Brian M. Rosenthal, an investigative reporter on the Metro Desk of The New York Times, won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting on May 4 for a series of stories about predatory lending in the New York City taxicab industry. The five-part series showed how taxi industry leaders made hundreds of millions of dollars by inflating the price of taxi medallions — the permits that allow drivers to own their cabs — and trapping thousands of immigrant buyers in loans they could not afford. The stories prompted criminal investigations and arrests, government reforms and an ongoing $810 million effort by the New York State Attorney General to bail out cabdrivers. The series also won a George A. Polk Award on February 19.