A Look at Biden’s Lapses, and a Holdup in Trump’s Sentencing
Plus, millions aren’t paying student loans.
By Michael Simon Johnson, Catie Edmondson, Selam Gebrekidan, Ian Stewart, Jessica Metzger and Tracy Mumford
I am an investigative reporter for The New York Times whose work focuses on accountability — of governments, companies and people who wield power.
I cover topics with a wide geographic and thematic range. I have reported on corruption in South Africa, the misuse of farm subsidies across Europe, the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the secret contracts behind the rollout of vaccines, the centuries of debt that entrapped Haiti, and the British criminal justice system, among others.
When possible, I build and use databases to add an empirical framework to investigative projects. I usually spend months, and sometimes years, working on stories before they are published.
I joined The Times in 2018 as an investigative reporter. Before that, I worked for Reuters, both in New York and in London. My first job there was covering commodities markets. I later moved to the data and enterprise team, where I wrote about migration to Europe and the war in Yemen.
All Times journalists are committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. I identify myself as a reporter when working. I do not accept gifts or favors from people I report on. I protect my sources and I will fight to keep them anonymous if the disclosure of their identity would harm or endanger them. I believe in fairness — everyone should get a chance to respond before they read about themselves in The Times.
The best way to reach me is through email. Please use the tip line for a secure contact.
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Plus, millions aren’t paying student loans.
By Michael Simon Johnson, Catie Edmondson, Selam Gebrekidan, Ian Stewart, Jessica Metzger and Tracy Mumford
Misleading satellite signals have disrupted thousands of civilian flights. GPS, once considered navigation’s gold standard, is now vulnerable.
By Selam Gebrekidan
Satellite signals run the modern world. See just how vulnerable they are.
By Selam Gebrekidan, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Pablo Robles and Jeremy White
Threats are mounting in space. GPS signals are vulnerable to attack. Their time-keeping is essential for stock trading, power transmission and more.
By Selam Gebrekidan, John Liu and Chris Buckley
Planes were built to trust GPS signals. Jamming and spoofing in the Middle East and Ukraine have diverted flights and caused inaccurate onboard alerts.
By Selam Gebrekidan
Officials blame immigrants and liberal housing laws, but a Times investigation found the entrenched problems that turned downtown Johannesburg into a blighted tinderbox.
By Lynsey Chutel, Selam Gebrekidan and John Eligon
This was featured in live coverage.
By The New York Times
A law written to prevent human trafficking is being wielded against low-level drug dealers. The effects are long-lasting.
By Selam Gebrekidan
A murder-conspiracy case in northwestern England tells the story of Britain’s crackdown on gangs, which disproportionately targets young Black men.
By Selam Gebrekidan
The United States helped inspire Britain’s tough-on-crime politics. Even as crime fell and warnings mounted, politicians never looked back.
By Jane Bradley
Thousands of pages of original documents, and hundreds of books and articles. Here are the historians and researchers on which the Haiti project drew.
By Catherine Porter, Constant Méheut, Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo
A firebrand Haitian president tried to hold France to account for its years of exploitation. He soon found himself ousted from power.
By Constant Méheut, Catherine Porter, Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo
The long occupation of Haiti began with a drumbeat from the bank that became Citigroup, decades of diplomatic correspondence and other records show.
By Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo, Catherine Porter and Constant Méheut
It helped finance the Eiffel Tower as it drained millions from Haiti. The bank, C.I.C., won’t talk about it, but The Times tracked how much its investors made — and what Haiti lost.
By Matt Apuzzo, Constant Méheut, Selam Gebrekidan and Catherine Porter
In 1791, enslaved Haitians ousted the French and founded a nation. But France made generations of Haitians pay for their freedom. How much it cost them was a mystery, until now.
By Catherine Porter, Constant Méheut, Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
The staggering sum Haiti paid for its independence cemented its path to poverty.
By Lazaro Gamio, Constant Méheut, Catherine Porter, Selam Gebrekidan, Allison McCann and Matt Apuzzo
What often stands between Haiti and economic success is the rest of the world.
By Constant Méheut and Selam Gebrekidan
The directive came as health officials and scientists have renewed calls for a more rigorous examination.
By Michael D. Shear, Julian E. Barnes, Carl Zimmer and Benjamin Mueller
The Serum Institute vowed to protect the country from Covid-19 and inoculate the world’s poor, but India’s crisis has pushed it past its limits.
By Emily Schmall and Karan Deep Singh
This was featured in live coverage.
By Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo
Despite warnings, American and European officials gave up leverage that could have guaranteed access for billions of people. That risks prolonging the pandemic.
By Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo
This was featured in live coverage.
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Monika Pronczuk
While Washington went into business with the drug companies, Europe was more fiscally conservative and trusted the free market.
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Monika Pronczuk
Multibillion-dollar contracts give drug makers liability shields, patent ownership and leeway on delivery dates and pricing — and promises that much of it will not be made public.
By Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
An interim report is both a bleak recounting of deadly missteps and an early blueprint for repairs: “We have failed in our collective capacity.”
By Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo
This was featured in live coverage.
By Selam Gebrekidan and Matt Apuzzo
This was featured in live coverage.
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Apoorva Mandavilli
A South African tip led to the discovery of mutations around the world. With infections skyrocketing, “it’s a race against time.”
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Apoorva Mandavilli
By Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
Global inequality is shaping which countries get vaccines first. In South Africa, people’s best chance for vaccines anytime soon is to join an experimental trial.
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Joao Silva
By Jane Bradley, Selam Gebrekidan and Allison McCann
In the desperate scramble for protective gear and other equipment, political insiders reaped billions.
By Jane Bradley, Selam Gebrekidan and Allison McCann
This was featured in live coverage.
By Matt Apuzzo, Noah Weiland and Selam Gebrekidan
When President Trump quit the health organization, he left a list of seven demands on the table. Here they are.
By Matt Apuzzo, Noah Weiland and Selam Gebrekidan
This was featured in live coverage.
By Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo, Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernández
As it praised Beijing, the World Health Organization concealed concessions to China and may have sacrificed the best chance to unravel the virus’s origins. Now it’s a favorite Trump attack line.
By Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo, Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernández
This was featured in live coverage.
By Selam Gebrekidan, Katrin Bennhold, Matt Apuzzo and David D. Kirkpatrick
The World Health Organization said open borders would help fight disease. Experts, and a global treaty, emphatically agreed. But the scientific evidence was never behind them.
By Selam Gebrekidan, Katrin Bennhold, Matt Apuzzo and David D. Kirkpatrick
The coronavirus exposed European countries’ misplaced confidence in faulty models, bureaucratic busywork and their own wealth.
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
Symptomless transmission makes the coronavirus far harder to fight. But health officials dismissed the risk for months, pushing misleading and contradictory claims in the face of mounting evidence.
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and David D. Kirkpatrick
Leaders around the world have passed emergency decrees and legislation expanding their reach during the pandemic. Will they ever relinquish them?
By Selam Gebrekidan
The seafarers who deliver gas, food and medicine are being forced to keep working. They cannot leave the ship: ‘We want to go home.’
By Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
Decisions and blunders made months ago have caused testing disparities worldwide. The science, it turns out, was the easy part.
By Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
The World Health Organization is supposed to coordinate the global response to epidemics. But the U.N. agency cannot force countries to play by international rules.
By Selam Gebrekidan
A planned overhaul fails to adequately protect the environment and support small farmers, a group of scientists said.
By Selam Gebrekidan
The E.U. has green aspirations. Its signature, $65 billion policy says otherwise.
By Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan, Agustin Armendariz and Jin Wu
Conflict-of-interest rules are uneven. Influence-peddling is murky. The enormous E.U. subsidy program is built to keep the money moving.
By Matt Apuzzo and Selam Gebrekidan
The European Union spends $65 billion a year subsidizing agriculture. But a chunk of that money emboldens strongmen, enriches politicians and finances corrupt dealing.
By Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo and Benjamin Novak
While the findings are not final, initial evidence has raised new concerns about whether Boeing and federal regulators provided sufficient guidance for pilots of the new 737 Max model.
By Natalie Kitroeff, David Gelles, James Glanz and Hannah Beech
Preliminary findings on the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 disaster, based on black box data, again put attention on the jet’s anti-stall system.
By Hadra Ahmed, James Glanz and Hannah Beech
While Ethiopian Airlines was among the first to install the Boeing 737 Max 8 simulator, the captain of Flight 302 had not trained on the simulator.
By Selam Gebrekidan
The manufacturer is so revered in the country, planes are often referred to as “Boeings.” The Max 8 crash may change all that.
By Selam Gebrekidan
Information from the recorders on an Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed is similar to findings from an earlier crash of a 737 Max, officials said.
By Selam Gebrekidan, James Glanz and Jack Nicas
Families have no bodies to bury because the 157 victims died in a fiery explosion when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 hurtled to the ground near Addis Ababa.
By Selam Gebrekidan
“Break break, request back to home,” the captain of the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines flight radioed air traffic controllers minutes after taking off.
By Selam Gebrekidan and James Glanz
The crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8.
By The New York Times
The American agency was the last major holdout as other countries grounded or banned Max planes from their airspace after the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash this weekend.
By Thomas Kaplan, Ian Austen and Selam Gebrekidan
The latest on the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8.
By The New York Times
At least 20 airlines, primarily in China and Indonesia, grounded the 737 Max 8 plane, and similarities to a recent crash provoked concern among carriers, pilots, flight attendants and passengers.
By David Gelles, Natalie Kitroeff and Hadra Ahmed
A generation after apartheid, the Stellenbosch region is gripped by a struggle that pits white citizens who still control much of the economy against their black neighbors.
By Selam Gebrekidan and Norimitsu Onishi