Since the deinstitutionalization of mental health care in the United States in the 1980s, both private and public providers have been struggling to address the needs of rural patients in places like Elko, Nevada.

Washington state’s foster care system is in crisis. Roughly 9,000 kids were in the system as of this summer, after going through the kind of abuse or neglect that keeps them from being safe in their homes. But the number of foster families who can take them in — around 5,000 — is lower than it’s been in decades.

Search warrants filed into the financial dealings of a former undersheriff provide the only picture available into the investigation of his purchases of baseball bats, electronics, personal phone bills and other charges linked to his county credit card.

Where the kids go when they want music but can’t get past the doorman.

Scattered aimlessly before me on a dirty kitchen table are some of the jigsaw pieces of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s past. Love letters. Baby pictures. It’s a sundry pile of memorabilia that looks lost, confused and disjointed.

Welling up beneath the pristine San Diego pop surface occupied by Jewel and Blink-182 is guilt and anger and artistic brooding and the kind of risk-taking brought on by feelings of isolation and indifference, and his name is Jimmy LaValle.