Public safety
Florida law allowed dangerous driver back on roads
Nancy Chancey, 59, was killed after she hit another car and was thrown from her vehicle. Two days later, a resident nearby found the body of 60-year-old Art Stroud in the brush near his home. Stroud was struck by the airborne car and thrown out of sight of the police who responded to the crash.…
Read MoreBalancing privacy and gun rights against public and patient safety
Before he turned 21, Blaec Lammers had seen the inside of mental health facilities at least seven times. One of those visits stemmed from following an employee for two hours at the Bolivar Wal-Mart wearing a Halloween mask and wielding a butcher knife. None of that stopped that same supercenter from selling the 20-year-old a…
Read MoreMean Streets: Tracking traffic deaths in New York City
More than half of the 27 pedestrians killed by cars in New York City this year died on major roadways. That’s just one of the findings of a new WNYC analysis of traffic deaths, Mean Streets. WNYC worked with the NYPD to compile an accurate list of traffic deaths after finding discrepancies between its statistics…
Read MoreOil shipped by rail through Northwestern U.S. unusually volatile
Oil moving through Oregon has contained six times more propane – the same stuff in backyard gas grills – than comparable types of crude. Despite the risks, the oil isn’t required to go through simple steps to stabilize it when it’s extracted from the ground. Producers can flare off the propane and other gases in…
Read MoreResidents of ‘uninhabitable’ Calif. public housing complex to be relocated
Following a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting, the City Council of Richmond, Calif. voted to give residents of the Hacienda public housing complex vouchers to move into private housing. Tim Jones, executive director of the Richmond Housing Authority, called the bulding uninhabitable, and dozens of residents have complained of health problems due to…
Read MoreFugitives Next Door: Police won’t chase 186,000 felony suspects
Across the United States, police and prosecutors are allowing tens of thousands of wanted felons — including more than 3,300 people accused of sexual assaults, robberies and homicides — to escape justice merely by crossing a state border, a USA TODAY investigation found. Those decisions, almost always made in secret, permit fugitives to go free…
Read MoreCompanies still storing large amounts of toxic chemicals in Louisville
The number of Louisville companies storing dangerous quantities of toxic chemicals has dropped significantly in the past decade, but hundreds of thousands of area residents remain at risk of being sickened or killed in the event of a catastrophic leak. Federally required safety records analyzed by The Courier-Journal show that 21 firms report storing deadly…
Read MoreData shows car accidents spike when sun aligns with Toronto street grid
Global News obtained 11 years of collision data and found that “Torontohenge,” when the setting sun aligns with Toronto’s east-west street grid and forces drivers to squint through salt-crusted windshields, coincides with the third-worst day of the year for car accidents. Get the full story and graphic.
Read MoreAfter NYT series, officials to transfer hundreds of children out of ‘deplorable’ shelters
City officials are moving more than 400 children and their families out of two city-owned shelters in the wake of a New York Times series about homeless children. “For nearly three decades, thousands of children passed through Auburn and Catherine Street, living with cockroaches, spoiled food, violence and insufficient heat, even as inspectors warned that…
Read MoreVa. law enforcement agencies violating drug destruction laws
Less than two dozen of Virginia’s roughly 300 law enforcement agencies filed a required drug destruction report to the state’s Board of Pharmacy in 2012, according to a report by Richmond, Va. television station WRIC. “Since the ABC 8 News investigation first aired in February 2013, the number of law enforcement agencies complying with the…
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