Tom Scheck

The police department has struggled to solve homicides, partly due to shoddy detective work, staffing shortages and eroding community trust.

These St. Louis families have waited years for answers. They say police seem to have forgotten their loved ones.

The city’s homicide unit has dealt with short staffing, long hours and a ballooning DNA backlog.

Several officers in the homicide unit faced internal complaints that they slept on the job, failed to get key evidence and lied to superiors.

In the past decade, police solved fewer than half of the homicide cases with Black victims and two-thirds of the cases with white ones.

Newly released data reveals no resolution for the families of hundreds of homicide victims. Police refused to release homicide clearance data, so we sued to find out.

Surveillance of politicians in the Reno area was more extensive than previously known, and one private investigator had ties to prominent local Republicans.

Robert Beadles made his name by making unfounded election claims and backing candidates who share his radical beliefs. But an investigation found that he has repeatedly cited antisemitic propaganda and outlandish conspiracy theories.

GS Labs spread across the country with the promise of reliable, convenient Covid testing. An APM Reports investigation finds that the company has at times delivered inaccurate results, faced backlogs, charged high prices, and pushed customers into unnecessary tests. Frustrated state and local government officials have often been powerless to address the complaints.

St. Louis officials are celebrating a big drop in murders while the city’s police classify more and more killings as “justifiable homicides” instead.

Despite killings on the rise and the highest homicide rate among big cities, St. Louis police say they don’t have to tell the public which cases have been solved. APM Reports has filed a lawsuit for the information.

More than a year into the pandemic, many details about Covid testing remain unclear to the public, including how much the tests will cost taxpayers and how effective they really are. Nowhere is that more evident than in Minnesota.

An investigation finds that when Gov. Andy Beshear rolled back restrictions in December, health officials were already worried about a surge and were overwhelmed by a growing backlog of deaths.

The families of 17 kids settled their lawsuit against the owner of Mesabi Academy for $1.495 million, even as more treatment centers closed, forcing youth with mental health needs to wait months for care.

Help our reporting by telling us about your experience.

After Congress failed to aid local election offices, a nonprofit provided critical funds — including $350 million from Mark Zuckerberg — that paid for staff, ballot-scanning machines, protective gear, and rental space that helped the presidential election run surprisingly smoothly.

The critical swing state that had a disastrous April primary endures a divisive election with long lines at the polls and battles in the courts — all amid a raging coronavirus outbreak. Yet voter turnout has been surging.

Election officials in cities across the country had ballots delayed or go missing in the mail.  

Large cities in key states — Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee — have sub-par delivery records; a former deputy postmaster general estimates tens of thousands of mailed ballots will be at risk for late delivery.

Voters there missed the fine print and the elections staff was overwhelmed. As November nears, a by-mail vote surge — due to virus safety — will spotlight the ballot counting in other presidential battleground states with slim voting margins.

An APM Reports analysis finds that public labs in at least 10 states -- the first line of defense in an outbreak -- endured budget troubles or staffing shortages in the past decade. The labs will be critical to conducting the increased testing needed to end social distancing.

With state and federal governments looking to restrict vaping, the nation's largest e-cigarette maker pushed back with a multimillion-dollar advocacy campaign.

• Legal settlement nears • Some former residents are in jail or charged with crimes • Whistleblower has no regrets • The state changes how it regulates juvenile facilities • Buhl can't find a buyer for the building KidsPeace left behind

With its preferred juvenile correctional facility closed, Hennepin County has increased out-of-state placements 42 percent and some kids are landing in places with troubled histories.

The federal government has spent $7 billion on a transportation grant program that often awards money based on political clout and electoral impact, skirting Congress' own ban on earmarks.