Follow the Money: The Foundation Grants and Dark Money Behind Spring 2024’s Campus Encampments
Grant databases, IRS 990 filings, and foundation records reveal a financial network connecting major progressive donors to the student organizations that orchestrated university disruptions across the country. The tents weren’t…
Tehran’s Phantom Armada: Inside Iran’s Expanding Ghost Fleet of Sanctions-Busting Oil Tankers
Maritime tracking data and Panamanian registry records reveal how Iran has assembled a shadow fleet of aging tankers — flying flags of convenience and switching identities at sea — to…
San Francisco’s Non-Profit Black Hole: How $24 Billion in Homelessness Spending Disappeared Without a Trace
City audit reports and state investigations reveal a pattern of fiscal noncompliance, missing funds, and zero accountability among the non-profit organizations contracted to solve San Francisco’s homelessness crisis. The money…
The Border Wall GoFundMe That Built Nothing: Tracking $25 Million in Donor Money Through a Maze of Shell Companies
Three years after the We Build the Wall fraud convictions, TIJ News traces the full financial trail of $25 million in donor funds through a network of shell companies, personal…
Frozen Charging Stations: How the January 2024 Cold Snap Exposed the Fatal Flaw in America’s Electric Vehicle Push
When temperatures plunged below zero across the Midwest in January 2024, electric vehicle owners discovered what engineers already knew: lithium-ion batteries and extreme cold don’t mix. An investigation into the…
The DEI Budget Dump: How Corporate America Spends Billions on Diversity Consultants That Can’t Prove They Work
As fiscal years close, corporations rush to spend remaining HR budgets on diversity, equity, and inclusion training programs — feeding an industry valued at up to $8.5 billion that has…
Where Your Union Dues Really Go: How America’s Largest Teachers’ Unions Spend Billions on Politics While Classrooms Crumble
Department of Labor LM-2 filings reveal that the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers spend nearly four times more on political activities and donations than on directly representing…
The December Donation Scam: How Fringe PACs Exploited Conservative Email Lists to Pocket Millions in ‘Emergency’ Year-End Fundraising
FEC disbursement records from Q4 2023 reveal a familiar pattern: politically themed PACs blast urgent fundraising appeals to conservative donors in December, collect millions, and spend the vast majority on…
California’s $128 Billion Rail to Nowhere: A Year of Missing Deadlines, Budget Explosions, and the Consultants Who Keep Cashing In
A 2023 retrospective on the California High-Speed Rail project — where the cost has ballooned from $33 billion to $128 billion, over 1,000 change orders have been approved, and the…
The Veteran Charity Racket: How Patriotic-Sounding Nonprofits Spend 90% on Overhead
They have names designed to stir patriotic emotion — phrases combining “veteran,” “warrior,” “hero,” and “freedom” in arrangements calculated to open wallets. They deploy images of wounded soldiers, grieving families,…