bxroberts
- It's 2026, an election year (💀). That means its time to update ProPublica's 527 Explorer! This latest update brings us current through 2025, adding 460k new records. I'll be updating more frequently this year. Follow for updates & LMK what you do w/ it projects.propublica.org/527-explorer/
- Interesting piece about abuse of generative AI in contract bid protests: "Federal procurement is not prepared to deal with contractors like Oready, LLC (Oready), which has misused GenAI to file a barrage of seventeen pro se protests and appeals over eight months" content.ncmahq.org/contractmana...
- Reposted by bxrobertsMore impact from my investigation with @shaw.al: Six senators accused Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche of a “glaring” conflict of interest, citing our reporting that found he held at least $159,000 in investments when he shut down crypto investigations. www.propublica.org/article/todd...
- Reposted by bxrobertsI’ve been in Minneapolis the last few days reporting on the ICE raids happening across the city. This morning federal agents shot and killed a man, identified by the AP as Alex Pretti. This marks the third shooting by federal agents since Operation Metro Surge started in Minnesota last month.
- People have been asking, so we published it: The data linking generic drugs to the facilities that make them! You can download the data on GitHub. 👇👇 github.com/propublica/r...
- Some examples of what you can do with this: - Find out which countries make the most generics - Compare across drugs and companies - Quickly find how many drug makers put detailed manufacturing info on their labels - Cross-reference other data like the FDA Inspections dashboard and facilities list
- We're releasing it under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license, meaning you may use it for noncommercial purposes as long as you attribute ProPublica and link back to Rx Inspector. Let us know what you do with this! www.propublica.org/article/rx-i...
- Reposted by bxrobertsLast month, @propublica.org released Rx Inspector, a groundbreaking tool that lets you find the factories where your generic drugs were manufactured. Now we're making available the data that powers it. via @bxroberts.org www.propublica.org/article/rx-i...
- Reposted by bxrobertsWith ProPublica's Rx Inspector, it’s possible to see your drug’s manufacturing facility and what the FDA found during its inspections. Thanks to @bxroberts.org & team at @propublica.org for the work> projects.propublica.org/rx-inspector/
- We're fighting to keep ProPublica human powered (not AI) and for a consistent, reliable disciplinary process that enables strong journalism. If these things matter to you, help us out by signing: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...
- Reposted by bxroberts1/ We are entering year 3 of bargaining for a fair contract that protects both the workers who produce our award-winning, high-impact journalism as well as the quality of that work. We are also entering year 3 of @propublica.org management fighting against a fair contract. tinyurl.com/43znke28
- Last week we demonstrated our Rx Inspector tool and walked people through how to use it and explained the types of things you can find with it. We just published a recording of the webinar here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=p51s...
- THREAD: The FDA has made it difficult to find where medications are made. Today we're changing that with our latest tool. With Rx Inspector, it’s possible to see your drug’s manufacturing facility and what the FDA found during its inspections. Here's how you can use it. 1/
- 2/ Why are we doing this? With every bottle of prescription medication comes an implied promise: The drugs are safe and effective. But the FDA provides only intermittent oversight of the factories where generic drugs are made.
- 3/ In our reporting, we found that consumers often have no way of knowing if the medications they are taking came from contaminated factories, or were outright banned from shipping drugs to the U.S., but then granted special exemptions to do so anyway. www.propublica.org/series/rx-ro...
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View full thread12/ For more on how you can use Rx Inspector, we’ve made a guide here: www.propublica.org/article/rx-i...
- The FDA makes it nearly impossible to figure out where your prescription drugs were made and if there were any issues with the facilities. You can read our explainer about the problem here: www.propublica.org/article/fda-... Big things coming soon! www.youtube.com/shorts/68tWT...
- Reposted by bxroberts"Live insects crawled through the facility’s production workshop, while dead ones lay on the floor. Condensation from rust-covered pipes dripped into a water tank waiting to be mixed with raw ingredients." 🤢 😮 --> by @anniewaldman.bsky.social @bxroberts.org www.propublica.org/article/fore...
- Reposted by bxrobertsNEW: Billions of pounds of food are imported to the U.S. each year. The FDA inspects foreign producers to ensure what we're eating is safe from pathogens and dangerous manufacturing practices. But now, after Trump's drastic staff cuts, these inspections have plummeted to a historic low. 🧵/
- Reposted by bxrobertsNew incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
- Reposted by bxrobertsNew: Videos show ICE/CBP agents are scanning peoples' faces on the street to verify citizenship. ICE has tool to instantly look up unprecedented number of databases with just a photo “I’m an American citizen so leave me alone” “Alright, we just got to verify that” www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...
- Great article. Archiving the internet is such a difficult thing without much of a financial motive, too. But reliance on a single entity has blown up in our faces so many times in the past.
- The Wayback Machine’s snapshots of news homepages have dropped off in recent months. Our analysis shows that since May 16, the number of captures available for 100 top news sites declined by 87%. @hanaatameez.bsky.social and I report for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/the-...
- Reposted by bxrobertsFrom @juddlegum.bsky.social’s newsletter this morning: “A Popular Information investigation reveals tens of millions in new ICE spending on guns, chemical weapons, and explosives.” popular.info/p/ice-boosts...
- I feel like "generate new ideas" is pretty debatable here 🤣
- Reposted by bxrobertsTop VA officials testified that they don’t know how many doctors and nurses have left. We do. The VA is down 600+ doctors and 1,900+ nurses this year. After years of growth, the number of docs has declined each month since Trump took office. www.propublica.org/article/vete...
- Office of Science and Technology Policy is requesting federal rules/guidelines/etc "that unnecessarily hinder" the development, deployment, and adoption of AI. The list of "not appropriate" assumptions is interesting because AI experts will tell you many of these are critical to responsible AI use.
- I thought this was funny. "AI adoption is expected to yield significant benefits ... Realizing these benefits depends on continued AI innovation and public adoption." Kind of a chicken and egg logic here. As if AI isn't good enough for many tasks because we're not all using it yet? 🤔
- You can see the full RFI here (and give your input) public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-18737.pdf
- Love seeing a local AI story. This one can be replicated anywhere too. 🔥 www.knkx.org/government/2...
- Reposted by bxrobertsWe ❤️ @ire.org! @propublica.org employees wore buttons & flyered at the IRE gala to rally support for our fight for a fair contract. The future of investigative journalism depends on protecting the workers who make it possible. You can help by signing our petition: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...
- Reposted by bxroberts🚨JOURNALISM JOB ALERT🚨 @propublica.org is looking for our next Ancil Payne Reporting Fellow. Some key details: •For journos with 3-7 yrs professional experience •Two-year fellowship; starts Jan. 2026 •Based in our DC office •$75K/year + Benefits •Apply before 10/13 9am ET More here:
- FDA's Digital Health Advisory Committee are accepting comments in advance of their meeting around "Generative Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Digital Mental Health Medical Devices" aka AI therapists (cringe every time I write that)
- Here's the link to the full document in the federal register public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-17651.pdf
- Reposted by bxrobertsWhen Assad’s security state collapsed, locked doors opened, spilling decades of secrets. Among them: 100s of stolen children, hidden in orphanages & used to blackmail parents. We’ve done the deepest dive yet into this cruel system. Here’s what we found 🧵 www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...
- In case you needed more evidence you can't just blindly copy and run code written by AI: I just asked a llama3.2 model how to sort by create date and it gave me a command which would have deleted every file from the directory (after sorting) 😅
- US Coast Guard partnering with AI voice transcription + analytics company VoiceBrain in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). "Eliminating human error and fatigue" but nothing about the new machine errors it will introduce. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-17361.pdf
- For reference, a 2024 VoiceBrain CRADA with Dept of Homeland Security was focused around capturing, transcribing and doing AI analytics around airport radio traffic for TSA in Oakland. www.prnewswire.com/news-release...
- GIJN piece detailing how we covered DOGE using AI at the Dept of Veterans Affairs to try and cut contracts. Includes some tips for reporters working to investigate other uses of AI. By @dwindelspecht.bsky.social gijn.org/stories/how-...
- The AI fake journalist saga continues ... Business Insider alone has retracted 40 articles now wapo.st/4p9E7hz Editors who've published a pitch from someone they never talked to nor saw and paid via PayPal have been put on notice 😅
- There's an opening on the News Apps team at ProPublica! If you're a journalist who knows how to code and build things, apply below 👇👇 grnh.se/k5crh6ph6us
- Reposted by bxroberts[Not loaded yet]
- Our latest -- The gutting of the Department of Health & Human Services. We provide a first look at the raw numbers of who has departed, where they worked and what it means for the country.
- NEW: In March, the Trump administration announced a massive purge of workers at the nation's health agencies. We asked them how many workers were laid off, pushed out or left. They refused to give us numbers. So we conducted our own analysis... 🧵 projects.propublica.org/federal-heal...
- Consistent and clear internal processes result in better journalism!
- I just can't with this
- At 4p ET/1p PT, I’ll have a one of a kind interview with Joaquin Oliver. He died in the Parkland school shooting. But his parents have created an AI version of their son for a powerful message on gun violence. Plus TX Rep. @jamestalarico.bsky.social - see you soon on Substack and later on YouTube.
- Finally some good news www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/alde...
- Proposed Dept of Education rule change around "Advancing Artificial Intelligence in Education". Is this backed by anything other than vibes? www.federalregister.gov/public-inspe...
- Reposted by bxrobertsHow segregated are your local private schools? With our database, look up the demographics of private schools across the country and see how they compare to the public schools nearby. By @cerealcommas.bsky.social @natlash.bsky.social @bxroberts.org
- Reposted by bxrobertsApply to be part of the @pulitzercenter.bsky.social's fourth cohort of the #AI Accountability Fellowships. Don’t miss this opportunity to report in-depth on the impact artificial intelligence has on society. Deadline: August 11, 2025. More: twp.ai/9PTQRk
- "disorderly conduct by revealing the existence of an arrest" 🤯
- Our statement on the ridiculous and unconstitutional charges against two NJ journalists for declining to unpublish news, as first reported by @pressfreedomtracker.us
- Catch me talking a little bit about DOGE artificial intelligence and my work into FDA's "secret gamble" with the safety of America's drug supply
- DOGE's VA Ai Disaster; L.A. Vs ICE w/ Brandon Roberts, Memo Torres | @bxroberts.org • @eltragon.bsky.social • @lataco.bsky.social | Majority Report youtube.com/live/PElj1_A...
- Reposted by bxrobertsWill Lewis emails the Washington Post staff, encouraging those who "do not feel aligned" with the company's future plans to consider the buyout offer.
- Terrible AI use case right here. If Law360 doesn't trust their editors to "spot bias" then they have a cultural problem, not a technological one. Throwing AI at this is ridiculous. www.niemanlab.org/2025/07/law3...
