News

Workplace regulators in California are drafting an emergency rule to address an epidemic of silicosis — a deadly, preventable lung disease — among fabricators of artificial-stone countertops. In December, Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision revealed what’s believed to be the nation’s biggest cluster of the disease, in the Los Angeles area. The news outlets’ …

Continue reading “California regulators drafting emergency rule to combat deadly lung disease”

A recent investigation by Public Health Watch and The Texas Tribune revealed government negligence before and during a devastating 2019 fire at a tank farm in the Houston suburb of Deer Park. Earlier this month, a public hearing was held for that facility. The next day, another big fire broke out at a plant down the road.

Top research universities across the country are leaving decisions about how and whether to allow the use of ChatGPT and other popular AI services up to individual professors, according to a recent IRW survey. ChatGPT is a tool that uses pre-existing data from the internet to produce answers to prompts, which can range from how …

Continue reading “‘Mixed emotions’ about ChatGPT in higher ed”

Massachusetts is often touted as the best state for education in the country — and it has the test scores to back it up. But a closer look at the state’s test scores following the COVID-19 pandemic reveal that Massachusetts is no different from most states: They’re all still grappling with how to bring about …

Continue reading “Even the ‘best’ schools have work to do”

Throughout his election campaign, President Joe Biden backed immigration rights and criticized his predecessor’s harsh actions. In his first year in the Oval Office, Biden signed executive orders to end a ban on travel to majority Muslim countries, speed up family reunification, and resume the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. In his third year in …

Continue reading “New rules, special programs and fee hikes under Biden”

The Biden administration banned mining on more than 225,000 acres of federal land near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for the next 20 years, blocking copper-nickel sulfide mining from potentially polluting the interconnected waterways of Northeastern Minnesota. [In July 2022, the Investigative Reporting Workshop produced an in-depth look into two of the proposed mining …

Continue reading “Administration cancels mining leases in Minnesota”

The Data Liberation Project recently launched, making government data more available and useful for the general public. Jeremy Singer-Vine, a data journalist who formerly worked as a data editor for eight years at Buzzfeed News, rolled out the new website earlier this fall as a result of his own frustrations as a data journalist. After …

Continue reading “More data, more access, more transparency”

Dr. Anthony Fauci said it was during his childhood in Brooklyn that he first encountered the spirit of community care that would guide his more than five decades of government service.  His father, a pharmacist, was seen as the area’s family doctor. “Right from the time that I was born,” Fauci said in a recent …

Continue reading “Fauci hopes to inspire the next generation”

More than 2.3 million migrants tried to enter the United States without authorization in fiscal year 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, up 37.1% from 1.7 million the previous fiscal year. Since March, those numbers have not dropped below 200,000 and peaked in May with 241,136 crossing attempts. Single adults formed the highest …

Continue reading “‘Wave of displacement’ continues at the border”

In some cases, these ‘emissions events’ aren’t illegal. In others, state regulators give polluters the benefit of the doubt.