North Carolina has about 1,200 high-hazard dams, according to an analysis by WRAL. A dam is considered “high-hazard” if loss of life is likely if the structure fails. North Carolina has almost six times the number of high-hazard dams than South Carolina, which has seen several dam failures due to historic rain and flooding.

Of North Carolina’s high-hazard dams, 153 are considered “poor” or “unsatisfactory,” meaning that action is required to fix, reduce or reassess the potential dangers to the public.

Fixing the dams would be a huge financial burden on private dam owners. And while there’s ...

Does your newsroom have the data and resources it needs to cover the next big storm? With a little preparation, you can have detailed information on critical infrastructure - like dams and levees - ready to go the next time a hurricane or storm affects your community.

BEFORE THE STORM:

Get to know your data so you’re ready whenever news breaks. Take a look at your city’s emergency preparedness plans, infrastructure and other public safety measures. This way, when something happens, you won’t be dependent on comments ...

(Editor's note: English translation available below)

No importa si es la media noche o en un fin de semana, los más de 2,300 miembros que subscriben a NICAR-L están dispuestos a contestar preguntas sobre temas entre los básicos de usar Microsoft Excel a cartografía avanzada o como hacer codificación. Desde 1994, miembros han publicado más que 78,000 mensajes en esta lista de correo del Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) dedicada al periodismo de datos. Pero esta lista de correo es totalmente en inglés, entonces, IRE ahora está abriendo una versi ...

Dams are critical pieces of infrastructure not often in the forefront of public attention or discussion, perhaps because so few of us interact with them on a regular basis, if at all. But when powerful storms – like those fueled by Hurricane Joaquin – occur, it’s easy to see the vital role dams play in public safety.

[Related: South Carolina residents rush to higher ground as 14 dams fail]

Below you can view selected fields for South Carolina dams from the National Inventory of Dams (NID), a national database kept by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The data ...

A four-part series from WAMU 88.5 News in Washington, D.C., explores how car-title lenders in Virginia have moved into the shadowy world of consumer-finance loans, allowing them to get around restrictions on how much interest they can charge and how long the loans can be extended. Meanwhile, borrowers of traditional car-title loans are increasingly failing to make monthly payments and having their cars repossessed.

When Cuban immigrants arrive in the U.S., they are immediately eligible to apply for welfare, according to the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. This is due to a national policy of treating Cubans who arrive as refugees.

However, a three-part investigation by the Sun Sentinel found that there has been widespread abuse of U.S. welfare benefits by Cuban immigrants, who take the money and return to Cuba to spend it.

There is no agency that “tracks the scope of the abuse,” according to the Sun Sentinel, but its investigation found evidence that suggests it is widespread. 

We're excited to announce that IRE is part of a new data journalism internship program being offered by the Dow Jones News Fund.

Dow Jones News Fund has a long history of placing students in internships, through its prestigious News Copy Editing Program and other programs. In this new internship, students who are selected to participate will spend a week in training with the IRE staff at the University of Missouri School of Journalism before joining newsrooms throughout the country to work on data analysis projects.

The full announcement for this new program (and the other internships), with links ...

Illinois' flagship job program has awarded millions of dollars to companies that never hired an additional employee. It's doled out millions more in tax breaks for corporations that eliminated jobs and became smaller. And it's allowed companies to reap lucrative rewards and then relocate to other states without penalty or repayment.

In the first comprehensive analysis of 783 EDGE agreements, the Chicago Tribune found that two out of every three businesses that completed the incentive program failed to maintain the number of employees they agreed to retain or hire.