ProPublica

The post Senator Endorses Discredited Doctor's Book on a Chemical He Claims Treats Everything From Autism to Cancer appeared first on ProPublica.

The post The EPA Was Considering a Massive Lead Cleanup in Omaha. Then Trump Shifted Guidance. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Do You Live in the Omaha Area? Sign Up for Free Lead Testing of Your Soil. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post He Spent Funds Meant for Native Hawaiians on Polo and Porsches. The Federal Government Failed to Stop Him. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post They Came to the U.S. Legally. Then Trump Stripped Their Status Away. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Immigration Agents Have Often Grabbed and Mistreated Citizens, Congressional Investigators Find appeared first on ProPublica.

The post These Health Centers Are Supposed to Make Care Affordable. One Has Sued Patients for as Little as $59 in Unpaid Bills. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Wave of Tax Cuts Has Left Many States Vulnerable to Trump SNAP and Medicaid Crisis appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Trump's Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Under Former Chemical Industry Insiders, Trump EPA Nearly Doubles Amount of Formaldehyde Considered Safe to Inhale appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Sick in a Hospital Town, Part 3: Poor Grades, Poor Outcomes appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Sick in a Hospital Town, Part 4: The Last Safety Net appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Sick in a Hospital Town appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Sick in a Hospital Town, Part 5: Too Big to Fight appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Sick in a Hospital Town, Part 1: The Business of Care appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Sick in a Hospital Town, Part 2: The Making of a Monopoly appeared first on ProPublica.

The post The Data Doesn't Lie: How ProPublica Reports the Truth in an Era of False Claims appeared first on ProPublica.

The post What a Recorded Interview Between Police and Preachers Reveals About How a Minnesota Church Handled Sexual Abuse appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Once Defended Congress' Power of the Purse. Now He Defies It. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Chicago Promoted Two Police Officers After Investigators Found They Engaged in Sexual Misconduct appeared first on ProPublica.

The post A Death Row Inmate Was Released on Bail After His Conviction Was Overturned. Louisiana Still Wants to Execute Him. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Texas Lawmakers Criticized Kerr Leaders for Rejecting State Flood Money. Other Communities Did the Same. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Powerful Friends: Sympathetic Officials and Cultural Power" Help Ranchers Dodge Oversight appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Oregon Struggles to Land Federal Counterterrorism Money as Trump Orders Troops to Stop Terrorists" Hindering ICE appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Wealthy Ranchers Profit From Public Lands. Taxpayers Pick Up the Tab. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post In Congress, He Said Tariffs Were Bad for Business. As Trump's Ambassador to Canada, He's Reversed Course. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post A Loophole Allows Ranchers to Renew Grazing Permits With Little Scrutiny of the Environmental Impact appeared first on ProPublica.

The post DOJ and RealPage Agree to Settle Rental Price-Fixing Case appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Do You Work at a Federal Prison? Help ProPublica Investigate the Federal Prison System appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Amid Confusing CDC Guidance About Vaccines, Study Highlights New Risk of COVID-19 During Pregnancy appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Trump's Immigration Forces Deploy Less Lethal" Weapons in Dangerous Ways, Skirting Rules and Maiming Protesters appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Connecticut DMV Fires Employee Who Made Thousands Selling Towed Cars appeared first on ProPublica.

The post ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids to Detention in Federal Shelters This Year. It's a New Record. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Lawmakers Call for Probe of How Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Got Piece of $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Long a Defender of States' Rights, Embraces Trump's Push to Expand Presidential Power appeared first on ProPublica.

One by one, the prisoners - all immigrants - appeared briefly over video before a special panel of the Louisiana parole board.The August hearings were unusual in a state that, under Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, has made it increasingly difficult for most prisoners to get early release.Unlike normal parole hearings, the board didn't grill the prospective parolees about their crimes - ranging from car theft to vehicular homicide - to gauge their remorse. Nor did it review their disciplinary records to determine if they posed a threat to public safety. And no one was present to represent or speak on behalf of their victims.In fact, most of the nine men, clad in black-and-white-striped jumpsuits or plain orange ones, did not say a word besides their names and inmate numbers. Only one was even eligible for parole.But in each case, the three-member panel voted unanimously for release after just a few minutes of consideration.Today you've been paroled," panel chair Steve Prator said at the end of every hearing, to go straight into an ICE facility for deportation from the United States."Some thanked the board. Others sat stone-faced or simply nodded.These days, a 100% grant rate is unheard of for the Louisiana Board of Parole. Where annual parole rates previously stood around 50%, in the two years since Landry became governor, less than a quarter of those eligible have been paroled.Landry, a former police officer and sheriff's deputy who served as Louisiana attorney general until 2024, has blasted early release programs as an insult to crime victims, insisting that anyone who is convicted in Louisiana should serve the entirety of their sentence. He pushed Republican lawmakers to eliminate parole entirely for those arrested after Aug. 1, 2024, and to impose strict eligibility requirements for those already in prison.But this year the same Legislature tossed all of that aside for one category of prisoner: immigrants without legal status. With mass deportations a key policy priority for President Donald Trump, Republican-led state and local governments have taken aggressive steps to deliver. In May, Landry signed an order seeking to crack down on criminal illegal aliens" by granting the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and other state agencies the authority to conduct certain Immigration and Customs Enforcement duties. In June, Louisiana lawmakers created an expedited alien removal process" through the special parole panel that passed with little notice during the last legislative session.They have the ability to release a lot of people to parole, and they're choosing to only do it for this specific group because it's politically popular," said Bridget Geraghty, senior counsel with the MacArthur Justice Center, a Chicago-based legal nonprofit focused on prison reform.At least two other Republican-led states have recently put in place similar initiatives to parole and deport prisoners without legal status. South Dakota paroled 10 immigrant prisoners to be deported over the summer. In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt announced in February that the state had identified about 525 prisoners subject to deportation.Since the Aug. 27 hearings in Louisiana, at least two of the nine men paroled have been deported, while two others from Vietnam are being held at a newly designated immigration detention facility on the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, according to ICE. Neither ICE nor the Landry administration would answer questions about the locations of the five other parolees or whether they are being deported to their home countries of Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.On Sept. 21, ICE's regional office in New Orleans posted a photo of one of the parolees, Samuel Lara Garcia, handcuffed in front of a staircase leading to a plane. The agency identified Garcia as a citizen of Honduras.HOMICIDE DEPORTATION," the X post blared.Garcia, 36, had pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and obstruction of justice in a 2022 shooting after an argument at a Baton Rouge house party. He was sentenced to 13 years in 2024 but had served less than two years in prison before being paroled.Immigration and Customs Enforcement's regional office in New Orleans posted a photo of Samuel Lara Garcia. He pleaded guilty to negligent homicide and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 13 years in 2024, but had served less than two years in prison before being paroled. Screenshot by Verite NewsA U.S. citizen convicted of the same crime - or any crime - in Louisiana today would not be eligible for release under the new parole laws championed by Landry.ICE declined an interview request with Madison Sheahan, a former Landry administration official who as deputy ICE director signed the partnership agreement between the agency and the corrections department. The Landry administration did not respond to questions about the new parole panel or the governor's broader executive order, which was named Operation Geaux.One member of that task force is Keith Conley, police chief of Kenner, a New Orleans suburb and one of the first Louisiana cities to formally partner with federal immigration authorities during Trump's second term. He praised the legislation that created the deportation panel in a recent interview. Paroling and deporting prisoners who are illegally in the United States frees up jail space and saves tax dollars, Conley said, so it just seems like a win, win."Under the new law, the deportation panel operates unbound by the restrictions and responsibilities placed on the regular parole process. A parole board is normally tasked with deciding whether prisoners are ready for release based on a number of factors including their behavior behind bars, efforts to rehabilitate, whether they pose a risk to the public and victims' opinions.During the August hearings, however, the board was not required to abide by the eligibility restrictions imposed by the Legislature last year, including the requirement that prisoners have clean disciplinary records for at least three years and low-risk scores as determined by an algorithm.Parole granted for the purpose of deportation is fundamentally different from discretionary parole granted to individuals who have demonstrated readiness for community supervision," Francis Abbott, executive director of the parole board, told Verite News and ProPublica. In these cases, the individuals are present in the United States unlawfully and have been convicted of criminal offenses."To be eligible to appear before the new panel, prisoners must have a federal deportation notice and not have been convicted of a sex offense or a violent crime that carries a sentence of more than 10 years. (Louisiana law does not consider negligent homicide to be a violent crime.)Christopher Walters, deputy executive counsel with the Landry administration, said at a May legislative hearing that the state has identified about 390 prisoners who might be eligible to be paroled and deported. The corrections department would not verify or update that number.It's an ongoing process to determine eligibility for this specific legislation," Derrick Ellis, the department's deputy secretary, said in a recent interview.There are no more hearings scheduled for the remainder of the year, according to the parole board.Unlike typical parolees, who are required to check in regularly with their parole officers and prohibited from unauthorized travel, those paroled to be deported are not placed under any supervision. Once deported, they are released with one stipulation: Do not return to the United States.Louisiana law says those who do return will be forced to serve the remainder of their sentences. But that may not be enough of a deterrent. Margaret Hay, first assistant district attorney with the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office, which prosecuted one of the deported men, said prosecutors are concerned parolees convicted of violent crimes may, very quickly, just be right back in this country."There's no guarantee that our border will remain as secure as I believe that it might be right now," said Hay, who nevertheless said she supports the initiative.ProPublica and Verite News contacted the embassies and consulates for Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and Vietnam to learn how those countries manage the repatriation of deportees whose U.S. prison sentences were cut short. None responded to multiple phone calls and emails.Another issue at play is that Louisiana law requires the parole committee to notify victims about upcoming parole hearings, provided they are registered with the Louisiana Victim Outreach Program, a state initiative that provides support services. Many victims of crime, especially those who are undocumented, fail to register for or are unaware of the state program. The parole board said there were no registered victims in the nine cases that appeared before the deportation panel in August.Several local prosecutors said they tried reaching the families of the six victims who had been killed by four of the paroled men, three of whom were charged with vehicular homicide, but had trouble making contact. ProPublica and Verite News could not reach any of the victims or family members of deceased victims in the cases involving the nine men.Landry, a Trump ally, has long been an immigration hard-liner. During his eight years as attorney general, which began a year before Trump's first term as president, Louisiana's capacity for detaining immigrants expanded from two facilities in 2016 to eight. That positioned the state to become a key partner in Trump's mass deportation agenda during his second presidency.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, left, tour a facility to house immigration detainees at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in September. Gerald Herbert/APIn September, Landry and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled a ninth immigration detention facility, known as the Louisiana Lockup, located in the former solitary confinement wing of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. That is where Hoang Huy Pham, one of the nine men paroled in August, is being held as he awaits deportation to Vietnam, the country his family said he fled as a child refugee during the Vietnam War.Pham's daughter Theresa, who asked to be referred to by only her first name because she works for the federal government and fears retaliation, said her father called her in June to tell her he was going to be paroled at the end of August after spending 20 years in prison for a long history of car theft. He told her he would live in a halfway house before rejoining the family in Baton Rouge, Theresa recalled. She said her elderly grandfather - Pham's father - was looking forward to him finally getting out of prison to help with his care.Then in September, Theresa received another call from her father. This time, he told her he had been transferred to Angola to await deportation. That five-minute call was the last time Theresa said she heard from him.You finally got out, but you're going somewhere else where you're not supposed to be," Theresa said. It's a false hope."Hervin Pineda was the only prisoner to tell the parole board in August that he wanted to be deported back home. He wished to return to Nicaragua to be with his ailing, elderly mother in her final days, he told the board through an interpreter.Pineda, who had previously been deported while on probation, had served less than a year of a seven-year sentence on charges of cocaine possession.Nevertheless, the board granted his request.You're a serious dope dealer," Prator, the panel chair, told him. We don't want you back."ICE took him into federal custody that day and deported him to Nicaragua on Sept. 12.The post Louisiana Made It Nearly Impossible to Get Parole. Now It's Releasing Prisoners to Deport Them. appeared first on ProPublica.

Our investigation of a little-known church community in northeastern Minnesota started with something that has become depressingly familiar: child sex abuse.ProPublica and the Minnesota Star Tribune found that some members of the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church community in Duluth enabled Clint Massie, who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing young girls. Massie is currently in prison in Faribault, Minnesota.The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church - which has no affiliation with mainstream Lutheran denominations and is known as the OALC - is an insular community with many old-world traditions. There is no official count, but one academic study estimated 31,000 members worldwide as of 2016, with most in the United States.We examined hundreds of pages of criminal records, conducted more than a dozen interviews with alleged victims across the country, reviewed video and audio of police interviews with Massie, victims and church leaders, and attended a service at the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Duluth.Read MoreYoung Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget.Daryl Bruckelmyer, an OALC preacher, declined to comment or answer a detailed list of questions for this story. But in a 2023 interview with a St. Louis County detective, he acknowledged knowing about Massie's sexual abuse. He said at the time that it was up to victims to report the crimes to police, a clear misreading of the law for mandated reporters - doctors, teachers and others who are required to report crimes against children.We don't protect either one," Bruckelmyer said of sexual abusers and their victims.You can read the investigation here, but here are five takeaways from our reporting:Church leaders knew about the abuse: Leaders of Bruckelmyer's church didn't report Massie to police though they knew he'd sexually abused girls for years and Bruckelmyer had been told by police that reporting it was their duty. It was an open secret in the congregation: Mothers warned their children to stay away from Massie, victims said. Church leaders also sent Massie to a therapist who specialized in sex offender treatment. In December 2024, Massie pleaded guilty to four felony counts of sexual conduct with a victim under the age of 13. In March, a judge sentenced him to 7 1/2 years in prison.Victims were told to forgive and forget: Church leaders held meetings where children were told to forgive the man who sexually abused them and forget the abuse. If they spoke of it, the sin would be theirs. The meetings, described by victims to the police and confirmed through our reporting, ended in one case with a church leader allowing Massie to hug the victim. An internal church document also outlines guidelines for handling abuse and suggests that, when appropriate, both parties be brought together for a discussion.Missed opportunities to intervene: Prosecutors had at least one opportunity to intervene but hoped educating church leaders about their duties would encourage them to cooperate with authorities. Our reporting found that church leaders did not report what they learned about Massie despite a state law requiring clergy and others to share the information with law enforcement. According to law enforcement notes, Bruckelmyer told investigators that they encourage abuse victims to go to police, but that they believed it was on [victims] to do that."John Hiivala, a spokesperson for the Woodland Park Old Apostolic Lutheran Church in Duluth, said that the church has fully complied with the law in the referenced case, and it's a matter of legal record."Kimberly Lowe, a lawyer and crisis manager for the church, said its preachers are unpaid and therefore might not be legally required to report sexual abuse of children. Asked if she believes the preachers are mandated reporters under Minnesota law, Lowe would only say that the language of the statute is unclear.A small but rapidly growing church: OALC is a conservative Christian revival movement that came to the U.S. with 19th-century settlers from Norway, Finland and Sweden. It is not affiliated with any mainstream Lutheran denominations. Only men hold leadership positions. The church is rapidly growing, and its emphasis on large families has created booms in places like Washington state and Duluth. Members attempt to live a life as modest and simple as Jesus'. This is why they do not dance, listen to music or watch movies, according to former members. In the OALC, they said, forgiveness is one of the most important acts one can perform.Victims filed lawsuits: Since Massie's sentencing, two of his alleged victims have filed lawsuits against him, their church in South Dakota and the OALC. They have retained the same lawyer who represented some of the victims in the Jeffrey Epstein case.In a letter written from prison that was filed in court, Massie denied the abuse allegations in the lawsuits. He did not respond to interview requests. The OALC, in a motion to dismiss both lawsuits, wrote that while OALC-America is mindful and sympathetic to Plaintiff for the abuse Plaintiff alleges occurred by Massie, such empathy does not take away from the plain fact that this Court does not have personal jurisdiction over OALC-America."The post 5 Takeaways From Our Investigation Into How Leaders of a Minnesota Church Community Enabled a Child Abuser appeared first on ProPublica.

Two key Senate Democrats have launched an inquiry after a ProPublica investigation revealed this week that a White House official had intervened on behalf of his former legal clients - pro-Trump influencer Andrew Tate and his brother - during a federal investigation.On Thursday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Gary Peters sent letters to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security asking for a full accounting of the official's activities, calling his actions a brazen interference with a federal investigation."

The post We're Broken": As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Are Leaving in Droves for ICE appeared first on ProPublica.

The post The Indian Health Service Is Flagging Vaccine-Related Speech. Doctors Say They're Being Censored. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post How the Trump Administration Abandoned Plans for a Major Cut in Disability Benefits for Older Workers appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Young Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post How Trump's Transportation Department Is Loosening Safety Rules Meant to Protect the Public appeared first on ProPublica.

The post New York Moves Forward With a Brooklyn Flood Protection Plan That Falls Short of Other City Projects appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Ticking Time Bomb": A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn't Get an Abortion in Texas. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Gov. Greg Abbott Was Ordered to Release Some of His Emails With Elon Musk. Most Are Blacked Out. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post Trump's Anti-Green Agenda Could Lead to 1.3 Million More Climate Deaths. The Poorest Countries Will Be Impacted Most. appeared first on ProPublica.

The post The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation appeared first on ProPublica.

The post What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic appeared first on ProPublica.

The post How ProPublica Investigated a Bird Flu Outbreak in America's Heartland appeared first on ProPublica.