Crypto ignites conflict
In upstate New York, cryptocurrency mining causes rifts between local businesses and an enterprising corporation.
‘Haunting’ turmoil remains
The Texas Tribune analyzed previously unreported air monitoring data and records from the 2019 ITC chemical disaster near Houston and found that high benzene levels lingered in the air for two weeks after public health measures were lifted. Experts say more shelter-in-place advisories should have been issued.
‘It was just a matter of time’
Regulators repeatedly documented — but did little to address — problems at a Houston-area tank farm. Then disaster struck. On March 17, 2019, a fire blew through a corner of the facility, releasing toxic chemicals into nearby communities for weeks.
A city split in two
Texarkana is split into twin cities — one in Arkansas with Medicaid expansion, one in Texas without it. More than a decade after the Affordable Care Act was signed, differences have emerged.
Firefighters battle for their lives
Even as wildfires intensify each year, the people who risk their lives to fight them are often denied workers’ compensation for what firefighters contend are job-related cancers. This is happening even though all 50 states have laws or programs that presume at least some cancers in firefighters are work-related, in theory making it easier for …
Fighting fires, and cancer
Ben Brickhouse came to his career as a late bloomer. In December 2003, when he was 41 years old, he took a vacation to Asheville, North Carolina, and fell in love with the mountain town. He not only decided to stay but also to become a firefighter. His plans to work 20 years and retire …
Waiting for water
When Ward Walker moved to the seaside village of Stebbins, Alaska, in 1995, he was told there would be running water within the next five years. The 63-year-old, who recently retired as vice mayor of the village of roughly 650, now says he’ll be happy if it happens before he dies. Stebbins became Walker’s home …
Lung disease strikes countertop cutters
This story is part of a collaboration among Public Health Watch, KPCC/LAist and Univision, and is being re-published by IRW. UPDATE: May 17, 2023: California’s OSHA takes action. LOS ANGELES — The men are haggard, starved of breath and tethered to oxygen tanks. Neither will live to an old age; without lung transplants, both may …
Tainted History
Update as of Dec. 18: About 450 composers, musicians, educators and arts leaders signed an open letter, published on Medium, to the administration, calling on the Juilliard School to take disciplinary action against composer Robert Beaser for alleged “decades-long abuse of women and power.” The reaction to charges of abuse and harassment were published by …
Living with the proof of pollution
New data show Houston-area communities are being flooded with chemicals. Residents are taking matters into their own hands.
