Posts by hdcoadmin
Adoption deal raises concerns over surrogate program
Kevin Corcoran of The Indianapolis Star investigates a child welfare case involving a surrogate mothers program. The program granted an adoption to a 58-year-old, single, schoolteacher who was approved, despite “the absence of a legally required study of [Stephen F.] Melinger’s New Jersey home or a period of preadoption supervision by an Indiana-licensed agency, court…
Read MoreMost traffic chases caused by minor infractions
Eunice Trotter, Tom Spalding and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star analyzed police pursuit data to investigate the 86 deaths Indiana saw in the last decade following police chases. They found that “initiated pursuits that ended with at least one injury or death in one of five cases.” Most of the pursuits were found to…
Read MoreProblems plague food safety system
Tim Darragh and Christopher Schnaars of The (Allentown) Morning Call uses restaurant inspection data to investigate food safety in Lehigh Valley and Pennsylvania. They found that Pennsylvania’s “patchwork of food safety laws and public health agencies often fails to provide even minimal monitoring of restaurants and food retailers.” School cafeterias scored well on recent inspections.…
Read MoreMedicare often pays hospitals to practice bad medicine
Gilbert M. Gaul of The Washington Post reports in a three-part series that Medicare policies often pay hospitals to practice medicine poorly. “In a four-year period, 106 heart patients at Palm Beach Gardens developed infections after surgery, according to lawsuits and government records.” In part-two of the series, the Post looks at the nonprofit that…
Read MoreHousing bond falls short on promises
John Hill of The Sacramento Bee found that a $2.1 billion bond California voters approved to provide affordable housing hasn’t delivered. “With the pot more than half gone, a Bee investigation has found that what taxpayers are getting falls far short of those promises – a reality that takes on added importance as California officials…
Read MoreAllegations pile up in Denver church scandal
Eric Gorski of The Denver Post uses church documents and interviews to investigate claims that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver was told “at least three times of child sex-abuse allegations against one of its priests but continued to allow him to serve and moved him from parish to parish for years.” The paper has…
Read MoreThousands of city employees tied to mayor’s re-election
Nearly four out of every 10 city employees in Chicago registered voters for groups that advocated for Mayor Richard Daley’s re-election, a Chicago Tribune investigation found. The Tribune compared city payroll data with the rosters of political groups that register voters in the city. “The analysis suggests extensive connections between city jobs and the mayor’s…
Read MoreHate crimes down in New York
Jo Craven McGinty at The New York Times reported this weekend that hate crimes in the city are down 44 percent between 2000 and 2004. The crimes are broken down in graphics and maps. A member of New York’s hate crimes unit credits people “just behaving better” in the city in the wake of a…
Read MoreCalif. donors use 527 groups to bypass regulations
Ronald Campbell of The Orange County Register analyzed California campaign finance data to find that the top 100 donors gave more than $150 million to candidates and political committees in 2003 and 2004. Donors also helped put California in the stem-cell business. “Some 26 wealthy couples and individuals contributed more than half the campaign money…
Read MoreHomicides on the rise in Milwaukee
John Diedrich and Bob Purvis at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detail a sharp rise in the number of murders in Milwaukee this year, finding that “through Friday, 72 people have been killed this year, compared to 49 at that time last year. In response, police last week beefed up patrols in the hottest parts of…
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