The Best of the Week’s News

• What Rudy Giuliani knows about love.

• One of the worst torturers at Guantanamo perfected his methods on suspects in Chicago.

• Nurses take care of us, but no one takes care of them when they get hurt on the job.

• The Catwalk Sweatshop: Models are workers, too.

Sidney Hillman Judge Ta-Nehisi Coates has won a 2014 George Polk Award for his magnificent Atlantic cover story, “The Case for Reparations.”

Till Death Do Us Part, a ground-breaking series on domestic violence by the Post and Courier of Charleston, won a Sidney Award in September of 2014 and a Polk Award last night.

Past Sidney-winner John Carlos Frey and our friends at the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute also took home a Polk Award last night:  

The award for television reporting went to Marisa Venegas and Solly Granatstein, executive producers, and John Carlos Frey, correspondent, for a joint production by the Investigative Fund, the Weather Channel, Telemundo and Efran Films titled “Muriendo por Cruzar (Dying to Cross),” on the plight of migrants in the Texas desert. [NYT]

The Polk Awards honor special achievements in journalism. They are named after CBS correspondent James Polk who was murdered while covering a civil war in Greece in 1948. The judges place a premium on rigorous investigation and real-world results. 

Congratulations to all the winners! 

The Voice of OC has a three-part series on the domestic violence crisis facing Santa Ana, California.

Santa Ana has the highest rate of domestic violence of any major city in the state. The Santa Ana police recieve domestic violence calls at an annual rate of 9.1/1000 residents. That’s almost double the rate for Los Angeles.  

Santa Ana is a diverse city that is home to many immigrants. Activists note that victims whose immigration status is uncertain are often reluctant to report domestic violence out of fear of deportation. 

The Orange County Family Justice Center offers multiple services to domestic violence. Victims can get help with legal issues, social services, and counselling, all under the same roof. The center is at the forefront of a movement to meet the needs of DV survivors in a more comprehensive way. 

The Best of the Week’s News

• Credible fear: Tens of thousands of families flee violence in Central America, languish in U.S. detention.

• Reality show sends fashion enthusiasts to work in Cambodian sweatshops.

• Salute a sanitation worker: Only .2% of the DNA in the New York City subway is human.

• On Tuesday, Feb 10, join director Marc Levin for a sneak preview of his new documentary, Freeway: Crack in The System, at the IFC Center in New York.