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Publications

ProPublica

“The Liberty Way”: How Liberty University Discourages and Dismisses Students’ Reports of Sexual Assaults

The school founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell ignored reports of rape and threatened to punish accusers for breaking its moral code, say former students. An official who says he was fired for raising concerns calls it a “conspiracy of silence.”

Hannah Dreyfus ProPublica Oct 2021 30min Permalink

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.

Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversees a juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, with a staggering history of jailing children. She said kids must face consequences, which rarely seem to apply to her or the other adults in charge.

Meribah Knight, Ken Armstrong ProPublica Oct 2021 45min Permalink

He Beat Her Repeatedly. Family Court Tried to Give Him Joint Custody of Their Children.

Shared parenting is usually better for children—but the model fails for many women forced to co-parent with their abusers.

Megan O’Matz ProPublica Sep 2021 25min Permalink

Crime Politics

What Philadelphia Reveals About America’s Homicide Surge

There are many explanations for the rise in killings in U.S. cities, including the pandemic and the choices made in response to it. In Philadelphia, the causes, the human costs — and the suffering — are particularly stark.

Alec MacGillis ProPublica Jul 2021 40min Permalink

The Secret IRS Files

How billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett pay so little in income tax compared to their massive wealth—sometimes, even nothing.

Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen, Paul Kiel ProPublica Jun 2021 30min Permalink

Health

The Child Care Industry Was Collapsing. Mrs. Jackie Bet Everything on an Impossible Dream to Save It.

Jackie Thomas was $29,134 in debt and in trouble with state regulators. She hadn’t slept in days. If a judge ruled against her, she’d fail the mothers who could only keep their jobs thanks to the 24-hour child care she offered.

Lizzie Presser ProPublica May 2021 25min Permalink

Crime

“I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War

Steven Carrillo’s path to the Boogaloo Bois shows the hate group is far more organized and dangerous than previously known.

Gisela Pérez de Acha, Kathryn Hurd, Ellie Lightfoot ProPublica Apr 2021 20min Permalink

Health

The Broken Front Line

What lasting impact will the pandemic have on America’s first responders?

Ava Kofman ProPublica Apr 2021 30min Permalink

Health

The Lost Year: What the Pandemic Cost Teenagers

In Hobbs, New Mexico, the high school closed and football was cancelled, while just across the state line in Texas, students seemed to be living nearly normal lives. Here’s how pandemic school closures exact their emotional toll on young people.

Alec MacGillis ProPublica Mar 2021 Permalink

Crime Politics

The Murder Chicago Didn’t Want to Solve

In 1963, a Black politician named Ben Lewis was shot to death in Chicago. Clues suggest the murder was a professional hit. Decades later, it remains no accident authorities never solved the crime.

Mick Dumke ProPublica Feb 2021 30min Permalink

Crime Politics

“I Don’t Trust the People Above Me”

Interviews with 19 current and former officers show how failures of leadership and communication put hundreds of Capitol cops at risk and allowed rioters to get dangerously close to members of Congress on January 6th, 2021.

Joaquin Sapien, Joshua Kaplan ProPublica Feb 2021 25min Permalink

Science World

The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try.

A climate scientist spent years trying to get people to pay attention to the disaster ahead. His wife is exhausted. His older son thinks there’s no future. And nobody but him will use the outdoor toilet he built to shrink his carbon footprint.

Elizabeth Weil ProPublica Jan 2021 15min Permalink

Crime Politics

Inside Trump and Barr’s Last-Minute Killing Spree

Private executioners paid in cash. Middle-of-the-night killings. False or incomplete justifications.

Isaac Arnsdorf ProPublica Dec 2020 20min Permalink

Health

How COVID-19 Hollowed Out a Generation of Young Black Men

They were pillars of their communities and families, and they are not replaceable. To understand why COVID-19 killed so many young Black men, you need to know the legend of John Henry.

Akilah Johnson, Nina Martin ProPublica Dec 2020 30min Permalink

Science

The Big Thaw: How Russia Could Dominate a Warming World

Climate change is propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order — and no country stands to gain more than Russia.

Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica Dec 2020 Permalink

Health

Tethered to the Machine

For years, JaMarcus Crews tried to get a new kidney, but corporate healthcare stood in the way. He needed dialysis to stay alive. He couldn’t miss a session, not even during a pandemic.

Lizzie Presser ProPublica 30min Permalink

Crime

It Wasn’t the First Time the NYPD Killed Someone in Crisis. For Kawaski Trawick, It Only Took 112 Seconds.

Trawick was alone in his apartment when an officer pushed open the door. He was holding a bread knife and a stick. “Why are you in my home?” he asked. He never got an answer.

Eric Umansky ProPublica Dec 2020 25min Permalink

Politics Health

Inside the Fall of the CDC

How the world’s greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by a virus, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders, causing damage that could last much longer than the coronavirus.

James Bandler, Patricia Callahan, Sebastian Rotella, Kirsten Berg ProPublica Oct 2020 50min Permalink

Business Politics

Robert Lighthizer Blew Up 60 Years of Trade Policy. Nobody Knows What Happens Next.

Trump’s trade representative joined the administration with one mission: Bring factory jobs back from overseas. The results so far? Endless trade wars, alienated allies, and a manufacturing recession.

Lydia DePillis ProPublica Oct 2020 25min Permalink

Best Article Health

He’d Waited Decades to Argue His Innocence. She Was a Judge Who Believed in Second Chances. Nobody Knew She Suffered from Alzheimer’s.

Nelson Cruz’s family was so sure Judge ShawnDya Simpson would free him, they brought a change of clothes to his hearing. Then everything took an unexpected turn.

Joe Sexton ProPublica Oct 2020 50min Permalink

Business

Meet the Customer Service Reps for Disney and Airbnb Who Have to Pay to Talk to You

Arise Virtual Solutions, part of the secretive world of work-at-home customer service, helps large corporations shed costs at the expense of workers.

Ken Armstrong, Justin Elliott, Ariana Tobin ProPublica Oct 2020 30min Permalink

The Students Left Behind by Remote Learning

Has a desire to keep the coronavirus out of schools put children’s long-term well-being at stake?

Alec MacGillis ProPublica Sep 2020 35min Permalink

Business Politics

The IRS Tried to Take on the Ultrawealthy. It Didn’t Go Well.

Ten years ago, the tax agency formed a special team to unravel the complex tax-lowering strategies of the nation’s wealthiest people. It never had a chance.

Jesse Eisinger, Paul Kiel ProPublica Apr 2019 20min Permalink

Sent Home to Die

In New Orleans, hospitals sent patients infected with the coronavirus into hospice facilities or back to their families to die at home, in some cases discontinuing treatment even as relatives begged them to keep trying.

Annie Waldman, Joshua Kaplan ProPublica Aug 2020 30min Permalink

Best Article Science World

Where Will Everyone Go?

For the first time, data scientists have modeled how climate refugees might move across international borders. This is what they found.

Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica Jul 2020 40min Permalink

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