ProPublica

by Mary Hudetz

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.

The director of Arizona’s embattled Medicaid agency resigned this week, just as she was expected to face questions from lawmakers about her handling of a massive fraud scheme that largely targeted Native Americans.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, announced Wednesday that she had accepted the resignation of Carmen Heredia, director of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. The governor lauded Heredia’s leadership of the agency while blaming Republican lawmakers for politicizing the confirmation process, saying it had become clear they would not confirm Heredia’s nomination.

by Asia Fields, Ashley Clarke, Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration laid off nearly half of the Department of Education division that handles civil rights investigations and shifted its focus. The administration halted work on thousands of pending discrimination cases while ordering investigations aligned with its priorities.

Some people have spoken out about their cases being in limbo or about not receiving updates. We know there are thousands of other people who are affected. We need your help to see the full picture of how the dismantling of the Office for Civil Rights is affecting students, parents, school employees and their wider communities.

by Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In California, the federal government was deep into an investigation of alleged racial discrimination at a school district where, a parent said, students called a Black peer racial slurs and played whipping sounds from their cellphones during a lesson about slavery. Then the U.S. Department of Education in March suddenly closed the California regional outpost of its Office for Civil Rights and fired all its employees there. That investigation and others went silent.

by Cassandra Jaramillo and Lizzie Presser

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Texas Senate has unanimously passed legislation that aims to prevent maternal deaths under the state’s strict abortion ban.

Written in response to a ProPublica investigation last year, Senate Bill 31, called The Life of the Mother Act, represents a remarkable turn among the Republican lawmakers who were the original supporters of the ban. For the first time in four years, they acknowledged that women were being denied care because of confusion about the law and took action to clarify its terms.

ProPublica

ProPublica announced on Thursday that Gus Garcia-Roberts has been hired as a national reporter.

Garcia-Roberts comes to ProPublica from The Washington Post, where he published investigations into the overdose death of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs; the sexual abuse allegations against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer and Major League Baseball’s secretive system in examining domestic abuse and sexual assault; and how the NFL has failed in hiring Black coaches, part of a series that won the Associated Press Sports Editors top prize for projects and the Online Journalism Awards’ prize for excellence in sports reporting.

by Rob Davis

This article was produced by ProPublica in partnership with The Oregonian/OregonLive. Sign up for Dispatches, to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

In Phnom Penh’s hot season, when the Cambodian capital’s sweltering, subtropical air routinely soars to 100 degrees, more workers than usual visited the infirmaries inside a factory that made baby clothes for Nike, the world’s largest athletic apparel brand.

As many as 15 people a month typically became too weak to work in May and June, according to a medical worker employed by the factory. Even at other times of year, she said, eight to 10 workers wound up in the clinic monthly because they felt weak, including one or two a month who fell unconscious and needed to go to the hospital.

by Jessica Schreifels, The Salt Lake Tribune

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Josh Dallin spends his workdays talking to Utahns who raise cattle and grow crops, and knew that many were in distress. Everyone from neighbors to fertilizer dealers to equipment suppliers were telling him they were worried that a farmer or rancher they knew was at risk of suicide.

by Tim Golden

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In the spring of 2019, as a new Mexican government shut down most of its cooperation with the United States in the fight against drug trafficking, a small group of American drug agents decided to confront the problem in a different way.

Sifting through databases and court files, they compiled dossiers on Mexican officials suspected of colluding with the mafias. Months later, federal prosecutors used the evidence to indict a former security minister, Genaro García Luna, the most important Mexican figure ever convicted on U.S. drug corruption charges.

by Jake Pearson

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

A federal employee who is helping the Trump administration carry out the drastic downsizing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau owns stock in companies that could benefit from the agency’s dismantling, a ProPublica investigation has found.

Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old Department of Government Efficiency aide, disclosed the investments earlier this year in his public financial report, which lists as much as $365,000 worth of shares in four companies that the CFPB can regulate. According to court records and government emails, he later helped oversee the layoffs of more than 1,400 employees at the bureau.

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.

A group representing firearms owners has asked three federal agencies to investigate how the gun industry’s main lobbying group secretly used the intimate details of weapons buyers for political purposes.

In making the request, Gun Owners for Safety cited a ProPublica investigation that detailed how the National Shooting Sports Foundation turned over sensitive personal information on gun buyers to political operatives while presenting itself as a fierce advocate for the privacy of firearms owners. The letter — sent last week to the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — called the NSSF’s secret program that spanned nearly two decades "underhanded.”