The Ford Foundation has awarded Public Radio International a two-year, $500,000 grant to support Global Nation, a project that will cover social-justice issues affecting immigrants to the U.S. and their children. Launched last year, Global Nation uses partnerships with ethnic media, independent producers and local public radio stations to find social-justice stories affecting immigrants. The resulting stories air on PRI’s The World. The initiative was initially supported by the Rita Allen Foundation. Using the Ford support, PRI will expand the initiative’s reach with enterprise reporting and an online community of people and civic organizations concerned about immigration issues. The network plans to develop more than 180 digital and broadcast stories over the next two years.

Executives from MacNeil/Lehrer Productions have asked PBS officials for “emergency $1 million infusions so they could pay the NewsHour bills” four times in recent months, according to the New York Times. The newspaper quotes unnamed “public television employees” as saying that the PBS NewsHour received at least $3 million, which went toward a $7 million deficit on the program’s $28 million budget this year. The story also noted that the nightly news program was criticized in a confidential May 2012 report commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major supporter of the program, which concluded that the show needed to “modernize news gathering production.”

WBGO-FM in Newark, N.J., announced Wednesday that station President Cephas Bowles will take a leave of absence for health reasons. In the interim, Amy Niles, the station’s c.o.o., will serve as acting president. “My doctor has placed me on medical disability leave as I work to correct an escalating health issue,” Bowles said in a press release. “During this period, I will offer my support and cooperation to the Board, Amy and the station as needed. I am grateful for your thoughts and I look forward to returning to work as quickly as possible.” Niles has led WBGO’s development, membership, marketing, programming and underwriting departments.

A group of young public media professionals who began meeting informally last year to network and share ideas has moved to step up its profile.

Upcoming leadership changes in public media will be the focus of Friday’s Public Media Futures Forum in Washington, D.C., the latest in an ongoing series of conversations with luminaries in the field.

Lynne Rosen, 46, and John Littig, 48, a couple who co-hosted a self-help radio show on New York’s WBAI, were found dead June 3 in an apparent double suicide. A spokesperson for the New York Police Department confirmed that both had left suicide notes.

The Digital Convergence Alliance, a single master-control facility in Florida ramping up to serve public television stations in four states with customized programming streams, has received $7 million in support that CPB initially announced last April. Over the past year, the DCA has grown from six stations to 11 as it worked to secure vendor contracts for a network operating center in Jacksonville. Alliance founding members now include Florida stations WJCT, Jacksonville; WFSU, Tallahassee; WEDU, Tampa; WUCF, Orlando; WBCC, Cocoa Beach; WFSG, Panama City; and WPBT, Miami.  Also, from three other states, WPBA, Atlanta; WTTW, Chicago; WILL, Urbana, Ill.; and KERA, Dallas.

Robert West, a former community engagement strategist for Independent Television Services who left to form his own outreach organization for independent filmmakers, died June 6 after a long battle with brain cancer. He was 60.

PBS NewsHour is shutting offices in Denver and San Francisco and eliminating several positions at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., Executive Producer Linda Winslow and Bo Jones, president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, told staff in a memo Monday. In all, 10 workers are affected, in addition to several jobs that will remain unfilled, NewsHour spokesperson Anne Bell told Current. The program is also planning future changes in technical production processes, in cooperation with co-producer WETA, “in order to streamline and further digitize operations,” the memo said. NewsHour‘s fiscal year begins July 1, and all changes will roll out over the next six months, Bell said.

Fresh Air will air during daytime hours on MPB’s Think Radio network for the first time since 2010, when the network’s then–Executive Director Judith Lewis took the interview show off the air, citing concerns about host Terry Gross’s discussion of sex with her guests.

The ombudsman for America Abroad, a monthly public radio show covering foreign policy and international affairs, has responded to criticism from the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting regarding a recent show about developments in energy technology. In a May 31 blog post, FAIR said that the April episode of America Abroad  “sounded like an infomercial” for fracking, the hydraulic fracturing process used in natural gas production. FAIR pointed out that the show was funded by the Qatar Foundation International, a philanthropy funded by the royal family of Qatar. Qatar is a leading exporter of natural gas — in 2011, it was the world’s top exporter, according to the International Gas Union.