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Syracuse University Seeks to Prevent Campus Rape Victim From Obtaining Police Records

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Illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica and Vanessa Saba for ProPublica. Photo by Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo. When ProPublica recently investigated a rape crisis that surged through Syracuse University in the 1980s, we found evidence that the school had taken steps to suppress news coverage of the assaults. The university responded by portraying itself as a changed institution today, “committed to supporting the students who come forward and being there for them at every step of the process,” as a school spokesperson put it. But the university’s recent actions in a lawsuit filed by a former student who was attacked on campus during that period appear at odds with that commitment. After the Syracuse Police Department agreed to provide old records to the victim, lawyers for Syracuse University intervened, seeking to block the victim’s access to many of the records. The school argued in legal papers that the subpoena sent to the police department was “overbroad” and suffered...
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Listen to 911 Calls From Inside an Immigration Detention Center: “We Just Need to Take Him to the Hospital”

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Camp East Montana, an immigration detention facility inside the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas Omar Ornelas for ProPublica The first emergency call about a detainee trying to harm himself came about a month after Camp East Montana — an immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas — started to house immigrants. It was 2:50 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 12.  “We have a patient currently in holding who is saying he’s got suicidal ideations, swallowed some foreign object, has refused our basic medical care here,” a nurse told the operator. In the audio, you can hear that someone is moaning and yelling in the background.  “At this point he is unable to speak and rolling on the floor in agonizing pain, holding his stomach,” the nurse continued. “A preliminary X-ray was done and a foreign object was found. We just need to take him to the hospital that’s closest so that they can verify if the object is currently in his system and possibly to excavate the object.” ...
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These Local Jails Were Supposed to Detain Immigrants for Only 72 Hours. One Woman Was Held for a Total of 26 Days.

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The Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, Florida, where ProPublica found immigrants were rebooked at much higher rates than at similar facilities across the country Tina Russell for ProPublica Every third morning Soumia Bensalah was roused before the break of dawn. Pulled from her cell, shackled hand and foot, she was herded onto a bus and driven over Tampa Bay from the Pinellas County Jail to a cramped hold room at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.  Each time, she sat there all day, still shackled. Once evening came, she was driven back to the jail, forced to wait for hours in a hallway, photographed, strip-searched, questioned and led back to her cell. This happened five times last December, and Bensalah said it left her exhausted and humiliated. It was no coincidence that Bensalah, a French Moroccan with a pending green card application, was released from the Pinellas jail and then sent back at regular, 72-hour intervals, according to legal experts...
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How to Check In on Your 401(k) Fees

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Tomi Um for ProPublica The rules governing your retirement plan may be changing. As we reported in July , President Donald Trump wants to encourage 401(k) plans to invest more in private equity, real estate and cryptocurrency, which can be complex and risky. To pave the way, the Department of Labor has proposed rules that would make it harder for employees to hold companies liable for how they oversee retirement plans. Employers are required to serve the best interests of their employees when choosing investment options. Under the proposed changes, a company that follows a certain process would get the benefit of the doubt in court, making it harder for workers to sue over the management of their 401(k). A spokesperson for the Department of Labor did not respond to requests for comment. In an announcement from March , the department said the proposed rule change will “democratize access to alternative investments in 401(k) plans” and “lower litigation risks” for em...
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The Costly Blunders in the Army’s $533 Million Fiasco

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Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth joined defense officials for a facility tour at the opening of General Dynamics’ artillery factory in 2024. Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Mejia/U.S. Army The U.S. Army paid General Dynamics $533 million for an artillery factory that failed to produce a single usable shell. Instead of efficient, state-of-the-art production lines, half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding paid for machines that kept failing in bizarre ways, former workers told ProPublica’s Jesse Coburn . Giant robot arms would catch fire. The Texas factory’s signature device often cracked the steel meant for the shells. And workers regularly had to take a sledgehammer to certain machines to try to make them function properly. But the machines still botched nearly every shell. The boondoggle, which included a real-life dumpster fire, was described as an “absolute disaster,” by one former official who worked in an Army office overseeing the project. The official, like others ...
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Idaho Law Protects Faith Healers. It Wasn’t Always That Way.

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Members of the faith-healing sect Followers of Christ bury loved ones, many of them children and infants, in Peaceful Valley Cemetery in Caldwell, Idaho Sarah A. Miller for ProPublica In Idaho, parents who say their faith prohibits lifesaving medical care for their children can’t be charged with child neglect or manslaughter. Supporters of this protection over the years have included lawmakers who voiced support for “traditional” Idaho values. But from at least the 1880s through the early 1970s, it was illegal for parents in Idaho to choose prayer over medical care when a child’s life was at stake, newspaper archives and historical documents show. “Every parent of any child who willfully omits, without lawful excuse, to furnish necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical attendance for such child, is guilty of a misdemeanor,” reads the 1887 edition of Idaho territory statutes , published before statehood. The statutes included no mention of spiritual belief as a “l...
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