Politics

Reporting Highlights Citation’s Track Record: Citation Oil & Gas is named more than any other company in an Oklahoma database of pollution reports and other rule violations — over 1,000 times in the past decade. Pollution Without Punishment: Regulatory agency staff repeatedly recommended the state punish Citation. Instead, agency bosses allowed the company to restart

Reporting Highlights Undermining Voters: As state senator, Brent Taylor passed laws that superseded the will of Memphis voters. Now he wants to represent them in Congress. Overruling Elected Officials: Voters elected Democratic District Attorney Steve Mulroy, who rejected a tough-on-crime approach to public safety. Taylor’s laws have restrained his authority. Harming Black Memphians: Laws restricting

Reporting Highlights The Shadow Surge: In January 2025, President Donald Trump revived a troubled ICE program that deputizes cops as deportation officers. Over 29,000 local officers nationwide have enlisted. After the Flood: Ingram, Texas, was rebuilding from a historic flood when its Police Department signed on with ICE. Within a year, cops would hand over

With just a few days remaining before the runoff election, supporters of Lula’s party are doing everything possible to rally support behind the president. View Source Here

Four years after North Texas home builder Scott Sherman completed a federal prison sentence for mortgage fraud, his new construction materials business received a $600,000 cash infusion. The financial boost came from a blind trust set up to prevent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, from any overlap in

For many years, I have prayed for something most people take for granted: the opportunity to see my father again. My father, Stephen James Hubbard, was taken into Russian custody in April 2022 in the Ukrainian city of Izyum. Our family has since endured the sorrow and uncertainty of separation. View Source Here

The Trump administration this week announced an overhaul of the nation’s food stamp payment system, aimed at modernizing benefit cards to protect families from electronic theft. The move comes a week after ProPublica published an investigation showing how $470 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits were stolen from recipients last year alone,

Reporting Highlights Toxic Legacy: Workers got sick cleaning up radioactive waste at a former federal nuclear weapons site in Washington, and the state passed a law to make it easier to claim benefits.  Litigating Workers’ Claims: The Department of Energy denies responsibility and has filed more than 500 legal appeals seeking to block state benefits

The agency charged with regulating Colorado’s first-in-the-nation legal recreational marijuana market potentially put consumers at risk of using contaminated products, a new state audit found. The report pointed to inconsistent oversight by the Marijuana Enforcement Division and loose state rules around testing marijuana products or contaminants. As a result, it found, nearly 75% of marijuana

Reporting Highlights Pay for Play: A Hawaiian naval firm filled South Carolina politicians’ campaign coffers with cash and won federal contracts in the state. Big Players: Lindsey Graham and James Clyburn, two major forces in South Carolina, helped steer federal money to Navatek. Questionable Merit: The contracts’ effectiveness was dubious. “The whole thing is a

On a cold February morning at West Virginia’s Capitol, children in winter jackets, holding signs and their homework, clogged the hallways outside the House Finance Committee room. Delegate Vernon Criss, the committee’s chairperson, popped outside his office, then promptly walked back in.  Five days earlier, the Republican lawmaker had proposed to limit payouts from a

Reporting Highlights More Emissions: Three new data centers near the Texas-New Mexico border, including two in El Paso, could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions in the region.  Across State Lines: Regulators have largely considered the environmental impacts of these data centers separately, partly because they are in two different states.  Conflicting Goals: Plans for these

"Turns out the future does have flying cars," Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas. View Source Here