Collateral damage By Nathaniel Heller, Tom Stites and Ben Welsh May 22, 2007 Post-9/11 renditions: An extraordinary violation of international law By Michael Bilton May 22, 2007 A citizen’s guide to understanding U.S. foreign military aid By The Int’l Consortium of Investigative Journalists May 22, 2007 PORTSMOUTH, England — When a conservative talk-show host from […]
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Posted inNational Security
Advisors of influence: Nine members of the Defense Policy Board have ties to defense contractors
Of the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors. The board’s […]
Posted inNational Security
Arrested Italian cell sheds light on Bin Laden’s European network
On a cold winter night last January, on the outskirts of Milan, Italian anti-terrorist police intercepted a frantic call between two suspected Osama Bin Laden operatives. “They have arrested our brothers … half of the group,” the caller said. “They have found the arms warehouse in Germany.” That call, monitored in a cell phone wiretap, […]
Posted inEnvironment
Tally of interests on climate bill tops a thousand
More than 460 new businesses and interest groups jumped into lobbying Congress on global warming in the weeks before the House neared its historic vote on climate change legislation, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of just-disclosed lobbying records shows. The surge in the 12 weeks leading up to the June 26 vote meant that […]
Posted inEnvironment
Where regulators failed, citizens took action — testing their own air
Key findings Toxic air pollution, involving nearly 200 chemicals deemed so harmful to health Congress sought to bring emissions under control 21 years ago, persists in hundreds of U.S. communities. About 1,600 polluters around the country are classified by the U.S. EPA as “high priority violators” of the Clean Air Act — sites regulators believe […]
Posted inEnvironment
Town divided over major employer’s permission to pollute the air
Key findings Toxic air pollution, involving nearly 200 chemicals deemed so harmful to health Congress sought to bring emissions under control 21 years ago, persists in hundreds of U.S. communities. About 1,600 polluters around the country are classified by the U.S. EPA as “high priority violators” of the Clean Air Act — sites regulators believe […]
Posted inEnvironment
Hake hoax in Spanish markets
Consumers in Spain trust the mild-flavored white flesh of hake, the most popular fish in a country that eats more seafood than almost any other in Europe. Hake is considered safe for pregnant women, and kids crunch into the cod-like fillets as fishsticks. “There’s trust because of the cultural bond,” said Cristina San Martín, head […]
Posted inEnvironment
EPA focuses anew on obscure chemicals in consumer products
This article appeared in Environmental Health News, an independent nonprofit reporting organization. Hardly anyone has heard of them, but millions of pounds of glymes are used every year to make household products throughout the United States. Now time is running out for glymes – at least when it comes to new uses in consumer products. […]
Posted inEnvironment
Brain cancer trial may influence science on toxic chemical
Bryan Freund compares his fragile condition to having “a time bomb in your head. You just don’t know when it’s going to go off.” Freund, 49, has brain cancer, which he blames on careless practices at a chemical plant just north of his home. He’s among 17 current or former residents of the village of […]
Posted inPerils of the New Pesticides, Worker Health and Safety, Workers’ Rights
New EPA scrutiny for Atrazine reflected in Center’s database complaints
After years of fielding complaints about the ubiquitous weed-killer and water pollutant atrazine, the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to take a closer look at the product, used on corn and other crops, mainly in the Midwest. Some of those complaints are documented in a database produced by the Center in 2008 as part as […]
Posted inHealth
Mexican tobacco growers: Economically shunned by industry, still used as lobbyists
About this project: Smoke Screen II By Ricardo Sandoval Palos May 30, 2011 In October, in chaotic Mexico City, a small army of protestors, sporting placards and shouting into bullhorns, worsened the usual traffic snarl around San Lazaro, the nation’s congressional office complex. Television news accounts showed screaming-mad tobacco farmers, some of whom had boarded […]
Posted inHealth
America’s asbestos age
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The first sign of trouble came as Bill Rogers was mowing his lawn one morning in January 2007. “As I would go back and forth with the mower, I would run out of air,” says Rogers, 67, of Palm Bay, Fla. Rogers went to the doctor and learned that his right lung […]
Posted inHealth
Canada’s boom in smuggled cigarettes
Gary Godelie has been a tobacco farmer most of his life, struggling to keep alive a family farm that produces what most everyone agrees is a death crop. Whacked by global competition undercutting his prices, not to mention a dwindling number of Canadian smokers, he often thinks of getting out of the business. Nothing brought […]
Posted inHealth, Public Health, Tobacco, Tobacco Underground
‘The guy in the wheelchair’
Jorge Abraham sits in his parents’ living room in a single-story rental on a rutted street in El Paso, Texas. His soft, sloping shoulders twitch involuntarily. His head and contorted right hand are the only parts of Abraham’s morbidly obese frame that move by volition — the result of a 1988 motorcycle accident that left […]
Posted inInequality
As IRS crusades against Americans hiding money offshore, Latin American tax cheats flock to U.S. banks
Teams of private bankers working for powerful banks court wealthy people from distant shores with this sales pitch: Move your cash to our country. We will keep it safe and secret. That was the modus operandi of UBS, the Swiss banking giant that was forced to admit holding billions of dollars in covert accounts for […]
Posted inInequality
Regulatory brawl over debit cards sidesteps the real fee-setters: card companies
Competition usually pushes prices lower. But in the case of debit card processing fees, aggressive competition between Visa and MasterCard to win banks’ business has helped keep swipe fees high and resulted in an annual $16 billion bonanza for U.S. banks. This little-noticed aspect of debit processing fees has been lost in the lobbying brawl […]
Posted inEducation
The military children left behind: Decrepit schools, broken promises
Key findings Tens of thousands of children attend schools on military installations that are falling apart from age and neglect, and fail to meet Defense Department standards. Over 10 years, school conditions on bases have worsened while parents endured an average three deployments, each lasting 15 to 18 months. Three in four schools run by […]
Posted inAccountability, Global Muckraking
The loneliness of El Diario of Juárez
Journalists at El Diario de Juárez keep track of the daily murders on a white board. María Teresa Ronderos About the author Maria Teresa Ronderos is a veteran member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. She is an adviser to Semana magazine in Bogotá, Colombia, a member of the board of directors of the […]
Posted inEducation
Barriers curb reporting on campus sexual assault
Buried in the pages of the 2006 student handbook for Dominican College, a small Catholic institution in the northern suburbs of New York City, were five dense paragraphs about what would happen if a student reported a rape. The college would investigate. That much is required by law. Evidence would be collected and preserved. And […]
Posted inDemocracy, Scared Red
Scared Red: The PACs that followed the nation rightward in 2010
Methodology for Scared Red By Elizabeth Lucas March 1, 2011 Blue Dogs, decimated by defeats and retirements, turn to lobbying shops By Aaron Mehta May 16, 2011 Roy DeLoach, CEO of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, tried to keep an even hand as the group’s political action committee distributed campaign contributions. But the Texas-based […]
Posted inCongress, Democracy, Who Bankrolls Congress?
John Boehner: A pro-business agenda
Long before Congressman John Boehner of Ohio rose to his current position as House Republican Leader, he created the “Thursday Group” — a weekly discussion around a U.S. Capitol conference room table with conservative and business lobbyists, including representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other influential trade associations. In Washington, those sorts of […]
Posted inEnvironment
Coal ash: The hidden story
Pat Nees never liked the water at the Moose Lodge. Almost everyone in tiny Colstrip, Montana, drank and dined at Lodge #2190, but the well water was notorious — it smelled like a sewer. It felt oily, gritty from sediment. Lodge members braving a drink — Nees among them — frequently doubled over from indigestion. […]
Posted inEnvironment
The big seep
The sound of the longwall machine hits you first, a steady churning, methodical chomping that seems to emanate from everywhere at once. Stand before the six-foot-high layer of coal — the “coal face,” in mining parlance — and you’ll witness the source of this cacophony. It thunders like an industrial slicer: you can hear the […]
Posted inWorkers’ Rights
‘Safe’ pesticides now first in poisonings
Perils of the New Pesticides Stories in this series ‘Safe’ pesticides now first in poisonings By M.B. Pell and Jim Morris July 30, 2008 A crawling issue: Head lice treatments worse than the pest itself? By Jeremy Borden September 6, 2011 EPA cracks down on flea, tick labels in wake of Center probe By M.B. […]
Posted inEnvironment
Over the Limit
What to expect from a President Perry on the environment? Some Texas-sized clues By Jim Morris and Evan Bush August 18, 2011 Rusk County, TEXAS — A gentle twilight pink stretches across the sky, touching the waters of Martin Creek Lake. The still air, smelling only of East Texas pines, brings the faint […]
Posted inEnvironment, Pollution, Wasting Away
Human exposure ‘uncontrolled’ at 114 Superfund sites
Contaminated, but still not off-limits By Joaquin Sapien May 18, 2007 Wasting Away Stories in this series Superfund today By Joaquin Sapien and Richard Mullins April 26, 2007 Most Dangerous Superfund Sites By The Center for Public Integrity May 18, 2007 Superfund progress drops off under Bush By Joaquin Sapien and Richard Mullins April 26, […]
Posted inEnvironment, Natural Resources, The Water Barons
Metered to death
Cholera and the age of the water barons By Bill Marsden February 3, 2003 Promoting privatization By The Int’l Consortium of Investigative Journalists February 3, 2003 The ‘aguas’ tango By Daniel Santoro February 6, 2003 JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Every morning, as the sun rises over the Indian Ocean and paints the sky a brilliant […]
