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The Best Reporting on Facebook and Your Privacy
by Theodoric Meyer Facebook hit the one-billion user mark last week, a little more than two years after it reached 500 million users. To mark the occasion, we've rounded up some of the best reads on...
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Free the Files Tracks $294 Million in TV Ads, With Obama Topping Buyer List
by Amanda Zamora In just two weeks, volunteers for our Free the Files project have liberated information on $294 million in ad buys made in swing states since Aug. 2. The spending data comes from...
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Big Electric Companies Behind ‘Grassroots’ Ad Campaign in Florida
by Theodoric Meyer Oct. 15: This story has been updated with comments from the Edison Electric Institute. Since August, a dark money group called Defend My Dividend has spent nearly $90,000 running...
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How Financial Aid Letters Often Leave Students Confused and Misinformed
by Marian Wang .DC-note-container {margin-bottom: 10px;} The financial aid award letters that colleges send to prospective students can be confusing: Many mix grants, scholarships and loans all under...
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The Campaign Finance Free-For-All: How We Got to This Point
by Justin Elliott In a forthcoming law review article, Richard Briffault of Columbia Law School argues that the rise of super PACs and unfettered contributions and spending this election cycle are...
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Money is Speech: A Musical History of Campaign Finance
Here's our latest explainer video, on the storied history of money in politics. Lyrics follow. Act I: Brown Paper Bags “I made my mistakes, but in all my years of public life, I have never profited...
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How an Accused Guatemalan War Criminal Won U.S., Canadian Citizenship
by Sebastian Rotella Editor's Note: This story has also been published in Spanish. In May 1985, a Guatemalan Army lieutenant named Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes deserted, flew to San Francisco and...
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Message Machine Starts Providing Answers
by Jeff Larson On Aug. 7, Mel Roseman, a retired school teacher in Los Angeles, received an email from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee asking him to give a political donation of five...
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Democratic Congressman Takes Heat For Lobbyist-Organized Taiwan Trip
by Justin Elliott Rep. Bill Owens, D-N.Y., running for reelection in a tight race in northern New York, is under attack over a trip to Taiwan that broke House ethics rules. In May, ProPublica first...
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Doubts About Independent Foreclosure Review Spread
by Paul Kiel The idea behind the Independent Foreclosure Review seems simple. During the peak of the foreclosure crisis, the banks broke laws and made errors that hurt homeowners. In response, the...
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TSA Removes X-Ray Body Scanners From Major Airports
by Michael Grabell The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly removing its X-ray body scanners from major airports over the last few weeks and replacing them with machines that...
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Did the Dark Money Group that Spurred a Landmark Ruling Mislead the IRS?
by Kim Barker, ProPublica, and Emma Schwartz, Frontline A western nonprofit that played a key role in freeing corporate spending on elections nationwide appears to have misled the IRS when it applied...
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Reading Guide: Where Obama and Romney Actually Stand on Iran
by Theodoric Meyer With the third and final presidential debate on Monday night set to focus on foreign policy, Iran will once again take center stage. The issue will be all the more charged since the...
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Debate Night Snacks: Help ProPublica Take a Bite out Dark Money Spending
by Amanda Zamora Tonight, while Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are preparing their foreign policy talking points for the final presidential debate of the 2012 election, we’ll be joining a group of Ohio...
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How Companies Have Assembled Political Profiles for Millions of Internet Users
by Lois Beckett If you're a registered voter and surf the web, one of the sites you visit has almost certainly placed a tiny piece of data on your computer flagging your political preferences. That...
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Dark Money and Citizens United: What Obama and Romney Would and Wouldn’t Do...
by Justin Elliott With campaign finances limits rendered nearly meaningless, election spending is on pace to set records. Where does each presidential candidate stand on how to regulate money in...
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Where Are the Foreclosure Deal Millions Going in Your State?
by Paul Kiel , Lena Groeger and Cora Currier
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Why Florida is Sitting on $300 Million Meant to Help Homeowners
by Cora Currier .list { padding-left:20px; font-size:16px; } Florida has the highest percentage of home loans in foreclosure in the country. So why is more than $300 million that could help homeowners...
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Another Way Student Loans Are Like Mortgages: Subpar Servicing
by Marian Wang Oct. 24: This post has been updated to include a comment from Sallie Mae. The parallels between the mortgage market and the student loan industry have been frequently noted. Both...
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Discussion: The Top Patient Safety Challenges Medical Providers Face
by Blair Hickman Today, we’re launching a series of discussions aimed at exploring patient safety from the perspective of health care professionals. About five months ago, as part of our ongoing...
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