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Salty, Oily Drinking Water Left Sores in Their Mouths. Oklahoma Refused to Find Out Why.

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In the summer of 2022, months after Tammy Boarman and her husband, Chris, moved into their newly built “forever home” 30 miles from Oklahoma City, the plants in their yard began to turn yellow. The shrubs wilted, though Tammy watered them often. And the couple began to notice a salty taste in their drinking water. The water came from a private well, drilled the year before, and they hoped that the bad taste would fade with time and with the help of a water softener. But the problem grew worse. Their ice maker expelled large clumps of wet salt, which, when rubbed, dissolved into an oily, foul-smelling substance. The couple knew that some oil and gas extraction took place nearby. Down dirt roads and behind stands of oak trees in their neighborhood, pump jacks nodded up and down, pulling up oil. This is a common sight in Oklahoma. Several studies estimate that about half the state’s residents live within a mile of oil and gas wells. By the following summer, Tammy and Chris Boarman had...
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Colorado Marijuana Regulators Consider Major Changes to How Labs Test for Contaminants

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Colorado marijuana manufacturers would no longer be allowed to choose which product samples they send for mandatory lab testing under a new regulatory proposal discussed at a policy forum on Friday. Instead, the state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division may require independent labs or outside vendors to collect product samples for the testing that’s required before companies can sell their products to ensure they’re free of contaminants. The change would address a long-standing complaint from some marijuana manufacturers that bad actors are cheating the system. They say some companies are selecting samples that can pass tests while sending products to dispensaries that might be contaminated with chemical solvents, fungus or pesticides. A Denver Gazette and ProPublica investigation last month showed that the system for testing marijuana products relies on an honor code that’s open to manipulation. In 2024 alone, Colorado officials found two dozen cases in which companies had violated ...
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As Helene Survivors Wait for State Help, Some Victims of Earlier Hurricanes Are Still Out of Their Homes

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In the 459 days that Willa Mae James spent living in a Fairfield Inn in Eastern North Carolina, her footsteps wore down paths in the carpet: from the door to the desk, from the bed to the wooden armchair by the window, her favorite place to read the Bible. The 69-year-old retired dietitian had been sent there in July 2024 by North Carolina’s rebuilding program after Hurricane Florence ravaged her home and many others in 2018. The state had promised to help thousands of people like her rebuild or repair. But it had taken the program years to begin work. James spent nearly six years living in her damaged house in Lumberton, where floodwaters had turned the floorboards to pulp, causing her floors to sink and nearly cave in. Of the more than 10,000 families who applied, 3,100 were still waiting for construction five years after the storm. Thousands of others had withdrawn or been dropped by the program. As of November, more than 300 families were still waiting to return home. And James ...
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Under GOP Pressure, Federal Agency Pulls Climate Change Chapter From Official Manual for U.S. Judges

Under pressure from Republican state attorneys general, the agency that advises the U.S. Supreme Court and federal judges on scientific and technical matters has withdrawn the entirety of its content on climate change from a new judicial reference manual. The move by the Federal Judicial Center leaves judges without any official support on how to weigh evidence about basic weather and climate changes just as numerous climate cases make their way through state and federal courts, including two on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court for the current term. The center was created as an education agency and is chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts. By law, it is charged with overseeing court policies and researching technical and scientific issues that come before the court. The Supreme Court press office did not respond to a request for comment. On Dec. 31, 2025, the center released the first update in 15 years of its 1,682-page peer-reviewed guide, called the “ Reference Manual on Sci...
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Firefighters Wore Gear Containing “Forever Chemicals.” The Forest Service Knew and Stayed Silent for Years.

Officials at the U.S. Forest Service knew gear worn by wildland firefighters contained potentially dangerous “forever chemicals” years before the agency publicly acknowledged the issue, according to internal correspondence obtained by ProPublica. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, have been linked to negative health impacts, including certain cancers and delayed development in children. For years, PFAS chemicals were commonly used to treat the heavy gear worn by municipal firefighters to help it repel water and oil. Federal agencies have said little about whether the compounds were also found in the lighter heat-resistant clothing worn by wildland firefighters. In February 2024, when ProPublica was reporting on the dangers of wildland firefighting — including the risk of cancer — the news organization asked both the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior if federal wildland firefighting gear contained PFAS. Both agencies gave nearly identical answers...
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Immigrants Who Say Their Detention Is Illegal Have Filed More Than 18,000 Cases. It’s a Historic High.

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The Trump administration’s push for mass deportations has resulted in more than 18,000 challenges in federal court from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal, more than were filed under the last three administrations combined — including President Donald Trump’s first term. So far this year, immigrants are filing on average more than 200 of these cases, known as habeas petitions, daily across the country, with California and Texas accounting for about 40% of new cases, a ProPublica analysis of federal court filings found. To keep tabs on this historic rise, ProPublica is publishing a habeas case tracker . “I don’t recall a time that anything like this has ever happened,” said Daniel Caudillo, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at Texas Tech University School of Law and a recently departed immigration judge. More Immigrants Than Ever Are Challenging Detention An analysis of habeas cases since 2009 shows that immigrants have filed more challenges to their detention in ...
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