Wisconsin Watch, with a grant from the Fund for stories on threats to democracy, conducted the most comprehensive accounting of Wisconsin election fraud cases to date. The reporting found that, despite efforts to use the specter of fraud to restrict voting, there is very little actual election fraud. Reporter Matt Mencarini found that fraud prosecutions are disproportionately aimed at people ...
Reporters Daniel Rivero and Joshua Ceballos, reporting for public radio station WLRN with support from the Fund, probed the publicly funded Guardianship Program in Dade County, Florida, which is supposed to raise funds through property sales to help incapacitated owners who lack other support. The reporters found that two politically connected real estate firms were often the biggest beneficiaries. Following ...
For decades, there’s been little hope for people sentenced to life in prison in the United States. But, as Sylvia A. Harvey reported for the Imprint, “second look” laws are revisiting lengthy sentences handed down to people who committed major crimes while they were younger than 25. With support from the Fund, Harvey looked at how the prospects for a ...
Emails obtained by InvestigateWest reveal a cozy relationship between federal Environmental Protection Agency officials and mining companies operating in Butte, Montana, a jarring reminder of the ways regulators and industry work closely together, at times against the public’s interests. Reporter Wilson Criscione, with support from the Fund, examined reams of documents that detailed EPA coordination with the very companies they’re ...
Leaders and members of the Bethany Slavic Missionary Church in Sacramento and other Slavic churches in the U.S. have invested more than $14.5 million in health care companies founded by church leaders. Documents obtained by Ruslan Gurzhiy, founder and editor-in-chief of SlavicSac.com, show that top church officials helped form the companies and that shareholders were often barred from selling their stakes. ...
Acting on a tip, Naveena Sadasivam and Clayton Aldern investigated how a plant owned by billionaire Bill Koch tried to distort data about emissions of dangerous sulfur dioxide in Port Arthur, Texas. Reporting for Grist with support from the Fund, they found that soon after the state installed a monitor at the plant, the company set up an alert system ...
As enrollment declines in Pittsburgh’s public schools, the impact is far reaching. Reporter Laia Mistry, writing for Public Source with support from the Fund, found that with funding linked to the actual number of enrolled students, a common practice in many school systems, dwindling enrollment could make it difficult for the system to maintain its infrastructure and may disproportionately affect ...
Reporters Jennifer Avila and Danielle Mackey, writing for Contracorriente, probed efforts to professionalize the Honduran national police force and rid it of corrupt officers. A special commission was created to clean up law enforcement in Honduras and about 6,500 officers were purged, but the departures have left police agencies with fewer officers as the new government works to transform and demilitarize ...
In a report investigating so-called “ghost candidates” that aim to confuse voters and siphon off votes, Ben Wilcox, writing for the Florida Center for Government Accountability, examined three state senate races in 2020 in which these candidates succeeded in drawing votes in ways that may constitute criminal fraud. The effort was funded by Florida’s largest utility company, Florida Power and ...
Writing for 100 Reporters, reporter Lucy Komisar followed her groundbreaking FIJ-funded story about high-risk Wall Street life-insurance practices with a second piece that showed a wide range of risky practices that benefit insurance executives and shareholders while putting policyholders and pensions in financial danger. The companies involved include some of the largest insurance firms in the country, who are diverting insurance liabilities into offshore ...