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Showing posts from July, 2025

“We’ll Smash the Fucking Window Out and Drag Him Out”

by Nicole Foy and McKenzie Funk This story contains videos and descriptions of violent arrests. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. A month into the new Trump administration, on the predawn streets of suburban Maryland, a high-ranking ICE official stood alongside a Mazda sedan that his officers had just stopped. The official told a local TV reporter at the scene what was about to happen. “He can either give us a license,” he said, “ or we’ll smash the fucking window out and drag him out .” Then, as the driver refused to exit the car, officers broke the glass. It was one of nearly 50 documented instances of immigration agents breaking vehicle windows that ProPublica has identified from social media, local news accounts, lawsuits and interviews since President Donald Trump took office six months ago. Using the same methods, we found just eight in the previous decade. Neither numb...

Trump Administration Halted Lawsuits Targeting Civil Rights Abuses of Prisoners and Mentally Ill People

by Corey G. Johnson ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. If you have information about cases or investigations paused or dropped by either the Department of Justice or the Securities and Exchange Commission, contact Corey G. Johnson at corey.johnson@propublica.org or 917-512-0287. The Trump administration has halted litigation aimed at stopping civil rights abuses of prisoners in Louisiana and mentally ill people living in South Carolina group homes. The Biden administration filed lawsuits against the two states in December after Department of Justice investigations concluded that they had failed to fix violations despite years of warnings. Louisiana’s prison system has kept thousands of incarcerated people behind bars for weeks , months or sometimes more than a year after they were supposed to be released, records show. And the DOJ accused South Carolina of institutionalizing t...

Now That They’re Free

by Perla Trevizo , ProPublica and The Texas Tribune , Melissa Sanchez and Mica Rosenberg , ProPublica, Ronna Rísquez , Alianza Rebelde Investiga, and Adrián González , Cazadores de Fake News , photography and additional reporting by Adriana Loureiro Fernández for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune Leer en español. Now that he’s free, Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, a 31-year-old Venezuelan, wants the world to know that he was tortured over four months in a Salvadoran prison. He said guards stomped on his hands, poured filthy water into his ears and threatened to beat him if he didn’t kneel alongside other inmates and lick their backs. Now that he’s free, Juan José Ramos Ramos, 39, insists he’s not who President Donald Trump says he is. He’s not a member of a gang or an international terrorist, just a man with tattoos whom immigration agents spotted riding in a car with a Venezuela sticker on the back. Now that he’s free, Andry Omar Blanco Bonilla, 40, said he wondered every day...

Idaho Schools Consistently Break Disability Laws. Parents Say They’re Not Doing Enough to Fix the Problem.

by Becca Savransky , Idaho Statesman Kali Larsen sat at her desk at Fruitland Elementary School in Idaho earlier this year, trying to read the test questions as her classmates silently worked around her. Her anxiety climbed as she stared at the paper. She asked to use the bathroom and left the room. Her mother, Jessica Larsen, had been substitute teaching that day when she received a call from the front office, notifying her that her 9-year-old daughter was having a panic attack. Kali, now 10, has dyslexia and struggles with reading and writing, Larsen said. “Wouldn’t you be anxious?” Larsen told the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica. For years, Larsen had been pleading with the Fruitland School District to get Kali qualified for special education for reading. Larsen, who herself was diagnosed later in life with dyslexia, had her daughter tested in first grade in 2021 by a private specialist who said Kali had the same disability. But a diagnosis doesn’t automatically qualify a student...

A Las Vegas Festival Promised Ways to Cheat Death. Two Attendees Left Fighting for Their Lives.

by Anjeanette Damon ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches , a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. They went to a Las Vegas conference this month that promised pathways to an “unlimited lifespan.” But at least two attendees left in ambulances and were hospitalized in critical condition, requiring ventilators to breathe. The two women, who are recovering, fell ill after receiving peptide injections at a conference booth. The doctor who ran the booth was a Los Angeles physician specializing in “age reversal” therapies who did not have permission to practice medicine or dispense prescriptions in Nevada. Public health investigators are trying to determine if anyone else who attended the Revolution Against Aging and Death Festival experienced a similar illness. The investigation comes as peptides grow in popularity, thanks in part to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promot...