Tens of thousands of children between the ages of 10 and 13 have been swept into Texas’s criminal justice system after incidents at school, according to reporting by Clare Amari, with support from the Fund. School leaders used to handle disobedient students themselves, but now that more campuses have police officers, educators rely on law enforcement. The story was published ...
For a yearlong investigation for ProPublica and The Frontier, Nick Bowlin found that regulatory agency bosses routinely over-rule staff recommendations and allow oil companies to contaminate drinking water, farmland and people’s homes without consequences. With support from the Fund, Bowlin dug into years of records from the state oversight agency and found that fewer than one-third of enforcement cases filed ...
Mexican cartels are stealing luxury rental cars to traffic drugs, according to reporting by Steve Fisher for Puente News Collaborative, with support from the Fund. California is a top target for criminal groups in part because privacy laws restrict rental agencies from tracking vehicles thought to be stolen until after the return deadline has passed. Texas and Arizona are also ...
In the second installment of her Amsterdam News series on deed theft affecting Black homeowners in New York, Karen Juanita Carrillo uncovered how predatory companies use so-called “partition sales” among multiple heirs to force the sale of homes; the third story showed how hard it is for families to protect their rights in court. Carrillo’s series explained that several laws ...
CalMatters reporters Lauren Hepler and Robert Lewis spent six months investigating how California allows commercial truck drivers to continue driving after fatal crashes. With support from the Fund, the team requested records from all 58 county district attorneys’ offices and sent reporters to courthouses throughout the state to review thousands of case files. The reporting revealed systemic gaps in how ...
More than half of North Dakota’s 20,000 oil wells are designated “stripper” wells, meaning they produce low levels of oil and are thus exempt from a tax on oil companies. The North Dakota Monitor, with support from the Fund, found that 700 oil wells no longer qualify for the tax break but continue to receive it – costing the state ...
For an investigation in New York Focus, with support from the Fund, Sanjana Bhambhani reviewed domestic-violence allegations against New York State Police officers and staff and found that the agency handed down token punishments, including in cases involving physical injuries and when officers used department resources to harass or intimidate their victims. After hearing details from the records, one expert ...
Technical.ly and the Buck County Beacon collaborated on an investigation into systems used for voting in Philadelphia and the four “collar counties” around it – and safeguards to ensure the integrity of these systems. With support from the Fund, the outlets requested records from each county about their backup plans, training and guardrails to ensure technology issues don’t disrupt voting. ...
In the wake of San Fracisco Public Press’s ongoing coverage of secrecy around ride-hailing apps’ data, a key local leader this month called on the state to release information about collisions and assaults involving Lyft and Uber. With support from the Fund, the Public Press obtained documents showing that the state’s utility commission collected data from the companies inconsistently and ...
Hundreds of people from Oklahoma have sought treatment at drug rehabilitation facilities in California over the last several years, enticed with the promise of luxury housing near the beach paid for by insurance plans that were sometimes subsidized with federal funding. Insurance companies sued the providers, claiming they fraudulently signed people up and submitted “inflated, fake charges” to reap more ...