The Pulitzer Center's work often focuses on remote reaches of developing countries but that is not always the case—as we're reminded by Pulitzer Center grantee Tim Judah's vivid series of reports this week for <em>Foreign Policy</em> on Scotland's headlong rush toward independence. There are serious issues aplenty, from the fate of the <a href="/reporting/scotland-united-kingdom-independence-referendum-scottish-national-party">British nuclear submarine fleet </a>(based entirely in Scotland) to the disposition of Scotland's oil wealth and the <a href="/reporting/scotland-united-kingdom-nato-intervention-syria-military-base-elgin">future relationships</a> of England and <a href="/reporting/scotland-united-kingdom-nationalism-independence-culture-history-museums">Scotland</a> with the European Union.<br>
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A trio of Pulitzer Center reports this week touched on environmental and public health issues across the globe. Sara Shahriari and Noah Friedman-Rudovsky report for the <em>The Christian Science Monitor</em> on increasing threats from <a href="/reporting/lake-titicaca-peru-bolivia-pollution-urbanization-tourism-agriculture-water-indigenous-population">industrial runoff to Lake Titicaca</a>, on the border of Peru and Bolivia. Bobby Bascomb <a href="/reporting/senegal-peuhl-great-green-wall-trees">reports from Senegal</a> for <em>Living on Earth</em> on the audacious <a href="/reporting/senegal-great-green-wall-trees-sahara-desert-climate-change">attempt to hold back the Sahara</a> by planting a 4,300-mile-long wall of trees. And Ameto Akpe, writing for Nigeria's <em>BusinessDay</em>, reports on her government's backsliding on promised increases in <a href="/reporting/nigeria-water-sanitation-millenium-development-goals-budget-cuts-president-goodluck-jonathan">access to safe drinking water</a>.<br>
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On <em>Untold Stories</em> this week we published a story on another environmental issue, the consequences of <a href="/reporting/cambodia-deforestation-protected-land-rain-forest-private-companies-plantations">legal deforestation in Cambodia.</a> The writer and photographer was Keyla Beebe, a Pulitzer Center Student Fellow at Guilford College. Guilford, High Point University and Wake Forest University are the newest members of our <a href="/campus-consortium">Campus Consortium</a>, the Pulitzer Center initiative that brings our journalism on campus—and gives students at participating colleges the opportunity to work with us on international reporting projects.<br>
In North Carolina this week journalist Cynthia Gorney and I discussed <a href="/projects/child-brides-child-marriage-too-young-to-wed">child brides</a> in classes and at public events, including a special Voices of our Times presentation at Wake Forest that drew an audience of 500 and featured the <a href="/articles/child-marriage-brides-too-young-to-wed-afghanistan-ethiopia-india-yemen">photography and video</a> of Pulitzer Center grantee Stephanie Sinclair. Appropriately enough that event took place on the day that the <a href="/blog/child-marriage-photography-stephanie-sinclair-national-magazine-award">National Magazine Awards</a> announced that Stephanie's work on this topic for <em>National Geographic</em> is a finalist for the documentary photography award. Congratulations to Stephanie, and to <em>National Geographic</em>!<br>
Until next week,<br>
Jon Sawyer
Executive Director