Posts by hdcoadmin
Ga. hotel bill for Katrina evacuees tops $19 million
Yolanda Rodriguez of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with assistance from Craig Schneider, Leon Stafford and database editor David A. Milliron, used a FOIA request to show that “Georgia hotels have billed taxpayers more than $19 million to house evacuees who fled after hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the Gulf Coast last year.” The agency has paid…
Read MoreIll. mine fined more than $500,000 last year
Jeffrey Tomich, with contributions from Jaimi Dowdell, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used federal data to show that “Illinois’ largest coal mine was fined almost as much for safety violations last year as the rest of the state’s mines combined.” The Galatia mine, owned by the American Coal Co., was fined more than $500,000 by…
Read MoreMine agency more lenient since 2001
Seth Borenstein, Linda J. Johnson and Lee Mueller of Knight Ridder Newspapers used federal data to find that “since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed.”…
Read MoreSome Colo. mines incur more violations than Sago
Katy Human and Jeff Roberts of The Denver Post examined mine safety records for Colorado and found that its “eight underground coal mines paid fines totaling almost $500,000 for hundreds of safety violations in the past two years.” One mine was cited 350 times last year for a total of nearly $50,000. In comparision, the…
Read MoreProposal would push sex offenders out of half of Calif. urban areas
Jim Miller of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise used geographic information system (GIS) software to study the impact of a proposal by Gov. Schwarzenegger and others to prohibit registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a park or school in California. The analysis shows that “At least half of California’s urban areas would become…
Read MoreMercury in seafood at unsafe levels
Sam Roe and Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune published a three-part series on the presence of mercury in fish sold in supermarkets. “In one of the nation’s most comprehensive studies of mercury in commercial fish, testing by the newspaper showed that a variety of popular seafood was so tainted that federal regulators could confiscate…
Read MoreSystem’s weaknesses lead to problems in sheriff’s office
Eric Nalder, Lewis Kamb, Phuong Cat Le and Paul Shukovsky of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer continue their investigation into abuse, misconduct and disciplinary lapses in the King County Sheriff’s Department. The most recent stories examine the reasons for these failures in oversight — and reveal more cases of abuse, favoritism and retaliation against whistleblowers. The investigation,…
Read MoreCorps ignored reports about levee problems
Bob Marshall of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reports the Army Corps of Engineers knew about “engineering mistakes that led to the canal levee failures that flooded most of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina” but dismissed them. “Documents, obtained by The Times-Picayune and provided to forensic engineers studying the levee breaches, show project engineers made a…
Read MoreJails fail to meet standards
Mark Scolforo of The Associated Press has a four-part series on Pennsylvania’s county prisons, finding that “many local jails are struggling to meet even minimum standards for safety, housing, food quality and medical care.” The AP obtained state inspection reports under Pennsylvania’s public records law; the jails “are not required to make public their annual…
Read MoreWater department pays for bottled water
Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times reports the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which supplies and promotes tap water to the city, spent $31,160 for bottled water. Citywide, city officials spent $88,900 on bottled water, “despite a 1995 directive by former Mayor Richard Riordan that said: The city’s tap water satisfies most…
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