Thread by @ProPublica

1/ Hello. It’s our last publishing day of 2018. It’s also a day to take a look at what you, our faithful readers, clicked on the most. It’s much more fun than going to the gym, which requires, ugh, actual physical exertion.

2/ I — @dsorbara, author of the weekly newsletter (bit.ly/2VeTYgK) — plan to be in bed by 10 tonight.

But before I get there, allow me to share:

@dsorbara 3/ We obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility. You can hear children wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”

bit.ly/2QcE2rO

@dsorbara 4/ As Trump’s inaugural committee planned the landmark celebration, internal concerns were raised about whether Trump’s Washington hotel was overcharging for event space. The spending could be a violation of the law.

bit.ly/2QelsPU

@dsorbara 5/ Millions of sleep apnea patients rely on CPAP breathing machines to get a good night’s rest. Health insurers use a variety of tactics, including surveillance, to make patients bear the costs. Experts say it’s part of the insurance industry playbook.

bit.ly/2QirsaA

@dsorbara 6/ This is a shocking story of police and lethal force. Just not the one you might expect.

bit.ly/2QaTMLX

@dsorbara 7/ Meet the shadow rulers of the VA: Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.

bit.ly/2Vm7H5C

@dsorbara 8/ Our @hannahdreier has been reporting on MS-13 for more than a year. She wrote out five things @realdonaldtrump gets most wrong. (The gang is not invading the country. They’re not posing as fake families. They’re not growing. Etc.)

bit.ly/2QeAoNR

@dsorbara @hannahdreier @realDonaldTrump 9/ Authorities can now deny visa and green card applications without giving applicants a chance to fix errors. Immigration lawyers called the policy change another brick in Trump’s “invisible wall” to make legal immigration as difficult as possible.

bit.ly/2Vm95VS

@dsorbara @hannahdreier @realDonaldTrump 10/ Michael Miselis took part in the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Until our report with @frontlinepbs, it hadn’t damaged his standing at Northrop Grumman — as a defense contractor with a security clearance.

bit.ly/2TfhcS0

@dsorbara @hannahdreier @realDonaldTrump @frontlinepbs 11/ As it scrambled to compete in the internet world, the once-dominant tech company @IBM cut tens of thousands of U.S. workers, hitting its most senior employees hardest and flouting rules against age bias.

bit.ly/2CGYVaV

@dsorbara @hannahdreier @realDonaldTrump @frontlinepbs @IBM 12/ An acclaimed American charity said it was saving some of the world’s most vulnerable girls from sexual exploitation. But from the very beginning, girls were being raped.
bit.ly/2CGpCMS