For 20 years, an obscure Virginia regulatory board has forced thousands of landowners to lease their mineral rights to private energy corporations.

Daniel Gilbert is a reporter for the Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier.

I drive by an elementary school on my way to work every day. More than once there’s been a police cruiser idling in the school’s parking lot with lights flashing and the officer standing nearby.

Although those incidents never involved a major crime, on several occasions this year the Tulsa World has chronicled arrests at schools.

Gavin Off is the data editor at the Tulsa World in Oklahoma and a former analyst for the IRE and NICAR Database Library.

I was warned prior to IRE and NICAR’s CAR Boot Camp that many attendees leave feeling overwhelmed.

And at the end of the five-day class in Minneapolis in early October, I felt … overwhelmed.

Gregg Hennigan covers local government out of the Iowa City office of The Gazette.