Reporter Andy Kroll got his hands on secret tapes of a low-profile bureaucrat named Russell Vought. Turns out, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, he’s been quietly reshaping the federal government and commanding many of the second Trump administration’s biggest moves. 

Read the reporting here: https://www.propublica.org/article/russ-vought-trump-shadow-president-omb 

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While investigating the personal wealth of the president’s oldest son, investigative reporters Justin Elliott and Brett Murphy learned something almost too strange to be true: that a Russian oligarch closely allied with Vladimir Putin might have attended Donald Trump Jr.’s recent wedding in the Bahamas. Using a combination of social media and shoe-leather reporting, a team of ProPublica reporters soon realized that the guest list was just the tip of the iceberg.

Read the reporting here: https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-jr-wedding-bankrolled-russian-oligarch-umar-kremlev-putin
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Major League Baseball has built a pipeline in the Dominican Republic to scoop up young players with the potential of superstars like Red Sox hero David “Big Papi” Ortiz. But reporter Gus Garcia-Roberts uncovered how MLB has allowed a shadow industry to flourish — one that exploits young players and their families. In this episode, Gus brings us the story of Belfi Rivera, a supernaturally talented young Dominican player who experienced firsthand how the system is broken.
 
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We now know harmful “forever chemicals” are likely in the bodies of most people on Earth. Decades ago, 3M knew that these chemicals had seeped into the public’s blood, but they kept that a secret. One 3M scientist helped reporter Sharon Lerner understand how they kept it quiet for so long.

Reporter: Sharon Lerner
Read More: https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story
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In the middle of a September night last year, hundreds of agents stormed a Chicago apartment building, some rappelling down from a Black Hawk helicopter. They arrested 37 immigrants and claimed that two were confirmed members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — but then never identified any of them. Reporters Melissa Sanchez and Sebastian Rotella set out to track down the people arrested, and, along with a team of ProPublica reporters, they uncovered a very different story behind the raid.

Read the original reporting here: https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-venezuela-immigration-ice-raid-landlord-tren-de-aragua
https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-venezuela-immigration-ice-fbi-raids-no-criminal-charges
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Host Jessica Lussenhop received an unusual email: A prosecutor had major concerns about a case in Minnesota. A man had pleaded guilty to felony child sexual abuse, but it seemed like the church he belonged to, the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, might have played a part in keeping the abuse quiet. Lussenhop teamed up with reporter Andy Mannix, and they discovered this case was just a symptom of a much bigger problem in the OALC.

Read the original stories here: https://www.propublica.org/series/forgive-and-forget
The National Sexual Assault Hotline can be reached at 800-656-HOPE (4673).
If you have information about the OALC, contact Andy Mannix and Jeremy Kohler.
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This week, we’re presenting a conversation with ProPublica reporters that originally aired on Reveal’s podcast “More to the Story.” When the administration and DOGE cut off funding to USAID, administration officials claimed that aid was still flowing and no one had died as a result. Reporters Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester learned that wasn’t true and traveled to South Sudan and Kenya to find out what really happened.

If you have information on foreign aid, contact Murphy here and Barry-Jester here.
Read the original reporting here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths
https://www.propublica.org/article/usaid-cholera-deaths-trump-humanitarian-aid-cuts-south-sudan

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A source told reporter Renee Dudley something she found hard to believe: that Microsoft was running tech support for the Department of Defense through China, the country’s biggest cybersecurity adversary. The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.

Read More: www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-digital-escorts-pentagon-defense-department-china-hackers
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In 2024, Oklahoma legislators passed an unusual law: It would create a pathway to freedom for people who could prove that domestic violence was a substantial contributing factor to their crime — even if that crime was first-degree murder. Members of a “survivor sisterhood” who’d found a connection in their shared histories of abuse hoped that, perhaps, they would all soon be going home. But, as reporter Pamela Colloff discovered, nothing would play out as expected.

Reporter: Pamela Colloff
Read More: https://www.propublica.org/article/oklahoma-survivors-act-domestic-violence
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Reporter David Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer and soon learned that one of his drugs would cost almost $1,000 per pill. He set out to discover why, and uncovered financial records and legal filings that shocked him. The drugmaker’s strategy to raise the price over and over again helps explain why our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world.

Read the original reporting: https://www.propublica.org/article/revlimid-price-cancer-celgene-drugs-fda-multiple-myeloma

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ProPublica got a tip from a reader named Teressa. Her husband was having a severe mental health crisis, and her health insurance company was denying coverage for his hospital and inpatient treatment. She was fighting back against the denials — and recording every phone call with the company as she did. She brought reporter Duaa Eldeib along for the journey, which ended after Teressa was able to deploy what one source called the industry’s “best-kept secret.”

Reporter: Duaa Eldeib
How to file an external appeal: https://www.propublica.org/article/health-insurance-denial-external-review
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