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This Sheriff’s Office Says Racial Profiling Reforms Are Too Costly. Auditors Found It Misused $163 Million.

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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...
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Tell Us About Your Experience With Kentucky’s Addiction Recovery Care

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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...
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Ken Paxton Wanted to Crack Down on Forum Shopping. Now Lawyers Say He’s Improperly Seeking Out Favorable Courts.

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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 ...
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This Gun Shop Stayed Open Despite Repeated Violations. Then a Cop Was Killed With One of Its Guns.

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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 ...
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With a Chance at Freedom, They Faced an Unexpected Obstacle: Their Own Lawyers

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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 ...
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