This story first appeared in inewsource’s weekend newsletter. Sign up for it here.

This week reporter Alain Stephens debuted his first inewsource story (yes!), Brad Racino had a major development in his ongoing investigation into a nonprofit that’s been accused of fraud and animal cruelty, and capping off the week was Brandon Quester, who updated all of our precinct-level maps with the final results from the November election.

Last, I’m always looking for feedback on this newsletter. Is it too long, too short? How do you feel about the design? Do you want to see anything else included? Email me your suggestions.

Thanks again for reading, and have an awesome weekend!

– Shyla Nott, inewsource

Blacklisted

The U.S. Treasury Department keeps a registry of people financial institutions are prohibited from doing business with. Some of the names on this list include drug cartel kingpins and members of international terrorism organizations.

Reporter Alain Stephen‘s debut story dug into the Treasury’s blacklist and found that thousands of people have been wrongly flagged as being on the list, often when a credit check is run on them. In one example, a bank manager from L.A. had a tough time buying a car when a credit check tied his name to a North Korean boat.

These “false positives” can wind up ruining people’s financial reputations and cause them to be denied credit cards or loans.

Read Alain’s story here.

If you want to see if your name or people with similar names to yours are on the blacklist, click here.

Valley Center horse rescue being evicted

A $4 million lawsuit and an eviction notice. That’s the latest development into reporter Brad Racino‘s ongoing investigation of HiCaliber Horse Rescue.

The owner of the property from which HiCaliber leases land from has sued the group and its founders, alleging failure to pay rent and damage to the property. Read about the lawsuit here.

For months, the Valley Center nonprofit has faced allegations of animal cruelty, fraud and improper veterinary practices, including multiple investigations by state and local agencies.

In his reporting of HiCaliber, Brad has uncovered the rescue’s co-founder spent donor money for personal expenses; claims by former HiCaliber volunteers that the nonprofit covered up a dangerous equine disease outbreak; and questions about HiCaliber’s fundraising practices.

See all of our HiCaliber coverage here.

Final election results maps

San Diego County’s final results of the Nov. 6 election are in, with voter turnout totaling 66.4 percent. Director of Data Brandon Quester updated our precinct-level maps of eight key races and three ballot measures, including:

Click here to go to the precinct maps.

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We’ll let you know when big things happen.

Shyla Nott was the digital content manager at inewsource. While at her role, she ran the website, social media accounts, and curated The Weekender newsletter. She came to inewsource by way of the Midwest where she was the producer for All Sides with Ann Fisher, a daily live public-affairs talk show at...