Sam Turken
After living in North Carolina the past four years, Miami native Sam Turken is back in the city he’s always called home.
Sam is a proud Miami Beach Senior High alum and a recent graduate of Duke University where he studied journalism, public policy and history. He caught the public radio bug three years ago when he covered a gun buyback in Miami while on his spring break. Since then, he’s produced audio pieces on race, social justice and public housing. He enjoys using sound to tell rich and intimate stories.
A former managing editor of The Duke Chronicle, Sam has digital experience covering a range of other topics. He’s investigated the absence of female managers in Duke men’s basketball program and reported on enrollment imbalances within public schools in Durham, N.C. He’s also interned with WBUR in Boston and Fusion, written for the Raleigh News & Observer and worked for the Duke Reporters’ Lab.
When Sam isn’t doing journalism things, he enjoys the outdoors. He runs, plays tennis and soccer and spends time around the bay and ocean—something he wasn’t able to do while in college. You may also spot him riding his bike around Miami’s streets.
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Lots of low-income and public housing is threatened by rising seas. Losing those units will make the affordable housing crisis even worse, and put more people at risk of homelessness.
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Across the country, cities are paying people to leave flood-prone homes, then tearing down the houses to keep the space open. But fixing one problem can create another for the people left behind.
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In Virginia, there's a debate underway about what to do with buildings, monuments and roads named after two Confederate generals — because of their support of Black people after the Civil War.
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Those green highway signs on interstates increasingly have problems. Older signs are almost invisible at night and it's creating issues for drivers and headaches for state transportation managers.
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Increased flooding from climate change is making flood insurance so expensive that some worry they'll lose their homes. A federal program can cut costs if cities invest in flood protection. -
Some homeowners are seeing their flood insurance rates spike as the warming climate causes more flooding. A federal program can bring costs down, but many places are not taking full advantage of it.
