Ali Oshinskie
Naugatuck Valley Reporter, Report For AmericaAli Oshinskie is a corps member with , a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. She loves hearing what you thought of her stories or story ideas you have so please email her at aoshinskie@ctpublic.org.
Ali reports on the Naugatuck River Valley with an emphasis on work, economic development, and opportunity in the Valley. Her work has appeared on NPR, Here & Now, and Marketplace.
Past public radio work includes, New Hampshire Public Radio’s The Exchange; New England News Collaborative’s NEXT with host John Dankosky; the Marketplace Morning Report with host David Brancaccio; and ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø’s talk shows, Where We Live with host Lucy Nalpathanchil and The Colin McEnroe Show with host Colin McEnroe.
Ali enjoys growing vegetables in her backyard, giving things found in the trash a second life, and a good pair of boots with arch support. She occasionally tweets .
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Teenagers frequently run away in Waterbury. The students of Waterbury Youth Services wanted to know why. In this podcast episode, teens from Waterbury find out why kids run away and what happens after they are found. -
Heat doesn’t affect everyone equally. Maps from UConn's ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation show who is most vulnerable to heat. -
Around one in every 10 people in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø are food insecure. Community fridges have popped up in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø in the last few years to help meet this need. They are public pantries, most are open 24/7 and all the food is free, no questions asked. -
Food prices have risen 10% in the U.S. in the last year, making groceries even harder to afford for low-income people. In ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, 12% of residents don’t have access to adequate nutrition. Fridgeport is one of half a dozen community fridges run through mutual aid that have popped in the state in the last few years to help meet that need. -
Protestors gathered in New Haven and other cities across the state to protest the Supreme Court’s ruling. -
Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in America, when the last enslaved people in the United States, in Galveston, Texas, finally heard that they were free. That was June of 1865. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø only abolished slavery 17 years earlier. -
The Naugatuck Valley will get funding from the federal government for brownfield cleanup and remediation grants. -
Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, and with it summer travel. But without a car, it can feel like options are limited in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø. That’s the case for 10% of households in the state that don’t have access to a car, according to data from National Equity Access. A number of state parks are accessible by public transportation. Park Connect CT, a program from the departments of Transportation and Energy and Environmental Protection, is helping residents to understand how to get there. -
Torrington Public Schools is the first public school district in the state to require middle school students to lock away their phones during class. But parents and students are pushing back against the measure. Administrators and educators hope that restricting phone use will improve students’ academics and mental health. -
The municipalities of Waterbury and Naugatuck have each approved a purchase agreement deal with Bluewater Property Group, a hopeful developer of the next Amazon distribution center in the state. But the group must spend millions to determine if they can build.
