Discount chains are thriving — while fostering violence and neglect in poor communities. | Continue reading
The plastic tubes supplied for coronavirus testing by Fillakit, a first-time federal contractor with a sketchy owner, don’t even fit the racks used to analyze samples. And they may be contaminated anyway. | Continue reading
ProPublica Deputy Managing Editor Eric Umansky’s family saw an unmarked NYPD cruiser hit a Black teenager. He tried to find out how it happened, and instead found all of the ways the NYPD is shielded from accountability. | Continue reading
ProPublica Deputy Managing Editor Eric Umansky’s family saw an unmarked NYPD cruiser hit a Black teenager. He tried to find out how it happened, and instead found all of the ways the NYPD is shielded from accountability. | Continue reading
Schools often teach the Civil War in terms of “free states” and “slave states.” Illinois complicates those definitions. We spoke with a historian and high school teacher about slavery’s legacy in Illinois. | Continue reading
General Motors received tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks to operate a massive assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, until 2027. The plant closed last year, and the state may force a repayment of more than $60 million, documents show. | Continue reading
ProPublica deputy managing editor Charles Ornstein wanted to know why experts were wrong when they said U.S. hospitals would be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. Here’s what he learned, including what hospitals can do before the next wave. | Continue reading
Wendi C. Thomas is a black journalist who has covered police in Memphis. One officer admitted to spying on her. She’s on a long list of prominent black journalists and activists who have been subjected to police surveillance over decades. | Continue reading
As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Americans got protection from evictions, foreclosures and student debt. But debt collectors have continued to siphon off their share of paychecks from those who still have jobs. | Continue reading
At least 13 hospitals in Oklahoma have closed or experienced added financial distress under the management of private companies. Some companies charged hefty management fees, promising to infuse millions of dollars that never materialized. | Continue reading
Brands have long been able to bid for the premier slot at the top left of Amazon’s listings, but during the pandemic the online retailer has begun using this position for its private-label items, raising antitrust concerns. | Continue reading
Rural Oklahoma communities are desperate to protect their vulnerable hospitals and hand the reins to management companies that say they’re turnaround experts. Instead some companies failed the hospitals, bled them dry and expedited their demise. | Continue reading
The pandemic has cost jobs around the world. Comparing people who lost the same position in the two countries reveals that the U.S. government is spending more on unemployment — but its citizens are getting less. | Continue reading
The federal government and states have fueled an unregulated, chaotic market for masks ruled by oddballs, ganjapreneurs and a shadowy network of investors. | Continue reading
Deputy Treasury Secretary Justin Muzinich has an increasingly prominent role. He still has ties to his family’s investment firm, which is a major beneficiary of the Treasury’s bailout actions. | Continue reading
The long-term care industry resisted a federal mandate to plan for disasters including pandemics. About 43% of nursing homes have been caught violating the requirement, including facilities that have now had deadly COVID-19 outbreaks. | Continue reading
Kemp’s explosive allegation, just days before the closely contested 2018 election, drew wide attention. But newly released documents show that there was no such hack. | Continue reading
The Trump administration has promised at least $1.8 billion to 335 first-time contractors, often without competitive bidding or thorough vetting of their backgrounds. | Continue reading
Zach Fuentes, former deputy chief of staff to President Trump, won the contract just days after registering his company. He sold Chinese masks to the government just as federal regulators were scrutinizing foreign-made equipment. | Continue reading
While most discussions have focused on countries’ use of surveillance technology, contact tracing is actually a fairly manual process. After interviewing contact tracing experts and taking an online course, ProPublica health reporter Caroline Chen presents her takeaways. | Continue reading
With regular employees out sick, CVS and Walgreens rely on traveling workers to fill in at short notice. But when these floaters show up at a store, they often aren’t told if anyone there has tested positive. | Continue reading
As companies increasingly relocate to urban centers, sprawling, once-trendy corporate campuses like Sears’ and Kmart’s have been left crumbling in the suburbs. | Continue reading
Politicians who helped draft Sears’ tax deals said they were designed to retain thousands of corporate jobs. Contractors, landscapers and temporary employees who worked in Sears’ buildings were never meant to help the company qualify for tax breaks. | Continue reading
California’s governor and San Francisco’s mayor worked together to act early in confronting the COVID threat. For Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, it was a different story, and 27,000 New Yorkers have died so far. | Continue reading
California’s governor and San Francisco’s mayor worked together to act early in confronting the COVID threat. For Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, it was a different story, and 27,000 New Yorkers have died so far. | Continue reading
To lure Sears into a Chicago suburb, officials crafted the largest tax break package ever awarded to a company in Illinois. It resulted in revenue shortfalls, disappearing jobs and unexpected tax burdens, a Daily Herald and ProPublica review showed. | Continue reading
Securities that contain loans for properties like hotels and office buildings have inflated profits, the whistleblower claims. As the pandemic hammers the economy, that could increase the chances of another mortgage collapse. | Continue reading
Louisiana attracts chemical companies with one of the country’s most generous tax exemptions. The idea is to bring jobs to the state. Instead, construction often happens offsite, and automation has cut down on the jobs that remain. | Continue reading
Welcome to Youngstown, Ohio, home of Chill-Can, the self-chilling beverage container you’ve probably never heard of. Officials have gambled millions of dollars and demolished a neighborhood for the product. Not one job has been created yet. | Continue reading
The economy is in free fall but Wall Street is thriving, and stocks of big private equity firms are soaring dramatically higher. That tells you who investors think is the real beneficiary of the federal government’s massive rescue efforts. | Continue reading
ProPublica health care reporter Marshall Allen describes the questions he asks to assess coronavirus misinformation, starting with a viral video that claims the coronavirus is part of a “hidden agenda.” | Continue reading
The brother-in-law, a Trump appointee, sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of stock. Burr is under federal investigation over whether he traded on non-public information gathered through his work in the Senate. | Continue reading
President Trump touted a new report on voter fraud, but ProPublica found a critical error with the data. Even with the correction, experts say the report is misleading. | Continue reading
President Trump touted a new report on voter fraud, but ProPublica found a critical error with the data. Even with the correction, experts say the report is misleading. | Continue reading
Cigna executives told analysts the pandemic wouldn’t hurt its business, while the health insurance lobby asked Congress for aid. | Continue reading
The Republican of North Carolina, who is under investigation for his stock trading, regularly flips health care stocks even as he pushes for legislation to help the industry. | Continue reading
At a time when much of the retail sector is collapsing, Amazon is strengthening its competitive position in ways that could outlast the pandemic — and raise antitrust concerns. | Continue reading
The IRS has had trouble getting money to people quickly because millions of Americans pay for their tax preparation through a baroque system of middlemen. | Continue reading
While cutting benefits for emergency room doctors and other medical workers, TeamHealth and Envision have spent millions on ads meant to pressure politicians working on legislation to cap out-of-network costs for Americans. | Continue reading
Companies that employ emergency room medical personnel, many owned by private equity firms, say they are reeling from vanishing demand for non-coronavirus care. But critics worry that bailout money would be a windfall for rich investors. | Continue reading
Unite Here was a rare union success story. But then the coronavirus decimated the restaurant, food service and hotel industries, where most of its 307,000 members work. “We’re fighting for our survival,” its president told ProPublica. | Continue reading
Royal Philips N.V. agreed in September to sell 10,000 ventilators to the U.S. for $3,280 each. It did not deliver. But the Dutch company just announced a new deal with the government. This time, it’s charging roughly $15,000 each. | Continue reading
She raised more than $12,000 to buy and distribute protective gear for her colleagues, who say they felt inadequately protected against COVID-19. How a confrontation in one of the nation’s Coronavirus hotspots illustrates a troubling national trend. | Continue reading
The company gives extremists and neo-Nazis banned from other platforms unprecedented access to a mainstream audience — and even promotes their books. | Continue reading
No, the coronavirus is not an “equalizer.” Black people are being infected and dying at higher rates. Here’s what Milwaukee is doing about it — and why governments need to start releasing data on the race of COVID-19 patients. | Continue reading