America TonightMon-Fri 9:30pm ET/6:30pm PT

America Tonight's highlights of 2014

Our most popular, powerful and provocative stories from the last year

December 30, 2014 1:00PM ET

by The America Tonight Digital Team

This was America Tonight's first full year on air and online, and we kept busy. Our reporters told stories from every state in the country, from a heroin-ravaged small town in New England to a sex offender detainment center in Southwest Florida, picking up some awards along the way. Take a tour of some of our reporting highlights from 2014, as selected by our editors.

America Tonight

Whistleblower: Arizona inmates are dying from inadequate health care

Regan Clarine found out she was pregnant just two days before she was sentenced to two and a half years behind bars on a narcotics charge. Her birthing experience – a forced C-section and a seeping open wound that lasted for weeks – is one of many accounts of medical neglect in Arizona's privatized prison health care system, but a whistleblower spoke up for the first time.

America Tonight

Pay up or pay time: Alabama’s private probation industry

Alabamians who can't pay civil fines may end up in a vicious cycle of fees and even jail time – and someone's profiting. “You know, if you ain't got the money, you just don't have the money,” said Elvis Mann, whose debt of roughly $300 spiraled into almost $9,000.

America Tonight

Rape victims say Bob Jones University told them to repent

In an America Tonight investigation, former Bob Jones University students say they were told that their sins had brought on their rapes and that healing came from forgiving their rapists. “I would say that the impact of the two years of counseling I had with her is that I felt like I had been raped all over again,” one former student said.

America Tonight

Could this new treatment revolutionize psychiatric disorders?

Jennifer Giesen, 24, lives with her parents in a Chicago suburb and feels like her OCD has taken over her life. Overwhelmed by thoughts of death and germs, she wears gloves almost everywhere. Now, she's one of just a few patients in a clinical trial for a new treatment for patients with OCD who have tried everything else.

America Tonight

Florida becomes the harshest state for sex offenders

Inspired by the tragic rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl last summer, Florida legislators overhauled the state's sexual offender legislation this year. Part of the tougher slate of laws is an expansion of "civil commitment," a policy where sex offenders can be detained indefinitely for crimes they haven't committed.

In Florida, ‘invisible children’ die as safety net fails

In the Sunshine State, some children have been falling through the cracks and dying of abuse and neglect for years, even when the Florida Department of Children and Families was aware they were in danger. According to the agency’s own figures, from 2008 to June 2013, there were 872 confirmed child abuse deaths, and in 437 of those cases the families were known to DCF.

America Tonight

Could this drug help millions of American addicts?

Paul O’Heron hadn’t been clean for 12 years. After four failed attempts at rehab, he read about ibogaine. With just one dose and a psychedelic journey that can last days, heroin addicts, alcoholics and cocaine users have reportedly found themselves completely free from addiction with none of the usual withdrawal symptoms. So he went to Mexico to try it for himself.

America Tonight

Breaking good: Preventing overdoses at concerts

In a field in upstate New York, Adam Auctor was on a mission: to hand out as many drug-testing kits as he can without being noticed by police or event security. He is the Bunk Police, fighting the rising number of overdoses and hospitalizations from young people at music festivals taking bad drugs.

AFP / Getty Images

Is Fukushima at risk for another nuclear disaster?

At the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, is struggling to contain the ongoing nuclear disaster. Since the catastrophe almost four years ago, there has been disagreement about whether the plant is safe. America Tonight traveled to Fukushima to find out whether the world still needs to be worried.

Getty Images/Andrew Burton

Why college rape victims don't go to the police

At the end of finals, most college kids go party. When Emma Sulkowicz finished her last exam of the school year in May, she went back to her dorm room and dialed 911 to report a rape.

America Tonight

Mothers of accused college rapists fight back

Allison Strange talks weekly with mothers of other accused college rapists, who say the system was stacked against their sons. "How in the world can we be in a situation where someone’s words – without any evidence, without any witnesses, without anything – how in the world can someone's life be turned upside down, or basically ruined?" she said.

America Tonight

Children with special needs: a ‘gravy train’ for Florida nursing homes?

Parents of some children who are sick or severely disabled say Florida is needlessly “warehousing” their kids in expensive nursing homes, often far away from their hometowns. Sheila MacVicar speaks with some families who say that Florida’s caretaking practices for kids make no sense.

Timothy Bella

In Arkansas, white town is a black mark

Residents disagree on whether Harrison, Arkansas, has a racial problem, an image problem or both. Many say the town of today is being unfairly blamed for events of a century ago, when white mobs allegedly chased out black residents early in the 20th century.

Police to America Tonight journalist near Ferguson: 'I’ll bust your head'

Producer Aaron Ernst looks back on an encounter with local police near Ferguson that almost led to his arrest. "It’s not every day that a police officer tells you he’s going to bust your head open," he wrote.

courtesy

School to parents: Does your son have to be Buddhist?

At Negreet High School, a public K–12 school in Sabine Parish, Louisiana, C.C. stuck out like a sore thumb. The sixth-grader was a Buddhist of Thai descent, adopted by his Buddhist mother. “It’s an abusive situation,” C.C.’s stepfather said. “When I send my kids to school, I’m expecting them to receive an education, not an indoctrination.”

Does the U.S. Olympic Committee fail sexual abuse victims?

Elite junior athletes say they've been abandoned by a system that values winning over protecting children against rape. “Right now, as we’re speaking, I am sure a wide-eyed 12-year-old Olympic wannabe is being abused,” said a mother of an alleged victim of abuse. “This situation sets itself up and on every club team in every state in this country.”