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Prosecutors Had a Drugs-for-Votes Scheme “Locked Up.” Under Trump, They Were Told Not to Pursue Charges.

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Illustration by Stefano Summo for ProPublica To the narcotics agents investigating drug smuggling in Puerto Rico prisons, it seemed at first like a typical scheme: associates of an inmate gang sneaking drugs into the prison, gang members distributing them inside and bank records showing the money flowing. Then the agents discovered something unusual. Leaders of the prison gang known as Los Tiburones, or the Sharks, were selling drugs to inmates not only for money, but for their votes. Specifically, votes for now-Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón, a longtime Republican and supporter of President Donald Trump, investigators found. To make sure the inmates — many of whom were addicted — complied, the gang’s leaders threatened violence and to withhold drugs, the investigators learned. Corrections employees in on the plan looked the other way as the gang, formally known as Group 31, ran the enterprise. What at first seemed like a routine drug case had turned into somet...
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ProPublica and The Connecticut Mirror Win Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting

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Photo illustration by ProPublica, photo by Tonje Thielesen for ProPublica, illustration by Anuj Shrestha for ProPublica, Peter DiCampo/ProPublica ProPublica and Local Reporting Network partner The Connecticut Mirror won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for what judges described as “an impressive series exposing how the state’s unique towing laws favored unscrupulous companies that overcharged residents, prompting swift and meaningful consumer protections.” It is the ninth Pulitzer for ProPublica.  A series about how the Food and Drug Administration has for years allowed risky drugs to enter the United States was named a finalist in the investigative reporting category, and a series about the fallout from the destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development was named a finalist in the explanatory reporting category. They are the 13th and 14th Pulitzer finalists in 18 years. In “ On the Hook ,” CT Mirror reporters Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk expose...
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Lawmakers Demand Answers About Growing Number of Unfixed Mistakes on Credit Reports

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren and three other senators sent letters grilling the nation’s major credit bureaus after a ProPublica investigation. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Four U.S. senators sent letters grilling the nation’s major credit bureaus on Thursday after a ProPublica investigation showed two of the bureaus were fixing fewer consumers’ credit reports. The letters came in response to a ProPublica investigation from March, which found that two of the three major credit bureaus — TransUnion and Experian — had substantially scaled back how often they provided relief to complaints filed through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The decline in relief coincided with the Trump administration’s attempts to conduct mass layoffs at the CFPB and roll back much of its oversight of the financial sector. The letters’ lead author is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee and a key architect in the creation of the CFPB. Democ...
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I Reached Out to the White House Counterterrorism Czar for Comment. He Lashed Out on X.

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Counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka speaks in 2022 at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, a gathering of far-right Second Amendment supporters. Mark Peterson/Redux Counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka is one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration, a gate crasher in the buttoned-up world of national security.  In a field where quiet professionalism is revered, Gorka is loud and mercurial. With a booming, British-accented voice, he describes U.S. operations turning suspected terrorists into “red mist” and stacking bodies “like cordwood.” He wears a lanyard inscribed with “WWFY & WWKY,” referencing a line from President Donald Trump: “We will find you and we will kill you.” It is a testament to the frenzy of Trump’s first year back in office that even the colorful Gorka had faded into the background as the nation reeled from a mass deportation campaign and sweeping cuts to federal agencies. That changed this February with the launch of the U....
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Event With Links to Oil Industry Teaches Judges “Healthy Skepticism” of Climate Science

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Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica For many months, conservative lawmakers and political operatives have been targeting the scientists and lawyers behind the Climate Judiciary Project, a program meant to educate the courts about climate science, alleging that their effort constitutes a conspiracy to influence federal judges and persuade them to rule against the oil industry. Now, just as congressional investigators are escalating a formal inquiry into the project, a separate program closely aligned with the fossil fuel industry and free-market conservatives is hosting a symposium for 150 judges in Nashville, Tennessee. The program, run by the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, also aims to educate judges, but in a way that prioritizes American business interests and questions climate science.  The dueling efforts come as a number of significant lawsuits seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate damages are making their way through th...
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“A Huge Setback”: New EPA Directive Could Weaken Hundreds of Chemical Regulations

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President Donald Trump, along with Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announce the rollback of an environmental regulation last year. Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images For decades, a small program in the Environmental Protection Agency conducted the painstaking scientific work of assessing the toxicity of chemicals.  The calculations done by scientists at IRIS, as it was commonly known, underpin vast numbers of chemical regulations, permits and other environmental rules in the U.S. and abroad. Now the Trump administration is suggesting that their library of more than 500 chemical assessments can’t be trusted, opening the door to weakening hundreds of efforts to protect people from harmful chemicals at the state and federal level. The second-guessing could extend even to long-settled standards, environmental scientists said, such as how much arsenic is allowed in drinking water and how much lead is acceptable in paint and soil. ...
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8 Things You Should Know About Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections

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Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski When President Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election, the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — but just barely. If faced with the same tests today, those guardrails and the people who held the line would largely be missing, a ProPublica examination found . At least 75 career officials who once held roles at federal agencies related to election integrity and safety are gone. Two dozen appointees — including many who either actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote or are associates of such people — have been hired to replace them. And once-fringe actors now have access to vast powers. As the midterms approach, current and former government officials and election security experts expressed concerns that Trump appointees who’ve espoused debunked conspiracy theories about balloting are now in positions to control the narrative around the vote’s soundness. It’s hard to debunk false claims “co...
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