Marisa Peñaloza

David Padilla is one of thousands of people sentenced under tough drug laws who are spending life in prison. Now the Clemency Project 2014 promises pardons or early release for some offenders.

When she went to prison on drug charges, Stephanie George was 26 years old, a mom to three young kids.

Over 17 years behind bars, her grandparents died. Her father died. But the worst came just months before her release.

"I lost my baby son," George says, referring to 19-year-old ...

Thousands of people are imprisoned for decades, if not life, because of tough drug sentences. Now judges, lawyers and advocates ask whether it's time to dial back those penalties.

The United States spends nearly $7 billion a year to operate a network of federal prisons that house more than 200,000 inmates. About half of them are incarcerated for drug crimes, a legacy of 1980s laws that prosecutors use to target not only kingpins but also low-level couriers and girlfriends. ...

The lives of fishermen in Alaska were forever changed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill more than two decades ago. They're still haunted by litigation, bankruptcy and herring that haven't returned.

The tiny fishing town of Cordova, Alaska, has weathered disruption in every facet of life since an oil tanker ran aground in 1989, spilling millions of gallons of oil into Prince William Sound.

Thousands of children are conceived using sperm and egg donors every year, a group large enough to entice MTV to air “Generation Cryo.” The show may make some uncomfortable, but for others, “Generation Cryo” will symbolize how a new generation is redefining family.

The show follows a teenager as she ...

Bob Moses is 78, but he has the same probing eyes you see behind thick black glasses in photos from 50 years ago when he worked as a civil rights activist in Mississippi. The son of a janitor, Moses was born and raised in Harlem. He's a Harvard-trained philosopher and ...

Dora Hernandez gave a decade of her life to the U.S. Navy and the Army National Guard, but some of the dangers surprised her.

"The worst thing for me is that you don't have to worry about the enemy, you have to worry about your own soldiers," she says.

Sitting ...

America has been debating the role of women in combat since 1779.

That's when the Continental Congress first awarded a military disability pension to Mary Corbin after she manned a cannon in the Revolutionary War at the battle of Fort Washington in New York. Corbin got only half the pension ...

In a series of reports this week, NPR's Quil Lawrence looks at some of the most pressing challenges facing America's nearly 2 million female veterans. Like men, they often need assistance in finding jobs, dealing with PTSD and reintegrating into their families. And all too often, women say their military ...

Like many other former felons in Florida, Vikki Hankins has spent years trying to regain civil rights like the right to vote or serve on a jury. And while she dreams of going to law s...