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Police chief misrepresents crime report to city council
Will Carless of voiceofsandiego.org reports that San Diego’s Chief of Police delivered misinformation in his report to the City Council. “The chief’s statements were made at the height of contract negotiations between the police department and the city. While the chief was painting a rosy picture of crime rates before four city councilmen, the police…
Read MoreSpecial-ed missteps contribute to violence in Philadelphia schools
A two-part investigation by Martha Woodall and Susan Snyder of The Philadelphia Inquirer, part of a continuing series on violence against teachers, revealed the lapses in the district
Read MoreSeries a look at Tarrant County (TX) schools
In its series “Measuring Up,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram looked at the area’s public schools to see how they were performing. Using school test scores and other data, they identified key trends, including: which schools are doing better or worse than expected on state assessments; a large percentage of students requiring remedial help once in…
Read MoreSpeeders more deadly than drunk drivers
While alcohol-related accidents and deaths may receive more attention, speed-related accidents kill more people — about 10 each week — in North Carolina, according to a The News & Observer report by Pat Stith, Mandy Locke and David Raynor.“But while state legislators and court officials have gotten tough on drunken drivers, they have eased up…
Read MoreATVs: Deceptively Dangerous
An in-depth special report by The Oregonian explores the dangers of ATVs. “Over the past decade, the machines have soared in popularity, with 7.6 million in use. The result: Record numbers of riders end up in emergency rooms and morgues as accidents kill about 800 people a year and injure an estimated 136,700.” The multimedia…
Read MoreInvestigation puts bus drivers’ histories online
Lafayette Parish in Louisiana placed the roughly 20,000 children who ride the school bus daily in the hands of drivers with multiple driving and criminal offenses, an investigation by The Daily Advertiser‘s Jason Brown and Claire Taylor found. “The investigation revealed that the school system lacks policies for handling bus drivers who speed, wreck, steal…
Read MoreResidential areas grow in wildfire risk zones
According to a USA Today report by Brad Heath, “Since 2000, roughly 450,000 people — enough to populate a city the size of Atlanta — moved to Western areas endangered by wildfires.” Heath’s analysis combined historical fire data from the USGS Forest Service, Census population data, fire modeling software used by researchers and a wild…
Read MoreTeachers cheat on California achievement tests
Teachers cheat to improve their students’ scores on the high stakes achievement tests, a review of documents by the San Francisco Chronicle found. Although “schools admitted outright cheating in about two-thirds of the cases,” cheating is likely more widespread than the numbers indicate, since the California Department of Education currently relies on schools to investigate…
Read MoreBomb factory workers seek cancer compensation
Nuclear bomb factory workers face steep hurdles getting compensation from the government after contracting cancer. As the U.S. closes many nuclear weapons sites, a growing number of those who helped build bombs are turning to lawyers and legislators to argue they are being treated unfairly, The Washington Post‘s Michael Alison Chandler and Joby Warrick report.
Read MoreEurasian crime syndicates set up shop in U.S.
Los Angeles Daily News staff writer Troy Anderson reports that Eurasian crime syndicates have continued to scam the government since the 1970’s. The crime syndicates, which come from a dozen republics in the former Soviet Union as well as Eastern and Central Europe, systematically exploit government funded programs for personal gain. “A recent report by…
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