Report: More people are

supporting nonprofit news sites

NEW YORK (AP) — Nonprofit news organizations are one of the few growth areas in the troubled field of journalism. A new report out Wednesday suggests that they are broadening their base of financial support to take in more individual donations.

That’s from the Institute for Nonprofit News, which represents regional news sites, single-issue organizations and investigative units like ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting. Nearly three-quarters of the institute’s 240 members began operating later than 2008.

Foundations once dominated funding for these organizations, but individual donors are catching up.

The institute says the sites received 43% of their funding from foundations and 39% from individuals last year. Advertising and events accounted for other funding.

Grandmother of slain 9-year-old

Chicago boy testifies

CHICAGO (AP) — Nine-year-old Tyshawn Lee’s grandmother took the witness stand in the trial of two men charged with murder in the boy’s slaying to recount for jurors how the fourth grader told her he loved her before racing off to play basketball on the day he was shot to death.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Bertha Lee said on Wednesday during the first full day of testimony that the last thing the boy told her on the November 2015 day when he was lured into a Chicago alley and fatally shot was that he’d be back. But, she said, “He didn’t come back.”

Courthouse break-ins appear

part of Iowa security contract

The state of Iowa released documents Wednesday that appear to support the claims of two men who said they were just doing their job testing security when they were arrested on suspicion of breaking into a courthouse this month.

The men were working for Colorado-based cybersecurity company Coalfire when they were arrested after being found on the third floor of the Dallas County Courthouse just after midnight Sept. 10. The state has said it hired Coalfire to test only the security of electronic access to court records and not to force “entry into a building,” and the two workers still faced criminal charges Wednesday.