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The Department of Homeland Security has released little information to the public on its plans to build new border infrastructure through the Big Bend region. Hannah Gentiles When Tommy Fisher set out to build a section of border wall in South Texas during the first Trump administration, the project quickly became ensnared in controversy. Experts raised concerns about shoddy construction and signs of erosion. Beyond that, Fisher’s company had received funding from a group called We Build the Wall, an influential conservative nonprofit that included President Donald Trump’s then-political strategist Steve Bannon as a board member. Some of its leaders eventually went to prison for their involvement in the venture. Even the president denounced the project. “I disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a tricky area, by a private group which raised money by ads,” Trump wrote on X in response to reporting by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune in 2020 ...

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office misused $163 million intended to address racial profiling reforms, according to a court-mandated audit. More than $7,000 in cable TV subscriptions. An $11,000 golf cart. $1.5 million in renovations to office space in a swanky Phoenix high-rise. And another $1.7 million for Tasers. Those were among more than $200 million in expenses that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office billed to a class-action settlement aimed at rooting out racial profiling in the department. A federal judge in 2013 found the department under then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio had violated the constitutional rights of Latino drivers, and the court has required sweeping reforms. These include documenting all traffic stops to detect patterns of racial bias, employing additional investigators to probe reports of deputy misconduct and appointing a monitor to oversee the settlement. Since Sheriff Jerry Sheridan took office last year, he and Republicans on the cou...

Dongyan Xu for ProPublica As reporters at the Lexington Herald-Leader, we first started hearing troubling stories in 2023 from former clients and staff of Addiction Recovery Care, once Kentucky’s largest residential addiction treatment service provider. Over the last three years, we have spoken with dozens of former and current ARC clients and staff. And in April, we teamed up with ProPublica to publish a story detailing how ARC allegedly used staff to falsely bill Kentucky Medicaid for millions, an allegation the company denies . For our next story, we want to take a closer look at how ARC treated the people who came to the organization seeking help with their sobriety. We are particularly interested in hearing from clients, as well as staff who worked closely with clients to deliver care.  If you were or are an ARC client or employee, tell us about your experience with the treatment provider. Your perspective will help guide our reporting, ensuring we understand...

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 ...