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Lylla Younes

Lylla Younes was a reporter and developer on ProPublica’s news apps team.

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Lylla Younes was a reporter and developer on ProPublica’s news apps team. Her work mapping cancer-causing industrial pollution in Louisiana helped lead to the suspension of Formosa Plastic's permit in St. James Parish and won the 2020 Nina Mason Pulliam Award for Outstanding Environmental Reporting. In 2020, she was part of a team that wrote a peer-reviewed paper linking COVID-19 deaths to air pollution. She has also collaborated with the Oregonian and OPB on a series about how Oregon's timber industry hollows rural communities. The series won the 2021 John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism.

She was previously a data reporter with New York Public Radio (WNYC) and Gothamist.

Polluter’s Paradise

What Could Happen if a $9.4 Billion Chemical Plant Comes to “Cancer Alley”

In St. James Parish, Louisiana, a Taiwanese industrial giant seems likely to be granted a permit to build a billion-dollar plastics plant. Its proposed emissions could triple levels of cancer-causing chemicals in one of the most toxic areas of the U.S.

by Lylla Younes,

Local Reporting Network

Polluter’s Paradise

Welcome to “Cancer Alley,” Where Toxic Air Is About to Get Worse

Air quality has improved for decades across the U.S., but Louisiana is backsliding. Our analysis found that a crush of new industrial plants will increase concentrations of cancer-causing chemicals in predominantly black and poor communities.

by Tristan Baurick, The Times-Picayune | The Advocate, Lylla Younes, ProPublica, and Joan Meiners, The Times-Picayune | The Advocate,

Local Reporting Network

Polluter’s Paradise

Why Louisiana’s Air Quality Is Going From Bad to Worse, in 3 Charts

Welcome to “Cancer Alley.”

by Lylla Younes,

Local Reporting Network

Polluter’s Paradise

How We Found New Chemical Plants Are Being Built in South Louisiana’s Most Polluted Areas

ProPublica and The Times-Picayune and The Advocate investigated the potential cancer-causing toxicity in the air. Using EPA data, public records requests and more, we found that some of the country’s most toxic air will likely get worse.

by Lylla Younes and Al Shaw, ProPublica, with Michael Petroni,

Local Reporting Network

Polluter’s Paradise

In a Notoriously Polluted Area of the Country, Massive New Chemical Plants Are Still Moving In

Data from an EPA model indicates that communities along the lower Mississippi River corridor already face severely elevated cancer risks from industrial activity. Massive new chemical plants are slated to be built there anyway.

by Lylla Younes, Al Shaw and Claire Perlman,

Local Reporting Network

Profiting From the Poor

How We Tallied Medical Debt Lawsuits and Wage Garnishments in Memphis

We found that Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare filed more lawsuits and won more wage garnishment orders than any other hospital system in Shelby County. Here’s how we did it.

by Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, and Lylla Younes and Doris Burke, ProPublica,

Local Reporting Network

Documenting Hate

Here Are the Hate Incidents Against Mosques and Islamic Centers Since 2013

Data from a civil rights group shows that reports of hate incidents involving American mosques jumped sharply in 2015 and has remained at the same rate since — about once every three days.

by Lylla Younes,

Bombs in Our Backyard

One Year, One Facility, 1.7 Million Pounds of Hazardous Waste Burned in Open Air

Explore every shipment of hazardous waste sent to Colfax in 2015 and was burned or detonated into open air.

by Lylla Younes,