Alec MacGillis

By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.

“It was like a heavyweight sparring featherweights,” the attorney said about his time representing companies owned by Trump’s in-laws, whose apartments were known for shoddy maintenance and aggressive legal tactics.

For years, Washington, D.C., was insulated from many of the economic forces that decimated many older U.S. cities. Now, as Elon Musk’s mass layoffs shake everything from employment to real estate, the region faces the prospect of decline.

The Trump administration’s decision to delete a DOJ database of cases against Capitol riot defendants places those who seek to preserve the historical record in direct opposition to their own government.

States are handing multimillion-dollar contracts to a handful of fledgling private companies to manage the rapidly growing, convoluted marketplace of school-choice programs. The process has been bumpy.

Private letters reveal the strategy behind the decadeslong quest — successful in 12 states and counting — by politicians, church officials and activists to make taxpayer-funded school vouchers available not just to the poor but to the wealthy.

For all the talk about big-city Democrats and rural Republicans, it’s the voters in overlooked places like Sandusky, Ohio, and Racine, Wisconsin, who could decide everything from key congressional races to the presidency.

As more families opt for charter and private schools or homeschooling in the wake of the pandemic, cities around the country are shuttering schools. The effects fall hardest on majority-Black schools and special-needs students.

As Donald Trump tried to disavow the politically toxic project, its director, Paul Dans, stepped down. But the plans and massive staffing database that he prepared — to replace thousands of members of the “deep state” with MAGA loyalists — remain.

School choice advocates are intent on expanding the availability of vouchers to fund private education at the expense of public schools, but rural residents of these targeted states are putting up some of the strongest resistance.

Voucher expansions have unleashed a flood of additional taxpayer dollars to the benefit of families already enrolled in private schools. In Ohio, some schools are now “strongly encouraging” parents to apply for vouchers, regardless of need or income.

Absenteeism has nearly doubled since the pandemic. With state and federal governments largely abdicating any role in getting kids back into classrooms, some schools have turned to private companies for a reimagined version of the truant officer.

After intense opposition and skepticism, two elementary schools opened 20 days early to help students make up for what they missed during the time of remote learning. The first question: Would kids show up in the middle of summer for extra schooling?

As shooting rates among the young remain stratospheric, evidence suggests social media is serving as an accelerant to violence. Taunts that once could be forgotten now live on before large audiences, prompting people to take action.

Test scores are plummeting while tens of billions in federal aid flows to schools. A visit to a recent education technology convention provides a glimpse of the frenzy to profit from the recovery efforts.

Disastrous test scores increasingly show how steep a toll the COVID-19 era exacted on students, particularly minorities. Schools are grappling with how to catch up, and the experience of one city shows how intractable the obstacles are.

Everything from pandemic policies to security concerns is causing agencies to reduce in-person services, including licenses and permits.

Amid a murder crisis in America, governments are investing millions in local, non-police programs. The violence intervention workers leading them are now under pressure to prove their worth.

A new ProPublica app tracks corporate contributions to election deniers. From GE to Boeing, here are some of the behemoths that proclaimed that they were suspending donations — then resumed giving to the very politicians they had sworn off.

Democrat Tim Ryan has long emphasized manufacturing jobs, a stance his party has lately begun to embrace. How he fares in his Senate race in Republican-dominated Ohio could reveal a lot about his party’s future prospects.