The Paper Trail: August 16, 2024

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The Paper Trail

Top stories for August 16, 2024

Armed and untouchable: ICE’s history of deadly force: An analysis of shootings by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from 2015 to 2021 reveals a rogue force whose officers sometimes recklessly fire their weapons. When and how ICE agents use deadly force has long been shrouded in secrecy. (Lila Hassan, Business Insider)

As millions of acres burn, firefighters say the U.S. Forest Service has left them with critical shortages: The Forest Service recently claimed it had reached 101% of its firefighter hiring goal for 2024, but those on the front lines say the agency is understating how badly depleted their ranks are. (Abe Streep, ProPublica)

🔎 See Also: Half their land burned in a decade: The California counties constantly on fire (Elena Shao, New York Times)

New lines of attack form against the Affordable Care Act: Republican lawmakers claim parts of the ACA cost taxpayers too much and provide an incentive for fraud and abuse. (Julie Appleby, ABC News)

IRS is flying blind without plans to modernize legacy tech, watchdog says: This isn’t the first time oversight officials have called out the IRS for a lack of technology planning. (Natalie Alms, Government Executive)

Hunter Biden sought State Department help for Ukrainian company: The White House released documents showing Hunter Biden wrote to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member. (Kenneth P. Vogel, New York Times)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

The U.S. fueled Saudi jets bombing Yemen. Now the Saudis won’t pay their gas bill: For several years, the Pentagon has been chasing the kingdom for $15 million it owes for American assistance during the war in Yemen. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

Business and Finance

Collapsing mortgage securities. Broken processes. No accountability. Sound familiar? Faulty credit ratings were a cause of the 2008 financial crisis. A whistleblower complaint alleges the same dynamic is happening again. (David Dayen, The American Prospect)

Big Four audit shortfalls stabilize, latest inspections show: PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte experienced greater deficiencies in their audits of public companies’ 2022 financial statements compared with the previous year, while the overall rate of Big Four accounting firms’ shortcomings stabilized, according to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. PCAOB Chair Erica Williams said the overall deficiency rates were still “unacceptable.” (Mark Maurer, Wall Street Journal)

When is “recyclable” not really recyclable? When the plastics industry gets to define what the word means: Companies whose futures depend on plastic production — including ExxonMobil — are trying to persuade the government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on plastic shopping bags and other items destined to end up in landfills and incinerators. (Lisa Song, ProPublica)

A Chinese self-driving start-up is about to go public in the U.S.: WeRide is among a wave of Chinese electric vehicle and automotive technology companies turning to American financial markets for capital to fund their global ambitions, even as Washington enacts policies to freeze them out of the market. (Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times)

Tech

FTC bans fake online reviews, inflated social media influence; rule takes effect in October: With the concurrent rise of e-commerce, influencer marketing, and generative AI, advertisers are turning to automated chatbots to generate fake user reviews for products sold online or paying for reviews to falsely boost or denigrate a product. (Rebecca Picciotto, CNBC)

How the CrowdStrike tech outage reignited a battle over the heart of Microsoft systems: The July tech outage renewed scrutiny over why some companies have access to the very heart of a computer and, therefore, the ability to suddenly crash it. (Belle Lin, Wall Street Journal)

Infrastructure

A fifth of U.S. green hydrogen projects eyed for water-stressed areas: As the federal government pours billions into hydrogen production to lower greenhouse gas emissions, critics worry water shortages in the Southwest could worsen. (Alec Luhn, Route Fifty)

Decrepit pipes put Jackson, Mississippi, on the edge of catastrophe. State regulators didn’t act: For years, Jackson residents endured periods of low water pressure, potentially unsafe drinking water, or no water at all. All the while, state inspectors found few problems with the failing pipes that caused those problems. (Nick Judin, ProPublica)

Health Care

The FDA calls them “recalls,” yet the targeted medical devices often remain in use: In some of the most serious medical device recalls, the FDA and the manufacturers let doctors and hospitals continue using the devices. (David Hilzenrath, KFF Health News)

Medicare drug price savings obscured by health-care complexities: The lowered drug prices negotiated between the Biden administration and major pharmaceutical companies are leaving industry observers skeptical about the extent of savings and benefits to patients. (Ian Lopez, Bloomberg Law)

🔎 See Also: Analysis: Higher drug costs, less choice: How PBMs affect everyday Americans’ healthcare (Rita Numerof, Forbes)

ICYMI

Project 2025:

→ Hidden-camera video shows Project 2025 co-author discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term

→ Project 2025: What is it and how would it impact Gen Z and Millennials?

→ Project 2025 aims to derail efforts to stop election disinformation

→ How Project 2025 threatens the Inflation Reduction Act’s thriving clean energy economy

Immigration and Border Security:

→ U.S. to speed up asylum processing at northern border to deter migrant crossings

→ The U.S. wants to use facial recognition to identify migrant children as they age

→ Texas program designed to expand arresting power of U.S. Border Patrol agents off to slow start

Other News:

→ Customs and Border Protection settles a $45M lawsuit alleging discrimination against pregnant employees

→ Partnership for Public Service offers an alternative to Schedule F

→ After Nike leaders promised climate action, their corporate jets kept flying and polluting

→ How did mpox become a global emergency? What’s next?

Hot Docs

🔥📃 Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: Election Certification Under Threat: A legal roadmap to protect the 2024 election including from 35 officials who have refused to certify results. August 12, 2024