By Jessica McKenzie on January 14, 2020
Explosive internal emails released by Boeing have raised pressure on the embattled airplane manufacturer in the wake of two deadly crashes of its Max 737 jets. “This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” said one of the messages. “I’ll be shocked if the FAA passes this turd,” another email said. “Jesus, it’s doomed,” read another. Congress is investigating how a plane with serious safety flaws was allowed to go on the market.
Posted in Warning Wire |
By Jessica McKenzie on January 7, 2020
Utilities have donated generously to local chapters of the NAACP, and then persuaded the groups to push back against proposed energy-efficiency legislation or slow the spread of solar power. In some cases, utilities convinced civil rights groups that if affluent homeowners installed solar panels and reduced their reliance on the electric grid, lower-income residents would bear the brunt of higher rates to maintain power lines, a fact energy experts dispute. In reality, critics say, many of the policies industry groups were advocating would actually hurt low-income communities of color the most in the long run.
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By Jessica McKenzie on December 17, 2019
The four largest American freight railroads have been accused of funding decades-long efforts to discredit climate science and oppose federal climate regulation. The reason? Coal makes up almost one third of American rail freight. Two of the railroads issued statements rejecting assertions that they fostered climate denial.
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By Jessica McKenzie on December 10, 2019
Unsavory billing practices that are common in the health care industry may be legal, a medical writer notes, but must be curtailed if we are to rein in soaring health care costs.
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By Jessica McKenzie on December 3, 2019
Life expectancy in the U.S. fell for the third year in a row, a new study shows, led by declines in the 25 to 64 year old age group. “It would be easier if we could blame this whole trend on one problem, like guns or obesity or the opioid epidemic, all of which distinguish the U.S. from the other countries,’’ the study’s lead author Steven H. Woolf said. “But we found increases in death rates across 35 causes of death.’’
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By Jessica McKenzie on November 26, 2019
A construction worker tried to warn managers at a New Orleans construction firm about dangerous conditions at a hotel under construction before the building partially collapsed in October, killing three, The worker, a Honduran citizen, suffered serious injuries; a few days after the accident, he was arrested by immigration officials and faces deportation. Advocates for the man describe the timing as “highly suspicious.”
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By Jessica McKenzie on November 19, 2019
Eleven killed and 10 wounded in the back-to-back-to-back rampages. There have been 372 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2019, defined as attacks in which four or more people, excluding the gunmen, have been shot
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By Jessica McKenzie on November 12, 2019
In the Marshall Islands, a containment structure that holds more than 3.1 million cubic feet of radioactive waste left over from U.S. nuclear weapons tests is threatened by rising seas, but the U.S. government is denying responsibility. “I’m like, how can it be ours?” said Hilda Heine, the president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. “We don’t want it. We didn’t build it. The garbage inside is not ours. It’s theirs.”
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By Jessica McKenzie on November 5, 2019
The machines used to test blood alcohol content of drivers are often unreliable, creating risks of unfair drunk driving convictions of innocent motorists and, in the case of breath tests that courts have thrown out, letting dangerous drivers off the hook, a major investigation found.
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By Jessica McKenzie on October 29, 2019
In California, some 2 million people will go up to five days without electricity because of intentional blackouts by Pacific Gas & Electric Co.. Dubbed “public safety power shutoffs”, the blackouts are completely at the discretion of utilities and have prompted calls for greater public oversight. In spite of the utility company’s extreme preventive measures, wildfires continue to burn across the state, forcing at least 180,000 people to evacuate their homes
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Standing Up for Free Speech and Open Government
By Sue Cross">Sue Cross on August 16, 2018
Today, the Institute for Nonprofit News joins journalists across the country in asking you, the public, to stand up for your rights to free speech and an open government.
This started as a campaign by The Boston Globe to ask the President of the United States to knock off attacking the news media. But the President’s attacks on the press aren’t ultimately about the press.
Posted in Commentary | Tagged Government accountability | Leave a comment