When President Donald Trump returned to the White Home in January, ProPublica’s reporters got down to cowl how his second administration would reshape the federal government and the nation.
Our reporters detailed what occurred when the Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by Elon Musk, slashed federal businesses, together with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Social Security Administration. We wrote in regards to the folks caught up within the administration’s immigration crackdown, together with the extra than 170 U.S. citizens who had been detained by immigration brokers. We profiled key figures within the administration, together with the 22-year-old picked to lead terrorism prevention and the person who has been described as Trump’s shadow president.
Our newsroom additionally centered past the White Home. Ginger Thompson wrote a five-part sequence, with analysis by Doris Burke, that informed the story of American well being care via the only hospital in Albany, Georgia. Ellis Simani and Lexi Churchill uncovered a Texas charter school superintendent who makes $870,000. And David Armstrong sought to know why a single pill of his cancer drug cost the same as a new iPhone.
These have been all among the many investigations that readers spent probably the most time with this yr. Within the new yr, ProPublica will preserve reporting on these storylines — and new ones.
Within the meantime, revisit our most-read tales of 2025, as measured by the whole period of time spent studying them throughout a number of of our publishing platforms.
By Joshua Kaplan
Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival coach spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t inform police or the FBI. He didn’t inform household or associates. The one individual he informed was a ProPublica reporter.
By Ginger Thompson, with analysis by Doris Burke
Why have been the folks in Albany, Georgia, so sick, when the city’s strongest establishment was a hospital?
3. Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is “Only a Matter of Time”
By McKenzie Funk
Present and former flight attendants for GlobalX, the non-public constitution airline on the heart of Trump’s immigration crackdown, expressed concern about their incapability to deal with passengers humanely and to maintain them protected.
4. The Untold Saga of What Happened When DOGE Stormed Social Security
By Eli Hager
DOGE has ignored urgently wanted reforms and upgrades on the Social Safety Administration, in keeping with dozens of insiders and 15 hours of candid interviews with the previous performing chief of the company, who admits he generally made issues worse.
5. Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal
By Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Alex Mierjeski
The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Prepare dinner could have dedicated mortgage fraud by declaring multiple main residence on her loans. We discovered Trump as soon as did the very factor he known as “deceitful and probably legal.”
6. Getting “DOGED”: DOGE Targeted Him on Social Media. Then the Taliban Took His Family.
By Avi Asher-Schapiro and Christopher Bing
Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi, who fled the Taliban in 2021, had labored to assist U.S. diplomats perceive his homeland. Then DOGE put his household’s lives in danger by exposing his delicate work for a U.S.-funded nonprofit.
7. “The Intern in Charge”: Meet the 22-Year-Old Trump’s Team Picked to Lead Terrorism Prevention
By Hannah Allam
One yr out of school and with no obvious nationwide safety experience, Thomas Fugate is the Division of Homeland Safety official tasked with overseeing the federal government’s most important hub for combating violent extremism.
By David Armstrong
When Armstrong was identified with most cancers, he got down to perceive why a single tablet of Revlimid value the identical as a brand new iPhone. He has lined excessive drug costs as a reporter for years. What he found shocked him.
By Anjeanette Damon and Mollie Simon
Charles Service is accused of orchestrating a yearslong Ponzi scheme, bilking tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from each rich traders and older folks with modest incomes. Regardless of indicators of bother, the houseflipping chain HomeVestors of America didn’t step in.
By Robert Faturechi and Avi Asher-Schapiro
Federal authorities have been chided for seizing digital gadgets from Tate and his brother, and informed to return them, data and interviews present. Specialists mentioned the intervention was extremely inappropriate.
By Rafael Carranza, Arizona Luminaria. Co-published with Arizona Luminaria.
Underneath Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County was one of many first testing grounds for ICE’s 287(g) program, which lets native police implement immigration legal guidelines. Many Arizonans say these abuses parallel what’s taking part in out now beneath Trump.
By Max Blau, ProPublica, and Zaydee Sanchez, for ProPublica, with illustrations by Dadu Shin for ProPublica
Sofi left behind her little one in Mexico for the promise of offering him a greater life. She ended up a sufferer of an operation that’s alleged to have exploited the H-2A visa program — and the employees it delivered to America.
By Kavitha Surana and Lizzie Presser, images by Lexi Parra for ProPublica
ProPublica has discovered a number of circumstances of girls with underlying well being situations who died once they couldn’t entry abortions. Tierra Walker, a 37-year-old mom, was informed by medical doctors there was no emergency earlier than preeclampsia killed her.
14. To Pay for Trump Tax Cuts, House GOP Floats Plan to Slash Benefits for the Poor and Working Class
By Robert Faturechi and Justin Elliott
A menu of choices being circulated by congressional Republicans additionally consists of new tax cuts for companies and the ultrawealthy.
15. Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations
By Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski
A darkish cash group paid $80,000 to Noem’s private firm when she was governor of South Dakota. She didn’t embody this revenue on her federal disclosure varieties, a probable violation of ethics necessities, specialists say.
By Nicole Foy, images by Sarahbeth Maney
The federal government doesn’t observe how usually immigration brokers seize residents. So ProPublica did. Our tally — nearly definitely incomplete — consists of individuals who have been held for days with no lawyer. And almost 20 kids, two of whom have most cancers.
17. Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera.
By Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy, images by Peter DiCampo
Behind closed doorways in Washington, high advisers made a sequence of selections that had devastating repercussions for the poorest nation on earth. We went to South Sudan and located individuals who died in consequence.
By Eli Hager
In a recording obtained by ProPublica, performing Social Safety Commissioner Leland Dudek portrayed his company as dealing with peril, whereas additionally encouraging persistence with “the DOGE youngsters.”
19. This Charter School Superintendent Makes $870,000. He Leads a District With 1,000 Students.
By Ellis Simani, ProPublica, and Lexi Churchill, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Co-published with The Texas Tribune.
On paper, Salvador Cavazos earns lower than $300,000 to run Valere Public Colleges, a small Texas constitution community. However taxpayers seemingly aren’t conscious that in actuality, his whole pay makes him one of many nation’s highest-earning superintendents.
20. What You Should Know About Russ Vought, Trump’s Shadow President
By Andy Kroll
Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fireplace civil servants, freeze authorities applications and dismantle total businesses. Listed here are some key issues to know in regards to the D.C. insider who desires to take a hatchet to the federal authorities.
21. “Slow Pay, Low Pay or No Pay”
By T. Christian Miller
Blue Cross approved mastectomies and breast reconstructions for girls with most cancers however refused to pay the total medical doctors’ payments. A jury known as it fraud and awarded the apply $421 million.
By Keri Blakinger
Most of the issues the company is dealing with now should not new, however workers and prisoners worry an exodus of officers may make life behind bars even worse.
By Nick Grube, Honolulu Civil Beat. Co-published with Honolulu Civil Beat.
A small enterprise program allowed Christopher Dawson to win large contracts if he promised to uplift Native Hawaiians. As an alternative, federal prosecutors allege, he used the cash to line his personal pockets.
24. Young Girls Were Sexually Abused by a Church Member. They Were Told to Forgive and Forget.
By Jessica Lussenhop, ProPublica, and Andy Mannix, Minnesota Star Tribune, images by Leila Navidi, Minnesota Star Tribune. Co-published with Minnesota Star Tribune.
In Minnesota, leaders of an Outdated Apostolic Lutheran Church neighborhood enabled a toddler abuser by telling his victims that after the sins have been “washed away within the blood of reconciliation,” they might by no means converse of them once more.
25. Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared.
By Lizzie Presser, Andrea Suozzo, Sophie Chou and Kavitha Surana
ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind evaluation is probably the most detailed look but into an increase in life-threatening problems for girls experiencing being pregnant loss beneath Texas’ abortion ban.
