Archive - South
Visualizing Toxic Air
Making data public isn’t enough when it’s incomprehensible to the people it affects. ProPublica set out to decode a complex EPA data set to expose hot spots of industrial air pollution across the U.S.
Clean Energy Lender Will Stop Making High-Interest PACE Loans in Missouri
A ProPublica investigation revealed how PACE loans hurt homeowners. Ygrene, one top Missouri lender, said reforms made after our investigation were a factor in its decision to stop making loans in the state.
Mothers Behind Book-Banning Campaign Claim Their First Amendment Rights Are Being Violated
The self-dubbed Mama Bears filed a federal lawsuit alleging that by not being allowed to read sexually explicit material aloud at school board meetings, they themselves are being censored.
Joe Manchin’s Price for Supporting the Climate Change Bill: A Natural Gas Pipeline in His Home State
To accommodate the West Virginia senator, Democratic leadership agreed to legislation streamlining permits for the often-stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline and removing jurisdiction from a court that keeps ruling against the project.
At Liberty University, Veterans’ Complaints Keep Coming
The evangelical school earns substantial revenues from former members of the military whose tuition is supported by the GI Bill, but it continues to generate complaints from aggrieved vets.
A Government Official Helped Them Register. Now They’ve Been Charged With Voter Fraud.
Ten Florida men with felony convictions have been charged with voter fraud because prosecutors say they registered and voted illegally. Critics say the punishments are unfair.
The Judge Who Illegally Jailed Children Is Retiring. The Candidates to Replace Her Have Different Approaches.
After a Nashville Public Radio and ProPublica investigation, a Tennessee judge said she was retiring. The candidate who takes her job will have to restore confidence in the system.
Army Corps of Engineers to Order New Study of Grain Elevator That Could Harm Black Heritage Sites
Following our reporting, a federal agency says that a proposed grain elevator in Louisiana could harm a historic plantation and asks why a report was changed to minimize discussion of possible damage.
The Polluter Just Got a Million-Dollar Fine. That Won’t Cure This Woman’s Rare Cancer.
Rhonda Fratzke’s oncologist asked if she had ever worked with vinyl chloride, a potent carcinogen. She had not, but she lived near a Westlake Chemical plant that was just fined a million dollars for polluting the air with the dangerous chemical.
School Board Candidates Who Criticized the Hiring of a Black DEI Educator Lose Their Elections
The school board hopefuls were described in a ProPublica story detailing how Cecelia Lewis was attacked in both Cherokee County and neighboring Cobb County by white parents making baseless claims.
$53.3 Million. 33 Jobs. No Plan. That’s How Mississippi Lawmakers Are Spending BP Oil Spill Money.
Business leaders hoped the state would use money from the 2010 oil spill to transform Mississippi’s coastal economy. Instead, lawmakers are using much of it to fill gaps in local government budgets and fund projects with few metrics for success.
Louisiana Limits Solitary Confinement for Youth
The governor signed Louisiana’s first law restricting isolation for youth after two suicides and a ProPublica, NBC News and The Marshall Project investigation into harsh conditions in a new state juvenile facility.
Why the Black Educator Forced Out Over Bogus Critical Race Theory Claims Agreed to Share Her Story
ProPublica reporter Nicole Carr explains why educator Cecelia Lewis was hesitant to speak to reporters about white parents forcing her out of her job, and why she ultimately decided she had to.
“Big Lie” Vigilantism Is on the Rise. Big Tech Is Failing to Respond.
Stolen-election activists and Trump supporters have embraced a new tactic in their campaign to unearth supposed proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential race: using social media to chase down a fictional breed of fraudster known as a “ballot mule.”
White Parents Rallied to Chase a Black Educator Out of Town. Then, They Followed Her to the Next One.
Cecelia Lewis was asked to apply for a Georgia school district’s first-ever administrator job devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion. A group of parents — coached by local and national anti-CRT groups — had other plans.
Juvenile Detention Center That Illegally Jailed Kids Now Will Answer to an Oversight Board
The board is being put in place after a Nashville Public Radio/ProPublica investigation detailed how Tennessee's Rutherford County was jailing children at rates unmatched in the state.
St. Jude Stashed Away $886 Million in Unspent Revenue Last Year
New documents show that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s reserves grew to $7.6 billion, as other children's cancer nonprofits struggled to raise cash.
Louisiana Sued Hurricane Katrina Survivors for Misusing Recovery Grants. Now It Has Halted Collection Efforts.
Louisiana sued thousands of homeowners for not following the rules in spending grants after Katrina. After a joint news investigation, the state says it hopes a federal agency will approve a settlement that will allow it to drop the lawsuits.
She Warned the Grain Elevator Would Disrupt Sacred Black History. They Deleted Her Findings.
A whistleblower says a plan to build a grain elevator on an old plantation would disrupt important historic sites, including possibly unmarked graves of enslaved people, and that her cultural resource management firm tried to bury her findings.
Air Monitors Alone Won’t Save Communities From Toxic Industrial Air Pollution
Calvert City, Kentucky, has long had what people in other toxic hot spots have been begging for: monitors to prove they’re being exposed to toxic industrial air pollution. Regulators have years of evidence, but the poison in the air is only growing.
