On April 1, ICE apprehended 47 people — including 9 children — at a birthday party in Dripping Springs, Tex.
The agency’s only disclosure about the raid describes the operation as targeting people believed to be connected to the Tren de Aragua gang. 🧵 2/ While some court documents are sealed, nothing in the public record verifies the gang affiliation DHS cited.

“We’re not told why they took them, and we’re not told where they took them,” a county judge said. “By definition, that’s a kidnapping.”

We’ve reported extensively on how the FDA allowed foreign drugmakers to send generic medications to the U.S. from factories with filthy labs and contaminated equipment.

This month, we’re digging deeper and could use your help. THREAD/ We’re looking for anonymized photos of prescription bottles to help us determine where those drugs were made.

Here’s a quick guide to sending in your label securely ⤵️

I’m Till Eckert, a ProPublica reporter. For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been going to the same NY immigration courthouse.

Nearly every time, I see ICE agents arresting immigrants. Today, a woman was slammed to the ground after begging officials not to take her husband away.

Thread👇 2/ I stayed by Monica Moreta-Galarza, who was seeking asylum with her family, until she was discharged from the hospital.

“Over [in Ecuador], they beat us there too. I didn’t think I’d come here to the United States and the same thing would happen to me,” she said in Spanish.

On the left: Nate Cavanagh, a 28-year-old DOGE staffer and college dropout.

On the right: Mohammad Halimi, a 53-year-old exiled Afghan scholar.

This is the story of how DOGE targeted Halimi on social media. Then the Taliban took his family. 🧵
2/ It starts with a viral Elon Musk post.

“United States Institute of Peace Funded Taliban,” the graphic read, falsely claiming that USIP was funding the terrorist group through Halimi, whose work with the independent nonprofit involved providing expert advice to help U.S. diplomats understand Afghanistan.

THREAD: The Trump administration said their research did not "enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness."

Thousands of scientists disagreed.

We heard from 150+ researchers impacted by the NIH grant terminations on what is being lost in the cuts. 👇 2/ Their experiences reveal consequences that experts say run counter to scientific logic and common sense.

They spoke of the enormous waste generated by an effort intended to save money: Years of research that may never be published. Blood samples that may never be analyzed.

In April, President Trump and Salvadoran President Bukele shook hands in the Oval Office to celebrate a deal to ship gang members to the notorious CECOT prison.

But a new ProPublica investigation found there’s more to the story. 🧵👇 2/ Bukele has a reputation as a crime fighter. He’s jailed some 80,000 gang members. Crime rates have plunged.

It turns out, though, that he’s protected another set of gangsters: the leaders of the violent MS-13 street gang, U.S. and Salvadoran officials told us.

This is Mertarvik, Alaska, population 300. It’s a new town.

Its residents, the vast majority of whom are Yup’ik, began moving in around 2019.

The move was by necessity: The nearby village where many residents previously lived, Newtok, is sinking, its riverbanks eroding. THREAD: 2/ These residents are climate refugees, a term you may have heard before.

While many stories tend to focus on the conditions that displaced them, @EmilySchwing wanted to know: What is the quality of life for people after they’re forced to move?
propublica.org/article/newtok…

THREAD: We’ve reported that Veterans Affairs officials have warned that Trump’s cuts are hurting veterans.

@SecVetAffairs Doug Collins called our story a “false narrative,” but did not say anything was inaccurate.

Here’s what our story revealed and how we engaged with the VA. @SecVetAffairs 2/ First, @SecVetAffairs has pledged to “put veterans first.”

His boss, President Trump, has said, “We love our veterans. We’re going to take good care of them.”

youtube.com/shorts/BMNHEl1…

1/ For ProPublica’s “Life of the Mother” series, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for public service, we reported on five pregnant women who died after not receiving timely medical care in states with strict abortion bans.

These are their stories 🧵 2/ Amber Thurman went to the hospital with telltale signs of sepsis, yet it took 20 hours for doctors to intervene with a D&C procedure after abortion became a felony in Georgia.
propublica.org/article/georgi…

1/ It’s been almost 27 years since Nike’s co-founder Phil Knight acknowledged the company's products had become synonymous with “slave wages.”

While investigating Nike’s claims about sustainability, we found that workers’ experiences cast doubt on Nike’s commitment to reform. 🧵 2/ Nike says its suppliers pay 1.9X the local minimum wage, excluding overtime, across most of the 1.1M people making its products.

But a payroll sheet for one Cambodian factory reveals few people making that much.

THREAD: Under a new law, thousands of prisoners in Louisiana have been cut off from ever getting a chance at parole.

Why?

Because an algorithm said so. 1/ 2/ The algorithm, called TIGER, focuses on immutable factors from a prisoner’s past — work history, age at first arrest, prior drug convictions — to assess risk of reoffending.

Yet it fails to take into account anything a prisoner has done to rehabilitate themselves.

THREAD: Last year, ProPublica started receiving tips from an unusual kind of source: flight attendants.

They said they'd worked on deportation flights for ICE, and they could tell us what it was really like on board. 1/ Most of the flight attendants hadn't knowingly signed up to help deport people. When they took their jobs, they’d expected to fly VIPs to glamorous locales.

Then the airline started working for ICE, and many or most of their passengers were detainees, people in chains. 2/

1/ We wanted to take a moment to quickly introduce you to our HHS reporters. THREAD 🧵

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1905296689415725546

2/ @AnnieWaldman has recently reported on:
• The life-saving work fired HHS workers are leaving behind
• How NCI employees now need approval to write about topics like vaccines and autism

Reach her on Signal at 347-549-0332: propublica.org/people/annie-w…

🧵 THREAD: In the second Trump administration, we’re devoting a significant part of our staff to detailing dramatic changes in the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans.

Here are some of the issues we’re watching — and how you can inform our work. 2/ Why trust us? We take your privacy extremely seriously, and we acknowledge the difficult situations people weigh as they decide whether to reach out.

We have a proven record of handling sensitive information and protecting our sources: propublica.org/article/the-in…

1/ Formaldehyde is a chemical that causes an inescapable cancer risk for everyone in America.

It’s in the air we breathe. And it’s in our homes: our couches, our clothes, even babies’ cribs.

So what can you do to reduce your exposure? THREAD 🧵 2/ First, furniture.

Composite wood is a material that essentially contains a mix of wood fibers glued together. The glues are the issue: They can contain formaldehyde that then gets released into the air over time.

This year, you’ve helped us hold power accountable and produce stories that made an impact, like these: 👇 (1/5) Texas lawmakers proposed new exceptions to the state’s strict abortion bans after the deaths of two women. (2/5)
propub.li/4eBEI53

1/ Business lobbyist Virginia Lamp once said anti-immigration attitudes are “based on a type of selfish nationalism.”

Today she's better known as Ginni Thomas: wife of Clarence Thomas, and an "America-first" election denier.

What’s changed — for her and the US? 🧵 2/ For decades, the business community’s role in politics was to fend off threats to immigrant labor.

Sure, it probably wasn’t more complicated than economic self-interest. But business orgs were always *involved.*

In doing so, they moderated the nation’s immigration debate.

1/ THREAD: After a large solar farm was proposed, it seemed to many in Knox Co., Ohio that an anti-solar machine took over news & politics overnight.

They were right.

Here’s how fossil fuel interests shaped the conversation, and how a hometown paper’s new owners amplified it 👇 2/ @MountVernonNews had been owned by the same family since 1939, but by 2020, it was barely holding on.

The paper was sold to Metric Media, a news network described by media researchers as “pink slime” — named for filler in processed meat.

Microsoft has long downplayed its role in the 2020 "SolarWinds" attack -- one of the largest cyberattacks in US history -- but a new ProPublica investigation reveals that the tech giant ignored warnings that could have stemmed the damage... 🧵 2/ In 2016, while researching an attack on a major tech company, Microsoft engineer Andrew Harris said he discovered a flaw that left millions of users — including federal employees — exposed to hackers.
propublica.org/article/micros…

"Friends of the Court," ProPublica's investigation into Supreme Court justices' beneficial relationships with billionaire donors, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service!

Here are the highlights from the reporting 🧵👇 2/ The series began with this story by @JustinElliott @js_kaplan & @Amierjeski that revealed how SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas had, for 20+ years, been treated to undisclosed luxury vacations by real estate titan and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.
propublica.org/article/claren…

This year, ProPublica documentaries explored how university expansion led to Black land loss, retraced the steps of the Uvalde shooting response, documented the fallout of the Philips breathing machine recall and more... 🧵👇 2/ “Inside the Uvalde Response,” with @TexasTribune & @FRONTLINEPBS, reconstructs one of the most criticized mass shooting responses in history, providing real-time insight into officers’ thoughts & actions.