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At least 384 workers have died from environmental heat exposure in the U.S. in the last decade, according to an investigation by journalists at NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations. Among the findings from their analysis of hundreds of pages of documents is that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), whose primary responsibility is to protect workers from hazards, has ...

Shortly after taking command of the Chicago Police Department in April 2020, Superintendent David Brown moved to curtail overtime spending by issuing an order requiring supervisors who are ranked deputy chief or higher to approve all overtime requests. More than a year later, as grantees at South Side Weekly uncovered, it’s unclear whether that order had any effect.Records obtained by the Weekly appear to ...

Amid the worst pandemic in a century, Mississippi is leading the nation in increased diabetes deaths per capita, according to a just-released study, putting massive strain on the state’s frontline workers and hospitals. Jerry Mitchell’s report for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Journalism, also published in the Jackson Clarion Ledger, describes how the state’s largest hospital has been forced to ...

There are 1,300 areas of land across the country that are hazardous because they’ve been contaminated with toxins and other waste, and they are designated as high-priority cleanup sites by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. One of these so-called Superfund sites is 30 acres of desolate land in the heart of Uniontown, Ohio, that no one can use because a ...

The Fund for Investigative Journalism is accepting proposals for grants to cover the expenses of investigative stories that break new ground and uncover wrongdoing in the public or private sectors. Grants are for up to $10,000 for stories on any topic.Proposals are due Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Journalists whose proposals are accepted will be notified (and ...

As police shootings have become a flashpoint in U.S. cities, grantees at The Marshall Project and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting spent a year examining those urban killings’ little-publicized counterparts in rural America.Their investigation and analysis of shooting data found that, although the rate of rural police shootings was about 30% lower than the urban rate when adjusted for ...

By Eric Ferrero, Executive Director In a new investigation for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, Giacomo Bologna found that St. Dominic Hospital, a large nonprofit hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, has aggressively pursued payment from thousands of poor patients, including many who should have qualified for charity care. Bologna found that the hospital’s debt collectors sued patients at least 3,600 times from ...

St. Dominic is a nonprofit hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, where more than 25% of residents live in poverty. Nonprofit hospitals like St. Dominic pay almost no taxes and in return, they’re supposed to provide a charity care policy for poor patients. But, as Giacomo Bologna uncovered in his new report for The Mississippi Center For Investigative Reporting, tax filings reveal ...

The Fund for Investigative Journalism continued its “Impact Investigations,” webinar series this month with a discussion on child welfare coverage. This one-hour virtual forum includes insights, lessons and tips for investigative reporting on foster care, child protective services and other aspects of child welfare systems. You can watch the full webinar recording and find resources from the discussion below.  Resources:Karen de ...

It started with a call on social media to “back the blue” in the summer of 2020, urging Utahns to stand together in support of police to intimidate potentially violent protesters and deter them from looting and pillaging. Soon, as Eric S. Peterson reports, 20,000 members online were cheering on Utah Citizens Alarm, a group referred to as a militia ...