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ACLU Sues Benton County, Wash., For Operating 'Modern-Day Debtors Prison'
After years of drug addiction, Jayne Fuentes feels she's close to getting her life back on track, as long as she doesn't get arrested again — but not for using drugs. She fears it will be because she...
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Lawsuits Target 'Debtors' Prisons' Across the Country
Civil rights lawyers are using a new strategy to change a common court practice that they have long argued unfairly targets the poor.At issue is the way courts across the country sometimes issue arrest...
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Families React To NPR's Reporting Of Secret Mustard Gas Testing
In response to NPR's investigation into once-classified U.S. military experiments with mustard gas, we've been hearing from people who learned about their loved ones' experiences in the...
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Army Says It Will Review Cases Of Dismissed Soldiers With Mental Health...
The acting secretary of the Army, Eric Fanning, promises to conduct a "thorough, multidisciplinary review" to determine whether thousands of combat soldiers with mental health problems or traumatic...
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Senators Want Moratorium On Dismissing Soldiers During Investigation
Four U.S. senators are calling on the Army to stop kicking out soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and have been diagnosed with mental health problems or traumatic brain injuries — effective...
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Senator Presses VA On Failure To Help Vets Exposed To Mustard Gas
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., had strong words for Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Thursday regarding the VA's failure to compensate thousands of World War II veterans who...
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Your Letters Helped Challenger Shuttle Engineer Shed 30 Years Of Guilt
When NPR reported Bob Ebeling's story on the 30th anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, hundreds of listeners and readers expressed distress and sympathy in letters and...
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Oklahoma Commission Declares Workers' Comp Alternative Unconstitutional
An Oklahoma law that lets employers opt out of state-regulated workers' compensation has been rejected and declared unconstitutional by state regulators.The Oklahoma Workers' Compensation Commission...
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Labor Secretary Calls Workers' Comp Opt-Out Plans A 'Pathway To Poverty'
U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says his agency will use its "bully pulpit" to strike at what he calls "a disturbing trend" that leaves workers without medical care and wage replacement...
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Colorado Springs Will Stop Jailing People Too Poor To Pay Court Fines
Debtors' prisons have long been illegal in the United States. But many courts across the country still send people to jail when they can't pay their court fines. Last year, the Justice Department...
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'Darker Possibility' For Workers When Employers Opt Out of Workers' Comp
Injured workers face "inherent conflict of interest," barriers to benefits, "unequal treatment," limited appeals and little to no independent oversight when employers opt out of state-regulated...
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Lawmakers To FEMA: Flood Plan Overhaul Is 'Too Little, Too Late'
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making sweeping reforms to the nation's flood insurance program in the wake of a series of critical reports on NPR and the PBS series Frontline. But lawmakers...
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Report: Red Cross Spent 25 Percent Of Haiti Donations On Internal Expenses
The American Red Cross spent a quarter of the money people donated after the 2010 Haiti earthquake — or almost $125 million — on its own internal expenses, far more than the charity previously had...
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N.Y. Attorney General: Nation's Flood Insurance Program Defrauding Taxpayers
A new report by the New York attorney general's office finds that a lack of accountability in the nation's flood insurance program is costing taxpayers millions. The office also announced 50 felony...
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Companies Can't Set Own Rules For Injured Workers, Okla. Court Says
A national campaign to rewrite state laws and allow businesses to decide how to care for their injured workers suffered a significant setback Tuesday when the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that...
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Labor Report Urges Study Of A Federal Role In State Workers' Comp Laws
A "race to the bottom" in state workers' compensation laws has the Labor Department calling for "exploration" of federal oversight and federal minimum benefits."Working people are at great risk of...
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37 Civil Rights Groups Seek Investigation Into 'Torture' At Lewisburg Prison
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, 37 civil rights, human rights and church groups on Monday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate "harrowing allegations of abuse and...
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Senators, Military Specialists Say Army Report On Dismissed Soldiers Is...
An Army review concludes that commanders did nothing wrong when they kicked out more than 22,000 soldiers for misconduct after they came back from Iraq or Afghanistan – even though all of those troops...
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Lawmakers Seek Better Count Of Advanced Black Lung Disease Cases
Updated at 6:25 p.m. ETTwo Democratic members of Congress want three federal agencies to work together to get a more accurate count of coal miners suffering from progressive massive fibrosis, the worst...
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This Week In Race: A House That Flew Over The Ocean And A Man Who Didn't Get...
You could say that it's been a pretty turbulent week on the race beat. United Airlines is embroiled in controversy, a Texas federal judge struck down the state's voter ID law and the comedian Charlie...
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Lawsuit Says Lewisburg Prison Counsels Prisoners With Crossword Puzzles
At the United States Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa., prisoners with serious mental illness are handed crossword and sudoku puzzles instead of counseling, according to a lawsuit that says prisoners at...
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Federal Report Criticizes Harsh Treatment Of Lewisburg Prisoners
A new federal report harshly criticizes the way the Bureau of Prisons treats inmates with mental illness, singling out treatment at the prison at Lewisburg, Pa.The report by the Department of Justice's...
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An Investigation Into Juvenile Life Without Parole
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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'If You Hemorrhage, Don't Clean Up': Advice From Mothers Who Almost Died
This story was co-published by NPR and ProPublica.Four days after Marie McCausland delivered her first child in May, she knew something was very wrong. She had intense pain in her upper chest, her...
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With Rain Lessening In Houston, Airports And Ports Begin Opening
The rain has let up in Houston, but getting in and out of the city is still a difficult task. Houston's two main airports reopened Wednesday with limited service. But many roads are flooded, and some...
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Red Cross Employee Survey Finds Doubts About Leadership, Ethics
Updated at 12:45 p.m. ET.A new employee survey isn't good news for the American Red Cross. Just 39 percent of employees trust the senior leadership of the organization. And 4 out of 10 employees have...
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Delinquent Mine Fines: 'Clearly Troubling ... More Can Be Done'
A key House Republicancalled today for federal regulators to crack down on mine owners who don't pay fines for safety violations, saying, "Clearly more can be done."Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the...
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Red Cross Misstates How Donors' Dollars Are Spent
The American Red Cross's CEO, Gail McGovern, has spelled out the organization's promise to donors repeatedly in recent years."Ninety-one cents of every dollar that's donated goes to our services,"...
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Justice Department Vows To Fight States That Violate Indian Child Welfare Law
In the middle of a lengthy speech to Native American tribes last week, Attorney General Eric Holder planted the Justice Department firmly on the side of tribes against states, as the tribes struggle to...
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Senator Asks Red Cross To Explain Its Finances
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is asking the American Red Cross to explain inaccuracies in how it has said it uses public donations, citing questions raised by an NPR and ProPublica...
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Massachusetts Will Limit Practice Of Restraint And Seclusion In Schools
Massachusetts is one of a growing number of states that are putting new restrictions on the practice of restraining and secluding public school students.The techniques — which have been blamed for...
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Regulators Take Action Against Delinquent Mines
Two weeks after NPR and Mine Safety and Health News reported nearly $70 million in delinquent mine safety penalties at more than 4,000 coal and mineral mines, federal regulators suddenly revived a rare...
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Pentagon Identifies World War II Veteran Featured In NPR/ProPublica...
The remains of a World War II soldier who died in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines – and the subject of a joint NPR/ProPublica investigation last year – have been identified as Pvt. Arthur...
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California Auditing Insurance Company That Took Away Home Health Aide
California's labor department says it will conduct an audit of how Travelers Insurance handled the case of paralyzed worker Joel Ramirez, who was left to fend for himself for months after the company...
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Federal Judge Says South Dakota Officials Violated Native American Families'...
Two of South Dakota's largest tribes won a sweeping victory in federal court that could reverberate for tribes across the country.A federal judge has ruled that the state Department of Social Services,...
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Alabama Bill Would Increase Workers' Comp Benefits For Amputees
This story, reported and written by ProPublica's Michael Grabell, is a follow up to a series by NPR/ProPublica on how states are slashing workers' compensation benefits.Alabama lawmakers have...
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Workers' Comp: CA Bill Would Stop Insurers From Suspending Care
A California Senate committee has approved a bill that directly addresses a problem reported in the ProPublica/NPR investigation of state changes in workers' compensation benefits.The measure sponsored...
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Feds Probe Failure To Collect Mine Safety Penalties After NPR Report
The inspector general of the Labor Department is conducting an audit of the Mine Safety and Health Administration's handling of delinquent mine safety penalties.The audit comes six months after NPR and...
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American Red Cross News Conference In Haiti Grows Heated
Haitian journalists pressed an official from the American Red Cross to explain how the charity spent almost half a billion dollars in the country — but got few answers at a news conference this week at...
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OSHA Launches Program To Protect Nursing Employees
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will announce Thursday that it's going to crack down on hospitals, for the first time ever, to prevent an epidemic of back and arm...
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How NPR Located More Veterans Exposed To Mustard Gas Than The VA
This week, NPR reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to live up to a promise to contact 4,000 veterans who were exposed to mustard gas in secret military experiments. In 1993, the VA...
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Senators Call For VA To Explain Why It Couldn't Find Mustard-Gassed Veterans
A group of 12 U.S. senators is calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs to help World War II veterans who were exposed to mustard gas, after an NPR Investigation found the VA broke a decades-old...
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Sen. Grassley Gives Red Cross Deadline To Explain Haiti Spending
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is demanding answers from the American Red Cross on how it spent nearly half a billion dollars in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake that leveled the...
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Can The Agent Orange Act Help Veterans Exposed To Mustard Gas?
To understand the predicament of World War II veterans exposed to mustard gas, take a look at what happened to another set of American veterans who were exposed to a different toxic chemical.Last...
View ArticleInside a Rehab Empire
The collision of the opioid epidemic with criminal justice reform has created a boom for the rehab industry. Those with wealth and insurance often are able to pay thousands of dollars for private...
View Article[Update] Billion-dollar scam
This week, we’re revisiting California’s workers’ compensation program that covers 15 million workers across the state. Reporter Christina Jewett discovered serious fraud in the system after reviewing...
View ArticleThe religious freedom loophole
America was built on the idea of protecting religious liberty. But what happens when religious groups take advantage of these special freedoms to make money, skirt rules or hurt children? We revisit an...
View Article338- Crude Habitat
Santa Barbara, California, is a famously beautiful place, but if you look offshore from one of the city's many beaches, you'll see a series of artificial structures that stand out against the natural...
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Red Cross Responds To NPR/ProPublica Report On Storm Response Inefficiencies
This week, NPR and ProPublica have been reporting on the Red Cross response in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Isaac and other major storms.Multiple internaldocuments obtained by NPR and...
View ArticleTeacher Ratings: What Are Other Cities Doing?
New York City isn't the only district using student test scores to measure which teachers are most effective. The Obama administration is using federal Race to the Top grants and other funds to...
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