Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission (SRC), voted on a controversial budget last May that eliminated counselors, sports, secretaries, librarians, music and art teachers and support safety staff at public schools in the area. Their plan: Save the beleagured School District of Philadelphia by tearing it down. The district faced a budget hole roughly the size of $300 million…
Read MoreDetroit is broke, but it didn’t have to be. An in-depth Detriot Free Press analysis of the city’s financial history back to the 1950s shows that its elected officials and others charged with managing its finances repeatedly failed — or refused — to make the tough economic and political decisions that might have saved the…
Read Moreinewsource in San Diego today reports that “a trend toward giving children fewer shots at one time, combined with continued skepticism about vaccines’ safety, means more kindergarteners than ever in San Diego County were not fully immunized when they started school last year.” inewsource analyzed data from the California Department of Public Health and found…
Read MoreIf you asked me how I first got started in investigative journalism, I’d find it hard to answer, since it’s all kinda fuzzy. It could have been the CAR class I took, or the Hacks/Hackers meeting I went to for its cool name, then stayed for its cool mission. But if there’s one experience that…
Read MoreMinority members of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released a report on Sept. 9, 2013 claiming that the EPA has “a dismal history of competently and timely responding to FOIA requests,” has failed to adequately train staff members on FOIA policies, has shown bias in deciding to honor fee waiver requests, and…
Read MoreThe Workplace Safety database from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has just been updated in the NICAR Database Library. WHAT’S IN IT? This 10-table database holds information on workplace inspections performed by both federal and state OSHA offices in all states and U.S. territories, from 1972 to Aug 2013 – more than 4…
Read More“The Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting spent a year identifying the 50 worst charities in America based on the money they paid to professional solicitation companies over the past decade. Copilevitz & Canter has represented nearly three-quarters of them, as well as most of their for-profit telemarketers and direct mail companies.”
Read MoreDuring most of the past two decades, the annual number of alcohol-related traffic deaths across the country has fallen by about 20 percent, to more than 11,500. More stringent drunken driving laws, widespread public education campaigns and safer vehicles have all played a role in that sharp reduction. In Oklahoma, however, it’s been a much…
Read More“Insurers in California’s new health insurance exchange are holding down premiums by limiting choices, raising concerns that patients will struggle to get care.”
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