In Wisconsin, Dark Money Got A Mining Company What It Wanted
When billionaire Chris Cline’s company bought an option to mine a swath of northern Wisconsin in 2010, the company touted the project’s potential to bring up to 700 well-paid jobs to a hard-pressed...
View ArticleCharter School Power Broker Turns Public Education Into Private Profits
In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide...
View ArticleNSA Documents Suggest A Close Working Relationship Between NSA, U.S. Companies
Newly disclosed National Security Agency documents suggest a closer relationship between American companies and the spy agency than has been previously disclosed. The documents, published last week by...
View ArticleFor The Next Attorney General, A Modest Suggestion: Fix Presidential Pardons
Dear Possible Attorney General Nominees (You Know Who You Are), Now that President Obama has put off nominating his new Attorney General until after the Nov. 4 elections, there’s some extra time to...
View ArticleThe Personhood Movement
1973 U.S. Supreme Court decides Roe v. Wade, making abortion legal in all 50 states. But in his majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun notes, “If this suggestion of personhood is established, [Roe’s]...
View ArticleThe Best Investigative Reporting On Campaign Finance Since 2012
The 2012 elections shattered spending records, with outside groups such as super PACs, nonprofits, unions and corporations plowing an estimated $1.3 billion into federal campaigns. With this year’s...
View ArticleHow One New York County Fell Into The Tobacco Debt Trap
As they met at The Shamus, a favorite local lunch spot, on a September day a year ago, Niagara County officials considered some good news. Thanks to low interest rates, they might be able to refinance...
View ArticleNC Police Are Using Spy Technology At Will
Tracking suspects in violent felonies, kidnappings, and you. This tracking device goes by names such as StingRay, Hailstorm, AmberJack and TriggerFish. It allows police to follow the cellphones of not...
View ArticleA Kansas Group’s Push To Oust Judges Reveals A Gap In Campaign Finance Rules
With just three weeks left before the upcoming midterm elections, a group called “Kansans for Justice” surfaced with the aim of persuading voters to oust two of their state Supreme Court justices....
View ArticleCourt’s Mistake Helps Draw Back The Curtain On Dark Money
When it comes to politics, the actions of social welfare nonprofits are usually hard to track. And unlike political action committees, these “dark money” groups can channel money to influence elections...
View Article10 Disturbing Things ProPublica Learned Investigating The Red Cross’ Sandy...
While the Red Cross called its response nearly “flawless,” a ProPublica investigation uncovered a much different version of events. Click to read the full story The post 10 Disturbing Things ProPublica...
View ArticleSomebody’s Already Using Verizon’s ID To Track Users
Twitter’s mobile advertising arm enables its clients to use a hidden, undeletable tracking number created by Verizon to track user behavior on smartphones and tablets. Wired and Forbes reported earlier...
View ArticleAs Vote Nears, North Dakota Amendment Stirs Debate About More Than Abortion
On Tuesday, voters here will decide the fate of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that has provoked excitement and fear among the combatants in the country’s never-ending abortion wars....
View ArticleSenate Hearing Set On Secret Recordings At N.Y. Fed
A U.S. Senate subcommittee will hold a hearing Nov. 21 on issues of regulatory capture following stories by ProPublica and This American Life about secret recordings made by an examiner at the Federal...
View ArticleSecret Donors Behind Some Super PACs Funneling Millions Into Midterms
In the final weeks before this year’s elections, a super PAC called Key Questions, Key Answers started buying TV ads across Pennsylvania attacking Tom Wolf, the Democratic candidate for governor....
View ArticleAre Your Strawberries Grown With These Dangerous Pesticides? And More In...
Are your strawberries grown with these dangerous pesticides? Nine out of 10 strawberries come from California. But to keep this $2.6 billion industry growing, farmers rely on a fumigant that state...
View ArticleSecret Tapes Hint At Turmoil In New York Fed Team Monitoring JPMorgan
As the Federal Reserve Bank of New York moved to beef up its oversight of Wall Street two years ago, the team charged with supervising the nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, was in turmoil. New...
View ArticleScoring The Latest Tobacco Bond Bailout: Investors $10, Taxpayers $1
In our story last month about a tobacco bond bailout by New York’s Niagara County, we noted that another county, Chautauqua, also had a deal in the works involving its distressed bonds. Now the deal is...
View ArticleFederal Reserve Announces Sweeping Review Of Its Big Bank Oversight
On the eve of a U.S. Senate hearing about whether regulators are too soft on banks, the Federal Reserve Board announced a broad review of its supervision of the biggest U.S. financial institutions....
View ArticlePeople From Around the World Discuss ‘Firestone and the Warlord’
When ProPublica and Frontline launched ” Firestone and the Warlord,” a sweeping investigation into the relationship between Liberian warlord Charles Taylor and the iconic American company Firestone, we...
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