor of low-wage jobs; working families with children driven from San Francisco because of the spiraling cost of housing; and proposed budget cuts to literacy programs for immigrant families.
Prior to covering social policy issues, Elaine covered business and economics for NPR for 14 years. She has been awarded numerous reporting fellowships in social policy and education from the Hechinger Institute, Casey Journalism Center, and Wharton School of Business. She attended Rider University in New Jersey, and worked in public radio for 10 years prior to coming to NPR.
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It may seem like nobody's business, but there's abundant evidence that living in a home with poverty can harm children's health. And there are proven ways that doctors can help with that. -
Many people who become addicted to drugs, tobacco or alcohol start using as teenagers. So more effort is being put into helping teenagers stop before they get in too deep. -
The laws are intended to reduce inappropriate prescribing of powerful antipsychotics to children and teens in foster care. Public health nurses will monitor medical records. -
There's ample evidence that children in foster care often get powerful psychiatric medications when other treatments would be safer and more effective. But those treatments can be hard to get. -
The Bush administration's plan to deal with rising home foreclosures by freezing interest rates for struggling borrowers is closely modeled on a California program that has attracted doubters.
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Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three U.S. presidents, died today at age 94.
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When five foreign students from Egypt didn't show up for a month-long course at a Montana university, a web-based tracking system went into action. The system had been created in 2001. A manhunt ensued and the missing students were located within a matter of days. It turns out they had come to find jobs, not to study.
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Getting ready for the world's largest passenger aircraft isn't cheap. Eighteen U.S. airports are making significant investments, mostly runway improvements, to accommodate the super jumbo, double- decker Airbus A380. But now the jet everyone's waiting for is snagged in production delays.
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The California Supreme Court has reinstated the state's high school exit exam as a graduation requirement. The divided ruling means that 47,000 seniors who haven't passed the test may not be able to graduate.
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A California judge recently struck down a state law requiring high school students to pass an "exit exam" before graduating. A group sued the state to suspend the exam requirement after thousands of students failed. The fight about this issue mirrors a larger nationwide debate over how to make a high school diploma more meaningful.
