Topher Sanders is a reporter at ProPublica covering railroad safety. Previously he covered race, inequality and the justice system. In 2019, Sanders was part of a team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Public Service and won the Peabody and George Polk awards for their coverage of President Trump’s family separation policy. In 2018, he and reporter Ben Conarck received the Paul Tobenkin award for race coverage and the Al Nakkula award for police reporting for their multi-part investigation “Walking While Black,” which explored how jaywalking citations are disproportionately given to black pedestrians. His reporting has won a number of other national awards including a NABJ Award, an Online Journalism Award, the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim award for excellence in criminal justice reporting and he is a two-time winner of the Paul Tobenkin award for coverage of racial intolerance and discrimination.
In 2016 Sanders co-founded the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit working to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color. He is a graduate of Tuskegee University and started his journalism career at The Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama.
When Laura Whalen went to a hospital with COVID-19, she brought her kids. Her husband was already in an ICU, and she couldn’t risk them exposing their grandma. But the state told her to find someone to take them or it would.
Cardinal Health withdrew the gowns just before the pandemic because a Chinese supplier failed to sterilize them properly. The recall has created what a hospital association official called a “ripple effect.”
Pharmacists told ProPublica that they are seeing unusual and fraudulent prescribing activity as doctors stockpile unproven coronavirus drugs endorsed by President Donald Trump.
The CDC and hospitals have put medical providers and patients at risk as they fail to address national supply shortages. One emergency room doctor who did not have proper equipment and learned he had COVID-19 said, “I’m sure I exposed everyone I saw.”
None of Congress’ emergency coronavirus funding goes directly to first responders for the protective gear and supplies that paramedics, firefighters and EMTs need to safely fight the virus. One fire chief said they’re being forgotten.
Key direction from the CDC on how to protect emergency responders came after the first American case and the exposure of at least one firefighter. It’s yet another example of a fragmented and halting response at the highest levels of government.
La Iglesia Católica permitió que más de cincuenta clérigos basados en los Estados Unidos se mudaran al extranjero tras enfrentar acusaciones creíbles de abuso sexual. Algunos de ellos siguieron trabajando con menores.
The Catholic Church allowed more than 50 U.S.-based clergy to move abroad after facing credible accusations of sexual abuse. Some continued to work with children.
Tras décadas de proteger la identidad de abusadores sexuales infantiles acusados, y, con el fin de revelarlas al público, muchos líderes de la Iglesia Católica comienzan ahora a divulgar listas con sus nombres. Sin embargo, tales listas son incongruentes e incompletas, u omiten detalles críticos.
After decades of shielding the identities of accused child abusers from the public, many Catholic leaders are now releasing lists of their names. But the lists are inconsistent, incomplete and omit key details.
The federal class-action claims thousands of people in Missouri were jailed because they couldn’t pay off fines. Four years after the suit was filed, the plaintiffs are still waiting, and wondering if the deck is stacked against them.
Sens. Charles Grassley and Dianne Feinstein said they are particularly concerned that allegations of sexual assault of unaccompanied minors aren’t being properly investigated.
En distintos lugares del país, niños denuncian casos de agresión sexual en los albergues para menores inmigrantes. Alex decidió dar a conocer su situación cuando informó en el albergue que dos adolescentes mayores que él lo arrastraron a uno de los dormitorios. El incidente quedó grabado en un video de vigilancia, pero su caso nunca fue investigado. Alex no es el único.
Across the country, kids are reporting sexual assaults in immigrant children’s shelters. Alex decided to come forward. He told the shelter two older teens dragged him into a bedroom. There was surveillance video. But Alex's case wasn't investigated. His isn’t the only one.
The Federal Protective Service, which primarily secures federal buildings, has been charged with responding to incidents at the shelter with 2,800 immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas.
The state says Southwest Key displayed a “flippant attitude” after sexual abuse reports. But can the federal government survive without the largest operator of immigrant children shelters as Trump policies put the system near capacity?
Alegatos en contra de un cuidador de menores son lo último en una serie de acusaciones serias de abuso sexual en los albergues del gobierno para jóvenes inmigrantes.
The allegations against the Southwest Key youth care worker are the latest in a series of serious accusations of sexual abuse inside the government’s immigrant youth shelters.
Obtuvimos informes policiales y registros de llamadas de más de dos tercios de los albergues que hospedan a niños inmigrantes. Esto es lo que muestran.
Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. You are are free to republish it so long as you do the following:
You have to credit ProPublica and any co-reporting partners. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication(s).” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by ProPublica.” You must link the word “ProPublica” to the original URL of the story.
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our PixelPing tag.
If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. For more information about canonical metadata, refer to this Google SEO link.
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].
It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work.
You can’t sell our material separately or syndicate it. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact [email protected].)
You can’t use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. We have official accounts for ProPublica on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Copy and paste the following into your page to republish:
