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Workers exposed to dangerous levels of chemical at candy plant
When officials from Sensient Flavors explain their work, they sometimes compare it to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. But working at the food and beverage flavor manufacturer on Indianapolis’ Southwestside is no child fantasy. Some workers were exposed to more than 400 times the generally recognized safe level for a chemical associated with a life-threatening lung condition, according…
Read MoreC. diff bacteria cause of tens of thousands of deaths; could be stopped
“A USA TODAY investigation finds that an infection called C. diff is wreaking havoc in the nation’s hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities, infecting a half million Americans a year and killing about 30,000.” “The death toll is twice government estimates and nearly equal to the 32,000 U.S. deaths each year from auto accidents.”
Read MoreNavy officials may have suppressed bad test results
“U.S. Navy emails and other documents, obtained by Aviation Week, suggest that officials muzzled bad test results for the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) variant, the USS Freedom, at a crucial time in the program’s development, when the service was considering which seaframe to pick for the $30 billion-plus fleet.”
Read MoreMillions of pounds of herbicide being sprayed on Oregon’s forests
In collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting, The Atlantic and Living On Earth, Ingrid Lobet reports that “herbicides have become a crucial tool for Oregon’s $13 billion timber industry.” However, “in spite of precautions, lab results suggest that harmful chemicals are finding their way into residents’ bloodstreams.”
Read MoreJoin us in Columbus for an Election Watchdog Workshop
IRE is bringing its Election Watchdog Workshop to Columbus, OH on August 24-25. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to cover the 2012 elections. Get in-depth tips and strategies to follow the campaign cash as well as help your audience track the behind-the-scenes battle for influence, backgrounding candidates, making sense of the new world of…
Read MoreWill other states follow CA and suspend sunshine laws to save money?
OMB Watch reports that “the California legislature, as part of its Budget Act of 2012 (passed in June), suspended the state’s open meetings law for the next three years in an effort to cut state expenditures.“
Read More“Churning” is more common than thought, report finds
Ken Bensinger and Elizabeth Frank of the Los Angeles Times have found that “from mid-2008 to this April, 862 licensed used-car dealers in California — about 1 in 8 — sold at least one vehicle three or more times“, a practice that is known as churning. Bensinger and Frank used DocumentCloud to display their findings.
Read MoreBehind the story: Who Can Vote?
By Leonard Downie Jr. Weil Family Professor of Journalism, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication The News21 national investigation of voting rights in the U. S., which was launched August 12 on its own website, votingrights.news21.com, and in news media around the country, began early this year with a video-conferenced spring semester…
Read MorePANDA Project Turns 1.0
If you were at NICAR 2012 in February you may remember a man in a PANDA suit wandering the conference halls, flanked by a small group of news developers. At that time the PANDA Project was still a young project. We demoed our first beta release and helped folks install it using our very first…
Read MoreExhaustive search finds little evidence of voter fraud
Despite calls for strict voter ID laws, an in-depth study of American election fraud reveals that the rate is infinitesimal. Since 2000, News21 found 10 cases of in-person voter fraud, which only photo ID laws would prevent. That would be about one case for every 15 million eligilbe voters. News21 is a national program based…
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