By Abrahm Lustgarten | – (ProPublica) – On a crisp day this fall I drove southeast from Grand Junction, Colorado, into the Uncompahgre Valley, a rich basin of row crops and hayfields. A snow line hung like a bowl cut around the upper cliffs of the Grand Mesa, while in the valley some farmers were […]
America’s Night Raids in Afghanistan: An Ongoing Nightmare
By Lynzy Billing. Video by Mauricio Rodríguez Pons | – Prologue March 2019 • Rodat District, Nangarhar Province This story contains graphic descriptions and images of war casualties. ( ProPublica ) – On a December night in 2018, Mahzala was jolted awake by a shuddering wave of noise that rattled her family’s small mud house. […]
How Ron DeSantis Blew Up Black-Held Congressional Districts and May Have Broken Florida Law
By Joshua Kaplan | – ( ProPublica ) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was incensed. Late last year, the state’s Republican legislature had drawn congressional maps that largely kept districts intact, leaving the GOP with only a modest electoral advantage. DeSantis threw out the legislature’s work and redrew Florida’s congressional districts, making them far more […]
Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way
By Jeremy Schwartz and Jessica Priest | – Co-published with The Texas Tribune ( ProPublica) – Six days before a local runoff election last year in Frisco, a prosperous and growing suburb of Dallas, Brandon Burden paced the stage of KingdomLife Church. The pastor told congregants that demonic spirits were operating through members of the […]
The U.S. Never Banned Asbestos. These Workers Are Paying the Price
By Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi, photography by Rich-Joseph Facun, graphics by Haisam Hussein | – Co-published with NPR News ( ProPublica ) – Henry Saenz remembers when he first learned what even the tiniest bit of asbestos could do to his body. He was working at a chemical plant where employees used the mineral […]
D.C. Attorney General Opens Investigation Into Republican Governors’ Shipping of Immigrants to the Capital
By Marilyn W. Thompson and Perla Trevizo | – ( ProPublica ) – District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine has opened an investigation into whether southern border state governors misled immigrants as part of what he called a “political stunt” to transport them to Washington. Racine told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune his office […]
How America’s Democracy Is “Ripe to Be Exploited”
By Eric Umansky | – ( ProPublica) – Voters in Sweden this month gave a leading role to a far-right party with neo-Nazi roots. Italy is also on the cusp of putting a party in power that has fascist origins. And of course, in the United States, one party has increasingly embraced election denialism and […]
As Colorado River Dries Up, the U.S. Teeters on the Brink of Larger Water Crisis
By Abrahm Lustgarten | – ( ProPublica) – The western United States is, famously, in the grips of its worst megadrought in a millennium. The Colorado River, which supplies water to more than 40 million Americans and supports food production for the rest of the country, is in imminent peril. The levels in the nation’s […]
U.S. Lawmakers Demand Federal Scrutiny of How US Tech got into Turkey’s Drones
By Umar Farooq | – ( ProPublica ) – As countries around the globe add armed drones to their arsenals, federal lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to investigate how U.S. parts and technology ended up in what has fast become one of the most popular models on the world market: Turkey’s TB2. Manufactured by […]