When ProPublica environment reporter Lisa Song attended this “plastic free” United Nations conference in April, where plastics treaty negotiations were taking place, she didn’t even get a see-through sleeve for her name tag. She’d have to reuse an old lanyard, they told her.
After all, representatives from roughly 170 countries were gathering to tackle a crisis: The world churns out 400 million metric tons of plastic a year.
But as the conference progressed, Song came to understand just how hard it would be for attendees to achieve any meaningful action on the world’s plastic pollution crisis. In fact, some attendees didn’t think there was anything wrong with plastic at all. Watch Song walk us through some shocking pro-plastic ads she saw at this “plastic free” UN conference.
#plastic#plastics#microplastics#plasticpollution#plasticfree#plastictreaty#environment#environmentalissues#unitednations
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ban on camping in Grants Pass, Oregon, finding laws that criminalize sleeping in public spaces don’t violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
In doing so, the court gave cities broader latitude to punish people for sleeping outside, likely resulting in more aggressive action to remove homeless encampments.
A recent ProPublica report found that Albuquerque discarded personal property in violation of city policy and a court order that has since been lifted. We’ve heard from dozens of people from across the country who described losing valuable belongings during encampment removals.
Legal experts say the decision empowers local governments to issue citations and make arrests with the possibility of jail time.
“Cities have always had the ability to sweep and they continue to do that at reckless paces,” said Sara Rankin, a law professor at Seattle University who studies the criminalization of homeless people. “What happens to people? Will people be more harmed as a result? I would say that is a very, very deep concern.”
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller did not respond to questions about the city’s actions. In a written statement, a spokesperson said the city is “actively investing in programs and resources that get at the root causes of homelessness and provide sustainable solutions.”
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(📸: Nathan Howard/Reuters
🎨: Matt Rota for ProPublica)
Brianna Villafane was in lower Manhattan protesting police violence when officers charged into the crowd. One of them gripped her hair and yanked her to the ground.
“I felt someone on top of me and it was hard to breathe,” she said. “I felt like I was being crushed.”
The New York City civilian oversight agency that examines allegations of police abuse investigated and concluded that the officer had engaged in such serious misconduct that it could constitute a crime.
Villafane received a letter from the agency, known as the Civilian Complaint Review Board, about its conclusions. The next step would be a disciplinary trial overseen by the New York Police Department, during which prosecutors from the oversight agency would present evidence and question the officer in a public forum. “I was happy and I was relieved,” she recalled.
Then last fall, the police commissioner intervened.
Exercising a little-known authority called “retention,” the commissioner, Edward Caban, ensured the case would never go to trial. Instead, Caban reached his own conclusion in private, deciding that it “would be detrimental to the Police Department’s disciplinary process” to pursue administrative charges against the officer, Gerard Dowling, according to a letter the department sent to the oversight agency. The force that the officer used against Villafane was “reasonable and necessary.”
A ProPublica investigation found that since becoming commissioner last July, Caban has short-circuited dozens of disciplinary cases. Some involved officers accused of wantonly using chokeholds, deploying Tasers, and beating protesters with batons.
The NYPD declined to comment on specific cases that were retained. It also declined to answer questions about Caban’s use of the practice, responding instead with a statement that said it works closely with the oversight board in making such decisions. Dowling also did not respond to a request for comment.
Tap the link in bio to read more, via @propublica .
Photo illustration: Andrea Wise/ProPublica. Source photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The plastics industry is heralding nothing short of a miracle: an “advanced” type of recycling known as pyrolysis.
While old-school, “mechanical” recycling yields plastic that’s degraded or contaminated, this type of “chemical” recycling promises plastic that behaves like it’s new. The industry claims the method could replace old shopping bags and candy wrappers with new ones.
But not much is being recycled at all, and pyrolysis won’t curb the plastic crisis — not now; maybe not ever. One analyst estimated that at best, within the next few years, the world could replace just 0.2% of new plastic per year with products made through pyrolysis.
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(🎨: Illustrations by Max Guther, special to ProPublica; Graphics by Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)
When Brianna Villafane took to the streets of New York City in the summer of 2020 to protest police violence, she did not expect to be the victim of it. Although a police oversight agency found that an NYPD officer’s behavior toward her during that protest constituted significant misconduct, Villafane’s case was buried. Meanwhile, the officer that attacked her has been promoted and now helps command the unit that responds to protests.
A ProPublica investigation found that Police Commissioner Edward Caban has unilaterally buried a number cases of police misconduct through a little-known power called retention, which involves stopping a case before it reaches disciplinary trial and short-circuiting the oversight and disciplinary process altogether.
📝 Story co-published with @nytimes#nypd#newyork#newyorkcity#newyorkpolicedepartment#policemisconduct#policebrutality#ericadams#edwardcaban#policecommissioner
Durante los últimos dos años, hemos reportado sobre las vidas de los obreros de la industria lechera de Wisconsin y los peligros que enfrentan en el trabajo. Estos trabajadores están excluidos de muchas de las protecciones legales del estado y del gobierno federal que ayudan a otros trabajadores. Pocos de los obreros que entrevistamos entendían sus derechos después de una lesión. Por esa razón, hicimos una guía para explicar sus opciones. Aquí te dejamos saber lo más importante si trabajas en un rancho o conoces a un trabajador agrícola. Para leer o escuchar nuestra guía completa, visite el enlace en la biografía o visita nuestro canal de YouTube.
📰: Melissa Sanchez y Maryam Jameel
📸 y 🎨: Cuauhtémoc Wetzka, Zeke Peña, Edel Rodriguez, Sebastián Hidalgo
🎥: José Sepúlveda
#rancho#rancholife#granja#lechería#wisconsin#derechoslaborales#vacaslecheras
Each year, people and companies contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to tax-exempt political organizations in an effort to influence elections nationwide. These organizations, commonly known as 527s after a section of the tax code, can raise unlimited sums for political spending.
527s:
-Aren’t regulated by the Federal Election Commission
-Aren’t subject to FEC-style restrictions on who can contribute or how much they can give
-Are spending more and more, topping $1 billion in 2022
Despite the influence of many 527s, experts said they receive little scrutiny and are rarely audited — so questionable spending often goes unnoticed.
Our database allows you to explore who funds these organizations and how they’re spending the money.
Click the link in our bio for more.
A frustrated woman recently called Mark Steinagel, the official who runs Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing. She had seen a life coach and wanted to take action against them: “This person did a lot of damage to me.”
Reports about life coaches — who can promise to help someone lose weight, run their business, change their parenting style, have better sex, or improve other aspects of their lives — come into Steinagel’s office about once a month. But much of the time, he or his staff have to explain that there’s nothing they can do.
If the woman had been complaining about a licensed therapist, the department might have been able to investigate and potentially order discipline, including fines. But life coaches aren’t therapists — and are mostly unregulated across the U.S. They aren’t required to be trained in ethical boundaries the way therapists are, and there’s no universally accepted certification for those who work in the industry.
Simply put, anyone can call themself a life coach — and the industry is rapidly growing. The International Coaching Federation has estimated that, in 2022, active life coaches generated more than $4.5 billion in revenue worldwide.
With that growth have come complaints by clients about mistreatment, as well as rising demand for some type of oversight.
Tap the link in bio to read the full investigation, via @propublica and @sltrib .
Illustration: Lisa Larson-Walker
Last fall, the North Carolina Supreme Court secretly squashed disciplinary action against two GOP judges who had admitted that they violated the state’s judicial code of conduct, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the decisions.
One of the judges had ordered, without legal justification, that a witness be jailed. The other had escalated a courtroom argument with a defendant, which led to a police officer shooting the defendant to death.
The decisions came despite recommendations by the Judicial Standards Commission to publicly reprimand both women — and they appear to be the only instances in more than a decade in which the court didn’t follow the commission’s guidance. Law mandates that such decisions remain confidential in North Carolina, which is one of the most secretive states when it comes to disciplining judges.
To read the full story, click the link in our bio.
(📸: Anna Connors/The Daily Tar Heel; Cornell Watson/The Assembly)
In 2020, Russian hackers carried out one of the largest cyberattacks in U.S. history, widely known as SolarWinds, vacuuming up sensitive government data.
Although hackers took advantage of a flaw in a Microsoft product during the hack, the company has long downplayed its role. A new ProPublica investigation reveals that the tech giant was repeatedly warned about the weakness years in advance of the massive breach — but chose not to address it because doing so would undermine its business goals.
In 2016, Microsoft engineer Andrew Harris discovered a weakness that left the company’s customers exposed to hackers. He said he pleaded with the company for several years to address the flaw. But at every turn, Microsoft dismissed his warnings.
Harris’ account, told here for the first time, upends the prevailing public understanding of the SolarWinds hack.
(On Thursday during a Congressional hearing, after our story published, Microsoft President Brad Smith pointed out that the weakness in the company's product could also be found in other companies’ software. Cybersecurity specialists have noted, however, that Microsoft’s version was one the most widely-used, including by the federal government.)
To read the full story, click the link in our bio.
(📸: Greg Kahn, special to ProPublica)
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