In a buried report, oil regulators pinpointed nearly 600 wells operating illegally, threatening Oklahoma’s drinking water. Then there were 1,400+ wells that had operated for decades without any limits at all — grandfathered in from an earlier era. With @readfrontier.bsky.social

A pastor running for sheriff in Alamance County, North Carolina, says immigration enforcement should primarily be a federal responsibility. “We’re going to do our job, and our job is not to do what they’re doing, which is, right now, racial profiling.”

We're proud to be participating in Chicago Story Fest: a night of live storytelling by local journalists that you can only experience in the room. The event takes place Thurs. Sept. 18 at the Athenaeum Center. Early-bird tickets start at $30. Get yours today. blockclubchi.co/4xuVpK2

As Washington reduces public defender caseloads, prosecutors say that's forced difficult charging decisions. In Spokane, 130 felony domestic violence cases referred by law enforcement from Jan 2025 - May 2026 were declined for prosecution: www.investigatewest.org/spokane-pros...

America is ☠️ This is bullshit. Everyone should be standing up against this. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

NEW: We published this alarming reporting today on just how long immigrant detainees are being detained in lock-ups in Louisiana, a state that has made the choice to be as receptive to immigration detention as virtually any. boltsmag.org/louisiana-im...

We are co-publishing another ICE detention story tomorrow with the beloved @boltsmag.org and it is, imho, a doozy

From Bolts’s latest collab with @thelensnola.Bsky.social “People are just sitting in these cages with no end in sight,” said Bridget Pranzatelli, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Project. “The number of people who are detained outside the scope of the law has increased dramatically.”

NEW from Bolts: Louisiana has more ICE lockups than almost any other state. Now, as a surge in habeas petitions overloads courts, people are being held “unfathomably” long without recourse. Our new collaboration with The Lens Nola:

ICE agents detained a man at Bridgeview’s courthouse Wednesday, telling sheriffs they had a warrant but never showing one. Arrests on civil warrants are barred by state law at courthouses, prompting questions of if the detainment violates it — and if so, who will hold them accountable. 🧵/10

Certifications of innocence help wrongfully convicted people expunge their records and get compensation. Cook County’s top prosecutor has frequently opposed issuing them, but a court ruling in May expanded access to them. Our story with Injustice Watch:

🔔 Reminder: Our reader survey is still open! Complete the survey to tell us what you think about Bolts. Your responses will be incredibly helpful as we plan our future coverage. www.surveymonkey.com...]

“Drew got locked up at 18 years old and lost the chance to have the life he wanted. He said he just wants prosecutors to admit they were wrong. ‘At 46, I have no children. You took that from me, man. You fucking took that from me,’ he said through tears. ‘It cost me 25 years out of my life.’”

NEW: Chicago prosecutors have been making it hard for people who are exonerated to obtain a 'certificate of innocence', an important doc to be able to move on. But two new developments in Illinois may just have made things easier for people with wrongful convictions!

The city spent millions on a flailing domestic violence program no one asked for, advocates say. blockclubchi.co/4xl9ytk

My latest for @blockclubchi.bsky.social is a look at a new police program aimed at helping domestic violence survivors. Advocates argue the program is a gross misallocation of taxpayer dollars. And we found little evidence it has been effective. blockclubchicago.org/2026/06/10/t...

Block Club reached out to all 56 community service providers on the program’s list and interviewed leaders of more than 40 of them. Only four organizations said they received any referrals. Most had no contact with CPD victim specialists. Some groups didn’t even know the police program existed.

Outrage against ICE has dramatically reshaped Whittier in the past year. The new mayor and & his city council allies ousted MAGA incumbents in a landslide after decades of conservative leadership

Mayor of Whittier, CA confronts ICE goon who's afraid of being recorded.

Good list of groups doing great work on surveillance tech. boltsmag.org/everything-e...

The Times of San Diego reports on a man who was sent to jail after a Flock camera mistakenly linked him to the site of a shooting.

A federal judge ruled that Alabama’s executions by nitrogen gas are cruel & unusual punishment. My colleague @laurengill.bsky.social shed light on the Alabama’s initial experiments with the gruesome method of capital punishment

A big deal: a federal court has BLOCKED Alabama from using nitrogen gas to execute. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... My colleague Lauren Gill has done essential work witnessing what nitrogen gas does, and writing about this torturous method of execution in Alabama specifically. Revisit:

Milwaukee is one of those places where an officer used Flock cameras to stalk a romantic partner— but efforts to cut ties with Flock have hit a wall:

www.npr.org/2026/06/10/n... Letter sent to members of Congress in April, acknowledged ICE gives itself wide latitude to collect information on individuals suspected of potential violations of law, including interference with ICE operations, and maintains records on people who were never arrested.

Many states require that mail ballots be postmarked by a specific day. But due to a USPS rule announced late last year, voters may need to put their ballot in a mailbox days in advance.

Here is the article @taniel.bsky.social refers to. It is exactly the type of reporting and analysis we need, clarifying the stakes and how the struggle for Black political representation is not just about Congress, but affects the lives of people in very concrete ways on the local level:

I really appreciate how @thomaszimmer.bsky.social kindly mentions & discusses Bolts' reporting on racism & voting rights in West Tennessee: thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/america-is... Especially since this is the same article that the NYT decided to lift & rewrite with no acknowledgment or citation.

Do you know what surveillance technologies are in use in your community?

happy election day to those who celebrate! more context with our usual guide: boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

Trump’s conspiracy theorizing about Los Angeles mayoral race is about setting the stage for more consequential lies in November, when California counts its US House votes.

In Wisconsin, advocates are pushing for proactive restrictions on police surveillance—“instead of having to look into these technologies on their own and after the fact, in the aftermath when the damage is already done,” as one advocate put it.

In nonpartisan elections like for Mississippi's supreme court, it may be easier to bring viable claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—even under Justice Alito’s Callais opinion, says voting rights lawyer Amir Badat.

In 1999, a farmer gave away 87 acres of land to a small Texas town to use as a park. The town sold to a data center developer for $10 million.

NEW: Organizers in San Diego are still patrolling immigrant neighborhoods to watch out and inform people about ICE. Over the last year, they've had to come to terms with what they've seen out of Minneapolis, and adapt their training and strategies. Important new reporting out of SoCal:

NEW in Bolts: In San Diego, community members are continuing to volunteer to patrol immigrant neighborhoods, as disputes between local officials and the sheriff fuel uncertainty about the region's sanctuary protections.

An anti-trans law in Kansas effectively forces trans voters to obtain new documents with inaccurate gender markers, or abstain from voting. “We either won’t be able to vote or participate in public life, or we change our documents.”

Also, I have a new piece on the ins and outs of New York's supposedly independent civilian review board – why the NYPD retains so much control over the process, and what Mamdani could do to demonstrate a real commitment to police accountability: boltsmag.org/nypd-civilia...

Santa Clara DA Jeff Rosen brought 1 of the harshest cases vs. Palestine campus protesters–until a judge kicked him off the case for framing it as "fighting antisemitism" to his "AIPAC [email] list" in order to fundraise. Today, Rosen is up for reelection for a 5th term: boltsmag.org/santa-clara-...

A big referendum coming up this summer, in early August: Missouri Republicans have proposed a constitutional amendment to make citizen ballot initiatives a ton harder. How much harder? Each and every popular initiative that voters have approved since 2020 would have failed instead!

Attn: IL FOIAFans and/or People Who Slip HB1856, which would expand FOIA to include the judicial branch,* has a subject matter hearing at 10AM; if you like this idea as much as I do, you can file a proponent witness slip here: *A few details in the next post ilga.gov/House/hearin...

We found cases in which Cook County prosecutors knew someone was in ICE custody and still requested a warrant when that person failed to show up to traffic court. Advocates argue it’s a violation of defendants’ due process rights. (Co-published with @chicagoreader.com)

After a Wisconsin town did this, the mayor said: “The fact that they didn’t take the cameras down shows that we are the product. They were never really selling to us in the first place. They're selling to much bigger agencies the ability to spy on a ton of people.” (via boltsmag.org/verona-wisco...)

Mind you, this is traffic court: "a warrant is generally issued if someone cannot come to court on their own volition. And in this situation, it would strain logic to say that he did not come to court of his own free will.”

A federal district court Tuesday blocked Alabama from using its 2023 congressional map in this year’s midterm elections, after plaintiffs in a long-running legal challenge asked the court for an emergency order halting the last-minute gerrymander. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

A Florida judge says voting rights groups have not sufficiently proven the new Florida gerrymander was drawn with partisan intent (which is forbidden by the Florida constitution) when the DeSantis' team has said that explicitly! www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/u...

NEW: Five members of the House of Representatives have asked the Department of Justice inspector general to investigate why a federal probe into a prison drugs-for-votes scheme in Puerto Rico was abandoned after the 2024 elections.

Pro-voting plaintiffs in the case have appealed the decision to the state court of appeals. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Immigrant rights advocates warn that some cooperation between police and ICE often persists even when the most visible partnerships are banned. “When informal collaboration happens, it is usually not very transparent to the public," says one expert.