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State offers big incentives at a large price
Sydney P. Freedberg and Connie Humburg of the St. Petersburg Times wrote about Florida’s attempt to attract business by offering large incentives to help companies create jobs. The incentives were not working with some companies shipping jobs oversees instead of creating them. These economic efforts come at a big price with Florida’s economic development efforts…
Read MoreFEMA paid for too many funerals
Sally Kestin, Megan O’Matz and John Maines of the Sun-Sentinel used federal records to show that “the federal government has paid funeral expenses for at least 315 deaths” in the wake of hurricanes in South Florida last year, “including those of a man who shot himself and a stroke victim hospitalized more than a week…
Read MorePolice issue tickets more frequently by the beach
Rick Neale of Florida Today analyzed 2004 traffic ticket data from Brevard County, finding that “beachside police ticket at far higher relative frequencies than their mainland counterparts.” The county’s smaller towns write far more tickets per capita than larger cities. “Melbourne Village issues almost eight times more tickets per capita than Brevard’s biggest city, Palm…
Read MoreWashington D.C. drives Baltimore housing boom
Jamie Smith Hopkins of The (Baltimore) Sun used data on home sales to find “clear signs that proximity to D.C. is driving the boom in Baltimore and its five surrounding counties, over and above what extraordinarily low mortgage interest rates have achieved nationwide. This region’s fastest appreciation came in Howard, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties,…
Read MoreHigh-risk drivers make up majority of DUI offenses
Matthew Junker of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review used arrest data from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to determine that fully 56 percent of the people arrested last year were in the most intoxicated category under Pennsylvania’s .08 DUI law. “Statistics for the law’s first 11 months — from Feb. 1, 2004, to the end of…
Read MoreEmergency fund used by legislators
Eric Eyre and Scott Finn of the Charleston Gazette examined records of a contingency fund controlled by West Virginia’s governor, finding that “Hardy County received $6.7 million from the contingency fund since 1997 – more than any county in the state – even though the county ranks 42nd out of 55 counties in population.” The…
Read MoreHispanic girls lack high school sports participation
MaryJo Sylwester, in her swan song at USA TODAY before joining the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, used federal education data to help illustrate the comparative lack of participation in high school sports by Hispanic girls. “Nationally, about 36% of Hispanic sophomore girls played interscholastic sports, compared with 52% of non-Hispanics for the 2001-02 school year.” Money…
Read MoreTrain delay rates climbing
Sewell Chan and Jo Craven McGinty of The New York Times studied delays on New York’s subway system, finding that “a typical weekday rider on the subway today is likely to experience a train delay roughly once every three weeks, compared with about once every five weeks in September 2003, when the number of stalled…
Read MoreOil tanker regulations ignored, trimmed back
Eric Nalder of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer investigated the inner-workings of a tanker fleet owned by the third-largest oil company in the nation, ConocoPhillips. The series was inspired by a mystery spill in Puget Sound. The company had denied that its ship, the Polar Texas, was the spiller, while the U.S. Coast Guard said the oil…
Read MoreDot com insiders made millions, while investors lost
Reporters Sharon Pian Chan and David Heath of The Seattle Times used unsealed documents successfully won in state and federal lawsuits to investigate Infospace’s rise and downfall. At its peak, Infospace was worth over $31 million, but a bad investment on a Canadian wireless investment and questionable business dealings led to the eventual collapse of…
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