Sam Edwards

Freelance investigative journalist and writer. I'm a former Reuters correspondent, and have worked from Spain, Chile and Mexico. My work has appeared in The Guardian, Newsweek, The Nation, Foreign Affairs and Bloomberg Industry, among others. I've worked on grant projects for the European Journalism Centre and the Pulitzer Centre. 

S.shephard.edwards@gmail.com

What happened when Mexico's most dangerous criminals took an experimental art class

After two decades working in some of Mexico's toughest prisons, Warden Angeles Zavala thought she had seen it all. Then one morning in 2016 she arrived at work to find a local artist waiting for her. The man had recently completed a few workshops with inmates in another part of the prison and had a proposal. Speaking in rapid-fire bursts, the artist told Zavala he wanted to move into the maximum security prison and live there for six weeks to teach some of the country’s most dangerous inmates how to paint. Through art therapy, he would help them change their lives. And he wanted to start with the veteran narcos of Mexico’s violent drug war.

Thousands of homeless people in Spain are squatting, and owners are getting rough as they try to get them out

Veronica and her three small children live in a modernist building in a quiet, working-class Barcelona neighborhood. The apartment is perfect for the young family, except for one thing: They are living there illegally. Veronica, who declined to give her last name for fear of eviction, is among the thousands of people squatting in vacant apartments throughout Spain.
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