Search results for:
Serious workplace violation fines low
Marc Chase of The (Northwest Indiana) Times used OSHA data to investigate workplace safety violations. They found “that fines at or below the minimum are the rule, not the exception, in cases involving what OSHA considers serious violations. The average fine from 1991 to 2003 was $862.74 per serious violation, $637.26 less than the minimum…
Read MoreNew York City employees still use cars, despite mayor’s boast
David Seifman of the New York Post obtained city records to show that “more city workers are commuting in their government-owned cars, despite Mayor Bloomberg’s boast that his administration is slashing spending while maintaining services.” The number of civilian NYC employees who commuted in their city-provided cars increased 11 percent from 2003, even as the…
Read MoreTexas hispanics dying at an alarming rate in Iraq
Juan Castillo and Bill Bishop of the Austin American-Statesman studied military deaths from the war in Iraq to find that “Hispanic Texans are dying in Iraq at a rate more than 60 percent higher than the rate for the nation’s military-age population as a whole.” Texas Hispanics and rural Americans serving in Iraq have some…
Read MoreOhio drunk driver program flawed
Sheila McLaughlin of The Cincinnati Enquirer evaluated an Ohio program that requires drunk drivers to put special license plates on their vehicles, finding that “a year after Ohio started requiring the special tags, a sampling of more than 300 local cases and interviews with lawyers, judges, police officers and legislators indicate that the law is…
Read MoreTraffic stop study raises racial profiling questions
Karisa King and Kelly Guckian of the San Antonio Express-News analyzed 12 months’ of traffic and pedestrian police stops, finding that “blacks were more than three times as likely as whites to face certain types of police searches. Yet police found contraband in the searches at about the same rate for both races, a finding…
Read MorePoor districts failing despite recent education reforms
Mc Nelly Torres from the San Antonio Express-News investigated the progress of a Texas public school reform legislation dubbed “Robin Hood”. She focused on the Edgewood School District, where the high school has an hispanic population of 97 percent. She found that the “total revenue per student was $8,729 last year, compared with $4,315 in…
Read MoreLand deals raise nepotism concerns
J.M. Kalil of the Las Vegas Review-Journal used local property records to find that the grandson of a former Las Vegas mayor has been able to quickly profit from land deals that may have involved inaccurate appraisals. Scott Gragson “has obtained a total of 104 parcels in 20 land exchanges with the county. In each…
Read MoreProblems with judiciary system plague city
Jerry Mitchell of The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger reports that the Hinds County judicial system “at times resembles an elephant balancing on toothpicks. A yearlong investigation by The Clarion-Ledger has uncovered many long-term problems that have not been addressed.” The county had fewer prosecutors and fewer indictments in 2004 than similar-sized cities. “Between 1998 and 2003, the…
Read MoreNew schools planned on contaminated sites
Jason Method and James W. Prado Roberts of the Asbury Park Press looked at New Jersey’s $6 billion school construction program and found that the state authority had purchased at least 22 environmentally contaminated or possibly contaminated sites, including one radioactive Superfund site and another historic steel cable plant full of lead, beryllium, arsenic and…
Read MoreTeen driving fatalities data shows an alarming trend
Jayne O’Donnell from USA Today investigated teenage driving accidents across the United States and found an alarming trend. Nearly three-fourths of teenage accidents occurred when males were behind the wheel with 16-year-olds being the riskiest of them all. “Their rate of involvement in fatal crashes was nearly five times that of drivers ages 20 and…
Read More