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The North Carolina legislature, where Democrats recently introduced three bills to reform the state’s courts and protect the separation of powers between its branches of government Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina introduced a trio of constitutional amendments this week aimed at protecting traditional powers of the state’s governor and reforming oversight of its court system. The effort was prompted in part by ProPublica’s reporting, including an investigation that found that over nearly a decade, Republican lawmakers had pushed through law after law shrinking the powers of North Carolina’s governor, always a Democrat during that time. At a press conference on Wednesday, the bills’ sponsors readily acknowledged that the initiatives are unlikely to pass, at least in the current legislative session: Republicans hold majorities in North Carolina’s House and Senate. But in proposing the measures as changes to the state constitut...

North Dakota state Rep. Eric Murphy at home planning a day of canvassing in his Grand Forks district. Murphy, an incumbent Republican, faces a contested primary election from conservative challengers after he introduced a bill to expand abortion access last year. Dan Koeck for ProPublica If Eric Murphy loses his primary election on June 9, he believes he already knows one reason why. Last year, the North Dakota state representative, a Republican, tried to expand the window of pregnancy in which women could access abortion. The state legislature had banned it for almost everyone from the moment of conception. Tied up in court, the ban hadn’t yet gone into effect. But Murphy wanted to lock in a less restrictive law, making abortion accessible up to 15 weeks and even later for women whose doctors deemed it a medical necessity. To convince his fellow legislators, he read out loud from two ProPublica stories about women in Texas who died without lifesaving care . “Physic...

A rural area off Highway 14 just north of the small town of Moorcroft, in eastern Wyoming They were pillars of their church, congregants in a little-known denomination that sets itself apart from the world and teaches that even the most unconscionable acts can be wiped away — not just forgiven, but forgotten and never spoken of again. So it went in a rural Wyoming church, where a man was accused of sexually abusing young girls hundreds of times in the pews during Sunday services. Though the preacher knew of the abuse, he never reported it to police, local prosecutors said. Instead, he told the man to seek therapy. In Minnesota, a man from the same faith admitted that he began entering the bedrooms of his daughter and son at night around the time each of them turned 12. He and his siblings grew up in the church and were sexually abused themselves, and then he repeated the abuse with his own children. And in Washington state, preachers knew a member of their congrega...

Anna Vignet/KQED I was a new reporter at KQED in 2021 when former elementary teacher Joseph Brian Houg was sentenced to more than three decades in prison for sexually abusing 10 students. He’d taught at the same San Francisco Bay Area school for more than two decades. Were there warning signs?   I soon discovered parents on social media saying they had complained to school administrators for years about Houg. I also knew that schools could release such complaints if they were substantiated or if teachers were disciplined. So I filed public records requests with Houg’s school — something anyone can do.  I received 43 pages of records within a few months showing that parents had reported Houg to the principal at least four times since 2009. They complained about him for asking students to strip down to their underwear in his classroom in order to try on costumes for a play he was directing, and for coming into their changing room. They also complained about his touch...