The Tar Creek area of Oklahoma was a mining site for a nearly a century, leading it to be designated a Superfund site because of significant toxic pollution. As recently as the 1990s, one-third of children in the area had elevated levels of lead in their blood. The federal government managed a “buyout” of the area, allowing residents to sell ...
With support from the Fund, Investigate Midwest analyzed data about pesticide use and caner rates and interviewed more than 100 farmers, environmentalists, lawmakers and scientists. The result is a picture of a nation at a crossroads in dealing with this public health crisis that has not just been ignored by state and federal health officials, but aided. The team found ...
Hemp products are legal in Wisconsin, but only if they have very low levels of THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes people high. With support from the Fund, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commissioned independent testing on 30 gummies, vapes and edibles bought at hemp stores – and found that most of them contained illegal levels of THC. Some contained ...
When a woman sued New York State, alleging that a guard routinely sexually assaulted her when she was in prison, the state claimed it couldn’t find the guard and filed a motion to dismiss her lawsuit. Reporters at New York Focus and Hell Gate easily located the guard – and, as a result of their reporting, the state withdrew its ...
A stop-work order for all foreign aid that President Donald Trump issued on the first day of his second term is having a devastating and far-reaching impact on public health in Uganda, journalists Steven Thrasher and Afeef Nessouli found. With support from the Fund, the pair documented the sudden and severe restrictions to condoms and lubricant in Uganda, where five ...
As part of a yearlong reporting project on the causes and impact of air pollution in Richmond, California, supported by the Fund, Richmondside analyzed more than 10,000 environmental violations that were issued over the last decade. The team found that the violations resulted in $122 million in fines, and the largest penalties were against oil companies and others connected to ...
Shops that sell hemp products – often black-market marijuana – have opened across Pennsylvania, and law enforcement efforts to crack down on them have been inconsistent and haphazard, according to an investigation by the Philadelphia Inquirer, with support from the Fund. The Inquirer found that shops operate and sell drugs and drug paraphernalia openly and with impunity. Stores routinely reopen ...
Hundreds of “boarding homes” for elderly and disabled people in Texas operate without oversight, leaving residents vulnerable to neglect and abuse, according to new reporting by Ottavia Spaggiari for Type Investigations and In These Times, co-published in the Texas Observer. With support from the Fund, Spaggiari spent three years tracking more than 100 cases of reported abuse and neglect across ...
For decades, the State Police, New York’s second-largest law enforcement agency, has had no formal disciplinary guidelines for misconduct, and action against officers is inconsistent and sometimes lax, according to reporting by Sassy Sussman for The New York Times and New York Focus. With support from the Fund, Sussman reviewed thousands of police disciplinary files. He identified cases of misconduct ...
With support from the Fund, reporter Emmett Gartner dug into the case of an elderly couple in Maine who couldn’t get help from a state program that funds electric heating for low-income people living in mobile homes. He collected court documents, and he interviewed participants of the low-income mobile home heating program and oversight officials. The couple finally has working ...