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Site tracks candidates statements, claims in race for California governor
California Watch launched Politics Verbatim, a site that “collects and categorizes the promises, proposals, arguments and attacks” made by Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman in their race for governor of California. The site was launched with 300 documents and 1,000 excerpts that will be added to daily as the race progresses allowing voters…
Read MoreLittle done to deter violations of Clean Air Act
Through analysis of Clean Air Act data kept by the Environmental Protection agency, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.) found government regulators have a list of more than 200 facilities in Indiana they say have broken air pollution laws in the past three years, yet little or nothing has been done to stop them. The…
Read MorePension obligations strain budgets throughout California
A collaboration by the five McClatchy newspapers in California examines how pension obligations are hurting local governments at a time of diminished resources throughout the state. “The initial logic of increasing retirement benefits to retain quality employees has been turned on its head: Paying for those benefits is forcing local governments to lay off employees…
Read MoreSpecial probabtion protects dangerous drivers
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. That included those triple-digit…
Read MoreLoophole in Hawaii’s pay-to-play law exploited by donors
An investigation by the Honolulu Advertiser found that donors linked to city and state contractors are giving money to candidates for Hawaii’s gubernatorial races. Experts say the donors are exploiting a loophole in Hawaii’s five year-old pay-to-play law. The study is based on a computer-assisted survey of more than 2,300 campaign contributions made to three…
Read MoreParolees clustered in a handful of communities in Utah
An investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune found clustering of probationers and parolees “in specific neighborhoods and even apartment buildings, despite rules prohibiting people on supervision from associating with one another. Law enforcement and scholars say offenders are more likely to succeed if they are dispersed, but a lack of halfway houses and city ordinances…
Read MoreTracking gang activity in Tennessee
The Tennessean‘s three-part series on gangs reveals a growing problem across the state, particularly in suburbia and small towns. Law enforcement is overwhelmed and schools are ripe recruiting grounds in what’s part of a national trend of gangs expanding their influence to areas outside the urban core to sell drugs. The newspaper gained access to…
Read MoreDespite fatalities, many police officers fail to wear seat belts
An investigation by the Houston Chronicle found dozens of police officers across the country have died in car crashes while unbuckled — at least 64 between 2004 and 2008 alone. It also discovered a widespread culture in police agencies of officers refusing to wear seat belts. “Some officers worry that their belts could hinder them…
Read MorePrescription drugs linked to seventy percent of Milwaukee overdoses
In an analysis of prescription drug deaths in the Milwaukee area, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Kertscher found of the 1,200 overdose deaths in an eight-year period, some 70% involved prescription drugs. Kertscher created the database himself by reviewing the medical examiner reports for each of the counties in question. Additionally, Kertscher reviewed hundreds of…
Read MoreDatabase of dangerous caregivers incomplete
Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein of ProPublica reported on big gaps in a federal database that is supposed to alert hospitals to disciplinary actions against health care providers across the country. Over two decades ago, Congress “ordered up a national database allowing hospitals to check for disciplinary actions taken anywhere in the country against nurses,…
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