From almost the time it opened, a Wisconsin gun store has been in trouble with federal authorities. After repeated warnings about problems, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked the store’s license in 2007. But as Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter John Diedrich reported, three years later the case is tied up in [...]
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Investigation finds mercury in face cream
May 24th, 2010 
Beth A Chicago Tribune investigation discovered high levels of mercury in skin lightening creams sold throughout Chicago. The newspaper sent 50 skin-lightening creams to a certified lab for testing, most of them bought in Chicago stores and a few ordered online. Six were found to contain amounts of mercury banned by federal law. Of those, five [...]
Personality disorder used to discharge soldiers, strip them of benefits
April 13th, 2010 Beth Hawaii’s long-term-care system for elderly fraught with problems
April 1st, 2010 Mark Horvit In a four-part series, Rob Perez of the Honolulu Advertiser found Hawaii’s long-term-care system for the elderly is fraught with problems, including a placement system tainted by kickbacks and fraud. He also found that Hawaii nursing homes are the least sanctioned in the country, that reforms at the state Legislature are consistently blocked by care-home [...]
Personnel law in North Carolina shrouds records in secrecy
March 26th, 2010 Beth Keeping Secrets, a three-part series by The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) for Sunshine Week, found North Carolina’s 35-year-old personnel law is among the most secretive in the nation, barring access to disciplinary actions, hiring decisions and employment histories. The series had plenty of examples showing how this secrecy is preventing the public from learning [...]
Special probabtion protects dangerous drivers
March 26th, 2010 Beth Joe Mahr and Gerry Smith of the Chicago Tribune did a computer analysis of state police speeding tickets and driving records. They found that nearly two-thirds of the time, people caught going 100 mph or faster were given a special kind of probation that kept the tickets off their driving records.
New York State road work account raided, little left for repairs
March 8th, 2010 Beth Michelle Breidenbach of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) mined state financial documents to show the abuse of New York State’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund. It’s not “dedicated” at all. Years of raiding and borrowing have left just 22 percent of the fund to fix the state roads.
Few touch sanctions imposed in New England campus sexual assault cases
February 26th, 2010 Mark Horvit Officials at the University of Massachusetts Amherst acknowledge that they allowed a student who confessed to raping a friend on campus last fall, a felony, to remain enrolled and avoid significant discipline, according to a report by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University. Newly obtained Justice Department data show that reports [...]
Education Deparment’s enforcement of campus sexual assault cases is lacking
February 26th, 2010 Mark Horvit The Education Department is charged with enforcing laws on how schools deal with sexual assault, but its Office of Civil Rights rarely investigates student allegations of botched proceedings. When cases do go forward, the civil rights office rarely rules against the schools, and virtually never issues any sanctions against institutions, according to an investigation by [...]
Misuse of funds compromised tribal welfare program
January 21st, 2010 Beth An investigation by The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.) uncovered problems with the taxpayer-funded Torres-Martinez tribal welfare program.”Beneath the surface of rampant poverty and joblessness on one of California’s poorest American Indian reservations is nearly a decade of mismanagement and misuse of millions in taxpayer dollars meant for those needing the money most, federal and [...]
