alexis stephens

ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network Selects Five New Partners for Its 50 State Initiative ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

Everything's coming up Philly...

The Birds are undefeated, the Phillies are in the playoffs, HBO's love affair with the Delco accent blazes on, and now @inquirer.com is a partner in the @propublica.org Local Reporting Network!

boo!

1/ DEVELOPING: A journalist was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital following another incident with an ICE agent at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration court in NYC. The last I heard, he was getting X-rays for his lower back.

I Filmed the ICE Officer Who Shoved a Woman. It Felt Like the New Normal. I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines. What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive behavior.

NEW: I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines.

What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive behavior.

By @tilleckert.com

How to Contact ProPublica or Send a Tip Securely — ProPublica Our job is to hold people and institutions accountable. To do that, we need evidence.

8/ If you have tips about new ICE enforcement tactics in courts, my colleagues and I want to hear from you. Reach out to me on Signal (tilleckert.90) or via
propublica.org/tips.

“They Don’t Care About Civil Rights”: Trump’s Shuttering of DHS Oversight Arm Freezes 600 Cases, Imperils Human Rights The closure of the 150-person office, which protected the civil rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, strips Homeland Security of its internal guardrails as the Trump administration turns DHS i...

5/ The Trump administration has continually escalated its immigration crackdown. And oversight groups that would typically keep them in check, such as the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, have been dismantled in DOGE’s sweep:
www.propublica.org/article/home...

ProPublica ad: “someone on this train has the next big story. Is it you?” With URL and Signal address

A good ad on the DC Metro

Trump’s Attack on Visas Working illegally is riskier, but working legally is becoming impossible.

I went on @slate.com's What Next podcast to discuss my ongoing H-2A visa series for @propublica.org. Listen to our convo about the perils of the program, tough choices facing foreign farmworkers, and the difficulties of clamping down on abuse and exploitation.
slate.com/podcasts/wha...

There are 600,000 of you who now follow us on Bluesky 🦋

As journalists ourselves, we understand that regularly reading stories about broken systems can take a toll, and we never take the community here for granted.

Thank you to all of you who care deeply about the work we do.

Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme
www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-ki...

From reckoning to retreat: Journalism’s DEI efforts are in decline Diversity-related newsroom jobs haven't totally disappeared — but they also haven't stuck.

This story — which asks what happened to all of those newsroom DEI jobs, committees, and promises from 2020 — is the hardest one I've ever worked on. I hope you'll spend some time with it today.

www.niemanlab.org/2025/09/from...

The Celebrity-Backed Green “Fintech” Company That Isn’t as Green as It Seems Aspiration is among a group of companies that provide banking and financial services, and promise to help the environment. But so far its marketing is greener than its reality.

Aspiration Inc. is at the center of the alleged $28M no-show gig for LA Clippers star Kawhi Leonard.

Back in 2021, years before Aspiration went bankrupt, @propublica.org revealed how the company appeared to inflate claims about the many millions of trees it had planted.

🔥 parade weekend stack 💎

ProPublica Event - Counterterrorism in the Trump Era Join ProPublica for a conversation about recent changes to federal counter-extremism initiatives and their implications for domestic security and public safety.

The federal government is scaling back its role in preventing violent extremism.

🗓️ On Thursday, Sept. 4, at 4 p.m. ET, join our journalists for a virtual conversation on how this shift is affecting domestic security and how states are responding.

📌 RSVP:

As PBS Stations Confront Cuts, American History Takes a Hit

What a shame. "WGBH … has laid off the 13 people who worked on the history series 'American Experience' and announced that no new documentaries will be produced for the show until further notice." (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/a...

When the World Broke Open: Katrina and Its Afterlives | MoMA Film series. Aug 27–Sep 21, 2025. When the World Broke Open takes a cinematic look at New Orleans—a city of pleasure, politics, and pulsating prose that lives in the heart of anyone who’s seen its bea...

tomorrow the series i co-curated on hurricane katrina “when the world broke open: katrina and its afterlives” opens at MoMA (aug 27-sept 21).

as a survivor, my entire life has been shaped the storm. curation gives us the power to reclaim, reexamine, and reanimate. i hope to see you at the cinema.

YouTube video by American Experience | PBS Trailer | CLEARING THE AIR: THE WAR ON SMOG | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE | PBS

I’m in this documentary on the history of smog, airing tonight on PBS: American Experience at 9 pm. And streaming here www.pbs.org/wgbh/america... check it out!

Nostalgic for “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”

Bloodied Faces, Sobbing Children: Immigration Officers Smash Car Windows to Speed Up Arrests We’ve documented nearly 50 incidents of immigration officers shattering car windows to make arrests — a tactic experts say was rarely used before Trump took office. ICE claims its officers use a “mini...

NEW visual investigation:

ICE agents are smashing car windows & grabbing the people inside

There's footage of sobbing kids, pregnant women, & bloodied faces

We found ~50 cases but no civilians w/ sig criminal records

Insiders told us this used to be rare

projects.propublica.org/trump-ice-sm...

Now That They’re Free, Venezuelan Men Want the World to Know What They Endured in CECOT Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration say they endured months of physical and mental abuse inside a Salvadoran prison. Though happy to be home, they say the fact that they were released ...

For months we've written about the Venezuelans the #Trump administration sent to #CECOT.
Now, they get to tell their own stories, how the U.S. ended up labeling them terrorists and their torture in #ElSalvador via
@propublica @texastribune.org @cazadoresdefakenews.info & Alianza Rebelde Investiga.

Palestine: As mass starvation spreads across Gaza, our colleagues and communities we work with are wasting away | Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF ... Over 100 humanitarian groups, including MSF, urge governments to act as starvation spreads in Gaza.

Doctors Without Borders joins more than 100 organizations to sounding the alarm that lifesaving aid must enter #Gaza.

www.doctorswithoutborders.ca/palestine-as...

The Men Trump Deported to a Salvadoran Prison On March 15, President Donald Trump’s administration sent more than 230 Venezuelan immigrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. Last week, the men were released as suddenly as they’d been t...

5/ Today, we are publishing a database with the stories of 238 of the men. They are fathers and sons. They had easily plugged into the American economy – delivering groceries and trimming hair.
projects.propublica.org/venezuelan-i...

Where Congress’s Cuts Threaten Access to PBS and NPR The loss of federal funding threatens scores of public TV and radio stations across the United States.

New: I teamed up with @elenashao.bsky.social
and nytgraphics to map more than 100 public TV and radio stations that are at risk of closing as a result of tonight's vote:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

This is a time bomb that will go off in the fall, when the last federal grants run out.

To all Philly-area investigative journalists!

PA , NJ and DE are all eligible areas for this next entry into the @propublica.org Local Reporting Network.

Think big and submit your dream accountability project by the deadline👇

Please join me a week from today in NYC at Prime Produce Cooperative for a book reading of “Mood Machine” by @lizpelly.bsky.social and community discussion of how we built the (art) worlds we want in the shell of this dystopic moment for culture workers!

RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/art-worlds...

Child holds a scribbled NYC voting guide with an I Voted Early sticker on it.

“The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention One year out of college and with no apparent national security expertise, Thomas Fugate is the Department of Homeland Security official tasked with overseeing the government’s main hub for combating v...

Before landing at DHS, 22-year-old Fugate worked on the Trump campaign and interned at The Heritage Foundation.

According to his LinkedIn, the bulk of his leadership experience comes from having served as secretary general of a Model UN club.

New: @hannahallam.bsky.social @propublica.org

When ProPublica reporter David Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, he set out to understand why a single pill of his medication, Revlimid, cost the same as ... Behind the Art: Why Is Cancer Drug Revlimid So Expensive?

For our story on a cancer drug that costs nearly $1,000 for each daily pill, art director Lisa Larson-Walker handmade several pill-shaped ceramic piggy banks, stuffed them with cash — then smashed them with a sledgehammer in the middle of the office.

Go behind the scenes with this short video:

Indicator Indicator is your essential guide to understanding and investigating digital deception.

I left my job at ProPublica about a month ago.

Here's why: I've teamed up with @mantzarlis.com to launch indicator.media, a new publication dedicated to exposing digital deception and to equipping professionals and the public with knowledge and skills to investigate it.

Sign up for free below!

How much are we willing to pay for life-saving medications? ProPublica health care reporter David Armstrong has multiple myeloma. He says a single pill of his prescription costs the company just 25 cents to make — but costs him about the same as a new iPhone.

Today on @nprfreshair.bsky.social: Our @davidarmstrongx.bsky.social discusses “The Price of Remission,” where he investigates why a single pill of the cancer treatment he takes costs roughly the same as a new iPhone.

🎧 Listen below.