The early bird deadline for 
The 2025 Freelance Fellowship Recipients
Welcome to the inauguration of the NICAR talk blog. Here we will discuss all things NICAR: data, FOIA requests, tools, skills, tactics, tips, and anything else that relates to CAR. Join in the discussion by leaving a thoughtful comment.
Read MoreThe Richmond Public Housing Police Department’s web page claimed that “the department provides city-wide law enforcement authority which enables officers to make arrests on and off RRHA property.” But who granted the public housing police, authority to make arrests off public housing property? An investigation by WRIC-Richmond discovered the answer to that is – no…
Read MoreThey started turning up in emergency rooms early last November. One after another and then another. By the time the torrent subsided in February, some 280 people had overdosed in Dutchess County from what many believed was heroin but was often street drugs laced with an exponentially stronger narcotic called fentanyl. The overdoses and deaths…
Read MoreThe Phoenix VA Health Care System is under a federal Justice Department investigation for reports that it maintained a secret waiting list to conceal the extent of its patient delays, in part because of complaints such as Laird’s. But there are now clear signs that veterans’ health centers across the U.S. are juggling appointments and…
Read MoreRobert Wiesner stood to receive tens of thousands of dollars through a major county public safety project by working for a contractor that he helped to hire, the state Attorney General’s Office claims in newly available court documents. Wiesner, one of four defendants in a wide-ranging bid-rigging criminal case, is the former security director of…
Read MoreThree years after back surgery, Grace Nestler-Bramm learned that a drug designed to repair her spine was causing new bone to wrap around it and compress nerves. In March, the Cedar Grove resident became one of nearly 1,000 people who are suing Medtronic, the company that markets Infuse — a number certain to grow. A…
Read MoreThe V-22 Osprey’s deadliest accident stemmed partly from “undeniably intense” pressure to show progress for the new tilt-rotor aircraft, according to the U.S. Marine Corps commandant. While the accident happened more than 13 years ago, the lessons cited in the December letter, obtained by Bloomberg News under the Freedom of Information Act, may apply to…
Read MoreLast week IRE members Jenna Susko and Jeff Kelly Lowenstein shared their reasons for going to the annual IRE Conference. We asked you to share your best 140-character pitch with us on Twitter. Here are some of our favorite responses. Share yours: Tweet to @IRE_NICAR — Scott Zamost (@scottzamostcnn) May 16, 2014 — Lise Olsen (@chrondigger)…
Read MoreThere’s still time to register for the IRE Conference in San Francisco. But if you’re still on the fence, we hope this will help. We asked some of our members to tell us why they think you should go to IRE14. Share you 140-character pitch with us on Twitter and we’ll publish our favorite responses. Tweet to @IRE_NICAR…
Read MoreMissouri’s failure to release records regarding the drugs it uses in executions keeps the public from providing oversight of the death penalty. That’s what the Associated Press and four other news organizations are arguing in a suit filed Thursday against the state. Another suit filed the same day by a reporter for St. Louis Public…
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