The Imam’s Widow
As part of ProPublica’s “Documenting Hate” project, Rahima Nasa profiles the wife of a Queens imam who was murdered in 2016. Although there appeared to be no other possible motive, prosecutors failed to try the case as the hate crime it likely was.
How Hospitals Are Failing Black Mothers
In the latest entry of ProPublica’s Lost Mothers series, which looks at maternal care in the U.S., Annie Waldman examines how black mothers who deliver at hospitals that disproportionately serve black patients are more likely to suffer serious complications.
Nothing Protects Black Women From Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth
Journalists Nina Martin and Renee Montagne tell the story of Shalon Irving, an epidemiologist for CDC who got pregnant at 36 and collapsed three weeks after the birth of her child, to confront the disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality among black women in the United States.
The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth
This deep dive by ProPublica and NPR into maternal death in the United States equal parts devastating and essential. But for a country that prides itself in the lowering of infant mortality, concerns about the health of the mother in the days and weeks after birth has declined to the point that even preventable illnesses are going under-treated, or untreated.
Sold For Parts
One of the most dangerous companies in the U.S. took advantage of immigrant workers. Then, when they got hurt or fought back, it used America’s laws against them.
Beyond Gun Control
Lois Beckett of ProPublica investigates why a successful program to combat gun violence has gone underfunded and ignored.
Level 14
How a California group home for troubled children came tragically undone and what it means for the state’s chance at reform. This story was co-produced with California Sunday.
For a Respected Prosecutor, An Unpardonable Failure
Evidence of a convicted murderer’s possible innocence sat buried in a case file for more than two decades. Now, a prosecutor in Brooklyn will have to answer for the mistake.
On the afternoon of July 18, 1990, James Leeper, a newly minted homicide prosecutor in Brooklyn, had to make a challenging closing argument. The man he had charged with murder had mounted a substantial defense—offering plane tickets and video footage indicating he had been vacationing at Disney World when a man named Darryl Rush was shot dead in front of a Brooklyn housing project. Leeper acknowledged to the jury that it seemed like the “perfect alibi.”