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Federally insured institutions as a whole continue to rebound since the Great Recession. Total assets, capital, deposits, profits and reserves have all collectively improved, according to an analysis of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) data by the Investigative Reporting Workshop, which looked at fourth-quarter FDIC data from December 2007 to December 2015 to get a …

Continue reading “Big banks grow, every state hit hard since recession”

She uncovered the flaws behind the bail-bond system for a National Public Radio program “Bonding for Profit,” and spent a summer gutting fish in Alaska, so NPR correspondent Laura Sullivan is no stranger to investigative journalism or personal challenges. Her latest venture: the world of television documentaries as the PBS FRONTLINE correspondent for “Business of …

Continue reading “NPR’s Sullivan enjoys ‘digging down’”

As part of our joint investigation into the business of disaster recovery, FRONTLINE and NPR tried to determine how much profit the private insurance companies running the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) were making. FEMA pays fees to approximately 80 companies to sell and service flood policies, but claims are paid …

Continue reading “Behind the numbers: National Flood Insurance Program”

The National Flood Insurance Program is run by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Unlike other forms of homeowners’ insurance, the government pays roughly 80 private insurance companies’ fees to sell policies and settle claims. The premiums from those policies are meant to cover losses, but when a disaster becomes too costly, the taxpayers, not the …

Continue reading “Why have a national flood-insurance program?”

PBS FRONTLINE, NPR and IRW examine why thousands of residents of New Jersey and New York are still struggling more than three years after a huge East Coast storm devastated their communities.

Americans eat 8 billion chickens a year. That’s right — billion with a “B.” But about one in four pieces of raw chicken carry salmonella, and salmonella from poultry sickens 200,000 Americans a year, according to government data. Handling chicken properly and cooking it well is supposed to get rid of the salmonella. However, a …

Continue reading “Are you handling raw chicken the wrong way?”

Wiggling while handcuffed. Bracing one hand on the steering wheel during the arrest. Yelling at an officer. These actions have led to people being prosecuted for “assaulting a police officer” in Washington, D.C., where the offense is defined as including not just physical assault but also “resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating or interfering” with law enforcement.

Salmonella is banned in walnuts and tomatoes, but is still allowed in raw chicken. Could a new government agency bridge the divide in safety standards? When Trader Joe’s learned in March that bags of its walnuts may have contained salmonella, the grocery chain immediately recalled the product out of what it called “an abundance of …

Continue reading “Two agencies, two standards: Would one be better?”

Salmonella sickens more than 1 million Americans every year, with about 200,000 illnesses caused by contaminated poultry. Some strains of salmonella are becoming antibiotic resistant, making them more severe and difficult to treat. Key Findings of ‘The Trouble with Chicken’ investigation: Twenty years after the major E. coli 0157 outbreak from Jack-in-the-Box hamburgers highlighted the …

Continue reading “Salmonella still leading source of foodborne illness”

Is our food-safety process working? About one in four pieces of raw chicken is contaminated with salmonella, with some strains of the bacteria becoming more severe. FRONTLINE investigates the spread of these dangerous pathogens at a time when Americans are consuming more chicken than ever. The program, a co-production with the Workshop, traces a major …

Continue reading “The Trouble with Chicken”