by Ava Kofman ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. The Environmental Protection Agency will drastically reduce cancerous air pollution from chemical plants. The regulation, announced last week, comes two years after a ProPublica analysis identified more than a thousand toxic hot spots that elevate the cancer risk of millions of Americans. “This is an incredibly significant rule that will curtail some of the nation’s biggest drivers of cancer risk,” said Adam Kron, a senior attorney at Earthjus ..read more

by Lisa Song ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Nearly 100 people crowded into the library in Calvert City, Kentucky, in February when the Environmental Protection Agency hosted a public meeting on air pollution. Many had discovered flyers in their mailboxes explaining how the agency had found “elevated levels” of chemicals that “can pose an increased risk of cancer.” The EPA aimed to deliver a simple message that evening: Local petrochemical plants were leaking toxic air pollutants and regu ..read more

by Ken Armstrong ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. A new motion has accused the elected prosecutor in Elkhart, Indiana, of misconduct, alleging she presented contradictory versions of the truth against two men in connection with a shooting that occurred more than 20 years ago. The case stems from the drive-by shooting death of a woman on Aug. 13, 2003. Prosecutors have always maintained the shooter was Ignacio Bahena. But as to who gave Bahena the gun, the prosecution offered two different ..read more

by Abrahm Lustgarten ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. This article is an excerpt from the book “On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America,” about climate migration in the U.S. For more, see abrahm.com. Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on th ..read more

by Audrey Dutton ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. After decades of detaining psychiatric patients in maximum security prison cells, Idaho is finally on the verge of building a secure mental health facility that would house those with serious mental illness more humanely. Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Monday signed into law a bill, passed with bipartisan support, to allocate $25 million to construct a facility. It would have 26 bed ..read more

by Craig Silverman and Peter Elkind ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Federal authorities are investigating the involvement of Chinese organized crime rings in gift card fraud schemes that have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars or more from American consumers. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has launched a task force, whose existence has not previously been reported, to combat a scheme known as “card draining,” in which thieves use stolen or altered card numbers to siphon off ..read more

by Heather Vogell ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. When my sons were young, ads promoting formula made especially for toddlers appeared unsolicited in my mailbox. I found them curious. My kids drank cow’s milk when needed. It cost less and worked just fine. Little more than a decade later, my questions about the product would fuel reporting that took me half a world away, to Thailand, where public health officials were trying ..read more

by Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Philips Respironics must hire an independent safety monitor, undergo regular facility inspections for five years and pay part of its revenue to the federal government under the terms of an agreement with prosecutors filed in federal court in Pennsylvania, capping one of the most catastrophic medical device recalls in decades. The company will also face a review of its testing on the million ..read more

by Becca Savransky, Idaho Statesman This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Idaho Statesman. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published. The blue and orange leaflets that arrived in Idaho Falls mailboxes ahead of the school bond election in November 2022 looked like the usual fare that voters across the country get. Sent out by the school district, the mailers encouraged people in the eastern Idaho city to register to vote and listed bullet points highlighting what the bond would pay for. But the mailers ..read more

by Michael Squires ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. During the 14 years Leah Moses fought her ex-husband for custody of their two children, she repeatedly warned the court that he was abusive. It was a tough sell: Moses, a midwife, sometimes acted as her own attorney; her ex-husband, Parth Gandhi, was a psychologist who hired experts to persuade the Utah court that Moses’ allegations were a ruse to estrange him from the childr ..read more