Raw Story

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include new details released by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of North Carolina and confirmation that Nix is no longer serving in the Army following the original publication of this article on Sunday, Aug. 18.

Kai Liam Nix, a 20-year-old Army soldier tied to extremist threats against a Raw Story reporter, was arrested on Aug. 15 and is being detained in a North Carolina jail on a “federal hold,” Raw Story has confirmed.

The New Yorker, which published an extensive article Sunday about right-wing extremism, further detailed that Nix’s federal charges involve “illicit sales of firearms and lying on a background check.” ...

Three Raw Story investigations by investigative reporter Alexandria Jacobson won first place prizes in the National Federation of Press Women’s 2024 Professional Communications Contest.

Jacobson’s work was honored on June 22 at the organization’s national conference in St. Louis, Mo. Jacobson won first place in three categories:

• Continuing Coverage or Unfolding News for her series with Raw Story Editor-in-Chief Dave Levinthal, “Lawmakers, Law Breakers,” that identified at least 37 congressional violators of a federal conflicts-of-interest and financial disclosure law
• In-depth Reporting for “Losing Track,” a three-part series about various failures of the country’s enfeebled national security vetting system
• Specialty Articles: Education for “‘Too preposterous to be real’: College hires ‘pink slime’ publisher as journalism prof” about a Tennessee university’s controversial hire of an executive associated with a widely scrutinized conservative PAC-backed media network

“The NFPW professional communications contest puts a spotlight on outstanding entries from throughout the United States,” said Helen S. Plotkin, National Federation of Press Women professional contest director. “Our judges continue to comment about the high quality of entries they judge in the contest. The entries showcase high quality and exceptional efforts.”...

A Raw Story series that unveiled how South Carolina public military college The Citadel closed ranks to support honorary degree recipient Rudy Giuliani has won a 2024 Dateline Award for commentary and criticism.

Raw Story Editor-in-Chief Dave Levinthal obtained hundreds of internal school emails and records and conducted numerous interviews to reveal how officials at The Citadel worked to protect both itself as well as Giuliani, a leading figure in Donald Trump's effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, from public scrutiny.

Of the Raw Story's series, Dateline Award judges wrote: ...

Raw Story journalists have won four 2024 Folio Awards for their investigative reporting on politics, government and extremism, the Fair Media Council announced today at its annual luncheon on Long Island, N.Y.

Raw Story awardees include:

• Investigative reporter Mark Alesia won the Sean. A. Fanelli Award for education news for his chilling tale about an Indiana school administrator who became the subject of death threats and national ridicule after a conservative nonprofit and Fox News teamed up to "unfairly and inaccurately" thrust her into the crucible of "culture war cruelty." Folio Award judges wrote that Alesia's report earned "high marks for relevance" and is a "well-rounded examination of the issue."
• Editor-in-chief Dave Levinthal and congressional correspondent Matt Laslo took top honors in the public policy news category for a data-driven deep dive that revealed how the Senate Ethics Committee had failed to punish any of its Senate colleagues during its last 1,523 tries. "The topic and investigative approach to the data earned this story high marks," judges wrote.
• Investigative reporter Alexandria Jacobson and Levinthal won in the enterprise news category for their "Lawmakers, Law Breakers" series that revealed how 37 members of the current Congress last year violated a federal law designed to stop insider trading, curb financial conflicts of interest and enhance public transparency. (The number this year has grown to 46 members.) "Great topic," judges wrote.
• Investigative reporter Jordan Green won in the January 6 coverage category for his "Our Best Face" series, which revealed how "peaceful" pro-Trump rally organizers cultivated ties to violent extremists in the weeks before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. "Exhaustive coverage of a seminal event in American history" and "great investigative reporting," judges wrote. Last year, Green became the first journalist in Raw Story's history to win a Folio Award, doing so for his investigative reporting on extremism.

The Fair Media Council, one of the nation's oldest nonprofit news consumer advocacy organizations, describes the annual Folio Awards as "the gold standard for recognizing the best in news and social media."...

Donny Deutsch believes former President Donald Trump's criminal trial is having a surprising effect, considering it involves accusations that he paid hush money to an adult film star.

"Anybody who thinks this is making him empathetic or rallying his troops, no," Deutsch said during a Monday appearance on MSNBC. "He's sitting there neutered, powerless. For the first time in his life and he can't do and say what he wants."

Deutsch argued that the nation is watching an important challenge to what he described as the former president's privilege....