Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Texas Medical Board Sanctions Three Doctors for Delayed Care That Led to the Deaths of Two Pregnant Women

 

at 4/17/26 6:05am

Photographs show Hope and Porsha Ngumezi, left, and Nevaeh Crain. Photos by Danielle Villasana for ProPublica The Texas Medical Board has disciplined three doctors ProPublica previously investigated whose patients died after receiving delayed or inappropriate pregnancy care under the state’s strict abortion ban. Two of the doctors failed to properly intervene as a pregnant teenager repeatedly sought care for life-threatening complications, the board found. The third did not provide a dilation and curettage procedure to empty a miscarrying patient’s uterus, and she ultimately bled to death. As ProPublica investigated those preventable deaths and five others across three states in the past few years, reporters found that abortion bans have influenced how doctors and hospitals respond to pregnancy complications. Facing risks of prison time and professional ruin, doctors have delayed key interventions until they can document that a fetus’ heart is no longer beating or that a case meets a narrow legal exception. Some physicians say their colleagues are discharging or transferring pregnant patients instead of taking responsibility for their care. Doctors and lawyers have questioned why medical boards, which oversee physician licensing and investigate substandard care, have not played a more active role in guiding doctors on how to uphold medical standards within the constraints of the law. When asked by ProPublica in 2024 what recourse miscarrying patients had when a doctor denied them necessary treatment, the president of the Texas Medical Board said it had no say over criminal law but that patients could file a complaint and “vote with their feet” to seek care from another doctor. Since then, the Texas board has taken more steps than those in other states, publishing guidance this year that provides case studies on how doctors can legally provide abortions to patients with certain medical complications. The state Legislature ordered the board to create the training materials as part of the Life of the Mother Act, which was passed after ProPublica’s reporting and made modest adjustments to the state’s abortion restrictions in an attempt to prevent additional maternal deaths. Georgia, where Amber Thurman died after doctors did not try to empty her septic uterus for 20 hours, has not revisited its ban or disciplined key doctors involved. Maternal care experts say health care providers will continue to hesitate to offer standard care as long as bans carry serious criminal consequences — Texas’ law can put a physician behind bars for 99 years. But those who spoke to ProPublica say that medical board sanctions are one of the few levers that can provide a counterweight, pushing hospitals and doctors to provide standard care despite uncertainty over vaguely written laws. Michelle Maloney, who is representing the families of both Texas patients in malpractice lawsuits, said she was pleasantly surprised by the board’s recent actions. “Over the course of my career, I’ve had many horrific, horrific death cases. For someone to get disciplined by the medical board, especially while there’s ongoing litigation, is just extraordinarily rare,” she said. In 2024, ProPublica reported on the case of 18-year-old Nevaeh Crain, who began experiencing severe pregnancy complications when she was six months pregnant in 2023. Although she exhibited clear signs of an infection, doctors at two hospitals sent her home. On her third visit, as Crain’s condition deteriorated, a doctor did not send Crain to the intensive care unit until he could confirm fetal demise with two ultrasounds. Texas law requires doctors to create extra documentation before performing procedures that could end a pregnancy. By the time the doctor had logged there was no fetal heartbeat, the medical record shows, Crain was too unstable for surgery. She died with her fetus still in her womb. Dr. Ali Mohamed Osman, an emergency medicine doctor who saw Crain at Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas during her first emergency room visit, sent her home with a prescription for antibiotics for strep throat without investigating her stomach cramps, ProPublica reported. The medical board cited him for failing to appropriately treat her infection or check the health of the fetus. Dr. William Noel Hawkins, an OB-GYN who saw Crain at Christus Southeast Texas St. Elizabeth hospital during her second ER visit hours later, was cited for discharging Crain even though she had a 103-degree fever, screened positive for sepsis and had a fetus with an abnormally high heart rate. For both Osman and Hawkins, the board wrote, “this delay in care ultimately resulted in the death of both the patient and her unborn child due to complications of pregnancy.” A board spokesperson would not say whether it investigated Dr. Marcelo Totorica, who saw Crain at her third visit to an ER, at Christus, and required two fetal ultrasounds, 90 minutes apart, before wheeling Crain into the ICU for an operation. The board does not disclose open investigations or cases when a doctor has been cleared of wrongdoing. Totorica did not respond to a request for comment. ProPublica also investigated the case of Porsha Ngumezi, who died at Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital in 2023 after bleeding heavily during a miscarriage at 11 weeks. An OB-GYN overseeing her care, Dr. Andrew Ryan Davis, gave her misoprostol, a medication that can be used to complete low-risk miscarriages. More than a dozen experts who reviewed the case for ProPublica, however, said that this was a high-risk case and she should have immediately been given a D&C — a procedure that has become fraught in states with abortion bans. Clearing the uterus is standard care to stop hemorrhaging; misoprostol would only make the bleeding worse, they said. The board investigation confirmed those findings, citing Davis for failing to quantify the volume of blood loss and choosing to monitor Ngumezi’s condition instead of immediately taking her for a D&C procedure. The board wrote, “This delay in care led to the patient’s death.” It added that it could not determine if Ngumezi would have survived if she received an emergency D&C. The board has the power to levy fines up to $5,000 and, in the most extreme cases, suspend or revoke doctors’ licenses. In these cases, however, each doctor was ordered to take eight hours of continuing education courses within a year. While under the terms of the order, all must notify any employers of the board’s findings against them. Davis and Hawkins were disciplined in October, and Osman was disciplined in March. None of the doctors or hospitals responded to requests for comment. In the medical board orders, the doctors neither admit nor deny the board’s findings and agree to comply with the discipline. Hope Ngumezi, Porsha Ngumezi’s husband, said the board’s order felt like “a slap in the face.” “What kind of justice is this for Porsha? he said. “I feel like the doctor shouldn’t be practicing anymore.” Hawkins, who failed to meet the standard of care in Crain’s case, according to the board, had previously been disciplined by the board for improper care in several other cases, including failing to provide a tubal ligation and failing to diagnose a syphilis infection. The board issued an order to have Hawkins’ medical practice monitored in 2015; it was lifted two years later. Reproductive rights advocates welcomed the Texas board’s recent actions but said that it and medical boards in other states should do more. None of the Texas discipline orders, for example, directly sanction a doctor for failing to offer or provide an abortion for a high-risk medical condition. The board has disciplined some doctors in recent years for failing to provide D&Cs to patients after a confirmed miscarriage or for substandard care of pregnant patients experiencing emergencies, and the orders are typically released quietly. The board could be making public statements and sharing more robust guidance to remind doctors of the consequences, said Molly Duane, the litigation director of Amplify Legal, which is part of the reproductive rights advocacy group Abortion in America. “They should be saying loudly: This is what can happen if you don’t provide care in these circumstances,” Duane said. At the Center for Reproductive Rights, Duane represented 20 Texas women in a case against the state who alleged doctors inappropriately denied them abortions during medical emergencies. The Texas Supreme Court sided with the state and blamed doctors for misinterpreting the law. Duane is not aware of any doctors in those cases who received discipline from the board. ProPublica reported on the deaths of other Texas women, including Josseli Barnica and Tierra Walker, which experts said could have been prevented had the women been offered abortions for their high-risk medical conditions. And data analyses by ProPublica showed that sepsis rates and blood transfusions spiked among miscarrying women after the ban went into effect — an indicator of dangerous delays in care across the state. The board would not say whether it has opened investigations into doctors involved in those cases or any others in which pregnant patients may have received substandard care due to abortion restrictions. The post Texas Medical Board Sanctions Three Doctors for Delayed Care That Led to the Deaths of Two Pregnant Women appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Abortion, Health Care, Pregnancy]

— A Protester Threw a Snowball. Federal Agents Responded With Tear Gas and Pepper Balls.

 

at 4/17/26 3:00am

A federal agent shoots pepper spray out of the window of a moving vehicle. The stream hit FRONTLINE’s video team. Tim Evans/Reuters Five days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot activist Renee Good, tensions were running high in the Minneapolis neighborhood where she was killed.  As federal immigration agents surrounded and questioned a man whose car they had stopped, people emerged from their homes onto the snow-lined sidewalks and street. They shouted obscenities, told the agents to leave and filmed what was happening on their phones. A crew from FRONTLINE and ProPublica was filming, too. The man being questioned, a U.S. citizen named Christian Molina, told ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson that federal agents had followed him and rammed his car: “They looked at me and they decided to pull me over for no reason,” Molina said. Co-published With What happened next can be seen in footage from FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s new documentary “Caught in the Crackdown.”  Someone threw a snowball in the direction of the agents — and one of them responded by tossing a tear gas canister into the crowd.  “You’re tear-gassing a fucking neighborhood,” a protester yelled. “People live here.” As the toxic haze rose, an agent pepper-sprayed protesters and a news photographer at close range. Another agent fired pepper balls into the crowd, hitting Thompson three times. One shot struck him above the right eye. Federal use of force guidelines generally instruct agents not to target peoples heads and faces with these weapons. Then, as the agents drove away, one of them shot pepper spray from a car window, hitting others on the film team, including FRONTLINE’s director Gabrielle Schonder and director of photography Tim Grucza, who was sprayed in the face.  Watch Agents Use Tear Gas and Other Weapons on a Minneapolis Crowd Footage of the confrontation was captured for “Caught in the Crackdown,” a new documentary from FRONTLINE and ProPublica. In the Minneapolis neighborhood where Renee Good was killed, residents were protesting the actions of federal immigration agents. Someone lobbed a snowball toward the agents. Then came what one former Department of Justice official later called “use of excessive force after use of excess force.” FRONTLINE and ProPublica The Jan. 12 confrontation is one of many chaotic clashes documented in “Caught in the Crackdown.” Premiering April 14, the joint investigation examines how federal agents handled protesters and bystanders during the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps in major cities across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Chicago to Minneapolis — including by using tactics that experts say violated officers’ own rules.  As the documentary explores, President Donald Trump’s administration said its immigration crackdown was protecting U.S. citizens by targeting criminals and people who had entered the country illegally. Through on-the-ground reporting and interviews with officials, experts, insiders and eyewitnesses, “Caught in the Crackdown” traces how federal forces arrested hundreds of U.S. citizens who were protesting or observing the raids, routinely portrayed those citizens as domestic terrorists or extremists, and repeatedly deployed weaponry like tear gas and pepper balls. The man heading the enforcement operations was unapologetic about his agents’ approach. “Were here to conduct that Title 8 mission,” Greg Bovino, then-commander-at-large for Border Patrol, told a local TV station, referring to immigration enforcement. “It wont stop despite rioters, agitators, and vast amounts of violence against federal officers. Were not going to stop.”   But when Thompson shared the footage from Jan. 12 with former law enforcement officials, they expressed concern.  “We see, just, use of excessive force after use of excess force,” said Christy Lopez, who spent years investigating law enforcement misconduct for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “In no scenario is it OK to be pepper-spraying people as youre leaving the scene.” “Its pretty awful,” said Chris Magnus, a former head of Customs and Border Protection who once oversaw Bovino. Magnus, who served as a police chief in multiple cities, pointed to the principle of proportionality when using force in law enforcement: “People may well get under your skin under a lot of circumstances,” he said. “You dont like it, but professionals dont react to it.” As the documentary reports, ProPublica and FRONTLINE found that legal cases against many protesters have been falling apart, as the accusations against them have been contradicted by video evidence and witness testimony.  Bovino was ultimately moved out of his role after federal agents shot and killed a second protester in Minneapolis — Alex Pretti. The Trump administration said it “recognized that certain improvements could and should be made” to its immigration enforcement operations. Bovino has since retired, but many of the questions raised on the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis under his watch remain unresolved.  “Even if Gregory Bovino is gone, I wonder if his imprint will last through all the federal agencies that are continuing to go out on the street,” journalist Sergio Olmos, who reported on Bovino for the nonprofit news outlets CalMatters and Evident Media, says in the documentary. “I wonder if anything will change, really. He was the one who was the tip of the spear for this new type of immigration enforcement across the country.” The post A Protester Threw a Snowball. Federal Agents Responded With Tear Gas and Pepper Balls. appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Immigration, Trump Administration]

— 3D-Printed Homes, an Abandoned $590,000 Deposit, the FBI: What Really Happened in This Small Town?

 

at 4/16/26 3:30am

State and city officials break ground on the Cairo, Illinois, 3D-printed duplex project in August 2024. Outside a repair shop in rural southeastern Illinois, the parts of a massive 3D construction printer sat disassembled on a flatbed trailer, weeds climbing the wheels. The $1.1 million investment wasn’t meant to end up there, abandoned. Two local men had taken out a loan from a tiny bank to buy the printer, promising it would spark an affordable-housing revival across hard-pressed southern Illinois. Their first stop was Cairo, at the state’s southern tip — a historic river town beset by the loss of jobs and safe housing, now home to fewer than 2,000 mostly Black residents. In August 2024, after months of negotiations, the city finalized a deal with their company, Prestige Project Management Inc., to build 30 duplexes. Days later, the printer arrived and crews assembled it on a vacant corner lot at 17th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.  More than 100 people showed up for the groundbreaking. Children clutched cotton candy and popcorn. Pallets of Amazon giveaways spilled from a truck. Behind a chain-link fence, the towering printer hummed to life, two American flags clipped to its steel legs, laying down the base of what was billed as the first new home built in Cairo in at least 30 years. The crowd cheered. Kaneesha Mallory pressed against the fence. She had grown up in Cairo, moved away, then returned after her daughter was born. Living in a cramped one-bedroom public housing unit across town, she imagined a bedroom her 6-year-old could finally call her own. Mayor Thomas Simpson called the project “just the beginning.” State Sen. Dale Fowler, whose district incorporates some of Illinois’ most destitute counties, described it as an “extraordinary project” — the start of more development to come. His nonprofit organization, which serves low-income children and families, had secured a $40,000 donation to help pay for the event. More than 100 people gathered to watch a massive 3D printer lay down the walls of Cairo’s first home built in 30 years. Mallory couldn’t bring herself to leave while her future seemed to be taking shape. She stayed in the August heat so long that she fainted and was taken to the emergency room by ambulance. Crews worked overnight to avoid the heat. Within about a month, the walls went up. Interior work followed. But then the work stopped before the duplex was finished. The owners would later say cracks — dozens of them — had begun running through the walls and that they needed to make sure the structure was sound. The printer disappeared. A year later, no one had moved into the duplex. It stood alone in a wide lot along a sun-bleached road. As I began to examine what happened, the story grew complicated. I learned that before the 3D printer arrived in Cairo, the Prestige owners had forfeited about $590,000 as a deposit for a different printer when they ended up canceling the order, a fact that would quickly turn the atmosphere tense as I pressed the company’s owners, the bank, Fowler and others for answers.  I also learned that not long after the groundbreaking, several employees left Prestige around the same time a spray of anonymous emails hit inboxes across the region. The emails called the Cairo duplex project little more than a publicity stunt and alleged fraud tied to Prestige’s other construction projects. I also wasn’t the only one asking questions. I discovered that the FBI has launched an investigation into Prestige led by an agent in southern Illinois who specializes in white-collar and public corruption investigations. To date, there have been no charges filed or arrests made, and Prestige’s owners deny any wrongdoing.  Over the past eight months, the more questions I asked, the more public officials distanced themselves from the project and the company. The broader housing plan — the one that had fueled speeches and celebration — started to look increasingly uncertain. I was determined to know: Was this simply another failed pitch to this dirt-poor delta town — or something more? “God Sent Us” Jamie Hayes, who inherited a Ford dealership from his father, and Erik Burtis, who had long supplied labor to coal mines, founded Prestige in 2021 in Harrisburg, Illinois, a town of fewer than 8,000 people about 80 miles northeast of Cairo.  It is one of seven companies Hayes has started since 2020, three of them co-owned with Burtis, according to Illinois business records. The two, business partners since 2012, have taken on an eclectic mix of projects: school construction management, solar farm fencing and the 3D printing venture. Hayes provides the capital; Burtis runs the day-to-day operations.  Burtis said he landed on 3D printing in early 2023 after asking his son Josh, who works for the company, to find out what was hot in construction. He reported back that it was 3D construction — based on trends in Europe. “Usually we’re five, maybe six, seven years behind what happens there,” Burtis said.  Burtis said God then laid it on his heart to start building in Cairo by donating the first home his company would print. Fowler, the state senator whose district office is in the same building as Prestige, said he listened to Burtis’ plan as they drove to Cairo to meet with town officials a few years ago. Fowler said he suggested building a duplex instead of a single home so two families could benefit. Burtis was moved by that idea. Illinois state Sen. Dale Fowler addresses the crowd at the groundbreaking. Prestige owners Erik Burtis and Jamie Hayes (seated from right to left) look on, alongside Burtis’ son Josh. “He literally started tearing up,” Fowler said. He told me the story in August as we talked in the back booth of a local barbecue restaurant.  “Did you cry, too?” I asked. “Yeah,” Fowler said. “I’m about to right now just thinking about it.” Cairo’s housing crisis is rooted in a long and complicated history. In 1972, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights visited the town and documented how racism had harmed Black families, including through neglect of their segregated public housing. Those problems only worsened over time. I grew up nearby and have reported on Cairo’s housing problems for more than a decade. In 2015, I documented how conditions in those once-segregated developments had withered into mice-infested slums, overrun with mold and contaminated with lead, while federal overseers looked the other way. Children ride bikes through Cairos Elmwood housing complex in 2017. Isaac Smith/The Southern Illinoisan The McBride Place housing complex partway through demolition in 2019. Molly Parker/The Southern Illinoisan Kevin McAllister demands answers in 2017 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during a residents’ meeting before the demolition of the McBride Place and Elmwood Place public housing. Richard Sitler/The Southern Illinoisan via AP In 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development took over the local housing authority and then demolished those apartment homes, displacing nearly 400 residents. In 2022, HUD evacuated another high-rise for seniors, then home to about 60 people. In less than five years, more than 300 apartment units were razed, accelerating the county’s decline into one of the fastest-shrinking places in America.  Cairo had seen ambitious promises before the 3D printer arrived. At the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, it draws entrepreneurs who see unrealized potential in its vacant storefronts and magnolia-lined streets of dilapidated mansions built by river barons in another era. Some come to help, others to take advantage — it can be hard to tell. Residents have grown wary of outsiders with big ideas. Magnolia Manor, built in 1869, is one of several mansions lining Washington Avenue in Cairo. City Council member Connie Williams, a retired school principal, said city leaders had warned the Prestige owners not to make promises they couldn’t keep. “We kept saying to them, ‘Look, we’ve had enough people come through Cairo talking all this crazy stuff and then back out,’” she said. “And they were just like, ‘No, no, oh no, that’s not us. We are here. God sent us.’” The project attracted attention from Illinois’ top powerbrokers: Gov. JB Pritzker met privately with Burtis and Fowler in Harrisburg. Fowler also invited staff from U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s office to learn about the project. Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza toured the unfinished duplex and praised the effort on social media.  To help manage the project in Cairo, the company hired Bucky Miller, a broad-shouldered lineman with a baritone voice. He said part of his job was to craft development plans and an agreement with city officials. Miller regularly drove 300 miles round trip from his home near St. Louis to meet with city officials. He told residents at a housing task force meeting that he took the job after reading about the decades of failed promises made to Cairo, and “because of what I’m good at: keeping my word.”  But he had no experience developing affordable housing, and neither did anyone else at Prestige. Burtis acknowledged the inexperience but said he planned to partner with developers who would secure financing and hire his company to handle construction. Before the Party, an Unraveling  The block party in August 2024 — kids clutching cotton candy, everyone in a jubilant mood — made it look like everything was on track. But I have now learned that significant parts of the project already were shaky even before the printer squeezed out the first cement. One big problem was acquiring the printer to begin with. In October 2023, Grand Rivers Community Bank approved the $1.1 million loan to purchase the printer — a big bet for the rural lender in Karnak, Illinois, population 450, about 25 miles north of Cairo. The loan was nearly double the bank’s single-customer limit, requiring another regional bank to join in. Grand Rivers Community Bank approved a $1.1 million in October 2023 loan for a 3D printer purchase. That month, Grand Rivers sent half the cost of the printer, about $590,000, to Peri 3D Construction, which operated out of Texas, to purchase one of its most expensive models. Their agreement stated that delivery of the printer would occur six months “at the earliest” from receipt of the deposit. The exchange of funds triggered Peri 3D to commission a large-scale commercial printer from COBOD International, a Danish company that bills itself as the world’s leader in 3D construction printing technology.  By January 2024, Hayes and Burtis said, they had become impatient. It had been only three months, but they said they’d given Cairo their word they’d start building that spring and felt the printer wasn’t progressing fast enough. Hayes said, “‘Here we go again’ is what Cairo is thinking.” Fowler emailed the governor’s office a few days ahead of a visit Pritzker had scheduled that month in southern Illinois, calling the new 3D printer business “a major humanitarian mission” and asking for an opportunity to introduce the governor to Burtis, records show. Fowler and Burtis met with Pritzker at Harrisburg City Hall and discussed with Pritzker whether he had contacts in Germany, where Peri is headquartered, who could help speed production, according to Burtis. A Pritzker spokesperson said the governor’s office took no action after the meeting. Fowler sent an email in January 2024 requesting a meeting with Gov. JB Pritzker to discuss the 3D-printed homes. Obtained by Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica From left: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker poses for a photo with Harrisburg Mayor John McPeek and Fowler. During a January 2024 meeting at Harrisburg City Hall, Fowler talked up the Cairo 3D printer project to the governor. Courtesy of Harrisburg Mayor John McPeek Days later, a Peri 3D sales rep emailed Burtis’ son that the printer was on track for delivery that April.  Then, shortly after, Burtis and other Prestige employees traveled to Las Vegas to a concrete industry expo. Fowler said that Prestige paid for him to come along and that he agreed because he wanted to see demonstrations of the 3D printer technology. He did not report the trip on his annual economic disclosure form; he amended the form after I asked him about it last year.  Burtis said a COBOD engineer at the expo told them that their printer was only 10% complete, though a COBOD executive said it did not have any engineers present at the expo that year. While there, Burtis also met with one of the few other potential printer suppliers, Black Buffalo 3D. That New Jersey-based company said it had printers available that it could deliver right away, according to Burtis.  Shortly after the conference, Prestige tried to cancel the order for the original printer. Peri 3D did not appear to respond to Prestige’s requests, according to an email exchange that Hayes shared with me.  Two months later, Prestige’s lawyer sent a letter to Peri 3D saying the company’s request had been “blown off” and proposed Peri 3D keep about $60,000 — 10% — and return the rest. When Peri 3D responded in April, just as the printer was due, it said none of the $590,000 deposit would be returned. Prestige did not write back, according to email records the company provided. Burtis and Hayes hadn’t yet spent about $500,000 of their loan. Hayes told me they were ultimately “no worse for the wear” since Black Buffalo 3D agreed to sell a printer for what they had left.  “If I get 10 grand for a car,” Hayes said. “Say I pay 5 grand for a car and I don’t get my money back, but I can buy another car that does the same exact thing, and I only pay another 5 thousand. What do I give a shit if I can get back and forth to work?” He called the bank.  “We don’t need any more money,” Hayes said he told them. “Can we get this taken care of?” The bank agreed and wired the remaining funds to Black Buffalo 3D in April 2024. A Flimsy Plan Getting the printer to Cairo was one problem — it wouldn’t arrive until August 2024. Getting it to make sense financially was another entirely.  For months before the printer arrived, Miller, the Prestige employee managing the project in Cairo, had been telling city leaders that Prestige would secure financing to build the remaining 29 homes after donating the first duplex. But city attorney Rick Abell said he couldn’t get straight answers about how the development would be paid for or what it might look like. We kept saying to them, ‘Look, we’ve had enough people come through Cairo talking all this crazy stuff and then back out. City Council member Connie Williams Typically, housing tax credits are used to build affordable housing in the U.S. But acquiring those is a highly competitive process that can take years to complete, a process that would be made even more challenging using an unproven construction technology and in a rural community. There’s no record that Prestige applied for any housing program funding.  Phillip Matthews, who chaired the town’s housing task force, said he repeatedly asked for a project rendering but “never got it.” That was strange, Matthews said, “because normally, when a company determines they’re going to develop a piece of property, they have designs.” Abell and city officials grew frustrated with the lack of clarity around the deal.  Weeks before the kickoff party, city officials visited Prestige’s office in Harrisburg. According to Abell and Matthews, Burtis told them Cairo would need to come up with the financing to build the other homes.   The city did not have that kind of money.   Simpson, the mayor, was perplexed. He said Burtis offered to help the city apply for grants for a fee but offered no specifics. “I’ve been getting grants for all kinds of stuff, but there’s nothing for building housing,” Simpson said.  Burtis would later say that Miller had made unauthorized promises that Prestige would secure financing for the project; Miller disputes this.  Despite the uncertain financing, the city wrote up a contract: Cairo would sell a vacant lot to Prestige for $1. Prestige would build one duplex, manage it for 18 months and then transfer ownership back to the city. The contract called for 29 more over the next three years, with no details on how they would be funded.  The mayor signed the contract, hopeful the project would build momentum in a place that hadn’t experienced much.  Cairo’s Last Hope: Not “Some Big Serious Whatever” I first met Hayes, the Harrisburg car dealer who co-founded Prestige, in early September 2025, more than a year after Cairo’s 3D printer party. At the time, I didn’t know about the abandoned $590,000 deposit or that there had never been a real plan for additional housing. I didn’t know Prestige and its suite of sister companies had drawn the attention of the FBI.   But I had already visited the defunct printer in the middle of nowhere late last summer. A former Prestige employee had sent me a Google pin to show me where it had been parked for nearly a year. After the 2024 Cairo duplex celebration, the 3D printer was parked at this country repair shop in Galatia, where parts of it sat outside on a flatbed trailer for more than a year. So I was taken aback when Hayes told me the printer, the size of a small garage when assembled, was stored on his lot.   I asked if he’d show it to me, a request that seemed to take him by surprise. Outside, we walked past rows of vehicles to the back lot. There was no printer — just heat shimmering off blacktop and a long chain-link fence. He squinted into the sun, looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t see it, do you?”  He’d later tell me it had been there at one point, and he didn’t realize it was gone. That strange episode would set the stage for the interviews that followed.  Over many weeks, we’d spend hours talking in the corner office of his car dealership in Muddy, Illinois — population 40, a fading patch of coal country just outside Harrisburg near the Indiana border. With an easy, elastic charm, Hayes slid between humor and confession, candor and confusion. He told me Prestige was named after the fictional do-nothing company in the Will Ferrell comedy “Step Brothers.” “It’s just stupid,” he said. “I’m not like some big serious whatever.” Eventually, he’d blame everyone else — including both printer suppliers — for what happened: the stalled project, the cracks and the fact that Cairo still has no new housing. In August 2024, Cairo signed an agreement with Prestige for the company to build one duplex it would donate, plus another 29 homes over the next three years if the city could secure funding. Two years later, the lot in the center of town where the homes were to be built remains empty. Hayes told me Prestige had sued Peri 3D to recover its printer deposit. But for weeks he was vague about it. He said he hadn’t seen the lawsuit and didn’t know where it was filed — “nowhere around here,” he told me.  He flew into a rage when I told him the Peri 3D salesperson they’d worked closely with had called his company “shady.” At that point, he promised to find out where it was filed, but over multiple visits, he’d tell me he still hadn’t located it.  I found the lawsuit during a records search at the Saline County Courthouse, steps from Prestige’s office. It turned out that Prestige had filed the suit in early 2025, just as Peri 3D was laying off its U.S. staff. Prestige claimed in the lawsuit that it signed a “mock document,” not a real contract, and that it never received the language Peri 3D later claimed made clear the deposit was nonrefundable.  Five months later, in August, a judge ruled in Prestige’s favor after Peri 3D failed to respond to the lawsuit. In Saline County, where the poverty rate hovers around 20%, nearly double the statewide rate, the lost money stood out. “That’s a lot of money,” the judge remarked, according to a court transcript.  “It’s a bad situation,” Prestige’s lawyer said. The judge replied, “I guess good luck trying to collect it.”  Before I could tell Hayes that I had located the lawsuit, he texted me that afternoon: “Looks like we did sue and won!!!” he wrote. “Who’s the shady one now?” (He later said he couldn’t tell me where the lawsuit had been filed because he’d largely left the business to Burtis to manage.) Still, he said he was resigned to the fact that they’d likely never collect their money — and to date they haven’t.  Burtis said they can’t locate anyone from Peri 3D. When I followed up with Hayes this month, he acknowledged that the contract made the deposit nonrefundable and said he regrets not reading the fine print. “Every time I’ve done that, I’m like, you know what, gahhh, why do I get screwed? Next time I’m going to read through everything,” he said. Ask Dale Fowler if there’s any-fucking-thing going wrong. Jamie Hayes Burtis said Prestige owes the bank roughly $13,000 a month under the terms of its 10-year lending agreement to pay for the original $1.1 million printer; over the full term, the company would pay more than $400,000 in interest. Prestige can’t afford the note; Hayes said he’s paying it out of one of his other business accounts.  In an emailed statement from its German headquarters, Peri 3D said in October that it had conducted business “in accordance with the terms and conditions” of its contract with Prestige but would “investigate the matter diligently in the coming weeks.” When I followed up recently, the company declined to comment further. COBOD said it had not been delayed in constructing the printer and that it had no knowledge of a lawsuit since its contractual obligation was to Peri 3D and not Prestige.   As I continued to ask Hayes questions, he told me the state senator could vouch for the deal.  “Ask Dale Fowler if there’s any-fucking-thing going wrong,” he said.  A Modern-Day Daniel When I reached out to Fowler in October, he wasn’t vouching for much. He described Burtis and Hayes as acquaintances and himself as “just a guy that wants to help people.” He scoffed at Hayes’ claim that he could speak to any of their business dealings. And he said his role with the Cairo duplex project was minimal, limited to that of a cheerleader.  His attempts to distance himself from the housing plan and company struck me as odd. The month after Prestige secured a loan for the printer, Fowler’s office emailed promotional materials for Prestige’s 3D printing business to the Illinois Housing Development Agency and touted the project before the state poverty commission he sat on, public records show.  He brought other top state officials into the orbit as well. Three months after Cairo’s duplex block party, Fowler led Mendoza, the comptroller, on a tour of the property with Burtis and his son. In since-deleted social media posts, she called them “visionaries.” A Mendoza spokesperson said Fowler asked if she wanted to tour the duplex, but she was not otherwise involved with the company or its owners, and they’ve received no state funding. The posts were removed after I asked the spokesperson if Mendoza had been aware that FBI agents had delivered a subpoena to Prestige’s office just days before her tour. In a since-deleted Facebook post, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, center, poses in front of the 3D-printed duplex with, from left, Fowler, Erik and Josh Burtis, and Cairo Mayor Thomas Simpson. Screenshot by Molly Parker Fowler didn’t tell me, but I’d later also find out he’d convened Duckworth’s staff to a meeting with Prestige’s owners and the president of Grand Rivers Community Bank in early 2023 — 18 months before the 3D groundbreaking party in Cairo. A Duckworth spokesperson said the senator’s office had just revived discussions about how to address Cairo’s housing crisis when Fowler reached out and that the office did not have additional involvement with the company.  People in Cairo also saw Fowler as key to the deal and reached out to him after it became clear the duplex had been left unfinished.  “When it fell through, we were all calling Sen. Fowler personally, because he brought them here,” said Williams, the council member. According to Williams, Fowler told Cairo officials he was oblivious to Prestige’s business dealings.  Since its founding in September 2021, Prestige has been Fowler’s largest source of campaign donations, not including those from political action and other committees. The company, and others owned by Burtis and Hayes, gave him $22,000 between May 2022 and August 2024. Its final donation of $6,500 was made to Fowler five days after the groundbreaking party for the 3D-printed duplex. Fowler said he doesn’t track who donates to his campaign; he and Burtis said the donation was for Prestige co-sponsoring a golf fundraiser two months earlier.  Fowler, a decadelong state senator who plays a key role shaping his caucus’ legislative priorities as a Republican assistant leader, announced last summer that he wouldn’t seek reelection, citing a 10-year term limit pledge; his term expires in January.  Fowler also told me in October that he had no knowledge of the federal probe of Prestige and had never been approached by investigators. “Are they grabbing for straws?” he said of the FBI.  Fowler said he’d known Hayes and Burtis for decades and doesn’t believe they’ve done anything wrong.  Still, he said he’d taken some unfair heat over the ordeal — “guilty by affiliation, I guess.”  But Fowler told me it wasn’t the first time he’d been criticized as an elected official, leading him to believe in his “spiritual soul” that he is the modern-day Daniel. In the Old Testament, Daniel was a virtuous believer thrown into the lion’s den by his enemies. But angels closed the lion’s mouth, saving Daniel, while his enemies ended up being “chomped, mutilated, by the lions.” Fowler said the story put him “at peace.”  “I’ve never told this to anyone,” he added. “I’ve never told this to my wife.” The FBI Comes Knocking  Not long after I began digging into what happened to the duplex in Cairo, I learned the FBI was also looking into Prestige’s broader business dealings.  Within weeks of the block party, six employees — more than half Prestige’s staff — quit. Then Prestige received a federal grand jury subpoena asking for its financial records, Hayes and Burtis said. Ryan Moore, then a Prestige employee, points to a crack in the duplex in December, one of dozens the company says caused it to stop work. Prestige said it waited a year for its printer supplier to provide a crack remediation plan. When one wasn’t provided, the company used hydraulic cement. The FBI has also subpoenaed two school districts and the city of Harrisburg for their contracts with and payments to Prestige for work unrelated to the duplex project, according to records obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The FBI declined to comment on the status of its investigation.  Harrisburg Mayor John McPeek said the city did two projects with Prestige, though he said Fowler had encouraged the city to use the company more. A school district in Eldorado, one of those subpoenaed, ousted the former superintendent in September, in part for failing to get school board approval for about $2 million in payments to Prestige and related companies, public records show. The district declined to comment, and the former superintendent did not respond to requests for comment.  Miller, the Prestige employee who hyped the 3D printing project to Cairo residents, was one of the employees who quit. When we first met up late last summer, he told me he had become an FBI whistleblower.  Miller told me he’d been taken advantage of, sent to Cairo to sell a false promise the company had no intentions of standing behind. He also told me about a flurry of anonymous emails sent via Proton, an encrypted email service, that accused Prestige of fraud not long after Cairo’s block party. The emails went out to various businesses and schools that had contracted with Prestige. I’ve seen a lot of deals fall through. But we always knew why. Here, we got nothing. Rick Abell, Cairo’s city attorney I, too, had received a Proton email about Prestige. It wasn’t anonymous like the others, but was instead from someone claiming to be a COBOD executive. It directed me to open a DropBox file, but the link didn’t work. That executive told me she’d been impersonated; the company said it takes the matter “very seriously.” At one point, Miller claimed to me that he was the one who sent the Proton emails — under instructions from the FBI, in an attempt to drum up investigatory leads. The FBI declined to comment, though three law enforcement experts told me this would be highly unlikely. Miller later changed his story, saying he hadn’t sent the emails.  Burtis initially refused to answer my calls, texts and knocks on his door, but he called me back in October and said he wanted to talk.  “For some reason, I woke up today, and after praying, it was like, ‘You need to go ahead and talk to her,’” he said. Tears streaked his face. His aunt sat beside him, taking notes on a legal pad. He blamed Miller for trying to ruin his company and for spreading unfounded rumors about him and Hayes. Miller did not respond when I asked him about Burtis’ claims. Burtis also said he and Hayes have fully cooperated with the FBI, handing over all the financial records requested in the subpoena, though he said they’d never been interviewed by agents. “If I was really in trouble, don’t you think I’d have been handed an indictment by now?” Burtis said.  His son Josh, who had been put in charge of the 3D printing venture, said the construction issues had been disappointing but they had been keeping the city updated. Hayes said he’d been fully transparent with me and investigators.  As I asked questions last fall, the printer sat outside on the flatbed, though some parts of it recently moved to Hayes’ car lot. The cracked house remained abandoned.  Crews began working again on the duplex last fall after reporters started asking questions, but it remains unfinished. Hayes said the concrete “ink” that came with the Black Buffalo 3D printer was faulty and that’s why the printer has been idle since. Black Buffalo 3D said it has offered Prestige a new concrete solution and to find a buyer for the printer if Prestige no longer wants it.  Prestige and Black Buffalo told me in a joint email in September that they would return to Cairo by the end of October to fix the cracks, which they said were nonstructural. But Black Buffalo never showed up, saying its engineer couldn’t sign off on a repair plan without city permits, which don’t exist because they aren’t required. The company, which has sold only two printers in the U.S. since its founding in 2020, filed for bankruptcy in December.  Burtis later said he engaged his own engineering firm to sign off on a remediation plan to fill the cracks with a hydraulic cement, though he declined to share that plan or the company name. Crews were recently working on the duplex; Burtis said the cabinets they ordered did not fit.  Once the duplex is finished, Burtis said, he plans to turn the keys over to the city. Simpson said he will be ready. Still optimistic, the mayor said he hopes someone else will eventually follow through and build homes in Cairo. Abell, Cairo’s city attorney, said the failed venture has never sat right with him. “I’ve seen a lot of deals fall through,” Abell said. “But we always knew why. Here, we got nothing.” “Even today,” he added, “I probably have a lot more questions than I’ve got answers.” While some questions remain unanswered, one set of facts is undisputed: When HUD began dismantling housing here a decade ago, officials promised there would be an effort to build back. Today, the only thing that has been built is one duplex, still unfinished. Mallory, the mother who’d hoped to have a two-bedroom home one day, said she is tired of waiting, as much as Cairo has always felt like home. In mid-March, she applied for a housing assistance program in Chicago. She worries Cairo can’t give her daughter all she needs to thrive. “I want more for her,” she said. “I thought I was going to be able to get a two-bedroom apartment.” But in the end, she sighed, with the kind of resignation that comes from being disappointed too many times, it was just “a bunch of broken promises.” Kaneesha Mallory, who shares a one-bedroom apartment with her 6-year-old daughter, had hoped to move into the duplex. The post 3D-Printed Homes, an Abandoned $590,000 Deposit, the FBI: What Really Happened in This Small Town? appeared first on ProPublica.

— What You Should Know About Lead Contamination in Omaha, Nebraska

 

at 4/16/26 3:00am

ProPublica reporter Cassandra Garibay collects soil samples to test for lead in Omaha, Nebraska, last fall. Chris Bowling/Flatwater Free Press For more than a century, a lead smelter and other factories in downtown Omaha, Nebraska, spewed toxic dust across the city, contaminating the soil and causing lead poisoning. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the city of Omaha have spent decades trying to clean it up. But in 2019, the EPA acknowledged its plan may not do enough to protect kids, and the agency is reexamining the site to potentially expand the cleanup, which could result in more residential yards being remediated. Journalists at the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica teamed up to report on how well the cleanup effort is going. This included collecting soil samples from more than 600 yards in and around the affected area, called the Superfund site. Many people we met in the process told us they had never heard of the Superfund site and had no idea they could be at risk from lead exposure. They asked a lot of questions about how to stay safe.  So we talked to experts and got answers below. Get Involved Were testing the soil around Omaha, Nebraska, for lead, and we’re turning our attention to homes just outside the federally designated cleanup zone. If you live in Council Bluffs, Iowa; Carter Lake, Iowa; or the northern part of Bellevue, Nebraska, and are interested in having your soil tested, you can fill out our sign-up form. If anyone in your family has had elevated blood lead levels, you can contact reporter Chris Bowling at cbowling@flatwaterfreepress.org to share your experience. Sign Up for a Free Soil Test 1. What is lead poisoning? Lead poisoning occurs when lead, a toxic metal that was used in paint, gasoline and plumbing for decades, is ingested and builds up in the body, causing issues like developmental delays and behavioral problems in kids. It’s more of a concern for children because their bodies are still developing and they absorb more of the lead they inhale or ingest than adults. But lead poisoning can also affect adults, causing problems like high blood pressure, memory impairment and joint and muscle pain.  2. What are considered unsafe lead levels? There is no “safe” level of exposure to lead. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a high level as 3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood.  If your child’s test shows lead levels above that, the Douglas County Health Department will schedule an environmental risk assessment, which will include a home inspection and education about how to prevent exposure. The nonprofit National Center for Healthy Housing also has a good checklist for how to reduce lead exposure. If you live within the Superfund site, you can check your soil levels on the Omaha Lead Registry. An EPA risk model predicts a soil lead concentration of 100 parts per million or less would protect kids from developing what the CDC currently considers a high blood lead value, assuming there are no other exposures. 3. What should I know about the lead Superfund site in Omaha?  The Superfund site is generally located north of Harrison Street, south of Read Street and between 45th Street and the Missouri River. It was designated a Superfund site in 2003, meaning the federal government would oversee a cleanup of the toxic waste there and try to get the polluters to pay for it.  The EPA drew boundaries for the Superfund site based on where fewer than 5% of residential properties tested above 400 parts per million of lead in the soil, the concentration of lead at which the government would conduct a cleanup. That’s roughly the size of a marble in a 10-pound bucket of dirt. People who live beyond the boundary may still have elevated soil levels and can contact the city if they’re interested in testing and possible cleanup. 4. Is my soil contaminated with lead? How can I get my soil tested? If you live in the Omaha Superfund site, you can check the Omaha Lead Registry to see the highest level of lead found in your yard through soil sampling of every property done by either the EPA or the city of Omaha. You can request a detailed diagram of your home from the city, showing average lead levels in different areas of your yard. These levels may have changed over time if you have flaking lead paint on your home or have added, removed or covered up dirt in your yard. If your soil hasn’t been tested and you live within or near the boundaries of the Superfund site, you can contact the city’s Lead Information Office. Midwest Laboratories in Omaha also provides heavy metal screening for a fee through its garden and lawn soil testing program.  5. Is there lead in my house? Is there lead in my water? Homes built before 1978 likely contain lead paint. You can test for lead with at-home kits approved by the EPA. A common sign you might have lead paint is if it chips in a geometric pattern called “alligatoring” because it looks like scaly alligator skin. East Omaha has extensive lead plumbing. You can use this map to see if your home is eligible for service line replacement. If you have lead service lines, you can request a free water test from the Metropolitan Utilities District. 6. What is the city’s process for remediation?  If the soil has a high enough lead concentration to qualify for cleanup, the city will also assess the exterior of the dwelling for lead-based paint. If the home has lead-based paint, a contractor hired by the city will remove flaking paint and repaint the surface before the soil is remediated.  Contractors remediate properties by removing 4 inches of soil and testing it. If levels are still concerning, they keep digging and testing to a depth of 1 foot. If contamination still exists, contractors put down a barrier like landscaping fabric before adding fill dirt and laying sod on top. Following the city’s work, the Douglas County Health Department will also reach out to see if the property owner would like a dust assessment of the home and a free vacuum cleaner with a filter that captures small particles.  We’re reporting on how this remediation process is going. If you have a story or concerns about your remediation process, contact the Flatwater Free Press.  7. My yard was remediated, should I still be concerned? Will it be retested?  The EPA remediated yards in Omaha by digging up and replacing areas that had more than 400 parts per million of lead in the soil. Most properties do not require resampling, EPA spokesperson Kellen Ashford said. However, the EPA and the city of Omaha have resampled properties on a case-by-case basis. One example is when a structure has been demolished, exposing lead-contaminated soil or spreading dust from lead paint. Tens of thousands of properties that had high levels of lead contamination but that were under the 400-parts-per-million benchmark were not remediated. The Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica are investigating how effective the cleanup has been. If you have questions or concerns, contact the Flatwater Free Press.  8. If I’m outside the Superfund site, should I still be concerned? The EPA is analyzing whether to expand the bounds of the Omaha Superfund site, a Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica investigation found. The agency currently allows for some remediation beyond the Superfund site’s bounds. Testing and remediation would need to be approved by the EPA, but the process would look the same as it does for properties within the site. If you live within city limits, you can contact the city of Omaha if you’re interested in testing and remediation outside the Superfund site. 9. Is it safe for me, my kids and my pets to be in the yard with contaminated soil? Spending time outdoors in the Superfund site can be safe if you manage risks, said Naudia McCracken, supervisor of Douglas County’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. Read More The EPA Was Considering a Massive Lead Cleanup in Omaha. Then Trump Shifted Guidance. Omaha Is Home to a Massive Superfund Site. Most Kids Living There Aren’t Tested for Lead. “Casual outdoor activity like walking through a yard, sitting on grass or brief play on covered surfaces does not by itself represent a high-risk exposure scenario,” she said. “The concern is repeated or prolonged contact with bare contaminated soil, especially activities like digging or play that result in soil on hands, faces or objects that enter the mouth.” You can reduce risks by keeping bare soil covered, washing hands, taking off your shoes at the door, cleaning indoor dust and preventing pet contact with bare soil when possible, McCracken said.  10. Is it safe to garden if my soil is contaminated?  Safe gardening starts with limiting contact with the dirt. Wash your produce well, peel root vegetables and discard the outer parts of leafy vegetables like cabbage and lettuce, the EPA recommends. Wear gloves while working in the garden, wash your hands and take your shoes off when you enter the home. The best way to avoid contamination is to build a raised bed, said Shannon Kyler, community programs manager at the urban farm group City Sprouts. An 18-inch bed with a layer of landscape fabric below should keep roots away from the base soil. Mixing compost into soil will also dilute lead levels and improve soil health. It’s a good idea to retest soil every year, she said. While crops absorb some lead, it’s usually a small amount in well-maintained soil, studies from Washington and Kansas found. With the right precautions, gardening can be a low-risk activity, Kyler said. Several resources like the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Nebraska Extension and City Sprouts can also help answer questions.  11. Is blowing dust a concern for lead contamination?  Lead is particularly dangerous in small dust particles because it can be more easily absorbed in the body, said Gabriel Filippelli, executive director of Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute and a lead and Superfund researcher for decades. Contaminated dust that blows into homes or is tracked in through dirt can deposit on surfaces like floors and tables where kids can reach it. 12. Does lead go away over time? Lead generally does not break down in the environment. Once ingested or inhaled, some of it will naturally leave the body, though that depends on factors such as age and diet. Most of it is stored in bones for decades and can be released back into the bloodstream, especially in times of stress like pregnancy. Health institutions like the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic write that the damage lead causes cannot be reversed. But some recent studies suggest exercise, educational experiences like going to a museum or taking art lessons, and a nutrient found in many fruits and vegetables can counter some of the effects. The post What You Should Know About Lead Contamination in Omaha, Nebraska appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Environment, Pollution]

— Trump’s Memphis Crime Task Force Arrested Over 800 Immigrants, Records Show. Only 2% of the Arrests Were for Violent Crimes.

 

at 4/15/26 3:30am

On an overcast Saturday in February, a street vendor named Elmer lined up dozens of pairs of worn but carefully cleaned tennis shoes on tables next to a convenience store.  The 44-year-old father from Honduras felt like his head was on a swivel, greeting the handful of shoppers that approached while also scanning the busy thoroughfare behind him. He was ready to serve — or to run. Last fall, as Elmer and his son were setting up their shoe stand, he said, agents wearing Homeland Security vests arrested two Guatemalan men in a nearby parking lot. A few hours later, the Mexican owner of a taco truck across the street was also detained by immigration authorities.  Then in December, Elmer’s 19-year-old nephew was taken, too, following a traffic stop; he remains incarcerated in a Tennessee detention center. Elmer worries that he and his son could be next. They fled Honduras seven years ago to escape gang violence and are not authorized to be in the United States. Elmer spoke with MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and ProPublica on the condition that only his first name be used.  Those around Elmer were swept up as part of President Donald Trump’s September order deploying more than two dozen state, local and federal law enforcement agencies, including the National Guard, to neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee. Unlike federal operations in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities where immigration officers flooded the streets to ramp up deportations, the stated mission of the Memphis Safe Task Force was different: “to end street and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest possible extent.” Help Us Report on the Law Enforcement Surge in MemphisWe are still reporting. Have you or someone you know had an interaction with law enforcement since the Memphis Safe Task Force started? We want to talk to Memphis residents who have encountered officers from agencies including the Memphis Police Department, Tennessee National Guard, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If you work for one of these agencies, we’d like to talk to you, too. You can reach Wendi C. Thomas on Signal at wendicthomas.96 or by email at wendicthomas@mlk50.com. But just over a quarter of the more than 5,200 arrests made by the task force in and around Memphis have been for violent crimes, according to an MLK50 and ProPublica analysis of nearly four months of daily arrest reports from October through the beginning of February. The vast majority of violent crime arrests stemmed from outstanding warrants. And despite casting violent criminals as the task force’s primary target, the operation has swept up more than 800 immigrants whom law enforcement deemed to be unlawfully present in the United States. Of those, just 2% — or 17 — were also arrested for violent crimes, our analysis found. Being unlawfully present on its own is a civil, not a criminal, offense. More immigration arrests occurred in and around Parkway Village, the neighborhood where Elmer sells shoes, than in any other part of Memphis, according to our analysis. This majority Black community on the outskirts of the city’s core is also one of the fastest growing Hispanic neighborhoods in Memphis. It is dotted with immigrant-owned businesses — barber shops, grocery stores, a tax preparer — that serve a predominantly Spanish-speaking clientele. Other vendors sell tamales and cheese from the trunks of their cars. Overall, 81% of the neighborhood’s task force arrests have been for nonviolent crimes, including immigration violations, drug offenses, theft and illegal possession of weapons. Trump has repeatedly proclaimed success in Memphis, crediting the task force for a more than 30% decline in homicides, aggravated assaults and sexual assaults compared with the same period last year.  While some research has shown that a surge in policing could deter crime, Memphis Police Department data indicates that crime had already been dropping steadily since 2023, hitting a 25-year low before the task force began its operations last fall. Criminologists say more analysis is needed to determine how much impact the task force has had on crime rates in Memphis.  Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said crime rates continued to drop due to “the great work of President Trump’s task force.” “Every local leader should want to mimic this success,” she said in a written statement. Jackson did not answer questions about the gap between the task force’s stated mission to end violent crime and the fact that so few of the immigrants arrested were suspected of committing such crimes. Nor did Brady McCarron, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service, which leads the task force. Instead, he reiterated Trump’s claims that the task force has restored law and order to Memphis. “All Memphians are safer today than they were seven months ago because of the Memphis Safe Task Force,” McCarron said in a written statement. “Calls for service are down 18% since last year. Meaning less crimes are being committed that residents must call in for law enforcement response.” Federal agents and the Tennessee Highway Patrol conduct a traffic stop in a Memphis shopping plaza in March. Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America In response to some Memphians saying that the task force’s immigration activity makes them feel unsafe and discourages immigrants from reporting crimes and cooperating with police, McCarron said: “We are aware of concerns raised by community advocates. Our focus remains on removing violent offenders, recovering illegal firearms, and protecting all Memphis residents, including communities who are disproportionately victimized by violent crime.” What the Trump administration celebrates as a successful crime-fighting campaign, Latino advocacy groups and civil rights organizations argue is a crusade that’s left much of the Hispanic community in turmoil and fear, as it grapples with the social isolation, economic instability and trauma the task force has brought. The task force has shrunk Elmer’s world to work, church and a drafty rental home near the railroad tracks that he shares with his 20-year-old son, whom he raised alone.  Three of Elmer’s siblings also live in Memphis, but since the task force arrived, family gatherings have been few. No one wants to risk being detained while driving across town. During the week, Elmer shops for used Nikes, New Balances and other sneakers at thrift stores, then sells them in front of the neighborhood convenience store on the weekends. Elmer said he used to sell 100 pairs of shoes a week. Now, he’s lucky if he sells 20 — bringing home $500 a month instead of his usual $2,400. Elmer says he used to sell 100 pairs of shoes a week at his stand in the neighborhood of Parkway Village. But weekly sales have dropped to under 20 pairs. Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America Elmer said his father, a former police officer who had a car rental business in Honduras’ capital city, was gunned down after refusing to pay off a local gang. Elmer tilted his chin up as he spoke to keep tears from falling.  “Sometimes I ask my son, ‘What would your life be like if we never left?’” Elmer said through a Spanish interpreter. “He answered, ‘I would probably be dead,’” killed by the same gang that took his grandfather. Ever vigilant still, Elmer has mapped three escape routes from his shoe stand, just in case the task force reappears. As he pointed them out, a Tennessee Highway Patrol SUV flew down the road behind him, lights flashing and sirens blaring.  On a recent Friday afternoon, while Elmer was working, an unmarked white SUV leaving the parking lot slowed to a stop a few feet from his shoe stand. Immigration officers wearing bulky green vests sat inside the vehicle and stared at Elmer and the Hispanic men standing with him.  The agents didn’t say a word, Elmer recalled, but “I could feel the intimidation because I know who they are.” Although it felt like forever, Elmer said, the federal agents only looked at them for 10 or so seconds — long enough for Elmer to abandon the escape routes he had planned and remember his son’s advice: Don’t run, or they may chase you.So he froze, waiting for the moment to pass. Violent Crime Campaign Swept Up Immigrants  Last month, Trump came to Memphis and declared victory from a stage decorated with seized weapons and cardboard boxes stamped “DEA EVIDENCE.”  “You have now developed a reputation as a city that’s coming back stronger than any city in the country because of what’s happened with crime, and because your political leaders have the courage to do what they did,” Trump told hundreds of National Guard troops, law enforcement officers and local and state Republican leaders gathered in a Tennessee Air National Guard hangar. President Donald Trump proclaimed the success of the Memphis Safe Task Force when he visited the city in March. Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America Armored vehicles and a law enforcement helicopter were parked next to the stage, framing the president and other administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Miller has worked closely with Tennessee Republicans as they try to pass bills to require courts, public health clinics and law enforcement to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Trump administration has praised the proposed legislation and the task force as possible models for the rest of the country. The influx of law enforcement has created a political minefield for Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat in a blue corner of a Republican-led state. Hours after Trump’s appearance, which the mayor did not attend, Young said during a press conference that the task force has “amplified” the work Memphis police had already been doing to reduce crime and that the increased law enforcement presence has led to “greater results,” especially in executing warrants. About half of all task force arrests have been for outstanding warrants. But Young said he disagreed with the task force’s immigration enforcement role. “That’s not a part of those efforts that I am supportive of,” he told reporters. “I think that immigrants in our community have been a vital part of the growth of our city for the past 10 to 15 years, and we want them to feel welcome in our community.” Mayor Paul Young, alongside Rev. Rolando Rostro (far left), Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis (left) and the Rev. Zuriel Ondal, speaks at Mullins United Methodist Church in October 2025 during a packed town hall meeting of mostly Hispanic immigrant residents. Andrea Morales/MLK50 For immigrants without proper documentation, some say one of the riskiest things they can do since the task force arrived is to get behind the wheel. Of the task force’s immigration arrests, about 4 out of 5 followed traffic stops, the MLK50 and ProPublica analysis found. The Tennessee Highway Patrol, which leads the task force’s traffic enforcement efforts, usually initiates the traffic stops — often for minor violations such as a broken taillight or windows tinted too dark. Then immigration officers, who are often following the state troopers or riding with them, interrogate the driver and passengers, according to Vecindarios 901, an immigration rapid-response organization that has witnessed dozens of stops. Those who cannot provide proper documentation are arrested.  The task force did not answer questions about the use of traffic stops as a primary means of arresting immigrants who are not authorized to be in the United States. As law enforcement descended upon Parkway Village, church attendance dipped, according to a pastor with a primarily indigenous Guatemalan congregation; parishioners too scared to leave home chose instead to submit prayer requests through online services, she said. Pastors have agreed to serve as guardians to their members’ U.S.-born children in case their parents get deported. Business owners and grocery store workers say sales have plummeted, forcing some to cut back on staffing. In the first weeks of task force operations, Hispanic student attendance at a neighborhood school fell by half, one administrator said. At another neighborhood school, its communications coordinator, Paola, used to start her workday at the front desk, greeting students. Now she often starts it in her car, shuttling a pair of siblings to school. The 21-year-old from Venezuela stepped in to help after the children’s father was arrested in October during an appointment at immigration court. Their mother is afraid to drive them to school. Paola works at a neighborhood school. On most days, she gives a ride to two students whose father has been detained by immigration officials. Andrea Morales/MLK50 Paola and her father worried at first that she, too, might be detained even though she is authorized to work in the United States. She agreed to be interviewed on the condition that only her middle name be used to protect her and her family. “Our role is not political,” she said. “We are here to care for students and their families.”  Minutes away off Winchester Road, a busy street in Parkway Village, the Rev. Rolando Rostro is also watching out for his community. Rostro pastors Iglesia Nueva Vida, the largest Hispanic church in the Memphis area, where Sunday attendance fell from 800 to 500 during the first several months of the task force. Parishioners still live in fear, but attendance has gradually increased, he said. “We have to go to church.” Rostro, on stage, holds a Christmas gift exchange for his congregation at Iglesia Nueva Vida in December 2025. Andrea Morales/MLK50 Alerted to traffic stops through phone calls or an online system set up by Vecindarios 901, Rostro often responds to the scene after state troopers or county sheriff’s officers — followed by federal agents — have pulled drivers over. It’s part of his “assignment” as a pastor during a difficult period for his community, he said; he goes to bear witness and ask that immigrants arrested be released. “The Bible says ask and you will receive,” he said.  Sometimes, he recognizes his parishioners.  “Hey, that’s not ‘the worst of the worst,’” Rostro said he has told the law enforcement officers, rebutting the Trump administration’s characterization of the immigrants federal officials are targeting. “I know him. He goes to my church. He’s a good man,” Rostro has said — in hopes that sharing details about the people’s lives would “plant a seed of a different way of seeing things.”  During Trump’s first administration, Rostro said one of his parishioners was released from ICE detention after he spoke with agents. But that hasn’t happened this time. So he checks in with church members who are detained, learning they are held in cold, rat-infested conditions and pressured to return to their home countries. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons but would not address the conditions at the detention centers in which Rostro’s parishioners are held. “This is a family community,” Rostro said, “so the breakup of that is very detrimental to the children and to the whole family structure.” A Community Hub Unnerved A few miles down the street from the church, Juan Hernandez, who is originally from Mexico, led a reporter through El Mercadito, the sprawling indoor shopping center he opened in 2005. Vendors in the normally bustling commercial hub had few customers to greet one afternoon in early March. Juan Hernandez in his restaurant in his shopping center, El Mercadito Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America With dozens of immigrant-run booths selling everything from neon safety vests for construction workers to frilly dresses for little girls, El Mercadito also rents space for events, including lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) and quinceañeras.But since October, there have been fewer bookings for birthday parties. As shoppers stayed home, some booth owners struggled to keep up with the rent, Hernandez said. Two Guatemalan booth owners were so fearful to come to work that they shuttered their clothing stands.In the task force’s first weeks, Hernandez tried to calm the fears of shoppers, vendors and his employees at the Mexican restaurant inside the market. He hired private security to guard the doors and to monitor video cameras for signs of task force agents. Then he realized that it was the traffic stops by state troopers that were most often leading to immigration arrests, so he no longer needed the guards.Two or three times a week, federal agents would show up at his restaurant for breakfast. First one, then a pair, then eight or more, pushing tables together. When they left to get in their cars, Hernandez saw them putting on vests marked HSI: Homeland Security Investigations. On two occasions, someone — he’s not sure if it was a customer or a booth owner — posted photos of the agents at El Mercadito on social media, as a warning to customers to stay away. Hernandez understands why people are wary: Two of his friends have been deported by immigration authorities across town, leaving behind teenage children. The sister of one of his servers was detained. But, as he has explained to his vendors and employees in a meeting, no shoppers or diners means no income for the booth owners or the restaurant. He said restaurant sales have fallen by 40% since the task force’s launch. Business has been slow at El Mercadito since a law enforcement surge began. A few vendors, fearing they would be detained, have shuttered their booths. Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America “I used to have these feelings of anger like, you know, they are looking for us, and then they come to eat here,” Hernandez said through a Spanish interpreter, but there was nothing he could do. “They were paying for the food, so we have to serve.” Hernandez typically offers police officers 10% off their checks, but not for this group. “I decided I don’t give discounts to them because of the harm they are doing in our community.” Hernandez had received amnesty under Republican President Ronald Reagan when he came to the United States more than 40 years ago. He said he’s now been forced to consider the unthinkable. “I have never had the thought of coming back to my country,” he said. “Now I do — because of the government.” Hernandez shows an event space inside El Mercadito. Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America How We Reported This Story MLK50 and ProPublica obtained daily reports of arrests made by the Memphis Safe Task Force via public records requests to the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office. Each entry in a report includes the defendant’s name, their mug shot, a generalized location and an arrest summary that includes charges, if the arrest resulted from a warrant, the warrant details and the arrest address. The reports cover Oct. 1, 2025, through Feb. 5, 2026, but we are missing records for 10 days. Details of each arrest were extracted from the summary using image recognition and a large language model, including the address where the arrest occurred, each charge and if the person is not authorized to be in the United States. We listed individuals as immigrants when the task force referred to them as an “illegal alien” or if they were arrested for violating immigration laws. The output was manually reviewed for accuracy. Multiple geocoding services were used to identify the coordinates and ZIP code of each immigration-related arrest. For entries without a building number, we assigned a ZIP code if the entire listed road was wholly contained within it. We manually checked the results of geocodes with more than 500 meters of variance. Some arrests could not be matched to a ZIP code — about 1 in 3 — and were omitted from our arrest by ZIP code analysis. The ZIP code with the most immigration arrests is 38118, which includes Parkway Village, Oakville, Oakhaven and Capleville. Even when arrests that could not be assigned to a location were attributed to the ZIP code that contained most of the associated road segment, 38118 still had the most immigration arrests. The heaviest concentration is in and around Parkway Village, a loosely defined neighborhood with unspecified borders. All crimes in this ZIP code were checked with multiple geocoding services. We considered an arrest in and around Memphis when it was inside of the metropolitan statistical area. We categorized violent crimes using the National Institute of Justice’s definition, which includes any incident where a victim is physically harmed or threatened with violence. An LLM matched charges to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System offense codes. We manually reviewed each. An arrest was classified as “violent” if it included a charge for murder, homicide, rape, sexual assault, robbery, domestic violence or assault (aggravated, simple and intimidation). Not all homicides are murders, such as justified killings and negligent deaths. Our methodology counts a car crash that resulted in the death of an infant as violent. The post Trump’s Memphis Crime Task Force Arrested Over 800 Immigrants, Records Show. Only 2% of the Arrests Were for Violent Crimes. appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Immigration]

— Omaha Is Home to a Massive Superfund Site. Most Kids Living There Aren’t Tested for Lead.

 

at 4/15/26 3:00am

Belinda Daniels panicked in 2018 when the pediatrician said her 1-year-old son, Jovanni, had lead in his body. The toxic metal could stunt his brain, the doctor told her, but catching it early meant she could prevent more damage. Daniels moved out of her Omaha, Nebraska, apartment that had chipping lead paint. The doctor continued testing Jovanni periodically while Daniels followed instructions on cleaning, handwashing and keeping Jovanni away from contaminated dirt. Eventually, the lead level in Jovanni’s blood dropped. While the now-8-year-old has anger and impulse-control issues, Daniels said it could have been a lot worse. “They told me that the side effects of it would be him being autistic” or having “very delayed behaviors, she said. Not every child’s high lead levels are caught as early as Jovanni’s. In Nebraska, it’s largely up to the doctor or health system to decide whether to test a child’s blood for lead. As a result, local public health officials say, not enough kids are getting tested, given Omaha’s lead problems, which include being home to the largest residential lead cleanup site in the country. For more than a century, smoke from a lead smelter and other factories deposited 400 million pounds of the toxic metal across the city’s east side. That prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to begin investigating the pollution in 1999, and a few years later, the agency declared 27 square miles of east Omaha to be a Superfund site. Over more than two decades, the EPA and the city have dug up and replaced nearly 14,000 yards, from about a third of the site’s residential properties. Belinda Daniels helps her son, Jovanni, climb the monkey bars. She thinks all kids in Omaha should be tested for lead. Lily Smith/Flatwater Free Press Faced with similar public health concerns about lead, 13 states, including New Jersey, Louisiana and neighboring Iowa, have passed laws requiring universal lead screening, meaning all kids would get a blood test before entering kindergarten. But not Nebraska. Most places passed these laws after recognizing that they were reaching too few kids by simply targeting high-risk groups like children who live in old housing. Every state with available data saw increases in the number of kids tested after passing these laws, the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica found. Some identified more kids with elevated blood lead levels. A lack of consistent testing nationally leads health officials to miss about half the kids with high levels, according to research by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The academy and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend testing in areas that have a high prevalence of lead or older housing. Over the years, Omaha public health officials have raised awareness about blood testing with billboards and community events about the risks of lead. But a bill to require that every child be tested failed in the Nebraska Legislature in 2011. Since then, there have been no efforts to revive it. Do You Live in the Omaha and Council Bluffs Area? Sign Up for Free Lead Testing of Your Soil. An Omaha lead smelter spread dust that seeped into the soil and bodies of many residents. The EPA spent decades cleaning up the surrounding area — but not Council Bluffs, Carter Lake or Bellevue. Sign Up for a Free Soil Test Naudia McCracken, supervisor of the Douglas County Health Department’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, said she is planning to propose an ordinance to the Omaha City Council this summer. That could require health workers to test all kids up to age 7 who live in the Superfund site itself and a broader area east of 72nd Street, generally thought of as the dividing line between the city’s urban east side and suburban west side. Right now, fewer than half of kids under 7 in that area are tested for lead. As a whole, the county’s testing rate is better than most, CDC data shows. But that’s not comforting to local health workers. “That number is abysmally low,” said Peg Schneider, a physician assistant who has been testing Omaha kids for lead since 1989 and believes every kid should be tested. Amber Dawson holds her 4-year-old son, Jahmel, before he is given a blood lead test at Nebraska Medicine’s Fontenelle Health Center in Omaha in January. Rebecca S. Gratz for ProPublica McCracken said the city “needs to come to grips” with its lead problems. Not only is it home to the Superfund site, but the majority of east Omaha’s housing was built before lead paint was banned, and many residents’ drinking water travels through lead pipes. While Daniels lived in the Superfund site, she believes her baby might have been exposed to the apartment’s lead paint. Since the cleanup began, the percentage of kids in the Superfund site whose tests showed high lead levels has decreased from 33% in 2000 to 2.4% in 2025. That mirrors national trends over the same time period. But east Omaha still has a higher rate of children with elevated blood lead levels than the national average, according to the most recent CDC data.  Without mandatory testing, there’s no way to know if health workers are missing kids with potentially life-changing exposures to lead, said Dr. Jennifer Sample, a Kansas City, Missouri-area pediatrician and former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Environmental Health and Climate Change.  “That’s why I support universal testing: so we can actually see where those kids are,” she said. “We need better data.” Getting an accurate picture of the community’s blood lead levels is not only important for public health. While levels of lead in soil are the main drivers for EPA action, the data on children’s blood lead levels can inform decisions like lowering cleanup thresholds, said Kellen Ashford, an EPA spokesperson. The EPA is currently reassessing the site, and tens of thousands more Omaha properties could be cleaned up. Jim Woolford, who led the EPA’s Superfund program from 2006 to 2020, worries that if kids with lead poisoning aren’t being tested and the community’s levels appear low, EPA officials may use that data as a reason not to carry out a remediation project that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead, Woolford said, they could “declare victory” and “move on.” Naudia McCracken, supervisor of the Douglas County Health Department’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, said Omaha “needs to come to grips” with its lead problems. Rebecca S. Gratz for ProPublica “That Opportunity Was Lost” In 1977, Douglas County, which contains Omaha, took advantage of a new federal grant and started a screening program to test kids for lead. By then many communities in the U.S. recognized the dangers of the toxic metal and had begun passing laws to catch and address its effects. But in Omaha, local officials struggled to test enough kids with limited resources. Four health workers went door to door with suitcases full of swabs and vials. Dr. John Walburn, who treated lead-poisoned kids at the time, tried to convince doctors at Omaha’s clinics and hospitals to test, but, outside poor areas, “they did not see it as their problem,” he said. After the EPA proved lead contamination was a far-reaching problem and began the Omaha cleanup in 1999, testing increased dramatically as the EPA and local government recommended kids in the Superfund site be screened. But many still went unchecked, said Brenda Council, a longtime lead poisoning prevention advocate in the city. So when she won a seat in the Nebraska Legislature, she proposed that every child in the state undergo at least one blood lead test before kindergarten unless a health care worker determined the child to be at low risk for lead poisoning using a questionnaire. Some believed the survey would flag too many kids and result in unneeded tests. “Among the things in that checklist are that theyve never ingested a nonfood product,” Paul Schumacher, a state senator from Columbus, Nebraska, said at the time. “It would be un-American for a kid not to have eaten dirt or grass at some time in its life.” Jovanni loves riding his bike, wrestling and playing soccer. Lily Smith/Flatwater Free Press The bill eventually passed the Legislature but was vetoed by then-Gov. Dave Heineman, who said it was unnecessary and would be too costly.  “There could have been so much prevention,” Council said. “That opportunity was lost.” Heineman did not return phone calls, texts or emails requesting comment. Schumacher said in an interview that he still believes a one-size-fits-all approach would test kids unnecessarily but said a local policy for a place with lead issues would make more sense.  Without universal testing, Nebraska policymakers and health institutions have taken different approaches. The state recommends testing every kid who lives within the Superfund site at ages 1 and 2. Douglas County recommends kids be tested annually until age 7.  Only 1- and 2-year-olds with Medicaid insurance are required to be tested — and even then, only two-thirds of eligible kids in the county are tested each year, according to state data. Providers in the biggest medical systems are left to follow individual policies. OneWorld Community Health Centers, which serves primarily low-income and Latino patients in South Omaha, requires its providers to try to test every 1- and 2-year-old. Children’s Nebraska, the state’s only independent pediatric hospital, requires one test by 2 years old. Nebraska Medicine, the state’s largest hospital network, does not have its own policy, according to a spokesperson. But Schneider, the physician assistant at Nebraska Medicine’s Fontenelle Health Center in North Omaha, said she tests kids annually until the age of 5. Peg Schneider, a physician assistant at Nebraska Medicine’s Fontenelle Health Center, runs annual lead tests for kids under 5. Rebecca S. Gratz for ProPublica In recent years, several states that had similar approaches realized they weren’t catching enough kids with high lead levels. In Maine, more than 160 such children were likely missed due to inconsistent screening across the state, according to a 2019 report by a Maine affordable housing group. Since then, the state has passed a universal testing law and its health department reported that its testing rate, which had been stagnant for years, was now rising.  Michigan passed a new universal testing law in 2023. The state previously relied on recommendations similar to Nebraska’s, and parents had to push doctors to get their kids tested, said Ellen Vial, a Detroit program manager at the Michigan Environmental Council, which lobbied for the law. She hopes the new law will do as much to prevent exposure there as banning lead from paint did. Nebraska state Sen. Ashlei Spivey of North Omaha said she’s considering introducing lead-related policies again in the Legislature, such as bills to increase testing, provide tax credits to fix lead paint issues inside homes and enforce the replacement of water service lines that contain lead. Cleanups and Blood Tests The EPA has been reexamining Omaha’s Superfund site, particularly how contaminated dirt has to be to qualify for cleanup. One factor that may influence the cleanup decision is local blood lead data. In 2019, the EPA wrote in a review of the Omaha site that its plan “may not protect children,” given that the CDC had lowered the concentration at which it considers someone’s blood lead level “high.”  Nearly 27,000 Omaha properties could have qualified for cleanup if the EPA applied guidance that had been set under the Biden administration to better match the updated advice on blood lead levels, according to documents obtained by the Flatwater Free Press and ProPublica. But those guidelines were rolled back last fall by the Trump administration, tempering some experts’ expectations and residents’ hopes for additional cleanup. The EPA plans to have updates on its Omaha cleanup plans by the end of the year, agency spokesperson Ashford said.  Ashford also said the EPA uses local blood lead data, when it’s available, to set or lower cleanup levels. The local data also helps establish whether other remedies are needed, such as interior dust screenings or repainting homes that have lead paint. Blood lead test supplies include a tool for pricking fingers, an alcohol swab, a test tube and a bandage. Rebecca S. Gratz for ProPublica Jahmel gets high-fives from his sisters, 13-year-old Arielle, center, and 11-year-old Aubrie, following his successful blood test with medical assistant Jessica Brom. Rebecca S. Gratz for ProPublica But using blood data to understand the prevalence of lead is problematic, said Danielle Land, a University of Iowa public health researcher. Lead only stays in the blood for about 30 days, meaning an exposure can be missed even though it can continue to cause damage. Testing kids in winter when they spend more time inside versus summer when they’re playing outside can also provide different results. Isolating how someone was exposed or whether a cleanup is behind a decline in blood lead levels can be difficult. Despite those issues, Land said she’s seen declines in the number of kids with high blood lead levels “shape public and institutional narratives” about whether to investigate or fix hazards in places like Flint, Michigan, where millions have been spent replacing lead pipes, or Anniston, Alabama, where the soil was contaminated. In 2018, the EPA said blood lead data in Omaha could shape how the agency conducts cleanups elsewhere. Industries and local government officials have used low blood lead levels to avoid cleanups before, said Larry Zaragoza, a retired EPA employee who spent decades analyzing and developing policies relating to lead risk.  In the 1990s, a Colorado county and the state argued against widespread cleanup in the town of Leadville, Zaragoza said. Residents spent years criticizing the EPA’s research and felt the agency was unfairly saddling corporations that owned local mining operations with cleanup costs, news reports show. Cleanups only happened at homes where kids’ blood tests came back as high or where yards contained nearly nine times the levels required to qualify for a cleanup in Omaha.  Still, the agency needs a way to measure success, said Woolford, the former Superfund program director. The data can be valuable if enough kids are tested and they generally represent the area.  “Youre going to need, even with all its uncertainties, some indicator of whats happened over time,” he said. As Jovanni gets older, Daniels said her fear for his health has dissipated. Her son loves Ferraris and Dodge Challengers. He wrestles, plays soccer and rides his bike.  But he was also exposed to lead, which can carry lifelong consequences similar to the behavioral issues he’s dealing with. Daniels wonders how many other parents have kids like him but may never know why. “I think that needs to be standard across the board — all kids getting tested,” she said. Jovanni’s mother found out about his lead poisoning early. But since lead testing is not required in Nebraska, it’s largely up to the doctor or health system whether to test a child’s blood for lead. Lily Smith/Flatwater Free Press The post Omaha Is Home to a Massive Superfund Site. Most Kids Living There Aren’t Tested for Lead. appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Environment, Health Care, Pollution]

— Colorado Marijuana Regulators Pledge Crackdown on Intoxicating Hemp

 

at 4/14/26 1:00pm

Colorado regulators announced on Monday that they plan to crack down on companies that illegally sell cheaper and potentially hazardous hemp products as marijuana. The state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division said it had detected “regulatory compliance issues” that threaten to unravel the marijuana industry in the nation’s first legal retail market. These issues “present serious risks to public safety, market integrity and the tax revenue framework that supports Colorado’s regulated cannabis industry,” the agency stated in an industry bulletin. A Denver Gazette and ProPublica investigation in January reported that, despite Colorado being one of the first states to ban the sale of intoxicating hemp products, the legislature and regulators failed to adopt many regulations that other states have employed to keep hemp products off marijuana dispensary shelves. Creating the liquid distillate for vapes and edibles from hemp is much cheaper than using marijuana, giving companies a competitive advantage. But regulators say they’re worried because manufacturers rely on toxic and potentially hazardous chemicals to convert the nonintoxicating compound CBD that is prevalent in hemp into THC, the psychoactive compound that makes people feel high. Regulators have banned such chemical synthesis because they say they fear chemical residues could remain in finished products, imperiling consumers. Colorado manufacturers have exploited gaps in the state’s testing and enforcement system to continue using hemp to make products marketed as marijuana, even though doing so is against state law, according to regulatory investigations, previous agency bulletins and testimony and lab results contained in several lawsuits. In 2024, state investigators found that one popular brand of marijuana vapes sold in dispensaries was not only derived from hemp, but also contaminated with methylene chloride, a chemical often used to convert CBD from hemp into THC. It is prohibited by Colorado’s marijuana regulators and banned for most uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency because it can cause liver and lung cancer and damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems. Read More Smoke and Mirrors: How Intoxicating Hemp Seeped Into the First Recreational Marijuana Market in the Country Ware Hause, the company that manufactured those vapes, surrendered its marijuana license in response to the investigation. Ware Hause’s owner, Thanh Hau, and the company’s lawyer have declined to comment. Congress passed a law last November banning nearly all intoxicating hemp products throughout the country starting this fall, but it’s unclear how the government will implement that ban, and hemp manufacturers are pushing to overturn it. In December, President Donald Trump issued an executive order telling his aides to work with Congress on developing regulations that could allow some hemp products. Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division announced in the Monday bulletin that agency officials had “identified and investigated evidence” indicating marijuana businesses are using illicit practices and banned methods to manufacture products instead of relying on marijuana, which is supposed to be tracked for safety. The Colorado Hemp Association and the Colorado Hemp Education Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Beyond the safety issues, the bulletin also noted that some marijuana manufacturers and cultivators are avoiding marijuana tax obligations through “a pattern of noncompliance” in the sales transactions they report to the state’s “seed-to-sale” tracking system, which follows marijuana from initial planting to the sale of pot, vapes and other products in dispensaries. Companies are misreporting their bulk marijuana sales at nominal prices, in some cases as low as $1 a pound for unprocessed marijuana material, the bulletin stated. Those products typically fetch as much as $600 a pound on the open market, depending on the category of marijuana, according to industry insiders. Such fraudulent reporting has robbed the state and local governments of millions of dollars in marijuana tax revenue, industry insiders say, though there’s no official estimate. The agency said it would pursue emergency rules to address such problems. Suspicious and anomalous transactions and inventories the state detects will prompt investigations, the bulletin stressed. Companies caught using hemp or other illicit material they pass off as marijuana face “immediate product embargo, license suspension or revocation, significant monetary penalties and referral to law enforcement,” the regulators warned. The Denver Gazette and ProPublica have attempted to track anomalous transactions, but the Marijuana Enforcement Division has maintained that the sales transaction records, even those that don’t identify companies, are not public.  Marijuana industry representatives met with division regulators late last month to press for a more aggressive response to hemp substitution from the agency, even though it could affect some companies in the industry. The representatives argued that bad actors are unfairly driving down prices and shifting the tax burden to manufacturers and cultivators who are trying to follow the rules. The bulletin was released a couple of weeks after that meeting. “The division is also exploring additional modifications to its testing and screening protocols to detect” illicit products and banned methods, and it may require additional lab testing “of products throughout the supply chain as needed,” the agency’s bulletin stated. The post Colorado Marijuana Regulators Pledge Crackdown on Intoxicating Hemp appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Regulation]

— Caught in the Crackdown: As Arrests at Anti-ICE Protests Piled Up, Prosecutions Crumbled

 

at 4/14/26 8:00am

The National Guard soldiers in desert camo piled out of unmarked vans in East Los Angeles last June, cordoning off East Sixth Street, a residential street lined with single family houses, and blocking a nearby road leading to an elementary school. A squad of federal agents moved in flinging flash-bang grenades — explosives designed to disorient — into a small home before storming inside. They’d come for Alejandro Orellana, a Marine Corps veteran and UPS employee accused of being a central figure in a secret confederacy of insurrectionists. A news video had shown the 30-year-old distributing water, food and face shields to people protesting the Trump administration’s immigration roundups in Los Angeles. Bill Essayli, a former state legislator who leads the federal prosecutor’s office in Los Angeles, joined the raid along with a Fox News crew. With cameras rolling, Orellana, his parents and brothers were led out in handcuffs as agents searched their home. On Fox News, Essayli, sporting a blue FBI windbreaker, hyped the arrest of Orellana, a quiet, wiry man with a long mane of coal-black hair. “It appears they’re well-orchestrated and coordinated, and well-funded,” he said. “And today was one of the first arrests — first key arrests — that we did.” Essayli would charge Orellana with conspiracy — under a federal statute typically used to build cases against drug traffickers and organized crime — and with aiding and abetting civil disorder. Within weeks, the prosecutor’s marquee case would quietly fall apart. Agents who searched Orellana’s house found little that could be considered incriminating, and prosecutors never charged anyone else as part of the supposed conspiracy. By late July, they moved to have the charges dismissed. It wouldn’t be the only such case. Alejandro Orellana was arrested under the federal conspiracy statute, but within weeks the case fell apart. FRONTLINE Over the past 10 months, President Donald Trump’s administration has made much of its success in sweeping through U.S. cities, capturing unauthorized immigrants and arresting people who publicly oppose the operations, routinely accusing dissenters of being domestic terrorists or extremists. Federal agents have arrested hundreds of U.S. citizens like Orellana — including protesters, activists observing the immigration enforcement operations, bystanders and, in some cases, the family members of people targeted for deportation. Less clear to the public is what has happened to those charged. To find out, ProPublica and FRONTLINE combed through social media, court records and news stories. Reporters identified more than 300 protesters and bystanders who were arrested by federal agents during immigration sweeps and were accused of crimes such as assaulting or interfering with law enforcement.  But over and over those accusations fell apart under scrutiny. Our reviews of court files found that statements made by the arresting officers were repeatedly debunked by video footage. In more than a third of the cases, prosecutors quickly dismissed charges that couldn’t be substantiated, refused to file charges at all, or lost at trial. The tally of cases that end this way will likely climb as many of the arrests remain unresolved. Co-published With “Whats happening now is not comparable to anything thats happened in the past,” said Cuauhtémoc Ortega, the chief federal defender for the Central District of California, who personally represented Orellana and other protesters. “Weve never had a situation where it seems like you arrest first and then try to justify the reasons for the arrests later.” The Department of Homeland Security, which includes Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the arrests and declined to answer detailed questions from ProPublica and FRONTLINE. But in a statement in response to an earlier story, DHS said, “The First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting. DHS is taking reasonable and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers.” Watch the Trailer for FRONTLINE and ProPublica’s Documentary on ICE Crackdowns Given the unprecedented nature of the urban sweeps, it is difficult to compare the rate of failed cases to another time period or context. But current and former federal prosecutors and other legal experts said having that number of arrests come to nothing is particularly striking in the federal system, where U.S. attorneys usually secure convictions or guilty pleas in more than 90% of the cases they bring; only 8.2% of federal criminal cases were dismissed in 2022, according to data compiled by that court system. The failures highlight the challenges of sending large numbers of federal agents into major cities to conduct roving immigration sweeps: They aren’t accustomed to dealing with crowds of angry protesters  Border Patrol agents are typically stationed at the border where their day-to-day work entails scooping up people who have crossed illegally. ICE agents, who often work in urban settings, had little prior experience handling hostile crowds. And FBI agents, who have aided in the immigration sweeps, would normally spend months or years painstakingly amassing evidence before making arrests. That lack of experience in street policing and crowd control, coupled with the Trump administration’s demand for huge numbers of deportations, led agents to make a wave of unjustified arrests, legal experts say. To be sure, protesters have often engaged in hostile behavior, hurling expletives, getting in agents’ faces and occasionally becoming violent. A woman in Minnesota is accused of biting off part of an agent’s finger during a scuffle after the killing of Alex Pretti in late January; in Los Angeles, an officer outside an immigration detention facility suffered a dislocated finger after a protester allegedly grabbed his bulletproof vest and shook him.  But the agents’ conduct has also frequently been violent. As ProPublica and FRONTLINE reported last year, they have routinely shot pepper balls or tear gas at protesters in ways that violate their own rules, causing severe injuries to demonstrators in several cities.  “The agents, they dont know how to operate in these situations,” said Christy Lopez, a former Justice Department attorney who spent years investigating misconduct by law enforcement. Their behavior, she said, “is on par with the worst protest policing and just law enforcement that Ive seen from any department, even in their worst days. ProPublica and FRONTLINE compiled information on the arrests of hundreds of U.S. citizens — including protesters, activists observing the immigration enforcement operations, bystanders and, in some cases, the family members of people targeted for deportation — in Los Angeles; Chicago; Minneapolis; and Charlotte, North Carolina, four key jurisdictions where the Department of Homeland Security has staged high-profile campaigns. We gathered reports from federal prosecutors, federal defenders, news reports, lawsuits, personal interviews, and DHS press releases and social media posts. We found court files for about 300 of the arrests and compared the original charges, internal DHS reports, additional evidence and outcomes. Many of these cases are still pending. We were unable to find court records for every arrest, and were unable to determine the outcomes of some. In its earlier statement, DHS said that “rioters and terrorists” have repeatedly attacked immigration agents, but ICE and Customs and Border Protection personnel “are trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and themselves.” The arrests are not without consequence. Even unsuccessful prosecutions can be costly and emotionally taxing for defendants, said Jared Fishman, a former career prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The aggressive tactics of the agents and the gleeful social media posts by DHS accusing protesters of serious crimes, Fishman said, affect people’s willingness to publicly challenge the mass deportation policies.  “If the goal of the Trump administration is to keep people out of the streets, then it doesn’t matter if the people are getting convicted,” said Fishman, now the executive director of the Justice Innovation Lab, a nonprofit focused on creating a more equitable and effective justice system. “I’m sure it’s having a chilling effect.” After reviewing data and some court records for ProPublica and FRONTLINE, Fishman said, “The numbers seem to indicate a pattern and practice of illegal arrests.” “We Must Identify Him” The crackdown on protesters began in June of 2025, when the Department of Homeland Security launched its wave of major immigration sweeps in Southern California. The campaign was led by Gregory Bovino, a veteran Border Patrol chief who normally presided over a remote stretch of sand and scrub deep in the state’s Imperial Valley. Bovino from the start encouraged his agents to shut down or arrest protesters. “Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders, all the way to the top,” Bovino told his officers, footage from an agent’s body-worn camera shows. “Everybody fucking gets it if they touch you.” He went on to remind them that their actions should be “legal, ethical, moral” while encouraging them to use so-called less lethal weapons on protesters. “We’re gonna look at shipping tractor trailers full of that shit in here,” he said.  Bovino’s forces repeatedly fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at the heads and faces of demonstrators and journalists.  Bovino’s aggressive tactics sparked intense opposition from Angelenos, including those gathered in the streets in front of the sprawling federal office complex in downtown Los Angeles on June 9.  That day Orellana drove his Ford F-150 pickup truck loaded with bottled water, snacks and cardboard boxes containing Uvex brand face shields — clear plastic masks designed to protect industrial workers from flying debris and chemical splashes — to the protest. When he arrived in front of the federal building, another person hopped into the bed and began handing out the supplies to protesters gathered outside the entrance. Orellana told FRONTLINE and ProPublica that he decided to help distribute the supplies after watching federal agents fire tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds at an earlier demonstration. “A bunch of us took it upon ourselves to, you know, go downtown and give out these resources — the food, water and of course the PPE,” he said, referring to personal protective equipment. Video and photos quickly made their way onto social media. An X user with more than 30,000 followers posted a photo of Orellana. “A photograph of the man delivering boxes of gas masks to the rioters has emerged,” wrote the poster. “We must identify him, so we can track down who is funding this coordinated attack.” From there the thread was picked up by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has a vast audience on the platform. Jones, who repeatedly claimed that financier and philanthropist George Soros was funding the protests, eventually named Orellana as the driver of the pickup. More than two million people saw the post.  Within 48 hours, the soldiers and federal agents arrived to arrest Orellana. Fox News showed Orellana sitting in his truck, first image, while people hand out bottled water, snacks and face shields he brought to the protest, and also covered his later arrest, second image. Via Fox News Over the next five months, they arrested more than one hundred U.S. citizens in Los Angeles and other cities in Southern California — most of them demonstrators — charging them with assaulting federal law enforcement personnel or interfering with agents’ activities. Others were accused of damaging government property. At least 16, like Orellana, were charged with conspiracy, which can carry a sentence of up to six years in prison. ProPublica and FRONTLINE found that more than a third of those cases crumbled. In eight instances, juries acquitted defendants at trial. But more frequently, prosecutors dropped charges when the claims made by immigration officers and agents didn’t match video evidence or other inconsistencies emerged. In several cases, prosecutors declined to file charges at all.  There have been some successful prosecutions: 32 of the 116 people whose arrests in California we reviewed have been convicted, many pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges. And in late February, jurors convicted two activists on stalking charges after they livestreamed themselves following an immigration agent to his home; the pair were acquitted of conspiracy. Today 38 cases are still pending. Essayli has stated on social media that his office brought more than 100 cases and secured convictions in more than half of them. When asked about the discrepancy between his claims and the data compiled by ProPublica and FRONTLINE, he declined to comment.  “The U.S. attorneys office does not lose cases because theyre bad lawyers,” said Carley Palmer, who spent eight years as a federal prosecutor in the office Essayli now runs. “They are excellent trial attorneys. So if theyre losing a case, it may mean that the evidence isnt there, or it may mean that the community doesnt believe it should be a federal crime.” Palmer, who is now in private practice, said the glut of protest and low-level criminal immigration cases have shifted resources away from the complex prosecutions the DOJ is uniquely equipped to handle: environmental crimes, public corruption, financial fraud, cyberscams, civil rights violations. Essayli declined to be interviewed for this story or an accompanying FRONTLINE documentary set to air Tuesday. He was appointed by the Trump administration in early 2025, but he has never been confirmed by the Senate, raising ongoing questions about the legality of his role as top prosecutor for the region. His office did not respond to detailed questions sent by email. Like Orellana, Julian Pecora Cardenas, 31, was charged with conspiracy last summer after following a convoy of federal agents in his car. On the morning of July 5, Pecora Cardenas followed vans full of Border Patrol agents after they left a Coast Guard station in San Pedro, south of Los Angeles, livestreaming their movements on Instagram. “Its every citizens duty to conduct oversight of their government,” he said. “I was within my First Amendment rights.” After roughly 30 minutes, the agents stopped, pulled Pecora Cardenas from his Hyundai and slammed him to the pavement. “I honestly thought it was going to be like a George Floyd moment,” Pecora Cardenas recalled in an interview, alleging that multiple agents pinned him to the asphalt with their knees. He suffered a concussion, needed stitches over his left eye and wore an orthopedic collar to stabilize his injured neck. Julian Pecora Cardenas was charged with conspiracy last summer after following a convoy of federal agents in his car. Carlos Jaramillo for ProPublica Federal prosecutors charged Pecora Cardenas and another activist with conspiracy to impede the federal agents, saying that they “were illegally maneuvering their vehicles through traffic, stop lights, and stop signs to stay behind the agent’s vehicles,” that they tried to block the Border Patrol vehicles, and that they created “hazardous conditions on the road.” Pecora Cardenas’ own video of the day’s events told a different story. The footage, which ProPublica and FRONTLINE have reviewed, contradicts the claims that the men had interfered with the agents. Within days of seeing the images, Essayli’s office jettisoned the charges “in the interest of justice.” Pecora Cardenas hasn’t tried to observe federal agents or participate in a protest since his arrest. “I dont want to be assaulted again. I dont want to wind up back in federal prison for something that I didnt do.” “They Were Just Randomly Grabbing People” When Bovino, the Border Patrol chief, left California and took his forces to Illinois last fall, their focus on protesters intensified. In roughly one month, federal agents arrested more than a hundred American citizens, many of them activists participating in demonstrations or documenting the movements of immigration agents as their convoys of rented SUVs rolled through the streets of Chicago and surrounding communities. But Justice Department prosecutors in Chicago had less success prosecuting those arrested than their peers in California. On the morning of Oct. 3, 2025, about two hundred demonstrators gathered near the ICE facility in Broadview, a small town in the western suburbs of Chicago. Tucked away in a quiet industrial park, the nondescript building had become the locus of ongoing protests since Bovino and his forces had arrived in Illinois. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, accompanied by a DHS video team, was on site that day wearing a baseball cap and a black ballistic vest. Also present was Benny Johnson, a prominent podcaster and online influencer who is close to the Trump administration. Johnson, who had brought his own camera crew to shoot video for his YouTube channel and other social media accounts, was effectively embedded with Noem, Bovino and the immigration agents. First image: Protesters clash with Border Patrol and other federal agents in Illinois on Oct. 3, 2025. Second image: Gregory Bovino on the same day. Tom Hudson/Zuma/Reuters and Jamie Kelter David/Redux At about 9 a.m., Bovino and a phalanx of heavily armed agents in combat gear began striding down Harvard Street toward the protesters. “Walk slowly,” Bovino told his men. Without a bullhorn or any sort of amplification, Bovino informed the crowd that they were being dispersed. Then he and his colleagues began shoving people to the ground and arresting them. In a matter of minutes, a dozen protesters had been handcuffed. Three arrestees interviewed by ProPublica and FRONTLINE told us they were confused because they’d been standing in a “free speech zone” set up by state officials.  “I felt somebody grab my shoulder and pull me to the ground,” said Juan Muñoz, a business owner and elected leader in nearby Oak Park Township. “And once I fell onto my back, thats when I saw it was Greg Bovino.” Kyle Frankovich, a Harvard data scientist and Chicago resident, was also arrested. “They were just randomly grabbing people,” he recalled. “There was nowhere to go, people were falling all over the place, and several of the people they arrested simply had the misfortune of tripping over all of the other protesters” as federal agents surged into the crowd. Frankovich said FBI agents who questioned him asked who had paid for him to participate in the demonstration and who “covered the transportation cost for you to be here today.” Johnson’s video team and a DHS camera crew filmed the arrested protesters as they were lined up outside the ICE building, while Noem looked on. DHS posted photos of Frankovich in handcuffs on X and Facebook with the message, “We will NOT allow violent activist to lay hands on our law enforcement.” Johnson, who has more than more than 4 million followers on X and more than 6 million subscribers on YouTube, posted a video on X panning across the arrested protesters and wrote: “I saw dozens of Democrat domestic terrorists arrested today for VIOLENT ASSAULT on federal law enforcement. Every activist here attacked ICE agents in broad daylight just for enforcing American law.” He made the same claim in a nearly 13-minute-long YouTube video. Such social media content had become a central feature of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign. DHS, Border Patrol and a raft of allied social media influencers regularly produced slick videos showing agents in action: riding in helicopters, striding through city streets clutching rifles, breaking down doors, and apprehending immigrants and activists.  But on that day in Chicago, DHS had strayed far from the facts. And so had Johnson, a 38-year-old former journalist who turned to social media after being embroiled in plagiarism scandals at BuzzFeed and the Independent Journal Review.  After about eight hours in custody, Frankovich, Muñoz and nearly all the others were released without charges. In the end, only one person would be prosecuted. Neither DHS nor Johnson have taken the posts down. Johnson did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The lone person charged with a crime that day was Cole Sheridan, who was accused of attacking Bovino and sending him to the hospital with an injured groin muscle. Sheridan spent three and a half days in jail — “probably the most unpleasant thing I’ve ever had to experience,” he said in an interview with FRONTLINE and ProPublica — before being released. In court, a prosecutor said that Sheridan had thrown a punch at Bovino and pushed him, transcripts show. The evidence presented by the Justice Department, though, was slim. Bovino didn’t wear a body camera, so prosecutors relied on video from the body camera of Border Patrol agent Jason Epperson. But it didn’t show Sheridan assaulting anyone — though he did call Bovino “a fucking idiot.” In statements to investigators, Bovino and Epperson had offered conflicting accounts of the encounter. About a month after Sheridan was arrested, prosecutors moved to dismiss the case after a bystander video surfaced showing clearly that Sheridan hadn’t assaulted Bovino. “I dont know if Ive ever experienced something truly that bizarre and absurd as, like, seeing a law enforcement agent concoct a narrative to arrest me, to press charges against me,” said Sheridan, who describes himself as intensely private and was initially reluctant to talk publicly about his arrest. “That was extremely unnerving.” He remains worried that he’ll be harassed or even physically attacked because of the inflammatory social media posts about him. “What a farce. Every element of it felt staged,” he said.  In a statement to ProPublica and FRONTLINE, Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said, “Our willingness to be open-minded and dismiss cases — or not file charges in the first place — reflects our commitment to do the right thing even in those cases where a crime was committed and the conduct in question clearly falls outside any protected First Amendment activity.” He declined to comment directly on Sheridan’s case. FRONTLINE and ProPublica showed video of Sheridan’s arrest to Lopez, the former Justice Department attorney. “It’s just a gross abuse of power,” she said. “And weve almost normalized that this is how federal law enforcement behaves now. They just arrest people.” Of the 109 arrests that ProPublica and FRONTLINE documented in the Chicago area, federal prosecutors dropped charges in at least 75 cases. Felony Charges Downgraded When Bovino and his forces arrived in North Carolina last November, they were greeted by protesters opposed to the deportation sweeps, as they had been in previous cities. Heather Morrow was one of them. She had joined a small group of demonstrators, chanting and banging on metal dishes outside an immigration facility in Charlotte when ICE officers confronted the group.  They handcuffed Morrow, 45, and another activist, stuffed them in the back of a federal vehicle and, according to Morrow, kept them there for hours before finally taking her to jail. “I was so traumatized,” Morrow, a school bus driver and dog boarder, said in an interview. “I didn’t expect them to be so overly aggressive. I really showed up there expecting conversation, making them come to their senses.” After a full day and night in custody, she was released to face federal felony assault charges. A Department of Justice press release accused her of attacking an ICE officer just as he showed up for his work shift, grabbing his shoulders and trying to jump on his back. But a shaky phone video circulating on social media showed what appeared to be a very different scene. In it, an officer comes from behind and abruptly tackles Morrow to the pavement. The video doesn’t show her assaulting anyone. When prosecutors saw the video, they dumped the felony charges. But they promptly filed a new misdemeanor case against Morrow and the other activist, alleging the pair impeded ICE officers and failed to follow their orders. It took a month for Morrow to get her phone back from federal custody, while her other confiscated possessions, including her keys, have been lost, Morrow’s attorney said. Because she’s on pretrial probation, the federal government has seized her passport. Morrow has pleaded not guilty, and her case is ongoing. Heather Morrow Juan Diego Reyes for ProPublica In Handcuffs and Intimidated By early December, Bovino had brought his aggressive campaign and his social media team to Minnesota. Within weeks, two activists — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were shot and killed by immigration agents. The Trump administration immediately portrayed Good as an extremist; Bovino claimed that Pretti was planning to kill federal personnel when he was shot to death. The killings, which sparked national outcry, would prompt the administration to recalibrate. By Jan. 26, Bovino had been demoted and sent back to his home station in the California desert.  But immigration agents continued to roam the Twin Cities, and activists continued to get arrested. Civil rights attorneys from around the country gathered in a Minneapolis conference room on Jan. 30 to discuss those arrests. During a break for lunch, Jon Feinberg, president of the National Police Accountability Project, stepped out of the room and spoke to reporters. “To be charged with a federal crime is something that is life-altering,” said Feinberg, who is based in Philadelphia. “The consequences of being accused and possibly convicted of a federal offense are devastating, especially when people have not engaged in criminal conduct from any reasonable persons perspective.” ProPublica and FRONTLINE have identified nearly 80 arrests stemming from the Minnesota immigration sweeps. Most of the cases are still ongoing, though a handful have been dismissed.  Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, did not respond to requests for comment. One of those arrested was Rebecca Ringstrom, who lives in Blaine, a quiet suburb north of Minneapolis. Ringstrom, 42, is a member of an activist group that tracks immigration agents as they move around Blaine. “There was a vehicle with four agents inside that I could see. All four were in tactical gear,” she said in an interview with ProPublica and FRONTLINE. “I was able to look at the plate and see that it was a confirmed ICE vehicle.” Behind the wheel of her Kia, she began following them; Ringstrom insists her driving was safe and lawful. But in a matter of minutes, she’d been arrested and accused of interfering with federal law enforcement. Ringstrom said an agent at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, where she was briefly held after her arrest, said he wished he’d arrested her — because he would’ve made the experience more unpleasant and violent. “There was no reason to say that. Im already here. Im in handcuffs. Its just a way to intimidate,” she recalled. She was charged with interfering with a federal agent and issued a notice of violation — essentially a ticket — for the misdemeanor offense. Since then, Ringstrom has lined up a pro bono lawyer, but she has also lost her job, “likely due to the ongoing coverage” of her arrest. She is scheduled to make her first court appearance later this month.  The post Caught in the Crackdown: As Arrests at Anti-ICE Protests Piled Up, Prosecutions Crumbled appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Criminal Justice, Immigration]

— Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections

 

at 4/13/26 3:00am

In mid-December 2020, federal officials responsible for protecting American elections from fraud converged in a windowless, dim, fortified room at the Justice Department’s downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters. They had been summoned by Attorney General William Barr. Over the preceding weeks, Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election had been stolen from him had reached a crescendo. He’d become obsessed with a conspiracy theory that voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, had switched votes from him to Joe Biden.  With each day, Trump ratcheted up the pressure to unleash the might of the federal government to undo his defeat.  Barr interrogated experts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, crammed in beside top FBI officials around a cheap table. He needed the group of around 10 to answer a crucial question: Was it really possible the 2020 presidential vote had been hacked? ProPublica’s description of the previously unreported meeting comes from several people who were in the room or were briefed on the gathering. Everyone understood that the meeting represented an important moment for the nation, they said. Barr, who did not respond to requests for comment, had walked a delicate line with Trump, instructing the FBI to investigate allegations of election irregularities while declaring publicly there had been no evidence “to date” of widespread fraud. The nonpartisan specialists from CISA, backed by their FBI counterparts, explained they’d unravelled what had happened in Antrim County. A clerk had made a mistake when updating ballot styles on machines, leading to a software problem that initially transferred votes from Republicans to Democrats, they said. There was no fraud, just human error — which would soon be publicly confirmed through a hand count of the county’s ballots. Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski Listening intently, Barr seemed to understand both the truth and that telling it to the president would almost certainly cost him his job.  At the end of the meeting, Barr turned to his top deputy, made hand motions as if he was tying on a bandana and said he was going to “kamikaze” into the White House.  What happened next is well known. When Barr met with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 14, the president launched into a monologue about how the events in Antrim County were “absolute proof” that the election had been stolen. Barr waited to get a word in edgewise before telling his boss what the experts from CISA had told him. Do you have information you can share about federal officials working on elections or any of the individuals in this article? Reporter Doug Bock Clark can be reached at doug.clark@propublica.org and on Signal at 678-243-0784. Reporter Jen Fifield can be reached at jen.fifield@propublica.org and on Signal at 480-476-0108. If you’re concerned about confidentiality, check out our advice on the most secure ways to share tips. Then Barr offered his resignation letter, which Trump accepted. Barr left believing he’d done his part to preserve democratic norms.  “I was saddened,” Barr wrote of Trump in his memoir. “If he actually believed this stuff he had become significantly detached from reality.” Barr was one of many federal officials — most of them Trump appointees — who refused to bend to the president’s demands, which only intensified after Barr was gone. Although rioters inspired by Trump managed to delay the certification of his defeat by storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ultimately the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — barely. But if faced with the same tests today, the guardrails and people that held the line would largely be missing, an examination by ProPublica found.  ProPublica scrutinized what happened the last time Trump lost a national election. Some of that happened in plain sight: After a cascade of defeats in court, Trump began pressuring state and local officials to overturn the results. But more happened behind the scenes, like the meeting that helped persuade Barr to hold the line. Our reporting uncovered previously undisclosed aspects of a federal effort to safeguard the results of the 2020 vote, which involved at least 75 people across several agencies. Today, nearly all of those people are gone, having resigned, been fired or been reassigned, particularly in the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. That included the cybersecurity specialists who had established that the Antrim County allegations were false and reported their findings to Barr.  The people we identified as resisting attempts to overturn the 2020 results have been replaced by roughly two dozen people Trump has installed in positions that could affect elections. Ten of them actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote, and the rest are associates of such people. In some cases, ProPublica found, officials have been hired from activist groups that are pillars of the election denial movement. Experts warn that shows the movement has merged with the federal government. These new officials could influence how Trump reacts to the upcoming midterms as polling shows Republicans are approaching what could be a significant electoral loss, with the president’s approval rating nearing record lows, and public concern growing about the weak economy, the administration’s mass deportation effort and the war on Iran. Seemingly in preparation to head off such a blow, Trump has stepped up his efforts to “nationalize” the 2026 elections, saying that Republicans need “to take over” the midterms. Democrats who monitored Trump’s attempts to block his 2020 loss have begun to question whether he will allow a “blue wave,” particularly if it flips control of a House of Representatives that impeached him twice in his first term. ProPublica’s examination reveals new details on how the president has unleashed his loyalists to transform elections. This includes the background of this year’s FBI raid in Georgia to seize 2020 election materials and how they are using federal resources to search for noncitizens voting. Ultimately, ProPublica’s reporting shows how thoroughly and expansively the Trump administration has overhauled the federal government into what some fear is a vehicle for making sure elections go his way. ProPublica’s reporting is based on interviews with roughly 30 current or former executive branch officials familiar with the work of Trump loyalists installed in election roles. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear retribution, including those knowledgeable about the December 2020 Barr meeting.  The Trump administration maintains its actions will make U.S. elections fairer and more secure — and keep those prohibited from voting, such as noncitizens, from doing so. “Election integrity has always been a top priority for President Trump,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “The President will do everything in his power to defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them.” Spokespeople for the DOJ and DHS emphasized that their departments are focused on ensuring elections are free and fair, and that they are working closely with the states to achieve those goals. Contentions to the contrary, they say, are false. A few guardrails have endured, preventing Trump from fully realizing his agenda for elections. Judges have blocked key parts of a March 2025 executive order in which Trump attempted to exert greater federal control over aspects of voting, and some Republican state officials have fought back against Justice Department lawsuits demanding state voter rolls.  Late last month, Trump issued another executive order on elections that attempts to exert unparalleled federal control over mail-in voting and voter eligibility, which Democrats and voting rights groups are challenging in court. Experts say 2026 will serve as an unprecedented stress test of the integrity of American elections.    “Our election system withstood” Trump’s “attacks following the 2020 election,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who has led the pushback to the administration’s actions on elections, “but this will be an even tougher test, with more election deniers having access to federal power than ever before.” Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski The Dismantling Barr has said that in the high-stakes days following the 2020 election, he felt like he was playing Whac-A-Mole with Trump’s “avalanche” of false election claims. The investigators at DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency supplied intelligence that disproved many of them, not just those involving Antrim County. CISA was created by Trump in his first term to counter cyber threats in the aftermath of Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 vote. It soon came to provide crucial expertise and support to thousands of local election officials grappling with increasingly sophisticated attacks.  After the 2020 election, it also played a crucial part in puncturing fallacies spread by Trump supporters, producing a “Rumor Control” website to rebut them. And it partnered with state officials and technology vendors to release a statement calling the election “the most secure in American history.” Trump swiftly fired Chris Krebs, whom he had appointed to lead CISA, but Krebs’ defense of the election’s soundness reverberated widely in the media and on Capitol Hill. Among Trump’s first actions upon returning to the Oval Office was eviscerating CISA.  Starting in February 2025, DHS leadership put employees focused on countering disinformation and helping safeguard elections on leave. The leadership also froze the agency’s other election security work, which included assessing local election offices for physical and cybersecurity risks, and disseminating sensitive intelligence information on threats. Eventually, all three dozen or so CISA employees specializing in elections were fired or transferred to work in other areas.  “It took years of dedicated, bipartisan, cross-sector partnership to build the security infrastructure we’ve had, and dismantling CISA leaves a gaping hole,” said Kathy Boockvar, an elections security expert who served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state from 2019 to 2021. “We are making the job of securing our democracy exponentially harder.” A DHS spokesperson told ProPublica that the changes at CISA were in response to “a ballooning budget concealing a dangerous departure from its statutory mission,” which included “electioneering instead of defending America’s critical infrastructure.” The spokesperson said that CISA’s mission is still to coordinate protection of critical infrastructure, including by supporting local partners against cyber threats. It isn’t just CISA that’s been gutted.  The Trump administration has discarded or diminished other federal initiatives with roles in protecting election integrity or blocking foreign interference. While many of these actions have been reported, together they reveal the full sweep of the changes.  First, the administration got rid of the National Security Council’s election security group, which convened departmental leaders to coordinate federal actions related to voting. Then in August, the administration dismantled the Foreign Malign Influence Center, a branch of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that had stymied efforts by Russia, China and Iran to interfere in the 2024 election.  A spokesperson for ODNI said the center was redundant and that its functions were folded into other parts of the office’s intelligence apparatus in ways that “arguably makes our ability to monitor and address threats from foreign adversaries stronger, more efficient and more effective.” However, former national security officials, including one who had worked at the center, told ProPublica that its functions had largely ceased. Caitlin Durkovich, who led the NSC’s election security work during the Biden administration, said that under Trump the federal government has “abandoned” its traditional role in preserving election integrity and security. “Nearly every program and capability to stop bad actors and support election administrators has been dismantled,” she said. “Heading into the midterms, this leaves states and localities exposed, without the intelligence support or federal coordination they need to detect and respond to threats in real time — precisely when the stakes are highest.” The early months of the second Trump administration also brought seismic changes to three parts of federal law enforcement with central roles in elections. Kash Patel, the FBI’s new director, dismantled the public corruption team, which had been deployed in previous administrations to help monitor possible criminal activity on Election Day. The Foreign Influence Task Force, which aimed to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics, was also disbanded. (An FBI spokesperson said the bureau “remains committed to detecting and countering foreign influence efforts by adversarial nations.”) Furthermore, the Justice Department substantially reduced the role of its Public Integrity Section, which had been responsible for making sure the department’s inquiries weren’t improperly influenced by politics.  After the 2020 election, senior lawyers in the section warned against having the FBI investigate fraud claims raised by Trump allies, saying that the agency’s involvement could damage its reputation and appear motivated by partisanship. In this instance, they were overruled by Barr and his deputies, but former officials said this was a rare case in which their guidance was ignored. The need to directly overrule the unit, they said, made it a roadblock — one that no longer exists. A month after Trump returned to the Oval Office, the unit’s top staff resigned when agency leaders directed them to dismiss corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams. More resigned later or were transferred. The 36-person section was reduced to two. The administration no longer mandates that it review politically sensitive cases, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. Another key DOJ office, the Civil Rights Division’s voting section, had enforced federal laws that protect voting rights, particularly those that combat racial discrimination. In December 2020, the assistant attorney general overseeing the Civil Rights Division was one of the many department leaders who said they would resign if Trump promoted Jeffrey Clark, a leader who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, to head the department after Barr’s resignation. This mass threat of resignation ultimately led Trump to not promote Clark. But now, nearly all of the section’s roughly 30 career lawyers have resigned or been moved. This largely started last spring after Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, put out a memo saying their mission would shift from ensuring voting rights to enforcing Trump’s executive order on elections. The Trump administration then filled the section with conservative lawyers who are now litigating against the lawyers they replaced. At least four of those newly appointed lawyers participated in challenging the 2020 vote or have worked with people who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election. “It’s just a shocking and depressing reversal of the federal government’s role in making real the promise of nondiscrimination in voting and racial equality,” said Anna Baldwin, an appellate attorney for the Civil Rights Division who resigned last year and is now one of those litigating against the Justice Department in a new role at Campaign Legal Center. The Justice Department didn’t respond to specific questions about the dismantling of the Public Integrity Section or the change in mission for the Civil Rights Division. In all, at least 75 career officials who’d played important roles in elections work at DHS, DOJ and other departments have left or been fired, ProPublica found. Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski Team America Late last summer, after the Trump administration had forced out most of the career specialists, a small group of political appointees began convening at the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters.  The group — which once called itself “Team America,” according to sources familiar with the matter — looked for federal levers it could pull to make Trump’s March executive order about elections a reality, an effort that has not been previously reported.  They represented the new type of people running the show. Its core members included David Harvilicz, a DHS assistant secretary tasked with overseeing the security of election infrastructure, including voting machines, and three of his top staffers. As ProPublica has reported, Harvilicz had co-founded an AI company with an architect of Trump’s claims about Antrim County. Despite the setbacks the executive order had met with in court, there “was not a whole lot of discussion or disagreement” about acting on the directive from Harvilicz or one of his deputies, said a former federal official who interacted with group members. “It was just us saluting to do it.”  This small group was part of a wider team at DHS, DOJ and the White House seeking to push forward the president’s agenda. Some of Trump’s new guard are well known: After the 2020 election, Patel pressured military officials to help investigate a conspiracy theory about voting machines, according to a former Justice Department official. (Patel did not respond to a request for comment but claimed in congressional testimony that he did not recall the event.) Others, like Harvilicz, are more obscure but still wield consequential powers. These newcomers are seeking to carry out Trump’s executive orders and are unlikely to push back against his false claims that American elections are rife with fraud.  Team America members have echoed or spread such material themselves.  Heather Honey, who serves under Harvilicz in a newly created position focused on elections, falsely asserted that there were more ballots cast in Pennsylvania than voters in the 2020 presidential election. Trump cited this claim, which has been traced back to her, while exhorting his followers to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  At least 11 administration appointees, including Honey, have ties to the Election Integrity Network, a conservative grassroots organization seeking to transform American elections. It is led by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. Gineen Bresso, who holds a top job in the White House counsel’s office, coordinated with the network’s leadership in 2024 as the Republican National Committee’s election integrity chair, ProPublica has reported. Since moving into government, Honey has maintained close ties to Mitchell’s organization, and she and at least two other federal officials have given its members private briefings.  Experts say these former activists who helped forge a movement built on the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump are seeking to make sure that does not happen again. “The election denial movement is now interwoven within the federal government, and they are working together toward a shared goal of reshaping elections” in ways that undermine the freedom to vote, said Brendan Fischer, a director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan, pro-democracy legal organization. “It’s not just last-minute slapdash attempts to overturn the results” as in 2020, “but more systematic efforts to influence how elections are run months ahead of time.” In response to questions sent to DHS, Harvilicz and Honey, a DHS spokesperson disputed that they were seeking to use the department’s powers to advantage Trump, writing that its employees “are focused on keeping our elections safe, secure, and free” and working to “implement the President’s policies.” In response to questions about their ties to the election denial movement, the spokesperson wrote, “To meet the diverse and evolving challenges the Department faces, we hire experts with diverse backgrounds who go through a rigorous vetting process.” Mitchell did not respond to detailed questions from ProPublica. The White House answered questions sent to Bresso about her connection to Mitchell’s network by reiterating its commitment to making American elections secure.  Through the fall and winter, as the Justice Department demanded that states turn over confidential voter roll information, Team America worked to solve problems hindering the use of digital tools to comb the lists for noncitizens who had illegally registered to vote. Honey and others ironed out the technical details of merging information from different agencies and crafted data-sharing contracts. When Honey or others hit roadblocks, they’d go to the White House or senior DHS leaders who “would come in hot” to clear her path, said officials who interacted with them.  Initially, the plan was to run voter information obtained by DOJ through a Homeland Security tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system.  More recently, according to two people familiar with the matter, Team America has worked to harness a more powerful tool used by another branch of DHS, Homeland Security Investigations, to increase its ability to search for noncitizen voters and bring criminal charges against them.  While DHS told ProPublica that SAVE has identified more than 21,000 potential noncitizens on voter rolls in the past year, officials who have checked those results in detail have found vast inaccuracies, as ProPublica has reported. Most states — including those with millions of voters — have eventually marked only a few to a few hundred potential noncitizens as registered to vote, and far less have ever voted. The DHS spokesperson also called SAVE “secure and reliable.” As the election approaches, current and former officials and election security experts expressed concerns that Harvilicz and Honey, who’ve espoused debunked conspiracy theories about elections, are in positions to control the narrative around the vote’s soundness.  It’s hard to debunk false claims “coming with the seal of the federal government,” said Derek Tisler, counsel and manager with the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program. “I certainly worry what damage that could do to voters’ confidence.” Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski Red Flags Perhaps nothing better reflects the breakdown of the guardrails that thwarted Trump’s rashest impulses in 2020 than his creation last fall of a special White House post reinvestigating his loss to Biden.  In December 2020, just days after Barr rebuffed Trump’s Antrim County claims, lawyers in the White House counsel’s office helped prevent the president from heeding activists’ call to essentially declare martial law to seize voting machines. This multihour shouting and cussing match has been called the craziest meeting of the first Trump administration. But the lawyer whom Trump hired in 2025 as his director of election security and integrity, Kurt Olsen, had worked to overturn Trump’s loss in court in 2020 and was later sanctioned by judges, including for making baseless allegations about Arizona elections. Olsen’s work in the second Trump administration has breached the firewall between the White House and DOJ officials, established after Watergate to prevent law enforcement officers from making decisions based on political pressure, said Gary Restaino, a former U.S. attorney in Arizona. “This is not a constitutional or even a statutory requirement,” Restaino said, “but it’s a democracy requirement to make sure that citizens throughout America understand that decisions about life and liberty are being made in an objective and consistent manner.” In a previously unreported series of events, around the end of 2025, Olsen flew to Georgia to meet with Paul Brown, the head of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, according to people familiar with the matter.  Olsen wanted the FBI to seize 2020 ballots from Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold, and gave Brown a report he claimed would justify the extraordinary action. Brown and his team emphasized to Olsen that any investigation his team did would be independent and fair.  When Brown and his team examined the report, they found that Georgia’s election board had already looked into its allegations, dismissing many altogether, and concluding that others came down to human error, not criminal wrongdoing. The report had been assembled by a longtime ally of Olsen’s and participant in the Election Integrity Network who had a history of discredited claims, ProPublica has reported. Based on their own investigation, Brown’s team submitted an affidavit to their superiors at DOJ that did not make a strong enough case to move forward with what Olsen wanted. Soon after, Brown was offered a choice: retire or be moved to a new office, people with knowledge of the exchange told ProPublica.  Olsen did not respond to requests for comment. An FBI spokesperson said that Brown “elected to retire” and that its “work in the election security space is entirely consistent with the law.” Brown’s ouster after refusing to carry out the seizure of 2020 election materials has been reported, but Olsen’s involvement and the details of their interactions leading to Brown’s retirement have not been previously disclosed.  With Brown gone, the case moved ahead under his replacement.  Trump administration officials also took another step to keep control of the investigation.  Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi chose Thomas Albus, whom Trump had appointed as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, to prosecute the case even though it fell far outside his usual regional jurisdiction. Albus had been meeting with Olsen since around the time the White House lawyer was hired, ProPublica has reported. (Albus declined a request for comment.) In late January, the FBI carried out an unprecedented raid in Fulton County — and the agency’s affidavit, put together by Albus and Brown’s replacement, cited a version of the report Olsen gave to Brown as evidence supporting the seizure. ProPublica was part of a news coalition that sued to unseal the affidavit. An FBI spokesperson said that its agents “followed all procedure to ensure everything was in proper order, and FBI evidence team had the necessary court-authorized search warrant before they arrived on site.”  Ryan Crosswell, who worked in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section for around half a decade, handling a number of election cases, called Brown’s replacement and Albus’ involvement a “red flag” because of the unusual circumstances of their appointments.  “They’re just moving through people until they find someone who’s willing to do exactly what they want,” Crosswell said. The Justice Department did not respond to a question about Crosswell’s comment.   The extraordinary raid was also enabled in a previously unreported way by the destruction of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section. Multiple former lawyers for the section said they likely would have tried to block the Fulton County investigation because it lacked strong evidence, had a clear political slant and went against department directives that actions should not be taken “for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”  Crosswell said, “Based on everything we know, if PIN was still there, we’d say no.” John Keller was principal deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section from 2020 to 2025 and was acting chief when he resigned in early 2025. He worries that allegations of irregularities in the upcoming election will be handled on a partisan basis.   “Without that review and without apolitical, objective, honest brokers involved in the process, there is a much greater risk for intentional manipulation or inadvertent interference,” Keller said. Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski “Dismantling the Brain” The week the FBI seized Fulton County’s ballots, about half of the nation’s secretaries of state converged on Washington, D.C., for their winter conference.  They had urgent questions about elections for Bondi, then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other luminaries who had promised to appear at the event. But none of the headline names showed, leaving conference attendees staring at an empty podium, until the session was abruptly canceled. The breakdown was emblematic of a widening chasm between state officials and the parts of the federal government that had, until recently, worked with them to secure American elections. Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, said in an interview that the trust between the Trump administration and states is “absolutely demolished.”  This loss of trust reflects that election deniers have assumed so many top roles at federal agencies. Honey sometimes represents DHS on cross-departmental conference calls with state election chiefs, an unsettling reality for those who spent years countering the false claims she made from outside the government.  On a February call, state officials expressed confusion about whether the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would still assess their election systems for physical and cyber vulnerabilities. Honey said it would, but Bellows said she’d been told it wouldn’t.  Two DHS officials told ProPublica CISA’s remaining staff avoids election work, afraid they could lose their jobs if they engage with state and local officials. “In CISA, elections are a toxic poison,” one said.  A DHS spokesperson said state and federal officials are still working together “every single day” to protect elections and that “The claim that DHS has a broken partnership with states and made our elections less secure is simply false.” The cuts to career election specialists and their divisions have eliminated information channels that spotlighted threats as voting took place, including Election Day command posts run by the Justice Department and FBI. Another information channel, which DHS used to fund, will still operate but will be available only to state and local election offices, not the federal government. Jessica Cadigan, a former FBI intelligence analyst who investigated Election Day threats, said FBI headquarters’ command post was critical to her cases. “That is dismantling the brain, if you will,” she said. “They are the ones that piece the whole thing together.” An FBI spokesperson said the agency will still have capabilities to monitor the situation on the ground through designated election crimes coordinator experts in all its field offices. Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, has come to see the federal government as adversarial to elections and election administration, rather than a partner.  Colorado is one of around 30 states the Justice Department has sued for confidential voter roll information. At least four courts that have fully considered those cases so far have dismissed them, although the Justice Department has appealed most of the decisions. (The others are pending.) Griswold told ProPublica she has added another lawyer to her staff to fight whatever comes next from the Trump administration. “Donald Trump,” she said, “has made American elections less safe.” The post Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Democracy, Trump Administration]

— Who’s Been Impersonating This ProPublica Reporter?

 

at 4/11/26 3:00am

The call came from a number I didn’t recognize, with a Canadian area code. A steely voice on the other end of the line greeted me, identifying himself as an official with the Canadian military. He had a question: Had I been reaching out to him on WhatsApp, trying to work him for information? I paused. As an investigative reporter at ProPublica, I’m reaching out to a lot of people all the time. But as I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of any Canadians I had recently tried to develop as sources. It seems as though someone is impersonating you, the man warned. I was at a loss. What was Fake Me asking about? Were they just using my name or my picture too? How could I be sure the person warning me about this impostor wasn’t actually an impostor himself? The Canadian official assured me he’d send a message from his government email to confirm his identity, and he’d include screenshots of his conversation with Fake Me. I thanked him, and we exchanged some pleasantries. Before saying goodbye, I asked him if there was anything he’d like to get on the radar of an investigative reporter. (Without even realizing it, I was working him for information. Maybe Fake Me and Real Me aren’t so different.) The screenshots the Canadian sent over later showed someone with a Miami number using my ProPublica headshot as their profile pic. I’ve never lived in Florida. “This is Robert Faturechi from ProPublica,” Fake Me wrote. “I really need to get in touch with you.” The Canadian asked me not to publicly reveal too many details about his work, but it involves dealing with other countries, including Ukraine. I alerted our security team at ProPublica. They told me that there was little we could do aside from reporting the fake account to WhatsApp. We did, and I put the matter behind me — until two weeks later, when I got another warning. This time it was a Latvian businessman who said he runs an organization providing equipment to the Ukrainian military and is involved in a drone development project with Ukrainian forces. “Hey!” the Latvian wrote to me on LinkedIn. “Was good to chat on Signal! Let’s connect here as well!” The only problem was I had never chatted with him on Signal, the encrypted messaging app. The Latvian reached out to me on LinkedIn because he was concerned he wasn’t talking to Real Me on Signal. He sent over screenshots of someone using my headshot and claiming to be me. “Am I right in understanding that you are an expert in the field of UAVs?” Fake Me had messaged the Latvian, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, a fancy term for drones. “My clients,” the impostor explained, “are particularly interested in the application of UAVs in Ukraine.” The Latvian had offered to discuss the topic in a phone call, but Fake Me (who could be a man or woman) declined, saying they weren’t “comfortable” talking on the phone. They asked to continue the “conversation in written format” or if the Latvian could “record a voice message on this topic.” The Latvian, growing suspicious, insisted on a video call. Fake Me relented, sending him step-by-step instructions they said would result in a secure video chat, but that actually appeared to have been an attempt to trick the Latvian into giving up access to his email account. The Latvian ultimately blocked Fake Me. The impersonations were disquieting. Investigative reporting is hard enough with public trust in media so low and those in power stepping up attacks against journalists. Scammers giving potential sources another thing to worry about just makes our work more difficult. I can’t be certain what Fake Me is up to, but posing as a journalist in this way seems to be the latest evolution in online deception. ProPublica has chronicled the dark world of pig butchering, in which human traffickers in Asia force their victims to scam people by posing as friends or potential romantic interests. In those cases, the goal is cash. But sometimes the objective is stealing sensitive information. And even sophisticated actors can fall victim to so-called phishing attacks, in which scammers impersonate legitimate entities. One of the most notable and perhaps consequential instances was when John Podesta, chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, fell victim to an email purporting to be a Google security alert, giving hackers access to his personal Gmail account. Thousands of his emails, some of them quite damaging to Clinton and the Democratic Party, were published online. A screenshot of the conversation between a Canadian official and Fake Robert. Obtained and redacted by ProPublica From the screenshots the Canadian and Latvian sent me, I could tell Fake Me wasn’t asking for credit card info or urging anyone to buy a gift card. It didn’t appear to be a moneymaking scam. I’m not sure who else they’ve reached out to, but in both cases I was alerted to, Fake Me seemed to have an interest in foreign militaries. Maybe some clunky intelligence operation? I tried calling Fake Me using the phone number they used to reach out to the Canadian defense official. I got a recorded message saying the line was not in service. On Signal and WhatsApp, the number rang and rang, without an answer. There was even less we could do about the second impersonation than we could about the first. Signal keeps extremely little information about its users; it knows when someone first created their account and the phone number they used to do so but stores nothing about who they’re messaging. That’s by design. The hands-off approach is part of why it’s a safe platform for journalists to talk securely to sources. But it also makes catching impostor accounts difficult. Red flags, like sending messages with suspicious links, aren’t detectable by Signal. (WhatsApp can’t see the content of messages unless a user reports them. It has the ability to see who its users are messaging, but a spokesperson said it’s rare for the company to store that data.) Cooper Quintin, a technologist at the digital privacy nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he had never heard of a case like mine on Signal. But overall he was noticing an upswing in scams on the secure messaging app. Signal was doing what it could, he said, such as adding a feature that slows down would-be spammers trying to send many messages in a short time frame. Signal also makes links from unknown senders unclickable. But there are limits to what Signal can do, he said, without compromising its hallmark privacy protections for its users. “This fits a trajectory. As Signal gets more popular, more attackers start to view it as a potential platform for attacks,” said Quintin, who insisted we talk via video chat so he could be sure I wasn’t an online impersonator asking to interview him about being impersonated online. Some platforms — such as Facebook and Instagram — allow users to get verified accounts in which the site essentially confirms they are who they claim to be. But it wouldn’t be feasible for Signal to do the same, said digital security expert Runa Sandvik, who consults on security matters for ProPublica. The nonprofit that runs Signal is small, and verification would require staffing it doesn’t have. More significantly, she said, it would require Signal to collect more information about its users, eroding the privacy protections that make it popular. Signal did not provide comment for this article. A spokesperson for WhatsApp said “we have a strong track record of banning those trying to scam others and staying ahead of scammers and their tactics.” The spokesperson said WhatsApp “took appropriate action in line with our policies” against the account spoofing me but declined to say what that action was. In general, WhatsApp tries to root out scam accounts, even before they’re reported, by monitoring for suspicious behavior that includes attempting to launch many accounts from a single location. It turns out, if you’re contacted by someone pretending to be a reporter, the best way to scuttle their scam is to do a little reporting of your own. Every journalist at ProPublica has a bio page. Here is mine. On my bio page, you’ll find my Signal handle and email if you click on the Contact Me button. You can always check the Signal information or email address on my bio page to verify that I’m the person contacting you. This is true for every ProPublica reporter: We all have our Signal numbers or usernames on our profiles, and we all have an email ending in @propublica.org. The same goes for reporters at other outlets. If one reaches out to you and you have doubts, check their website and social accounts to verify their email or Signal or WhatsApp numbers. We’ve heard through the media grapevine and in published accounts about scams similar to mine hitting other organizations as well. They include smaller-scale deceptions. The New York Times recently flagged an account on X falsely claiming to be an intern for the news organization. In 2023, Reuters reported that two of its reporters in China were being impersonated via Instagram and Telegram accounts that were attempting to get information on activists protesting the country’s COVID-19 policies. And just this month, a correspondent for Reuters in Saudi Arabia warned his followers that someone was impersonating him on WhatsApp. There are also more sophisticated campaigns to be on alert for. The German government this year released a vague warning about what it described as likely a state-sponsored actor attempting to commandeer the Signal accounts of government officials and reporters across Europe. And last month, the FBI announced that individuals associated with Russian intelligence were posing as Signal’s security department to fool American government officials and journalists into providing information that would allow the hackers to take over their accounts. Once they had access, the FBI warned, they could see conversations and contact lists, and send messages as the victim. These scams should worry anyone who cares about investigative reporting. Throughout my career, I’ve done sensitive stories exposing wrongs in politics, finance, the military and law enforcement. Many of them relied on courageous individuals who have taken leaps of faith and shared information, sometimes at real personal risk. I go to great lengths to protect my sources and make sure they are comfortable taking that risk. If potential sources have to doubt that I am who I say I am, they may be less likely to engage. When journalists are impersonated online, like I have been, Sandvik said they shouldn’t be quiet about it. “If and when it does happen, be very public about it, which is what you’re doing now,” she said. “Let people know this is happening so if people hear from you, they know this is something to look out for.” The post Who’s Been Impersonating This ProPublica Reporter? appeared first on ProPublica.

— A Judge Worried a Proposed Settlement Doesn’t Do Enough to Help Victims. The DOJ Is Still Moving Forward.

 

at 4/10/26 5:45pm

The Justice Department said Friday that it would move forward on a proposed $68 million settlement with a Texas land developer it had accused of preying on Hispanic residents, despite a judge’s concerns that the agreement did not do enough to help victims. During a hearing, U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett questioned why the settlement had no compensation for those who were harmed and grilled a federal prosecutor over $20 million devoted to police and immigration enforcement. He said he was uncomfortable with the provision because the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Colony Ridge, which has massive subdivisions north of Houston, mentioned nothing about public safety or immigration. “I thought I was dealing with … folks who had been defrauded, with allegations of above-market interest rates, improper foreclosures,” Bennett said, holding up the original lawsuit in his right hand and the settlement in his left. “Now, all of the sudden, I’m being asked to OK increased law enforcement?” “Who in the settlement room said it would be a good idea to give $20 million to law enforcement?” Bennett asked early in the hearing. “Where did that come from?” The original idea came from the state, said Justice Department senior prosecutor Varda Hussain, referring to the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton’s office filed a similar lawsuit that would also be resolved through the settlement. He did not respond to a request for comment. Hussain, a principal deputy chief at the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters, said that the federal government stood by the provision even though neither its lawsuit nor the state’s raised concerns about crime. Colony Ridge residents told federal investigators that they were worried about crime in the development after the lawsuit was filed, Hussain said. “I understand what it might look like to you, but I am telling you that this is a concern that friends of the court and residents will tell you exists,” Hussain said. The settlement ends a three-year legal dispute in which the Justice Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accused Colony Ridge of deceiving tens of thousands of Hispanic consumers into taking out high-interest loans that many could not afford. The developer then benefited when it foreclosed on their properties, prosecutors said. Former attorneys and investigators with the Justice Department and CPFB, including those involved in filing the original lawsuit in 2023, told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune they were stunned that the Trump administration had reached a settlement that did not seek to compensate victims. Of the 183 housing and civil enforcement settlements the Justice Department has announced since 2018, only 6% lacked money for victims, and none included funding for police or immigration enforcement, an analysis by the news organizations found. Including such a provision in a predatory lending case has never been done before, said Bennett, who sought to find a compromise. An hour into the hearing, Bennett asked the Justice Department and the attorneys for Colony Ridge, which has denied any wrongdoing, whether they would consider his suggestions to revise the settlement to obtain his approval. Colony Ridge attorney Jason Ray said his client would consider it. Hussain said the Justice Department wasn’t interested. Instead, the Justice Department said it would pursue the settlement without seeking judicial approval under a provision of federal law that allows it to do so. That means the court will not supervise Colony Ridge to ensure the developer follows the terms of the settlement, said Johnathan Smith, former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights during the Biden administration. Smith, who helped assemble the Colony Ridge lawsuit three years ago, said now the case simply goes away because there is no one to enforce it. He added that the Justice Department cannot sue Colony Ridge based on the same claims in the future. “By having settlements that are public and that are court-enforced, it sends a clear message to other potential bad actors that there could be real consequences for their actions,” Smith said in an email. He said the Justice Department’s decision amounts to a “get out of jail free card.” The “DOJ is turning its back on the victims, and those victims are left with no recourse and no assurance that any actions will be taken to remedy the harms that were identified in DOJ’s original complaint,” Smith said. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Smith’s criticisms. During the hearing, however, Hussain said the department would ensure Colony Ridge abides by the settlement. In a court filing, the developer said it had already started implementing the provisions, which include adopting stricter lending standards. Keilah Sanchez, a former Colony Ridge landowner who, along with her sister, collected complaints from residents who said they had been mistreated by the developer, said it was crushing to see the settlement be implemented without helping past victims. “It’s unbelievable, but at this point, I don’t expect much from these agencies,” she said. The post A Judge Worried a Proposed Settlement Doesn’t Do Enough to Help Victims. The DOJ Is Still Moving Forward. appeared first on ProPublica.

— Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Fix to School Threats Law After Kids Were Arrested for Jokes and Misunderstandings

 

at 4/10/26 10:00am

Tennessee lawmakers passed legislation this week to fix the state’s controversial threats of mass violence law, which had resulted in children being charged with felonies over jokes and misunderstandings. Gov. Bill Lee is expected to sign the bill, which will require that school officials only report student threats to police if a threat is “credible,” meaning reasonably expected to be carried out. Previously, a school administrator who failed to report any threat of mass violence could be charged with a misdemeanor. The change comes after pressure from advocates and an investigation by ProPublica and WPLN. Many of the children charged had disabilities and were students of color. One of the youngest children charged with a felony last year was 6. In one case ProPublica and WPLN investigated, an autistic teenager with an intellectual disability told his teacher that his backpack would blow up if anyone touched it. Police only found a stuffed bunny inside, but they arrested and charged him with making a threat of mass violence. That child’s mother is now suing the school district; the case is ongoing. Another family ProPublica and WPLN wrote about later won a $100,000 settlement against a Chattanooga public charter school; family members argued in a federal lawsuit that the school wrongly reported their 11-year-old autistic child to the police. Multiple parents also filed a lawsuit against Williamson County Schools, outside of Nashville, claiming their children were wrongly suspended and arrested after being accused of making threats of mass violence at school. The school board disputed the claims in court records and moved to dismiss the lawsuit. In an initial ruling, the judge said the families had a “plausible claim” and allowed the case to move forward. Sen. Ferrell Haile, who co-authored this year’s bill, said during a late March committee hearing that he hoped it would prevent students with disabilities from being needlessly arrested for statements “they have no ability to carry out.” He said he was inspired by the story of a fifth grader with a disability in his district who made a statement out of frustration one day at school. The school police officer told the family he didn’t want to arrest the child but the law required him to, whether or not the threat was credible. His superiors charged the child with a felony. “In some counties, it has become a standard practice to charge every threat even if it has been deemed not credible,” Haile said at the hearing. Haile’s current stance is a departure from his prior position and those of most other Tennessee Republicans, who refused to back similar language as recently as last winter. In fact, in 2025, Haile proposed a bill that would extend the felony threats law to more locations, including child care agencies, preschools and churches. When a Democratic colleague asked him during a hearing to consider only applying the felony charge to people who intended to carry out the threats, Haile said no. Police and district attorneys — not school principals or counselors — should be responsible for determining whether a threat was credible, he said last year. Haile did not respond to a request for comment. Advocates are applauding the recent change to the law but warn that it isn’t a panacea. Tennessee law still does not require police to consider whether a threat is credible before charging or arresting youth. “This is not a total solution to threats of mass violence,” said Zoe Jamail, an advocate for children with the nonprofit Raphah Institute. “It is a huge step forward in terms of signifying an intent by the legislature that noncredible threats shouldn’t be prosecuted.” The post Tennessee Lawmakers Pass Fix to School Threats Law After Kids Were Arrested for Jokes and Misunderstandings appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Education]

— “A Slap in the Face”: Trump’s DOJ Plans to Settle Predatory Lending Case Without Compensating Victims

 

at 4/9/26 11:00am

In December 2023, the U.S. Justice Department sued a Texas land developer it accused of duping tens of thousands of Hispanic residents into predatory mortgages, a landmark case for the Biden administration. Colony Ridge, which sold plots in massive subdivisions north of Houston, had become a “one-stop shop for discriminatory lending,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. The developer targeted Hispanic applicants through false advertising and persuaded them to take out high-interest loans that many could not afford, then benefited when it foreclosed on their properties, the lawsuit alleged. “Our goal at the end of the day is to ensure that victims are compensated for their loss,” Clarke declared. Three years later, the Trump administration and Colony Ridge are on the verge of resolving the case. But the $68 million proposed settlement provides no money for victims of the alleged scheme. Instead, it sets aside $20 million for policing and immigration enforcement — a provision that may be used to target the very people who were victimized by the developer, according to former government officials who worked on such cases. “I’ve never seen a settlement like this, with a complete misalignment between what you’re settling and what the resolution is,” said Elena Babinecz, who led fair lending investigations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for 12 years under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, before leaving in October. “It’s a slap in the face to the individuals that were harmed; that the Justice Department acknowledges were harmed,” said Babinecz, who was at the bureau when it joined the Justice Department in filing suit against Colony Ridge. “It’s a complete misjustice, and it’s not at all why these civil rights laws were passed.” The Justice Department’s proposed settlement in the Colony Ridge case sets aside $20 million for policing and immigration enforcement but no money for victims of the alleged scheme. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Highlighted by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Seven other attorneys and investigators who formerly enforced the federal government’s lending and housing civil rights laws also told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune that they were stunned by the agreement, which a U.S. district judge must still approve. Indeed, Colony Ridge is the largest Justice Department case since at least 2018 in which the settlement includes no monetary compensation for victims. The judge has scheduled a hearing on Friday over the proposal. A coalition of fair housing and civil rights groups has urged the court to reject the settlement, arguing the lawsuit is the only realistic prospect for many consumers to get recompense because they cannot afford private attorneys. The Justice Department had built a case against Colony Ridge with “stark and overwhelming evidence,” Clarke told the news organizations. Prosecutors said Colony Ridge repeatedly misled consumers about the condition of lots they purchased, forcing them to spend hundreds or thousands on drainage improvements and utility connections they hadn’t known the land needed. This contributed to consumers defaulting on high-interest loans, according to the lawsuit. Colony Ridge then benefited from the improvements made to the land it foreclosed on and resold the lots at higher prices. In the end, tens of thousands of victims were exploited through the developer’s predatory practices in a span of eight years, the government argued. Colony Ridge repossessed more than 15,000 lots, many owned by immigrants, a 2023 investigation by the Houston Landing found. Of the 183 housing and civil enforcement Justice Department settlements since 2018, only 6% did not include money for victims. Each of those cases was smaller in scope than Colony Ridge. They included a suburban Maryland car dealership accused of racial discrimination in loan offers over a seven-month period and a California landlord who allegedly refused to provide handicapped parking to one tenant. None of the settlements — except for Colony Ridge — includes funding for police or immigration enforcement. The government argued that Colony Ridge exploited tens of thousands of people through predatory mortgages. Lexi Parra for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune As federal investigators built a case around how Colony Ridge had treated its largely immigrant customers, conservative media and politicians aligned with Trump — who had made immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign — did not focus on how consumers had been harmed. They instead accused the development of being a haven for immigrants. They claimed, without providing evidence, that the development was a base for Mexican drug cartels and a “no-go” zone for police. Local law enforcement disputed the assertions, saying that violent crime there was no different from other neighborhoods in and around Houston. State legislative panels convened to investigate the allegations also fizzled out after they were unable to substantiate such claims. Neither the federal government nor a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton months later raised public safety concerns or a need for more policing or immigration enforcement. The Justice Department declined to comment and did not respond to the concerns raised by former employees and people involved in the case. Paxton’s office did not respond to multiple emails. But while announcing the settlement in February, Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the department’s Civil Rights Division, argued that Colony Ridge had encouraged illegal immigration by targeting Hispanic consumers with the bait of affordable homeownership. “This DOJ will go after all lenders, financiers, and land developers who participate in schemes which ultimately encourage illegal immigration,” she said. In his own news release about the settlement, which would also resolve the Texas suit, Paxton focused primarily on funding set aside for immigration enforcement. “Under my watch, Texas will never be a sanctuary for illegals,” he said. The focus on immigration makes the lives of those who were harmed more difficult, said Catherine Bendor, a manager in the Justice Department’s Housing and Civil Enforcement Section for eight years until 2024. “Even if they’re citizens, they’ll likely be hassled by immigration agents who target people based on appearance or accent,” she said. John Harris, Colony Ridge’s CEO, declined to be interviewed. The settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing. He has long maintained that his company, which started in 2011 and offered mortgages for as little as a 1% down payment, has not preyed on its customers. The financing terms helped the development grow rapidly, albeit inconsistently, with neat modular homes, trailers and abandoned or vacant lots across more than 33,000 acres. Matt Rascon, a spokesperson for Colony Ridge, said the company “found success offering a path to land ownership through flexible financing options with no credit checks.” His comments echoed the company’s argument in court that it created a path to homeownership for thousands of lower-income consumers whom risk-averse banks reject. Offering loans when others wouldn’t is the most common argument predatory lenders make to justify their practices, said Nathalie Martin, a University of New Mexico law professor who has studied high-cost loans. “You can see from this situation, it doesn’t help people to get them into loans that are more costly than they need to be,” Martin said. Former federal officials and Colony Ridge property owners acknowledge that the settlement includes some provisions to protect consumers in the future. It would require Colony Ridge to adopt stricter lending standards and allow buyers to back out of purchases without penalty within two months. The developer would also make $48 million in infrastructure upgrades and provide transparent, bilingual marketing and communication. Another provision bars Colony Ridge from developing new lots to sell for three years. But the agreement exempts 674 acres that the developer has already subdivided. The concessions are helpful but inadequate because they miss a clear opportunity to help victims recover money they lost, which is a key reason such cases are filed, said Jon Seward, who was principal deputy chief for the Justice Department when he left in May 2023 after 17 years in its Housing and Civil Enforcement Section. Maria Acevedo said Colony Ridge foreclosed on her property in 2021 even though she was making payments. Lexi Parra for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune One such victim was Maria Acevedo, who describes herself as a lifelong Republican and U.S. citizen who said she voted for Trump three times. A former land developer herself, Acevedo took out a high-interest $40,000 loan in 2018 to buy a half-acre of land where she planned to retire. She then spent an additional $60,000 on surveying, engineering and adding dirt to protect against flooding. Acevedo said she planned to refinance her loan but learned that she couldn’t because the property had a lien from a previous owner. Colony Ridge foreclosed on the property three years later, even though Acevedo said she was making payments. Colony Ridge did not comment on Acevedo’s case or those of other individuals in this story. The foreclosure ruined her retirement plans, Acevedo said, adding that the challenges strained her marriage and eventually led to divorce. She considered finding a lawyer to sue. But she said she decided to “become a team player” and serve as a government witness after federal investigators pledged to help victims like her recover what they lost. Now, Acevedo said, she feels betrayed by a settlement that ignores Hispanic consumers like her. “I know we were targeted. A blind man could see it,” Acevedo said.  She added that the lawsuit was “going smooth, but once the Trump administration came in and took it over, it changed.” Even if she could now find a lawyer, her window to file a lawsuit has expired because state and federal laws require they be brought within five years. Since returning to office, the Trump administration has abandoned an $80 million settlement with Navy Federal Credit Union over illegal overdraft fees, which allowed the bank to continue operating without penalty, and halted dozens of investigations, including a case accusing a major Pennsylvania lender of defrauding student borrowers. Both defendants have denied wrongdoing. The Trump administration and White House budget director Russell Vought have taken aim at the CFPB, which was formed to protect consumers from getting ripped off by businesses. For Vought, the agency was an example of government overreach. It was also one of the first targets for Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. In April, in response to a lawsuit by bureau employees over the CFPB’s attempt to lay off 90% of its staff, the administration offered a compromise proposal: slashing two-thirds. The White House and Vought’s office declined to comment, but the administration has argued the agency was needlessly aggressive and wasteful. The shift away from pursuing consumer protection cases gives the impression that the federal government is no longer serious about protecting regular people from unscrupulous businesses,  former Justice Department and CFPB employees said. Investigators spent months gathering stories and building trust with residents who were wary of cooperating, said Johnathan Smith, a former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights during the Biden administration, who visited the development before the lawsuit. The team worked to ensure that the community “believed something was going to be different because the Justice Department got involved.” “It’s just heartbreaking how the settlement failed to meet that mark,” he said. SuEllen Sanchez and her sister, Keilah Sanchez, were among those who shared their stories with investigators, expecting the government would help them reclaim what they lost. They also provided investigators with hundreds of records from neighbors who said they’d been scammed. A U.S. citizen born in Puerto Rico, SuEllen Sanchez had purchased five lots in Colony Ridge in 2020. She saw it as a way to invest money she’d earned as an aesthetician and perhaps open a business there. Sanchez said the advertisements and sales representatives for Colony Ridge led her to believe the lots would be ready to build on. They weren’t. Clearing the land for development, acquiring permits and connecting utilities cost her more than $10,000. Colony Ridge foreclosed on one of the lots in 2021, according to Sanchez, who disputes the developer’s claims that she had missed loan payments. Sanchez wondered if others also believed they’d been scammed. That’s when she and her sister, a web developer who also had purchased Colony Ridge properties, launched a website asking residents to share their experiences with the developer. Sanchez said she was dismayed that all of their efforts resulted in the proposed settlement. “These were consumer-based lawsuits, so you would think they’d actually do something for consumers with everything that they stipulated that this company did wrong,” Sanchez said. “There’s no way somebody who has all these violations should still be operating.” Acevedo feels the same way, and she wants the judge to know it as he mulls the settlement. She doesn’t have a lawyer, but after the Justice Department proposed it, she filed a legal brief in the case demanding compensation as a victim. She offered to testify and present evidence. “I want the court to hear me directly,” she wrote to Judge Alfred H. Bennett. “I am willing to swear to my experience.” On Friday, she plans to drive 30 miles to Courtroom 9A in the Houston federal building for the settlement hearing, hoping for the judge to grant her request to be heard. The post “A Slap in the Face”: Trump’s DOJ Plans to Settle Predatory Lending Case Without Compensating Victims appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Criminal Justice, Debt, Real Estate, Regulation]

— They Needed Treatment for Drug Addiction. The Company They Turned to May Have Used Them to Commit Fraud.

 

at 4/9/26 3:30am

Renault Shirley remembers the first time he was asked to falsify billing reports for Kentucky’s largest drug rehab center. He had just returned from a church service in 2023 where the company’s founder and owner, a charismatic Christian from Eastern Kentucky, preached about the value of getting sober to hundreds of clients and staff at Addiction Recovery Care. Shirley, 58, who led recovery group discussions at ARC, said one of his supervisors told him to submit an invoice for the day’s canceled treatment sessions. With it, Shirley said, he was told to fabricate the details of a group discussion, including quotations from clients, as if they had attended a meeting. “It was fraud,” Shirley told the Lexington Herald-Leader and ProPublica, adding that he refused. But he said he saw others do it often when they gathered to enter their reports into the billing system. Shirley and ARC were part of a new economy, a boom fueled by misery and addiction and easy money from government officials desperate to curtail the opioid crisis that was devastating rural America. Kentucky’s payouts for drug treatment became so lucrative that companies bused in clients from other states to fill their treatment centers. ARC reigned above them all, providing more than two-thirds of all treatment beds in Kentucky at its peak in 2024. Between 2019 and 2024 ARC billed the state $1.7 billion, of which it was paid more than $377 million in state Medicaid money for addiction treatment services. During those years ARC won praise for its programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lauded ARC as a model, and Newsweek named the company one of the best addiction treatment providers in the country. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear called its founder “an essential partner in our fight against addiction.” But ARC’s growth was fueled in part by billing practices that federal prosecutors and former employees now allege may have amounted to fraud. FBI investigators were alerted to the case through a whistleblower suit filed in 2023, which alleged ARC fraudulently billed Medicaid for a therapeutic service called psychoeducation. The FBI has asked those who “believe you were victimized by ARC” to fill out a tip form. That investigation is ongoing, according to the FBI. ProPublica and the Herald-Leader interviewed six people affiliated with the company over the last six years, including former staff members, clients and some who came for treatment and were later hired on. They shared publicly for the first time how they came to ARC seeking help for addiction but became reluctant participants in the company’s alleged billing scheme. Two of them have said they made similar statements to federal investigators. Part of the fraud, three of them said, was committed at the explicit urging of supervisors who told them they were under pressure to meet billing targets set by ARC leaders — a circumstance exacerbated by a persistent lack of qualified staff, they said. Those who talked to the news organizations did not keep contemporaneous notes and do not have access to company emails that could support their claims because they no longer work for ARC. But their accounts are corroborated by other clients and referred to in two key documents. The first was a draft settlement agreement between ARC, the state of Kentucky and the Department of Justice filed by lawyers suing ARC in January as evidence in an unrelated civil suit. That suit, which is pending, alleges that ARC failed to repay at least $8 million it borrowed from two loan companies to pay the DOJ settlement. ARC denied it failed to pay the company. The draft DOJ settlement document alleges that ARC knowingly falsified some medical records from 2018 to the start of 2024 in order to collect $16 million for group meetings like Shirley described. It allegedly collected millions more by using low-level staff to bill the state for services that under the law must be delivered by a doctor or licensed therapist. The second document was a 2025 investigative report by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services that has yet to be released but was obtained by ProPublica and the Herald-Leader. That report said state investigators found that ARC had violated so many regulatory standards, lack of staff chief among them, that the conditions posed “an immediate danger to client health, safety and welfare.” In response to questions for this story, ARC said it “voluntarily disclosed” billing errors to state and federal authorities after the company hired an outside agency to audit its billing practices. The draft settlement with the DOJ, the company said, was not supposed to be made public and therefore it could not comment. The draft settlement was unsigned. “ARC has never knowingly or fraudulently billed Medicaid for services, and there is no evidence that the organization encouraged employees to falsify group notes for billing purposes,” ARC’s Vice President of Marketing Vanessa Keeton wrote in a March 23 email in response to written questions about the company’s billing practices and employee allegations. She said that the company could not comment on staff, but that it “maintains a strict, zero-tolerance policy for fraud and non-compliant billing practices.” Keeton added that “any claims from clients or Peer Support Specialists about whether a specific service was billed are based on assumptions and do not accurately reflect actual billing practices.” Nearly all of the people interviewed for this story credit ARC with playing a key role in their sobriety. But most also said they felt betrayed by an organization that publicly touted a Christian message and a commitment to helping others while internally prioritizing money over the well-being of their clients and staff. Called by God In late 2008, ARC owner Tim Robinson was working as an assistant county attorney near Ashland when he had an epiphany. An evangelical Christian who’d recently gotten sober from alcoholism, Robinson has said God told him to start a “health care ministry” to help his neighbors in the mountains and hollows of Appalachia hit hard by the opioid crisis. There were few treatment centers in the state at the time. Robinson in 2010 opened the first ARC center in Louisa, a small town on the West Virginia border, 30 miles from his hometown in Martin County. ARC steadily grew across Eastern Kentucky. In 2015, the company was the state’s first drug treatment provider to accept Medicaid patients, which dramatically increased the number of available clients. The following year, ARC unveiled its yearlong “crisis-to-career” program, equal parts drug treatment and job training that ultimately helped clients become staff at ARC. But it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that ARC exploded in size, thanks in large part to changes to billing rules put in place by the governor. As the global health crisis unfolded, Robinson — a well-connected political donor who has given hundreds of thousands to people from both major parties, including Beshear, a Democrat — emailed the governor and said drug treatment centers needed help to stay afloat amid pandemic restrictions. In March 2020 Beshear signed an executive order that gave companies providing addiction services new latitude: The seven managed care organizations that controlled Medicaid billing in the state would need to allow providers to bill for an expanded menu of services without prior approval. Beshear said last month that order helped the commonwealth make significant and important progress in the fight against addiction. “Kentucky has lost far too many children of God to overdose related deaths,” he said, citing the recent decline in overdose deaths in the state. The decision meant companies could easily bill for what are known as peer support services, which are designed to help clients follow a treatment plan; these can be provided by staff who complete a 30-hour training course. ARC encouraged clients like Shirley to take the course and get credentialed as peer support specialists. Then, once they graduated from ARC’s program, many transitioned to staff and provided services they could bill to Medicaid. The order also allowed easier billing for psychoeducation, a session during which a clinician talks to a patient about their diagnosis and treatment. The broadly defined service, which at the time could be billed for multiple times a week, is usually provided as part of a clinical therapy session, but Kentucky allows it to be billed as a separate service — which state Medicaid experts opposed because it drives up the cost of treatment. From 2019 to 2024, ARC billed the state over $400 million for psychoeducation and peer support, earning the company more than $125 million, about a quarter of all reimbursements paid to Kentucky providers during that time. The revenue allowed it to open at least four new centers, including the roughly 700-bed Crown Recovery Center on a former college campus in Springfield, and to purchase a shuttered hospital campus in Ashland that ARC now uses for inpatient, outpatient and psychiatric services. ARC Billed Medicaid for Tens of Millions Annually in Psychoeducation and Peer Support Services in Recent Years Source: Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Psychoeducation soon became ARC’s most lucrative service, accounting for almost half of its reimbursement from Medicaid in 2024. ARC said its billing for the service was in accordance with applicable laws and regulations and followed established billing protocols. The spike in billing caught the attention of the companies that oversee state Medicaid spending. Liz Stearman, director of behavioral health for Humana, and other Medicaid experts repeatedly warned Kentucky officials that the state’s high spending on lower-level peer support and psychoeducation without the attendant clinical services wasn’t helping people seeking addiction treatment. They said in a letter to the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services that evidence showed clients in the state had more emergency department visits and more admissions and readmissions to hospitals and residential drug treatment facilities. Stearman reminded lawmakers that Kentucky was one of the few states that allowed the service to be billed separately. Psychoeducation “does not have any national standards of clinical criteria that exist anywhere in the country, and the vast majority of states do not actually cover (it) as a standalone service,” she told a state legislative committee on Dec. 3, 2024. “Unfortunately we’re paying a higher amount of Medicaid dollars for less evidence-based services,” she said. Beshear’s 2020 order and permission from Kentucky Medicaid to bill psychoeducation as a separate service helped create a new revenue stream for providers. Still, on the surface the expansion of Robinson’s company was a good thing, giving Kentucky more treatment beds per capita than any other state — a fact Beshear and other elected officials touted. “I remember not too long ago when finding a treatment bed meant driving hours away or sitting on endless waiting lists. That’s all changed,” state Attorney General Russell Coleman said in a 2024 press conference. By that point, ARC was operating as many as 30 facilities in more than 20 Eastern and Central Kentucky counties. That year Robinson announced ARC would expand into Ohio and West Virginia. “It Was Just Herding Cattle” ARC is headquartered in Louisa, Kentucky, a small town on the West Virginia border. Before widespread facility closures and layoffs in recent years, Louisa housed multiple ARC centers. Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader During these years staff members said they were repeatedly asked to falsify bills for nonexistent treatment. ARC said it has since invested significant funds to hire a compliance and auditing team. The half dozen people who spoke to the Herald-Leader and ProPublica said the company sometimes billed when a gathering did not meet the requirements of a meeting, such as when clients watched movies unrelated to recovery or had informal discussions while traveling in ARC vans. Other times clients played board games in lieu of group meetings, or the gatherings simply didn’t happen but were billed for anyway, three former peer support specialists said. When Shirley was a client at Crown, ARC’s largest center, he said it was common for a peer support specialist to “sometimes walk in, ask me what I was grateful for. I would write it on a piece of paper, then they would leave.” Shirley said from talking with other staff members that this was a strategy often used to submit bills for group meetings that did not occur. Odell Hager arrived as a client at ARC in 2015, after a judge ordered him to do so for carrying drugs. He ping-ponged between treatment and jail for the next few years until he landed in 2021 at May Hill, one of ARC’s centers in Louisa. Odell Hager at his home in Lexington, Kentucky. He is a former client and peer support specialist at ARC. He said treatment groups frequently did not discuss recovery and instead watched popular movies. Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader During his time there, first as a client and then as a peer support specialist, Hager saw examples of well-run peer support groups but said they were rare. “Our peer support group was, ‘All right, you all just sit in the living room and watch a movie,’” while group leaders sat in the office on their phones, he said. Hager, who worked at three ARC centers during the span of nearly a decade, said those kinds of groups that ARC billed for were the standard and forging group notes was common. Hager’s account was corroborated by an ARC client who overlapped with him. Hager said he also relayed his experience to the FBI in an interview. “In my mind, it was no different than a prison system,” Hager said. “It was just herding cattle: get them in, get them out, get them in, get them out.” Individual peer support is intended to be a check-in with a client: “How are you doing, are you having thoughts of relapse, are you feeling good right now?” Hager said. At the end of the check-in, a peer support specialist sent in quotes from the client to ARC’s billing department to prove the discussion took place so the company could then bill Medicaid for the service. “But we were doing that with people we wouldn’t even see because we were so behind,” Hager said. Hager said he doesn’t blame low-level peer support specialists for falsely logging group notes. Many peer support specialists, newly in recovery and overworked, were following orders from their supervisors or didn’t know any better, he said. Hager counts himself among them. “I’m not justifying it,” he said. “When we were doing it we didn’t know it was a bad thing.” Dustin Cornett, 34, was a client at Crown. After years of addiction, Cornett, who’s from South Eastern Kentucky, admitted himself in 2022 to ARC. He said he was disappointed when he attended peer support groups that largely consisted of watching popular movies. “We never did a damn thing,” he said. “We all knew it was just a money racket, an insurance scam.” Peer support staff said they were asked to meet billing “quotas” each week. Pressure to meet those expectations sometimes resulted in staff falsely recording group notes, said Hager and Beckie Rose-Bowman, who was initially a client at ARC and later director of Riverplace, a 120-bed ARC facility in Pikeville, which has since closed. “There were days I had peer support groups booked back-to-back in one- and two-hour increments with no space in between,” Rose-Bowman said. Billing was “100% their emphasis,” she said. ARC supervisors above her monitored peer support group attendance and would “come down” on staff if their attendance was short in the notes they submitted for billing, Rose-Bowman remembered. Other times, if a client was missing from a group, staff would count them as being present, she said. In addition to denying that ARC encouraged such fraud, Keeton, the company spokesperson, said it had processes in place to ensure appropriate billing. “When issues are identified, for example, a peer support group watching a movie rather than receiving prescribed services, corrective action is taken immediately, and those services are not billed,” she said. Beckie Rose-Bowman in downtown Louisa. She and other ARC peer support staff said they were asked to meet billing “quotas” each week. Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader “I Don’t Have Enough Staff” As ARC expanded, its staffing shortage grew more dire. Lack of staff, including licensed clinicians, was one of several “systemic deficiencies” the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services found during the 2025 investigation of ARC’s operations. State officials conducted multiple site visits at three of ARC’s largest centers after a client died in July 2025 at Riverplace, where Shirley worked. The probe, which lasted from August to November 2025, was also partly triggered by separate allegations that clients “did not receive timely or appropriate care.” The report did not disclose the source of the allegations. Keeton said the company was “extremely saddened” by the client’s death and, following an internal review, concluded there was “no indication that the death resulted from any action or inaction on the part of ARC.” But those Kentucky investigators concluded that ARC operated with an “absence of qualified, licensed clinical personnel,” calling it a “sustained and systemic pattern.” In some instances, state investigators found clients were recording and reporting their own vital signs, a violation of state and clinical rules. That full report, obtained by the Herald-Leader and ProPublica, shows employees regularly complained to ARC supervisors and administrators with “persistent concerns” that a shortage of staff was putting clients’ health and safety at risk and hamstringing staff’s ability to properly run groups.  ARC staff raised this issue to supervisors and state investigators, according to the report, saying “it feels like we are working around the clock” and “my life is about to become unmanageable because I don’t have enough staff.” Another employee, according to the findings, implied the shortage was so dire, “I am scared to take vacation.” To help deal with the shortages, the company began sending clients to its own college to get trained as counselors to work at ARC. Roughly 60% of ARC’s workforce is former clients, the company’s spokesperson said. ARC said it disputed the findings of the report to the state and requested a hearing. It noted that the Cabinet did not suspend or close the facilities and that the company “continues to operate and accept clients across all applicable levels of care with the knowledge and approval of the Cabinet.” The state said the report has not been released because the investigation was ongoing.  People inside the company said that those newly trained staff were often used when ARC couldn’t provide regular visits with licensed clinical professionals. Shannon Gray, who started at ARC in 2021 and oversaw all treatment services there until early 2025, said clients rarely saw psychologists and counselors and did not receive enough treatment from more highly trained clinicians. Instead, ARC relied too much on peer-led sessions billed under peer support and psychoeducation, Gray said. “From a therapeutic value, (that’s) too many services, too many groups,” said Gray, who also wrote the curriculum that Shirley and others used when leading groups. “I argued it many times, but even though I voiced concern, I still stayed there, so I’ll call myself out on this.” Shannon Gray at his home in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Gray said he argued against ARC’s reliance on peer-led treatment. Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader The state’s 2025 investigative report agreed with Gray, saying unlicensed employees at ARC were often asked to do jobs for which they were not qualified, such as medication oversight. This was “despite the lack of licensure, training and clinical competency required by state regulation,” the Cabinet found. The draft DOJ settlement alleges something similar: Between 2018 and March 2024, ARC “knew or recklessly disregarded” Medicaid rules by allowing unlicensed staff — “practitioners that did not have a professional credential” — to bill for behavioral health services that should’ve been provided by a therapist or professional counselor. Shirley, who had minimal training, said the company’s computer billing system only allowed him to bill peer support groups under the psychoeducation code, which yielded a higher reimbursement rate, even if a clinician wasn’t present with him when leading a group. “There was never a discussion about any other code to use,” said Shirley, adding that he didn’t know at the time how lucrative the psychoeducation code was. He only knew “everybody was using it.” Keeton disputed this allegation, saying that while ARC did receive millions from Medicaid for peer support and psychoeducation, “there was no directive requiring staff to bill exclusively under a single code.” Legislators Step In Today, Robinson’s grand vision has begun to unravel. In 2024, the seven managed care organizations in Kentucky raised alarms in a letter to the state’s health and welfare agency citing high costs and poor outcomes. That year Republicans in the Kentucky General Assembly acted, reducing the amount Medicaid would pay for psychoeducation and peer support, and ARC’s major source of income began to decline, state data shows. Republicans also reinstated the requirement that providers seek authorization from insurers before they provide services. In March of this year, a Kentucky lawmaker introduced a bill that outlawed billing for psychoeducational services in the state. The legislature delivered the bill to Beshear’s desk in late March. It is awaiting his decision. Kentucky Republican state Rep. Kim Moser, the bill’s sponsor, said the measure is urgent because billing for psychoeducation has grown exponentially. “We can look at the numbers and see that it’s being overused,” Moser said. “I just think we need to do something about it.” ARC continues to bill Medicaid and Medicare. But since the state’s cuts to Medicaid payments for certain services, and the launch of the FBI investigation in 2024, ARC has laid off hundreds of employees and shuttered dozens of facilities, leaving some clients homeless. Last year, ARC’s founder tried to sell off most of the company in part to pay the DOJ’s settlement, according to the creditors’ suit, but that deal fell through in December. When the two loan companies sued ARC in January 2026 for allegedly refusing to pay back millions they were owed, they claimed ARC was in “desperate financial straits” and facing “imminent bankruptcy.” ARC claimed in a separate filing it needed that money for operating costs and called the demands for repayment “unduly burdensome.” The company is still seeking a buyer. Even with the recent changes, lawmakers say Medicaid spending on drug treatment is still too high. In part this is because “there’s big money in making sure that addicts don’t actually enter into recovery,” Kentucky state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who co-chairs the legislature’s appropriations and revenue committee, said during a Feb. 24 hearing. “I’ve never met an industry that can so effectively obfuscate the results of their work as the substance use industry,” he said in the February hearing. “At some point, we have to ask ourselves, how much of Medicaid is about patients, and how much is about profits?” As for Shirley, he was laid off last year. He now works at a different residential recovery center in Western Kentucky — a move that he said opened his eyes to how poorly clients were treated at ARC and how little clinical care they received. “Their model is not to help clients,” he said of ARC. “For them, it’s a revolving door. It’s warehousing.” Keeton said this assessment isn’t reflective of ARC’s mission or the success of the thousands of individuals it serves. “We don’t ‘warehouse’ people,” she said. “We invest in them.” The post They Needed Treatment for Drug Addiction. The Company They Turned to May Have Used Them to Commit Fraud. appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Health Care, Regulation]

— For-Profit Hospital Chain Never Put Aside Money for Malpractice Insurance to Compensate Injured Patients

 

at 4/9/26 3:00am

The collapse of Prospect Medical, a for-profit hospital chain plundered by private equity and the company’s management, has generated a painful litany of woes. Amid a debt-fueled acquisition spree that saw the small California company grow to 17 hospitals in six states, Prospect was repeatedly cited for dangerous medical care, poor infection control and unsanitary facilities. The company stiffed state and local governments on more than $135 million in taxes and didn’t pay vendors for equipment, services and supplies. It shuttered four safety-net hospitals in a Philadelphia suburb that it had promised to keep open, laying off thousands.  Now, more than a year after the company filed for bankruptcy in January 2025, a new layer of harm has emerged: Prospect had promised to provide malpractice coverage for its hospitals and many of its doctors, but court filings show it set aside no money to pay those costs — or to compensate injured patients.  As a result, hundreds of people with pending malpractice cases against the company may never have a shot at meaningful redress. One of them is Pamela Dorn. The lawsuit she filed against Prospect in 2024 has stalled, and it’s now doubtful she’ll ever be able to hold the company accountable for the negligent care she says it provided her husband.  Bob Dorn, 75, suffered from such severe dementia that he couldn’t chew and was on a liquid diet. But when he became aggressive in March 2022 and was taken to Prospect’s emergency room in Waterbury, Connecticut, the medical staff sedated him, then left him unattended with a meal of macaroni and cheese and broccoli, according to Dorn’s lawsuit and an interview with her. Hospital staff later found her husband choking and struggling to breathe. He was intubated and taken to the intensive care unit but never regained consciousness. His death certificate said he died from asphyxia due to food blocking his airway. Bob and Pamela Dorn in their kitchen in Connecticut in 2021, a year before his death Courtesy Pamela Dorn “I didn’t want the same thing to happen to somebody else,” Dorn said, explaining why she filed the case. “How a hospital system operates without malpractice insurance is beyond me. It’s irresponsible.” (In court filings, attorneys for Prospect and the ER doctors have denied the negligence allegations.)  Compounding the shock for plaintiffs like Dorn, as well as former Prospect doctors and their lawyers, is that Prospect wasn’t legally obligated to prove it could actually pay its malpractice costs.  Like a growing number of health care companies, Prospect had saved money by “self-insuring” against these claims. Instead of paying premiums to a commercial insurer, the company pledged to pay directly for the legal defense of its facilities and doctors and to cover negotiated settlements or trial awards up to certain amounts — for many cases, up to $7.5 million.  States typically require commercial insurers to file audited statements showing they’ve set aside sufficient funds for malpractice obligations and to contribute to a guaranty fund that pays a portion of claims if an insurer goes belly-up.  But there’s little oversight — and no safety-net fund to tap — when companies self-insure. The problem has also surfaced in the bankruptcies of two other private-equity-backed health care companies, the Steward hospital chain and Genesis HealthCare, once the nation’s largest nursing home company. (Genesis agreed to at least 155 malpractice settlements totalling $58 million but filed for bankruptcy before paying most plaintiffs, KFF Health News reported. The company denied wrongdoing.) “It seems like a gaping hole,” said Connecticut Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, who co-chairs the state legislature’s public health committee. She called Prospect’s lack of coverage “awful, devastating and infuriating. … What has happened with Prospect is like peeling an onion. The more we peel, the more we cry.” In emailed responses to questions from ProPublica, insurance regulators in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania said they are troubled by the harm caused by Prospect’s failure to fund malpractice coverage, a problem they hadn’t encountered before. All said they have limited authority to regulate companies that self-insure.  In Connecticut, where Prospect owned three hospitals, a spokesperson for the insurance department wrote that state law allows health systems “to meet malpractice obligations through self-insured options” and the agency has no responsibility for “solvency oversight.” Prospect also owned insurance subsidiaries that provided some coverage for its hospitals. But they were headquartered in Vermont and offshore, in the Cayman Islands — which is legal but puts them beyond Pennsylvania’s reach, a spokesperson for the state’s insurance department said. Rhode Island requires hospital companies to receive formal approval to self-insure and to submit financial information annually to regulators, but a spokesperson for the state Department of Business Regulation acknowledged Prospect had filed no such documents since 2019, despite self-insuring until 2025 when it filed for bankruptcy. Agency records show the state has taken no action against the company. (Open investigations are confidential, and the spokesperson said he could not comment on whether one is underway.)  Connecticut plaintiff attorney Mike D’Amico, who represents Dorn, has been handling malpractice cases for four decades. The Prospect situation is “a disaster” and “something I’ve never seen before,” he said. “You have a lot of people that have been harmed by negligent conduct that have no recourse.”  Prospect, which ProPublica reported on in 2020, has become a case study on the public harms that can stem from private equity’s growing involvement in health care. In the decade after Leonard Green & Partners bought majority control of Prospect in 2010, the firm and the company’s founders, Sam Lee and David Topper, together extracted $658 million in fees and dividends for themselves and other investors, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings and financial statements. This starved the business of money for staffing, maintenance and critical supplies while loading it up with debt.  Unable to find an outside buyer for the now financially decimated company, Leonard Green finally sold its majority stake back to Lee and Topper in 2021. Prospect’s January 2025 bankruptcy filing came just four days after the release of a bipartisan U.S. Senate Budget Committee investigation into how private-equity ownership affects care. Titled “Profits Over Patients,” the report offered a harsh verdict on Prospect, saying its “primary focus was on financial goals rather than quality of care at their hospitals,” and that it had caused “the collapse of critical health care services in the communities it served.” Prospect, which has denied any misconduct or negligent care, has now sold or closed all of its hospitals. Leonard Green, which disputed the Senate report’s conclusions, declined  to respond to questions from ProPublica. Lee, estimated to have personally received $128 million from the company, could not be reached for comment; an attorney who previously represented him did not respond to a call and email. Topper, who received $94 million from Prospect through a family trust, responded to questions posed by a reporter in a brief phone conversation with “no comment.”  Prospect’s bankruptcy filing placed an automatic hold on more than 300 lawsuits filed against the company, seeking a total of more than $800 million in damages, according to bankruptcy court filings. Some of the malpractice cases awaiting resolution were near settlement or scheduled to go to trial when the hold began. Many alleged egregious harms, including wrongful deaths or debilitating injuries requiring costly care. The widower of a 39-year-old physician sued the company in state court in Hartford, Connecticut, in 2022, alleging his wife died from negligent care following an emergency cesarean section at the Prospect hospital where she worked. Parents of a 10-month-old boy filed suit in state court in Philadelphia in 2023, claiming he’d required multiple operations (and eventually removal of his esophagus) after ER doctors failed to conduct tests revealing that he’d swallowed a button battery. A 2019 Pennsylvania case claimed a man’s bowel was perforated during a hernia repair, triggering life-threatening complications that required five more surgeries. In court filings in each of these cases, Prospect, its hospitals and its doctors denied the allegations of malpractice, negligence or wrongful death. The insurance chaos began to surface in late October, after the Texas judge presiding over Prospect’s bankruptcy lifted the initial litigation hold. Her move followed failed efforts to persuade private insurers responsible for covering awards in excess of what Prospect’s self-insurance provided to kick in money for mediated settlements. The private insurers’ reasoning, according to bankruptcy court filings: their “reinsurance” contracts required them to pay only in cases where Prospect had already paid its entire share, similar to an auto insurance deductible. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, Prospect had promised to pay $7.5 million for each lawsuit before any outside coverage kicked in. In Pennsylvania, Prospect relied on another form of self-insurance: a Vermont-based insurance subsidiary. That business was supposed to pay the first $500,000 of Pennsylvania malpractice costs, but it appears Prospect underfunded the subsidiary. (By exactly how much remains unclear.) Complicating matters further: For Pennsylvania cases filed after October 2020, the subsidiary wasn’t required to contribute until after Prospect had covered the first $250,000. There are similar problems in California, where Prospect sold its six hospitals in the bankruptcy proceedings to a new for-profit company. Los Angeles attorney Judith Tishkoff, whose firm has represented Prospect for years, last week filed to withdraw from seven malpractice cases, saying Prospect’s general counsel has told her there is no insurance coverage and no money to pay any defense costs or legal fees. Even those who win court awards or settlements against Prospect seem destined to be treated as unsecured claims in the company’s bankruptcy. Like vendors with unpaid bills for hospital linens and bandages, they’re likely to receive just pennies on the dollar, bankruptcy lawyers told ProPublica. Some plaintiffs lawyers, who get paid on a contingency basis, say they’re declining to take on new malpractice cases involving Prospect, given the difficulty of obtaining any recovery.  Pennsylvania attorney Leonard Sloane is among them. “It’s a gamble to take on a new case,” said Sloane. “To pursue one of these claims is very expensive. There’s gotta be something at the end, otherwise what’s the sense of pursuing on behalf of a client who gets nothing?” Sloane represents the survivors of a 67-year-old woman who died in 2022 after a Prospect surgeon performing a partial lung removal mistakenly cut a pulmonary vein, leading to a cascade of complications. The doctor acknowledged in medical records that he’d made “a technical mistake,” but the lawyer representing him and Prospect has moved to throw out claims for punitive damages, denying his actions met the legal standard of “recklessness.” Sloane, who has been practicing for 50 years, believes the family’s case is strong, “but if there’s no coverage, that’s the end.” Prospect promised the doctors it employed malpractice coverage, but those facing lawsuits have learned they may have to foot hundreds of thousands in legal costs personally, plus any settlements or court awards. Dr. John Horan, 69, is a family physician in Rhode Island who has been practicing medicine for 41 years. He sold his practice to Prospect in 2016 and worked for the company until 2022. That year, the family of a patient who died filed a lawsuit blaming him for failing to diagnose her lung cancer. Horan denies he’s at fault. In December 2025, Horan’s lawyer told him Prospect was refusing to defend him or pay any of his costs. “I was nauseous for the next month,” he told ProPublica. Horan and his wife have met with a bankruptcy lawyer. Paul Galamaga, Horan’s defense attorney, said he was handling 10 Prospect-related cases in Rhode Island when the company filed for bankruptcy. Prospect owes him about $183,000. He’s won court approval to withdraw from seven of the lawsuits but continues to represent Horan and two other physicians, who he says will now have to pay him personally. “There’s no money to pay me or defend any of the doctors,” Galamaga said. Some defense lawyers have sought to reimpose a freeze on proceedings, citing the uncertainty about Prospect’s ability to pay. In Pennsylvania, attorney Ben Post, whose firm is listed in court filings as defense counsel in 16 Prospect malpractice lawsuits, filed motions late last year seeking to clamp a stay on several malpractice cases. If he didn’t get it, he said, he’d have “no choice” but to withdraw.  In response to one such filing, plaintiffs attorney Francis Curran wrote that his 83-year-old client had been seeking redress for her husband’s death for nine years. “With each additional delay,” he said, “it becomes less and less likely that Plaintiff will receive just compensation during her lifetime.” (Although one of Post’s stay requests has already been denied, a lawyer his firm has retained to help navigate the insurance uncertainty said Post has no immediate plans to withdraw from any cases.) In February, the Rhode Island legislature approved an $18 million emergency loan guarantee to assure the long-delayed sale of Prospect’s two struggling Providence-area hospitals, Our Lady of Fatima and Roger Williams Medical Center, to a Georgia-based nonprofit. Rep. Charlene Lima took to the floor to talk about the risk to local physicians left without promised malpractice coverage, warning that it could force them into bankruptcy and worsen the shortage of primary care doctors in Rhode Island.  “The state shares culpability in this situation,” Lima said in an interview, adding that she’d support regulations to ensure this doesn’t happen again. “We weren’t looking at this or regulating this. It’s like nobody was watching the henhouse except the foxes maybe.”  The harms of porous insurance oversight have also surfaced in the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care, an even larger hospital chain bankrolled by private equity.  Backed by giant Cerberus Capital Management in 2010, Steward grew to 37 hospitals over a decade. In 2021, Cerberus exited the investment with a reported $800 million in profits, while Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre, a former heart surgeon who reaped more than $250 million from the company, bought himself a $40 million yacht. Three years later, Steward filed for bankruptcy, owing hundreds of millions to vendors and employees and facing accusations of fraud and abysmal patient care.  (Cerberus declined to respond to questions from ProPublica, instead pointing to a public statement in which it said Steward’s problems “appear to be overwhelmingly related to the post-Cerberus ownership period.” A spokesperson for de la Torre, who led the ownership group until he resigned in late 2024, said he “firmly disputes” the allegations against him, “including claims of greed and bad-faith misconduct,” and intends to “vigorously defend himself against them.”) To cover its malpractice costs, Steward operated a self-insurance subsidiary, called TRACO, which it had relocated to Panama, where it faced little regulatory oversight. According to a Boston Globe investigation, instead of setting aside adequate reserves, Steward treated TRACO like “a piggy bank,” siphoning out hundreds of millions to pay operating costs and buy more hospitals. By 2024, when Steward went bankrupt, TRACO had just $3.5 million left to defend and pay for more than 500 malpractice lawsuits, according to documents cited by the Globe. Last year, a malpractice case brought against a Steward hospital outside Salt Lake City went before a Utah state judge. It involved allegations that a 19-year-old pregnant woman’s delivery was botched by inexperienced, ill-trained nurses. According to medical records and court testimony, they gave her overdoses of the labor-inducing drug Pitocin, starving her baby of blood and oxygen, then ignored fetal monitoring that signaled distress while an on-call doctor dozed in a room nearby. The baby suffered brain damage that has left her largely unable to speak. She is likely to remain disabled for life.  Steward’s defense lawyers had withdrawn after the company stopped paying and communicating with them, leaving the family and its expert witnesses to present their case. In an emotional 42-minute discourse from the bench, Judge Patrick Corum said what had happened “literally took my breath away.” The family “would have been better off delivering this baby in the bathroom of a gas station, or in a hut somewhere in Africa, than in this hospital,” he declared. In October, he awarded the family $543.2 million in damages, one of the biggest malpractice awards in Utah’s history. The injured child is now 6 and requires costly care. But because TRACO has no money — and Steward’s “excess” insurers are refusing to step in because TRACO hasn’t paid its share — it’s unclear when, or whether, the family will get anything. David Creasy, the family’s attorney, said the battle to resolve the matter could take years. “We’ve got to be able to find some way to get them the money they need to take care of her,” he said in an interview. “There was absolutely no oversight of TRACO.” The Steward and Prospect bankruptcies make clear “this is a national issue,” said Stacy Paterno, CEO of the Rhode Island Medical Society. Paterno said she has begun convening regular meetings with her counterparts from a half-dozen states where Prospect and Steward operated hospitals about the risks posed by unregulated self-insurance plans, both to doctors and injured patients. Steward’s creditors are trying to claw back money from the company’s former leaders. In November, a Steward creditors committee filed a 178-page lawsuit against former CEO de la Torre and more than a dozen other individuals and corporate entities that details the company’s alleged plundering of TRACO’s insurance reserves. The complaint does not name Cerberus as a defendant but suggests Cerberus may be a future target of the creditors’ “ongoing” investigation. (In court filings, de la Torre and other Steward defendants have denied the creditor lawsuit’s allegations.) Prospect’s creditors are poised to launch a similar effort. The bankruptcy court has  approved $10 million to pursue legal claims against former Prospect principals, with Leonard Green and Prospect’s former top executives, Lee and Topper, as the big targets. “We really do believe there are potentially hundreds of millions” that can be recouped from those who “may have contributed to the downfall of this company,” Charles Persons, an attorney for the unsecured creditors committee, told the judge at a Dec. 12 court hearing.  It’s unclear how much might be recovered, but it would likely be a fraction of what the company owes, and malpractice victims would share these funds with thousands of other unsecured creditors. “The folks who have the lawsuits,” said D’Amico, the lawyer representing Dorn, “essentially go to the bottom of the barrel.” The post For-Profit Hospital Chain Never Put Aside Money for Malpractice Insurance to Compensate Injured Patients appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Health Care]

— “The Alarm Bell”: Arizona’s Drop in SNAP Participation Signals Potential Nationwide Impact of Trump Legislation

 

at 4/8/26 3:00am

More than 400,000 Arizonans have lost their SNAP benefits since July — the largest decline in the nation by a wide margin — as an underfunded state agency administered changes called for in President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The drop represents nearly 47% of the state’s participants in the program better known as food stamps and includes about 180,000 children, according to the Arizona Department of Economic Security, which administers the program. On Wednesday, the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released data through February showing that the reduction in Arizona has far outstripped other states. After Arizona, the largest loss of participants was in Florida, where less than 16% of recipients lost benefits since July, according to the center’s analysis. Arizona officials attribute the plunging caseload to swift implementation of policy changes forced by the bill, including new work requirements. But interviews suggest that Arizona’s efforts to comply, combined with cuts to the agency that runs the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, have contributed to the decline — making it more difficult to apply and causing people who are eligible to be denied. The state’s drop has exceeded previous projections. “Arizona is just the alarm bell,” said Joseph Palomino, executive director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, a nonpartisan advocacy organization. “This is likely going to happen in every state.” The bill, which places a larger share of the program’s costs onto states, expanded work requirements for some recipients and eliminated work exemptions for others, such as people who are homeless or aging out of foster care. In addition, the bill mandates that states reduce their payment error rates — which measure the accuracy of eligibility and payment determinations — or face millions in penalties. Although some changes don’t fully take effect until the fall, experts say Arizona’s experience suggests people are already going hungry as a result of the legislation’s changes. Charisma Garcia, a 25-year-old mother of two, has tried for months to obtain an interview to complete a SNAP application. After weeks calling the agency only to get a recorded message, she woke before sunrise recently to wait in line at an Arizona Department of Economic Security office in south Phoenix. A security guard told her the agency wasn’t doing in-person interviews, so she headed to a food bank instead. She needed to feed her children, ages 3 and 6. “I need to do the thing that gets me the food,” she said. Brett Bezio, a spokesperson for DES, said the agency is focusing on reducing the state’s error rate to ensure “the program remains a stable resource for vulnerable Arizonans.” Although Arizona’s rate of 8.8% is below the national average, the new federal regulations require that it be brought down to 6%. If officials don’t reduce the rate, Arizona could face penalties of $195.4 million in two years, which is more than double the amount it pays to operate the program. The department said it expects participation to stabilize in the months ahead. The choices Arizona is making are “a reality that every state is facing,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Congress created a “terrible incentive” by requiring states to reduce their error rate and shoulder more of the program’s costs, she said. Nationwide, SNAP enrollment plummeted 8% from December 2024 to December 2025, according to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs SNAP. Trump has touted it as a success.“We lifted 3.3 million Americans off of food stamps,” he said, referencing figures since he took office. “That’s a record.” Arizona Saw the Biggest Drop in SNAP Participation of All States Since Congress Passed Megabill The state showed monthly drops after the bill became law on July 4. Note: U.S. territories not shown. Program data for North Dakota in October 2025 was excluded from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis and also is not shown. Sources: CBPP analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture and state SNAP programs data. Chris Alcantara/ProPublica Asked about the sharp decline in SNAP participants, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ press secretary, Liliana Soto, blamed Trump administration policies, which have “increased bureaucracy and red tape on states across the country, and forced DES to take difficult but necessary steps to reduce the state’s payment error rate.” Hobbs’ administration is taking these steps “to avoid staggering fines of hundreds of millions of dollars that would further endanger food assistance for vulnerable Arizonans,” Soto said in a statement. But other factors have aggravated Arizona’s situation. In 2021, the state Legislature and then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, passed a flat 2.5% income tax largely benefiting the wealthy, which has forced more than $1 billion in spending cuts and fund swaps to balance the state budget in subsequent years. (Ducey has defended the flat tax as necessary to ensure the state continues to be competitive and “a jobs magnet and generator of opportunity.”) Last summer, DES also laid off about 500 employees in response to the elimination of federal grants and in anticipation of additional federal cuts. Officials said that about 160 eligibility specialists lost their jobs, a 40% decline since July 2024.  In December, Hobbs, a Democrat, allocated $7.5 million to DES, most of which was used to hire more than 100 workers and increase overtime to handle SNAP cases. A spokesperson said applications are also slowed by “1980s technology” it uses to administer benefits. Hobbs asked for an additional $48.4 million in her 2027 budget proposal to help the department administer SNAP.  The most recent federal data, from 2023, shows that the state spends $70 million to operate the $2 billion program. Meanwhile, some seeking SNAP assistance told ProPublica that their applications remain in limbo, sometimes for months. Garcia, the mother of two, said she will keep trying to obtain the benefits. She’s looking for work as a cook after being laid off from a car wash in January. Her family is living with her grandparents, where groceries are shared among six people. Sometimes, her 3-year-old pats his belly when he’s hungry for his favorite fruits like strawberries. At times, she hasn’t received fruit in the boxes she receives from the food bank. “I’m in a pinch,” she said. “I’m struggling. The post “The Alarm Bell”: Arizona’s Drop in SNAP Participation Signals Potential Nationwide Impact of Trump Legislation appeared first on ProPublica.

— “Economic Civil War”: States Push Laws to Shield Oil and Gas Companies From Accountability

 

at 4/7/26 3:00am

Across the country, Republican-led state legislatures are passing a slate of laws that effectively shield oil and gas companies from legal claims that they are responsible for the destruction and mounting toll caused by climate change. Fifteen laws have either been passed or are currently being debated in 11 states. Together, they threaten to remove long-standing tools for the public to hold corporations accountable. A ProPublica investigation has found that most of these bills are part of a coordinated effort, orchestrated by a constellation of groups that share staff or have funding ties to the prominent conservative activist Leonard Leo, who is credited with placing conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. These groups have drafted state legislation, planned its dissemination and engaged a well-connected lobbying firm to get them signed into law. The effort is unfolding as courts are weighing more than 30 significant lawsuits by states, counties and municipalities accusing fossil fuel companies of misrepresenting the risks their products posed to consumers and seeking to recoup the costs of disasters and other climate impacts like wildfire losses or coastal flooding that their products helped cause. A goal of the legislation is to block these cases from going forward and prevent new ones from being filed. The strategy to establish state laws that will make it all but impossible to sue oil and gas companies was laid out in detail by a group of lobbyists and political operatives in December, during a panel presentation at the annual States and Nation Policy Summit of the American Legislative Exchange Council — the influential organization that brings together state lawmakers, corporate leaders and conservative activists to draft and promote legislation. During the session, one of the panelists, Will Hild, the executive director of a nonprofit called Consumers’ Research, described the climate cases as a liberal effort to use the judicial system to exact a new tax on energy companies in the form of civil judgments. Another panelist, Oramel H. Skinner, the former solicitor general for Arizona and the executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Consumers, warned that those judgments will trickle down to make citizens’ lives less affordable and ultimately make many of their choices — whether to own pickup trucks or purchase a side of beef — illegal. ProPublica reviewed an audio recording of the event obtained by the nonpartisan watchdog group Documented. Hild and Skinner had come to the session with a ready-made fix: a set of pre-written bills and plenty of funding. Will Hild, the executive director of the nonprofit Consumers’ Research Bloomberg/Getty Images Consumers’ Research and the Alliance for Consumers are both funded by organizations connected to Leo. ProPublica examined lobbying records across 25 states, federal tax disclosures for more than a dozen organizations and notes from other closed-door strategy sessions among ALEC members and found that several Leo-supported groups are part of a national strategy to give legal immunity to companies for their climate emissions. Since 2021, Leo has been deploying a $1.6 billion gift through a series of nonprofits and other organizations that obscure the source and the recipients of donations — so-called dark money groups. Much of that money has been routed through a nonprofit judicial advocacy group Leo founded — now called The 85 Fund — which both receives and disseminates Leo’s funding. Many of these nonprofits are increasingly focused on issues related to climate change. The panel session’s moderator, Michael Thompson, is a senior vice president at CRC Advisors, Leo’s for-profit Virginia-based political and corporate consulting firm. He also sits on ALEC’s Private Enterprise Advisory Council. Hild’s organization, Consumers’ Research, received more than 65% of its funding in 2024 through a dark money group called Donors Trust. The 85 Fund contributed more than $67 million to Donors Trust in 2024. Consumers’ Research also works closely with — and contracted more than $670,000 of work in 2024 to — CRC Advisors. Another panelist, Paul N. Watkins, was a legal fellow at Consumers’ Research. According to tax filings, his law firm received more than $2.2 million in 2024 from the group. As recently as 2024, Skinner was also counsel for Leo’s 85 Fund, according to the nonprofit’s tax filings. “For decades, the left has leveraged immense resources to capture the institutions that shape our society — the legal system, universities, medical and scientific bodies, the entertainment industry, and our biggest corporations,” Leo wrote to ProPublica in a text message. “That takeover resulted in a radically woke culture that does not reflect the will of the American people, or the pillars of limited constitutional government that made our country great. That is why our enterprise supports organizations that are committed to crushing liberal dominance and restoring balance in the institutions that shape society.” At the ALEC session, Skinner presented a model bill that would effectively bar cities and towns from bringing public nuisance lawsuits against corporations and others when the issue is a broad public harm like climate change. In several cases, plaintiffs have argued that the impacts of climate change — the buckling of a road from extreme swings in temperature, for example — are a “nuisance” caused by fossil fuel companies. Nuisance claims are common in the American legal system, giving individuals, companies or communities a way to sue when someone else’s actions damage their property, degrade the health or safety of the environment around them or interfere with their rights. Under these laws, parties can ask for financial compensation or seek court orders to remedy problems, such as pollution. Skinner, however, argues that nuisance laws should only be used to address local, easily fixable problems, like excessive noise from a bar. His bill would curtail the use of public nuisance suits in climate cases by limiting liability for manufacturers and other businesses and giving state attorneys general the sole authority to bring them. “Think really hard about every lever you have in your states to shut off the ability for this woke lawfare machine to churn,” Skinner told the audience. “The left’s goal is to reshape society around you using the courtroom.” The second draft law, called the Energy Freedom Act, was produced by the policy nonprofit associated with Hild’s organization. It would, among many provisions, shield businesses from liability related to emissions of greenhouse gases if those releases did not violate the federal Clean Air Act. Critics of the bills say they subvert the rights of local communities. They send the message that “you can pollute with impunity,” said Carly Phillips, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s really a thumb in the eye of places that are affected by climate change.” The push to block climate suits across the states comes as several of the cases against the oil industry approach, or have already entered, the perilous legal phases of discovery, when plaintiffs will have the opportunity to seek confidential industry documents and depose oil executives. The stakes for oil companies are enormous. By some estimates more than $10 trillion in damages can be attributed to U.S. emissions. There’s a reason why state and local governments have increasingly brought these suits. The frequency and cost of climate-influenced disasters, including severe storms, drought and flooding, continues to mount — between $350 billion and $450 billion in each of the last three years — stretching government budgets. Significantly, the science that makes it possible to attribute how much any one disaster was influenced by climate change has steadily advanced. To cite one example, the March heat waves across the U.S. would have been virtually impossible without the emissions that have caused climate change, according to the European science group World Weather Attribution, and were about four times as likely to happen as they were a decade ago. Boulder, Colorado, is among the places facing increasing droughts, more extreme precipitation and larger wildfires — all of which are significantly propelled by climate change linked to the emissions from the use of fossil fuels. The state has estimated the costs of these perils will run into the many hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2018, Boulder County sued Exxon Mobil and the Canadian oil company Suncor Energy, accusing the companies of “intentional, reckless and negligent conduct.” Among its claims, the county alleged the oil companies engaged in a conspiracy to mislead the public and violated consumer protection rules by mischaracterizing the dangers of their products. They accused the oil companies of creating a public nuisance by altering the environment and leaving the county to pay to abate growing hazards such as the flooding that tests roads and bridges. Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy have never filed a response in Colorado but asked for the case to be dismissed. Ever since, the lawsuit has been mired in a dispute over whether Colorado courts were the correct venue, with the state Supreme Court ultimately ruling last May that they were. Suncor filed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider, and this fall it will weigh the company’s petition asking whether federal environmental law preempts the state law. The high-profile national court case is just one facet in an increasingly tense fight over liability for the fossil fuel industry. In January, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest fossil fuel industry group in the United States, said fighting the climate liability lawsuits was one of its top priorities in 2026. Lobbying records for the group from last year show that it advocated for legislation to protect oil producers from climate lawsuits at the state level. The Trump administration; other industry groups, including the Chamber of Commerce; and several of the nonprofit advocacy groups associated with Leo have argued that state courts are the wrong venue for claims that ultimately concern emissions that drift widely across borders, and they wish to see other cases moved or dismissed. They say that because the federal government already has the authority to regulate those emissions, the federal courts, not the states, should hear the claims. In an interview, Hild told ProPublica that he sees the suits as an illegitimate effort to enact policy through the courts and to “regulate the entire U.S. economy from a single state.” In an email, Skinner wrote: “Our effort is not one focused on climate change. But it is true that left-wing activists and their dark money donors have put vast sums of money and years of groundwork into pushing a coast-to-coast campaign of climate-focused public nuisance lawsuits.” Neither Watkins nor Thompson responded to requests for comment. Prominent conservative activist Leonard Leo Nordin Catic/Getty Images When Skinner and Hild finished their presentation at ALEC they made a QR code available to download the language of the model bills and directed the audience to a woman named Catherine Gunsalus, who was in the back of the room. She would be able to answer any questions, they said. Gunsalus until recently worked for the Heritage Action Fund, the political and lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, the Trump-aligned think tank that is most recently known for promoting the Project 2025 agenda. Records show that Gunsalus has also lobbied in collaboration with another Leo-affiliated group, Americans for Public Trust. In April 2025, she formed a lobbying firm called Varidon Strategies and began registering in states almost immediately afterward, according to records. By mid-summer, Varidon was representing Alliance for Consumers Action Fund; Consumers’ Research; The Honest Election Project, an affiliate of The 85 Fund; as well as other Leo entities in 25 states. In the majority of those filings, Varidon used an email address at the domain of Holtzman Vogel, a Virginia-based law firm that is often retained by Leo’s organizations. Gunsalus did not reply to a detailed list of questions. In the four months since the ALEC summit, there has been substantial activity in the states where Varidon has registered. On Jan. 5, representatives in Missouri introduced the loosely related Eliminate Criminal Profiteering Act, which could stop revenues flowing to law firms from settlements in the sort of nuisance suits often used in climate cases. Two days later, legislators took up the Public Nuisance Reform Act, which proposes narrowing the definition of what could be considered a nuisance. That same month, similar bills were introduced in Indiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. In February, eight more followed in Oklahoma, Iowa, South Carolina, Utah, Louisiana and Kansas. Skinner, who is registered to lobby in Kansas, was invited to testify in a hearing about that state’s bill and launched a new “End the Lawfare” website targeting the “left-wing” agenda. As of April 2, versions of the model legislation offered at the ALEC meeting have been introduced across 11 states altogether. In Utah, the governor has signed two related bills into law, and in Tennessee and Indiana, bills are awaiting their governors’ signature. The more states there are with some sort of waiver in place, the narrower the pathway for cities and states to seek redress as environmental conditions worsen, and the costs continue to rise. Hild and Skinner and the Leo network’s bills also serve another purpose: teeing up a conflict that pits states against one another, a conflict that only the Supreme Court or Congress can finally resolve. As Hild put it at the ALEC gathering, “This is economic civil war.” The post “Economic Civil War”: States Push Laws to Shield Oil and Gas Companies From Accountability appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Environment]

— The Federal Government Is Rushing Toward AI. Our Reporting Offers Three Cautionary Tales.

 

at 4/6/26 3:00am

As a cybersecurity reporter at ProPublica, much of my work over the past two years has focused on how the federal government and its IT contractors, like Microsoft, have navigated major technological transitions. The one now in the news every day is artificial intelligence.  This emerging technology has its grip on everyone: Home users, corporations and the federal government are all rushing to use it. President Donald Trump and his Cabinet say AI will transform the nation, making us more prosperous, efficient and secure — if only we can adopt it fast enough.  But this messaging isn’t new. President Barack Obama’s administration used nearly identical language a decade and a half ago as the U.S. barreled into the technological revolution of cloud computing. I’ve studied how the federal government has handled — and mishandled — this transition over the past two decades, and my reporting offers some cautionary tales and valuable lessons as policymakers encourage the use of AI and federal agencies adopt the technology. Lesson 1: There’s no such thing as a free lunch  Then: In the early 2020s, a series of cyberattacks linked to Russia, China and Iran left the federal government reeling. The Biden administration called on major tech companies to help the U.S. bolster its defenses. In response, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pledged to give the government $150 million in technical services to help upgrade its digital security. It also offered a “free” security upgrade for government customers. Now: Last year, the Trump administration announced a raft of agreements with tech companies that were meant to help federal agencies “purchase enterprise AI tools at government-friendly pricing.” Agencies could use OpenAI’s ChatGPT for $1. Google’s Gemini for 47 cents. Grok by xAI for 42 cents. The administration hoped that the low-cost pricing would make it “easier for federal teams to acquire powerful AI capabilities … to enhance mission delivery and operational efficiency.” The takeaway: Be wary of freebies. Our investigation into Microsoft’s seemingly straightforward commitment revealed a more complex, profit-driven agenda. After installing the upgrades, federal customers would be effectively locked in, because shifting to a competitor after the free trial would be cumbersome and costly. At that point, the customer would have little choice but to pay for the higher subscription fees. The plan worked: One former Microsoft salesperson told me “it was successful beyond what any of us could have imagined.” In response to questions about the commitment, Microsoft has said its “sole goal during this period was to support an urgent request by the Administration to enhance the security posture of federal agencies who were continuously being targeted by sophisticated nation-state threat actors.” Agencies looking to buy AI tools at discounted rates today must consider how the costs might balloon down the road. The General Services Administration warns that AI “usage costs can grow quickly without proper monitoring and management controls” and advises agencies to “set usage limits and regularly review consumption reports.” Lesson 2: Oversight programs are only as effective as their resources Then: In the Obama era, the federal government shifted its sensitive information and computing needs to data centers owned and operated by private companies. Acknowledging the potential risks, the administration created the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, in 2011 to help ensure the security of the cloud computing services that it was encouraging U.S. agencies to use. But in my recent investigation of the program, I found it was no match for Microsoft, which effectively wore down the FedRAMP team over five years as the company sought the program’s seal of approval for a major cloud offering known as GCC High. Despite serious reservations about its cybersecurity, FedRAMP ultimately authorized the product, in part because it lacked the resources to keep going. In response to questions, Microsoft told me: “We stand by our products and the comprehensive steps we’ve taken to ensure all FedRAMP-authorized products meet the security and compliance requirements necessary.” Now: Today, this tiny outpost within the General Services Administration has even fewer resources to oversee the cloud technology on which the government relies — including AI. FedRAMP says it now operates “with an absolute minimum of support staff” and “limited customer service.” The program was an early target of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.  The takeaway: FedRAMP, which a 2024 White House memo said must be an expert program that can analyze and validate the security claims of cloud providers, is now little more than a rubber stamp for the tech industry, former employees told me. As federal agencies adopt AI tools that draw upon reams of sensitive information, the implications of this downsizing for federal cybersecurity are far-reaching. A GSA spokesperson defended the program and said FedRAMP now “operates with strengthened oversight and accountability mechanisms.” Lesson 3: “Independent” reviews are only so independent   Then: The government has long relied on so-called third-party assessors to verify the security claims made by cloud service providers like Microsoft and Google. In theory, these firms are supposed to be independent experts that offer a recommendation to FedRAMP on whether a product meets federal standards. But in practice, their independence has an asterisk: They are paid by the companies they are evaluating. My recent investigation found that this setup creates an inherent conflict of interest. In the case of Microsoft’s GCC High, two assessors recommended the product despite being unable to fully vet it, according to a former FedRAMP reviewer. One of those firms did not respond to my questions and the other denied this account. Read More Federal Cyber Experts Thought Microsoft’s Cloud Was “a Pile of Shit.” They Approved It Anyway. FedRAMP, we found, is well aware of how the financial arrangement between the cloud companies and their assessors can distort official findings about cybersecurity problems. The program even created a “back channel” to encourage assessors to share concerns they might not otherwise raise in their official reports for fear of angering their tech clients and losing business. Now: With FedRAMP reduced to being a “paper pusher,” as one former GSA official put it, these third-party assessment firms have taken on even more importance in the vetting process. In response to questions from ProPublica, the GSA said that FedRAMP’s system “does not create an inherent conflict of interest for professional auditors who meet ethical and contractual performance expectations.” It did not respond to questions about the program’s back channel. The takeaway: The pendulum has essentially swung back to the pre-FedRAMP era, when each federal agency was individually responsible for vetting the products it used. The GSA told me that FedRAMP’s job is “to ensure agencies have sufficient information to make these risk decisions.” The problem is that agencies often lack the staff and resources to do thorough reviews, which means the whole system is leaning on the claims of the cloud companies and the assessments of the third-party firms they pay to evaluate them. The post The Federal Government Is Rushing Toward AI. Our Reporting Offers Three Cautionary Tales. appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Technology]

— RFK Jr. May Reverse a Peptide Ban He Calls “Illegal.” Former FDA Officials Say He Mischaracterized Their Work.

 

at 4/3/26 3:00am

Just under three years ago, the Food and Drug Administration deemed 19 peptide drugs too unsafe to be dispensed by compounding pharmacies, which mix components of approved drugs to create bespoke medication for people who have trouble taking commonly available products. Now, under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the agency is poised to reverse itself. That’s despite few clinical studies supporting the effectiveness or safety of these peptides, which are amino acid chains meant to help regulate functions in the body and have become popular among fitness and longevity enthusiasts. In February, Kennedy said the FDA acted illegally in 2023 when it categorized 19 peptides as too unsafe for compounders, whose final products aren’t tested or approved by the FDA. Kennedy, who described himself as a “big fan” of peptides, has used the therapies himself. “It was illegal because theyre not supposed to do that unless theres a safety signal,” Kennedy said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, referring to adverse events related to medications. “And they didnt have a safety signal. Theyre not allowed to look at efficacy. Theyre not allowed to say, ‘Well, we dont believe these are efficacious,’ or whatever. They can only look at safety.” But three former FDA officials closely familiar with how the agency created the criteria to assess the peptides in the first place say Kennedy has mischaracterized their work. The agency’s 2023 decision to ban certain peptides was supported by numerous documented safety concerns, they said. FDA regulations also require the agency to assess both safety and effectiveness before approving a substance for compounding. “It would be a disruption of the societal pact we have had since 1962 that drugs will be studied to see if they work before they are marketed in the U.S.,” said Janet Woodcock, a former FDA acting commissioner. If Kennedy justifies reversal of the previous work by suggesting there were no safety concerns, it would give a false imprimatur of safety to more than a dozen unapproved, untested drugs, the officials said. There’s been little new science on the 19 peptides since the FDA’s 2023 decision to categorize them as unsafe. But demand for the drugs has exploded as influencers have flooded social media with promises of sculpted physiques, glowing skin, luscious hair, rapidly healing injuries, youthful energy and blazing sex lives. Ads on Meta platforms claim peptide users can get a range of health benefits. Obtained by ProPublica The demand has given rise to a burgeoning gray market, where wellness spas, multilevel marketers and telehealth websites ply the public with vials of “research grade” peptides labeled “not for human use.” “More people want to use them,” said Lauren Colenso-Semple, a muscle physiology researcher and science communication specialist who follows scientific studies of peptides as part of her work. “That’s what’s changed.” FDA-approved peptide drugs such as insulin and oxytocin have been available for decades. Newer ones such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, broadly known as GLP-1s, have exploded in popularity for weight loss and have shown promise for treating other conditions, such as addictions and neurodegenerative and liver diseases. The popularity of these drugs has led the public to become more comfortable with injectables and has helped drive attention to other gray-market peptides. Last year, at a Las Vegas conference promising radical life extension, two women became critically ill after being injected with peptides the FDA had categorized as unsafe. Although Nevada regulators investigated and fined the health practitioners involved in administering the peptides, investigators weren’t able to determine the exact cause of the reaction. The doctor who ran the booth where the women became ill said he didn’t believe that the peptides caused their reactions but apologized for the incident and said he would review his practices. The Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding, one of the largest industry associations lobbying for the FDA to change its stance on peptides, acknowledges it knows little about the safety of individual peptides being sold to the public. (Its CEO says it is an advocacy organization, not a scientific one.) But the group argues the public would be safer if peptides were handled by regulated compounding pharmacies instead of the gray market. The FDA should forgo the usual human clinical trials in order to bring about this shift, a spokesperson for the alliance said. “Where we dont have research, clinical trials, what weve got a ton of, is, shall we say, testimonials, patient affidavits, attesting to the wonders of the drug,” said Scott Brunner, the alliance’s chief executive officer. “And RFK Jr. is one of those testifiers.” On the Rogan podcast, Kennedy wasn’t clear on exactly how the FDA would let compounders start dispensing peptides, describing it only as “some kind of action” to make “about 14” peptides “more accessible.” Nor has he specified which peptides he wants to make available. (Neither the FDA nor HHS responded to ProPublica’s requests for more information.) But several regulatory shortcuts exist and, ultimately, Kennedy could simply declare the ingredients are legal. “He has all of the authority,” said Woodcock, likening such a declaration to former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ unilateral 2011 reversal of the FDA’s decision to lift age restrictions on the emergency contraception Plan B. (A judge ultimately found Sebelius’ move to be arbitrary and capricious and nullified it.) “The secretary can do anything they want.” A commercial for a GLP-1 drug appeared on television screens at a bar in Los Angeles during the Super Bowl LX broadcast. The Food and Drug Administration has approved peptide drugs such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, known as GLP-1s, and they have exploded in popularity for weight loss and shown promise for treating other conditions. Jill Connelly/Bloomberg/Getty Images The Bulks List The FDA’s road to regulating compounding pharmacies — and by extension the peptides they seek to dispense — has been long and tedious. Much of the regulatory fight has focused on which ingredients compounders should be allowed to use. Under a 1997 law, the first passed by Congress to regulate the industry, compounders can only use ingredients that are a component of an approved drug, have what’s known as a USP monograph (essentially a third-party certified recipe for a drug used mainly by manufacturers of generics), or are listed as approved substances by the FDA. This FDA list, known as “the bulks list,” is at the center of the ongoing peptide debate. Litigation and pressure from the industry and lawmakers delayed for decades the creation of the bulks list, leaving compounders in limbo on scores of substances, not just peptides. “Everything was a fight. It was a huge fight,” said one former FDA official who has spent more than 30 years working on compounding policies. The former official asked not to be named to avoid a public debate with the industry. The need for the list took on new urgency in 2012, when more than 60 people died from fungal meningitis infections contracted from a drug produced at a compounding facility and dispensed to hundreds of people. Congress passed another law further regulating large compounders that sell medications to doctors’ offices and hospitals rather than individual patients. The new law also prompted the agency to move more quickly on establishing the bulks list. The FDA asked the industry to nominate substances for inclusion on the list. It did so, nominating thousands of ingredients, including, for example, purified water and asparagus. “They put in everything,” the official said. “Literally thousands of nominations with absolutely no justification for why it needed to be there.” Each substance would have to be reviewed individually before it could be added to the bulks list. The agency would have to solicit public comment and an advisory committee of health and pharmacy experts would have to review the FDA’s research. Reviewing them “was a massive effort. The agency proceeded glacially, but really we were speeding as fast as we could,” the official said. In 2017, under pressure to move more quickly, the FDA came up with an interim solution. It substantially narrowed the list of nominated ingredients, quickly reviewed each remaining substance and placed them into three categories. The first was substances with enough of a safety track record that the agency felt comfortable letting compounders use them while the final list was assembled. The second category included substances considered too risky for compounding. And the third included those without enough supporting information for the FDA to make an informed decision and therefore wouldn’t be used for compounding. This categorization didn’t constitute a formal regulation; rather the agency was using its discretion not to go after compounders who used ingredients it deemed safe — those from the first category. In 2023, the FDA placed 19 peptides in Category 2, which already included a handful of substances the agency considered to be dangerous. This is what Kennedy has called “the war on peptides.” In explaining its decisions, the FDA pointed to well-established research in peptide drug development that injectable peptides carry the risk of causing immune reactions. Such reactions can range from responses with “no clinical manifestations” to irritating rashes to life-threatening conditions such as anaphylactic shock, which constricts breathing and impairs motor function. Peptides occur naturally in the body but break down quickly after serving their purpose. Peptide drugs, on the other hand, are manufactured to last longer in the body to create a therapeutic response, such as controlling appetite or promoting the growth of new blood vessels, bone density or muscle. “Now that it’s been tweaked to make it something else, the immune system can recognize it as foreign and there’s the potential issue of having an unwanted immune response,” Colenso-Semple said. The manufacturing process can also introduce impurities — like bacteria or heavy metals — into peptide drugs. They also are sensitive to environmental conditions and can change chemical composition if stored at the wrong temperatures or shaken too vigorously, increasing the risk of an immune response or decreasing their effectiveness. And when a substance is injected, as opposed to taken orally, it bypasses most of the body’s natural defenses. The risk of an immune response is common to peptide drugs in general. But individual peptides also present specific potential risks. The FDA reviewed data to assess these risks and found limited human studies on a few peptide therapies; most have only been studied in animals or in clinical populations like HIV patients. What human data the FDA did find for individual peptides indicated the potential for harm. Subjects in studies of six individual peptides — growth hormone releasing peptide-2, ibutamoren mesylate, ipamorelin, CJC-1295, AOD-9604 and melanotan II — experienced adverse events, including death. (It wasn’t proven whether the deaths were caused by the peptides or by something else.) Ultimately, the FDA decided not enough data existed to allay the known safety concerns. “Of course any adverse event can be a flag,” said another former FDA official who worked in the compounding division when the peptides were categorized as unsafe. The former official asked not to be named because they work in public health and don’t want to antagonize the current administration. “Also, if there is no clinical data for a substance, and an awareness that the substance has the propensity for harm, that could make it an appropriate placement on the Category 2 list.” Attendees are taught how to draw blood during a peptide rave in San Francisco last year. Jason Henry/The New York Times/Redux Are They Safe? Putting the peptides on the unsafe list didn’t change much for compounders. Because those peptides aren’t components of an approved drug and don’t carry a USP monograph, compounders weren’t allowed to dispense them anyway. “All that did was put an exclamation point on it,” Brunner said. In the months after the FDA’s announcement, his organization repeatedly warned its members not to dispense peptides. But the listing prompted at least two peptide companies to sue the FDA, arguing it was dragging its feet on creating the bulks list of allowed compounding substances. To date, only six substances have made it through the process to be put on the list, none of which are peptides and none of which are injectables. As the lawsuit wound its way through federal court, the FDA agreed to accelerate the review of four peptides named in the lawsuit: CJC-1295, AOD-9604, thymosin-alpha and ipamorelin acetate. It also decided to move forward on two other peptides not listed in the complaint: kisspeptin and ibutamoren mesylate. Online marketing claims these peptides help with, among other things, weight loss, muscle-building, anti-aging, insomnia, tissue repair and sexual dysfunction. Marketers also claim thymosin-alpha, one of the more studied peptides, can help with immune function, Lyme disease and COVID-19. In the final months of the Biden administration, the FDA convened the expert advisory committee and presented its research on the six peptides. In reports up to 158 pages long, the agency detailed the science behind the immune response risk in synthetic peptides, listed documented adverse events associated with the drugs and summarized the limited research on human subjects. In each case, the FDA recommended against putting the peptide on the bulks list for compounders. “I can’t imagine anybody looking at this data and being comfortable” making these available to the public, Colenso-Semple said. The peptide industry was given just 10 minutes before the committee to present arguments that the six peptides were safe. Speakers offered anecdotal evidence from their own and others’ practices. Even though peptides can’t legally be used by compounders, many were dispensing the drugs because the FDA has been lax in enforcing its regulations. “Many of the peptides that have been placed on Category 2 have been used successfully by thousands of our practitioners treating hundreds of thousands of patients who utilize these compounds to energize cellular function and give the body what it needs to help address sickness and disease, including obesity, diabetes and addiction,” said Dan DeNeui, CEO of one of the peptide companies that sued the FDA. His wife, Terri DeNeui, a nurse practitioner and founder of their company Evexias Health Solutions, presented information from a survey of 508 patients treated with various peptides that said 19% reported uncomfortable side effects and less than 1% experienced an adverse event. They also contended peptides would be more safely dispensed by regulated compounders than on the gray market — the argument now being made by the Alliance for Compounding Pharmacies. The active ingredients in the drugs would be manufactured at an FDA-registered facility subject to inspection, and compounders are overseen by state boards of pharmacies to ensure sterile conditions. That’s “a heck of a lot better than what many consumers are doing,” getting advice in chat rooms and “ordering some substance that purports to be a peptide and may or may not be,” Brunner told ProPublica. While that argument addresses quality-control concerns associated with the gray market, it doesn’t confront the fundamental question of whether peptides are safe. “Theyre totally unapproved drugs,” said one of the former FDA officials. “Would you let a pharmaceutical company do this? No. No way.” In the end, the advisory committee sided with the FDA and endorsed its initial decision that the six peptides were too risky to be dispensed to the public. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to end the “war on peptides.” Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images What Happens Now? Unhappy with the advisory committee’s decision, the compounding industry has amplified its argument that the FDA review process for the bulks list is broken. The advisory committee had few working compounders on it and didn’t give those who opposed the decision on peptides enough time to present its arguments, industry advocates say. With a new administration, whose health secretary has used peptides himself and is trying to advance alternative health practices, they see an opportunity. They hope the FDA will appoint more members with compounding experience to the committee and ease enforcement on peptides while it continues the established regulatory process. “Given the scale of demand — demand that is going to be met, if not by a state licensed compounding pharmacy, then by the black and gray markets — we believe the lens that the FDA is using related to these peptides, at least some of the peptides, is the wrong lens,” Brunner said. “Theyre wanting research, clinical trials. Theyre wanting a certain amount of certitude that, frankly, is appropriate for most drugs, but not for this moment.” Regulatory shortcuts exist that would allow the FDA to skip the more laborious approval process. The FDA could simply remove the peptides from Category 2, those it considers unsafe. It could place them in Category 1, allowing them to be used in compounding. Or it could announce it’s changing its enforcement strategy and not going after compounders who work with these substances. None of that would be safe for the public, Woodcock contends. Congress intended for the FDA to “refer to a substantive body of evidence about the safety and effectiveness” of ingredients put on the bulks list, she said. “This wasn’t supposed to be a route for unapproved drugs to get into the market,” she said. “Not even Congress was thinking that.” The post RFK Jr. May Reverse a Peptide Ban He Calls “Illegal.” Former FDA Officials Say He Mischaracterized Their Work. appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Health Care, Regulation, Trump Administration]

— Why We Went Looking for National Defense Areas Along the U.S. Southern Border

 

at 4/2/26 3:00am

Our reporting started, like much of our work, in a spreadsheet. As I parsed through federal court data, I noticed something odd: Within months of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, prosecutors began filing obscure charges related to trespassing on military property — so many, in fact, that more cases were filed in 2025 than in the prior decade. Nearly all of these charges originated from cases along the U.S. southern border, where last spring, the White House designated large swaths of land as national defense areas. Putting them under military authority allowed troops to play an unprecedented role in apprehending undocumented immigrants; federal soldiers are generally barred from enforcing the law on domestic soil. If you were caught in one of these zones, the government could also now prosecute you for breaking federal laws, including one enacted in 1909 to keep spies away from arsenals. In an investigation we published recently, my co-reporters Perla Trevizo, Abe Streep, Pratheek Rebala and I dug into what experts say is a major flaw afflicting these prosecutions that threatens to ensnare people for crimes they did not commit: Migrants didn’t know the land they were crossing now belonged to the armed forces. And many judges have ruled that you can’t be guilty of trespassing on military land if you had no idea you were on it. Since April of last year, we found, at least 4,700 immigrants already charged with entering the country illegally faced these military trespass charges; at least one had to wait in jail for more than a month to stand trial. Most of the charges didn’t stick. In fact, we found that in 60% of the resolved cases, the trespass charges were dropped or dismissed. Yet prosecutors kept filing them. Download the full data used in our analysis on our GitHub page. Military Trespass Cases Under Trump Administration Skyrocket Note: Counts are of unique cases in which charges were filed under 50:797 (“Penalty for violation of security regulations and orders”) and 18:1382 (“Entering military, naval, or Coast Guard property”).Source: Federal Justice Center’s Integrated Database. Agnel Philip/ProPublica As we visited courtrooms in West Texas and New Mexico and pored through case records, it became clear how hard it would be to prove that someone knowingly trespassed on military land. Some couldn’t read. At least one person didn’t speak English or Spanish. The small signs are spaced far apart and easy to miss, and many migrants were arrested far away from them. A Justice Department spokesperson said the prosecutions have deterred unauthorized border crossings and cartel activity. And prosecutors have argued in court that illegally crossing is enough to prove criminal intent for the military trespassing charges. Senior officials in the U.S. attorney’s offices handling trespass cases declined repeated interview requests. In November, Perla, Abe and I set out to report throughout southern New Mexico and West Texas to see for ourselves what information we could gather about where the zones were and how they were marked. Abe and I arranged a ride-along with Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart, whose New Mexico agency shares jurisdiction with Border Patrol and the military in one of the zones.  A sergeant from her office drove us along a dirt road that parallels the border as she pointed out 12-by-18-inch red and white signs opposite the fence. She told us her office hadn’t received specific information about where the military zone boundaries were; all they had were the signs. Even in broad daylight, it was difficult to read the words on them unless we got within a few feet. Small signs like this are posted around the national defense areas, but their size and placement often make them difficult to see. Paul Ratje for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune On another outing in New Mexico — this time with the photographer Paul Ratje — I went to a spot in Sunland Park where Ratje said he’d previously taken photos of the border fence. The 2-acre dirt lot sat less than a mile from residential neighborhoods and a popular Italian restaurant. From the lot, we could see more red and white signs along the nearby border road. While we were taking pictures, a pickup truck with a Border Patrol livery approached us. I was surprised to see that inside, instead of Border Patrol agents, there were two Army soldiers. The soldier in the passenger seat pointed to the signage along the border road and told us not to go past there. The border road was part of the defense area, he told us, though the lot we were standing in wasn’t. The next day, Perla and I returned to the same location. This time, a Border Patrol agent drove up. The lot was part of the defense area, he told us. When I pointed out that I had been given conflicting information the previous day, the agent said he was told by the military that people couldn’t be in this area. We left. (An Army spokesperson said that the base responsible for the defense area in New Mexico published a map in December; the lot was not included in it.) My interactions with Border Patrol and the military had so far only added to our confusion about these areas. Later that day, Perla and I drove south to a stretch of border fence along the Rio Grande near Tornillo, Texas. We saw a Border Patrol van near a gate in the fence. We thought we’d try to ask where the defense area was. Before we could do that, another Border Patrol van pulled up to us. Soldiers, including one with a rifle strapped across his shoulder, emerged from both vehicles. Another soldier told us he was “not at liberty to discuss” the national defense area’s exact location.  Read More The Trump Administration’s “Disturbing” New Legal Strategy to Prosecute Border Crossers Is Taxing Courts and Testing the Law The response bewildered us. We asked him how we were supposed to know whether we were trespassing. He shrugged. (Spokespeople for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Defense did not directly answer questions about these interactions.) As we got back into our rental SUV, Perla and I wondered: If we, as reporters who investigate things for a living, couldn’t get a straight answer on where these military zones were, how did the government expect people crossing the border to do better?  In the four months between our reporting trip and the publication of our investigation on March 16, the government continued to file military trespassing charges in more than 1,300 cases. And it’s established new military zones, too, in Arizona, California and Texas. The post Why We Went Looking for National Defense Areas Along the U.S. Southern Border appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Immigration]

— The Trump EPA Official in Charge of Methane Regulations Helped Write an Oil Industry Argument Against Those Rules

 

at 4/1/26 3:00am

The Trump administration official leading an effort to loosen rules on methane pollution was an unnamed author of key industry arguments against those same rules just four years ago when he was an oil and gas lobbyist. Aaron Szabo, an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, is listed in PDF metadata as the author of a January 2022 comment letter objecting to proposed controls on methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. The letter was submitted to the EPA by the American Exploration and Production Council, which represents some of the industry’s largest emitters of the planet-warming gas, including ConocoPhillips, Diversified Energy and Hilcorp. Szabo’s name does not appear in the document itself, but it can be found in information embedded by the software used to create the PDF file. Szabo was registered as a lobbyist for one of the AXPC’s lesser-known members, Ovintiv, when he drafted the arguments against the restrictions, which were finalized later in the Biden administration. He has also lobbied for other clients in the oil and chemicals sectors. While he did not hide that work during his confirmation last year as head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, he described it in terms that avoided any mention of efforts to influence climate policy: “I learned how regulated entities comply with the federal government’s thousands of regulations and policies. I also saw firsthand that the people working in these companies want to ensure the environment is properly protected.” In his current role overseeing federal climate rules at the EPA, Szabo has been soliciting input and even specific regulatory language from oil industry groups that stand to gain from watered-down methane rules, according to internal emails, calendar entries and records of closed-door conversations reviewed by ProPublica. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., the ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, pointed to Szabo’s previous lobbying as evidence that the EPA had effectively been captured by the oil and gas industry. “Now he can do Big Oil’s dirty work from inside the EPA,” Whitehouse told ProPublica in an email. As part of its plan to “unleash American energy,” the Trump administration has waged an unprecedented campaign against regulations on fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming. One of its biggest moves was to repeal the “endangerment finding” that classified greenhouse gases as pollutants — the basis for the EPA’s authority to limit emissions at all. Rather than throw out the methane rules entirely, however, Szabo’s office is working to revise them, emails and documents show. It has already delayed many of the compliance deadlines until next year. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a climate superpollutant, responsible for one-third of the rise in global temperatures since preindustrial times, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. When it escapes into the atmosphere without being burned for energy, it can trap 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, research shows. The oil and gas business is the largest industrial source of U.S. methane emissions, in part because of leaks from poorly maintained equipment. If it is uneconomical to collect the gas for sale, companies sometimes intentionally release it in a process known as venting. To cut down on methane discharges, President Joe Biden’s EPA imposed much stricter controls on oil and gas operations, including requiring increased monitoring for leaks and equipment upgrades. According to agency estimates, the new rules would have lowered the industry’s methane emissions by nearly 80%. And, given that the gas breaks down relatively quickly, this would have been one of the fastest ways to reduce global warming. Industry groups pushed back. In the January 2022 letter that Szabo helped to draft, the AXPC used the word “burdensome” 10 times to describe the new requirements and pushed for more “flexibility” to allow for less expensive leak-detection methods and less frequent monitoring, among other requests. The group also cast doubt on the rules’ expected climate and health benefits, highlighting what it called “the importance of communicating the significant uncertainties within the estimates.” The AXPC’s chief executive, Anne Bradbury, added in a later statement that the rules risked “undercutting US production in the near and long-term — which will lead to increased energy costs and reduced energy security.” Do you have any information we should know about Trump’s EPA, oil industry lobbying or methane pollution? Alex Cuadros can be reached by email at alex.cuadros@propublica.org and on Signal at alexcuadros.63. The AXPC failed to persuade the Biden administration to change its approach. But it renewed its push after President Donald Trump returned to office and ordered federal agencies to “suspend, revise, or rescind” any “undue burden” on domestic energy production. Szabo, after two years as a fellow at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, joined the administration on Day 1 as an adviser to EPA chief Lee Zeldin. He immediately signaled that he planned to weaken the regulations he had argued against as a lobbyist. His staff met with AXPC representatives as early as Feb. 6, 2025, less than three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, to discuss its petition to “reconsider” the methane rules, according to emails and calendar entries obtained through public records requests and shared with ProPublica by Fieldnotes, a watchdog group that investigates the oil and gas industry. His staff went on to meet with them at least twice more, and Szabo himself was listed as a required attendee for a meeting with Bradbury last July. The AXPC didn’t respond to emails from ProPublica seeking comment. According to records of closed-door conversations reviewed by ProPublica, other oil industry representatives have described their meetings with Szabo and his staff as highly favorable to their interests. “Mr. Szabo assured us that the EPA is focused on these [methane] rules and doing everything that can be done to limit the damage they will cause,” the leadership of a major trade group wrote to its members last year in an internal newsletter. Lee Fuller, of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, also spoke glowingly about his meeting with Szabo’s office on a conference call with industry representatives last year. “It was one of the more fascinating meetings that we’ve ever had, just because they were suddenly willing to talk to us,” he said. “And they’re also suddenly willing to talk about things that we’ve been trying to get them to do for years, and they’ve never even let it kind of come onto the radar screen.” The IPAA declined to answer specific questions from ProPublica but linked to a September 2025 letter in which the group publicly asked the EPA for exceptions to the methane rules. Szabo’s office has even invited oil industry groups to offer specific wording for the revised rules. “We had a call several weeks back re. pneumatics on temporary equipment,” Mike O’Connor of the American Petroleum Institute wrote to an EPA official, referring to devices that are a major source of methane emissions. “EPA had informally requested input on this topic and any suggested reg. text language. We are providing the attached draft document as informal input to EPA’s inquiry.” The draft called for a number of exemptions. The shift in priorities under Szabo can also be seen in communications from the EPA itself. In a June 2025 email reviewed by ProPublica, an agency official asked O’Connor to meet and discuss alternative leak-detection methods. Echoing the language in the AXPC comment that Szabo helped to draft, the official spoke of “the additional flexibility we would like to pursue.” “I think their agenda was, from what I could tell, to do what industry wanted,” one former EPA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential discussions, said of Szabo and other Trump appointees at the agency. “Since when is it a bad thing for public officials to ask the public what they think?” the EPA said in an emailed statement, referring to Szabo’s interactions with oil industry representatives. Szabo “fulfilled all his ethical obligations to the letter. He met with EPA career ethics staff when he started at EPA to ensure he is aware of and complies with federal ethics requirements.” Szabo’s affinities are hardly a secret. He is thanked by name in the EPA chapter of Project 2025, the deregulatory blueprint for the second Trump administration. As part of the nomination process for his appointment at the EPA, he also submitted ethics disclosures listing oil, natural gas and chemicals companies he had lobbied for. Still, at his confirmation hearing on March 5 last year, he repeatedly declined to elaborate on his role in Project 2025, beyond saying he provided “general advice and thoughts” on the Clean Air Act. The post The Trump EPA Official in Charge of Methane Regulations Helped Write an Oil Industry Argument Against Those Rules appeared first on ProPublica.

[Category: Environment, Pollution]

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