Justin Elliott

The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large group of other Russian guests.

I thought I had missed something major in my reporting. Turns out I had stumbled into an AI-fueled feedback loop that involved a real LLC’s fictional website and a search engine that’s thrusting unreliable answers on users.

One previously unreported SpaceX investor has ties to Chinese military contractors. The information was revealed only after ProPublica went to court to obtain it.

The newly unsealed testimony marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the company has been disclosed, raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America’s most important military contractors.

The DHS chief has been widely criticized for slowing down FEMA’s response after natural disasters. Texts and emails obtained by ProPublica point to an effective way to get help faster: have one of Noem’s big donors make the ask.

A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirements, experts say.

The State Department has intervened on behalf of Musk’s satellite internet company in five developing nations. In Gambia, U.S. diplomats have lobbied and browbeat at least seven government ministers as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign.

As a U.S. military contractor, SpaceX sees allowing Chinese ownership as fraught. But it will allow the investment if it comes through secrecy hubs like the Cayman Islands, court records say. “It is certainly a policy of obfuscation,” an expert said.

A menu of options being circulated by congressional Republicans also includes new tax cuts for corporations and the ultrawealthy.

An internal Truth Social complaint reviewed by ProPublica calls for the firing of CEO Devin Nunes, alleging he has pursued an “America Last” hiring policy, “consistently lied” and made the company vulnerable to action by regulators.