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Dominic Bodden for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune In October, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued pharmaceutical companies tied to Tylenol in state court, repeating claims made a month earlier by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the pain relief drug was linked to autism and ADHD in children. Paxton, a close ally of the Trump administration who had already announced a U.S. Senate bid, accused drugmakers of marketing Tylenol to pregnant mothers without disclosing its dangers. “The reckoning has arrived,” the state’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson, Kenvue Brands and Kenvue Inc. “By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again,” Paxton proclaimed in a news release that echoed Kennedy’s slogan. Paxton hired the Chicago law firm Keller Postman to argue the case in state court. The firm had served as lead counsel in a similar case ...

Range USA’s gun store and shooting range in Merrillville, Indiana, where a gun used to kill a Chicago police officer allegedly was purchased  Jim Vondruska for ProPublica Launched as a new kind of gun retailer in 2012, the Range USA chain was built to look and feel different from the smaller, unwelcoming shops and gun ranges often associated with the industry. Its founder and president, Tom Willingham, wanted to make the experience of buying and shooting firearms more mainstream. So he modeled his company on big box chains, striving for bright, comfortable outlets that would be inviting to women, novices and others put off by some older gun stores. Today, Range USA has bloomed into a formidable brand, with 50 stores in 14 states, a footprint that spans from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast. But despite efforts to set itself apart, the company is beset with the same vexing problems faced by more traditional retailers. Federal regulators have repeatedly ...

Milique Wagner spent more than a decade in prison fighting his murder conviction. One obstacle he faced along the way to winning his freedom was opposition from his own lawyer. Jessica Griffin/The Philadelphia Inquirer Milique Wagner always insisted that his 2013 murder conviction was built on an informant’s lie. But Wagner said he couldn’t persuade his trial lawyer to investigate that, even after the informant confessed to the murder and testified that Philadelphia police and prosecutors knew the truth.   In 2015, Wagner’s appeal failed, and he faced life in prison. But Wagner had another chance at freedom under a state law that allowed him to get a new court-appointed lawyer to help him challenge his conviction. Court records show that the attorney never spoke with the informant or looked into the detective on the case, who made headlines after being benched for secretly paying a witness. Instead, Wagner’s lawyer urged the judge to shut down his client’s ...

Volunteers escort a 2-year-old American boy to be reunited with his mother, who awaited deportation in February. Christopher Lee for ProPublica Far more American children have likely been separated from their parents during immigration sweeps than previously understood, according to a report by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Brookings. The report published Monday estimates more than 100,000 U.S. citizen children have had a parent detained since President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign began last year. The analysis cites reporting from ProPublica on the detention of parents, which can often lead to family separations. During Trump’s first administration, a policy of family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border ended after widespread outrage. Now, the breakup of families is happening amid sweeps by immigration agents across the country. About 400,000 people have been detained by immigration agents since Trump returned to office, Brookings noted. But i...

From left to right, top row: Aaron Sankin, Deblina Chakraborty, Josh McGhee, Rosalie Chan, Padma Rama. Middle row: Karen Chávez, Kynala Phillips, Yoohyun Jung, Margaret Ho, Kevin Uhrmacher. Bottom row: Thy Vo. Collage by ProPublica. Source images: Courtesy of the journalists. Eleven journalists from across the country join the ProPublica Investigative Editor Training Program, which seeks to expand the ranks of editors in newsrooms across the country whose work is aimed at accountability and impact.   Established in 2023, the program has trained more than 31 journalists to date. It begins with a five-day intensive editing boot camp in New York, with courses and panel discussions led by ProPublica’s senior editors. After the boot camp, participants will gather virtually throughout the course of the year for continuing development seminars and be assigned a ProPublica senior editor as a mentor for advice on their work and careers.  Alumni continue to work in t...