By Stuart Silverstein on November 14, 2017
New California rules aimed at curbing the surprising amount of pollution coming from leaf blowers, lawn mowers and other small gas-powered machines cleared a final hurdle Monday, and are set to take effect on Jan. 1. The requirements mark another step in the state’s long-running battle to reduce emissions from a category of small engines…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, Environmental Safety and Health, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Stuart Silverstein on September 19, 2017
Leaf blowers can make an infernal racket, and environmental officials say that exhaust from blowers and other gas-powered lawn and garden equipment is a surprisingly big source of air pollution. But are landscaping workers who use the equipment day in and day out exposed to potentially harmful emissions? A 2006 study by the U.S. Environmental…
| Tagged Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, Environmental Safety and Health, Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
States With Worst Highway Death Rates Favored Trump -- Why?
By Stuart Silverstein on February 1, 2017
November’s presidential contest was bizarre in many ways, but there is one peculiarity that pundits haven’t pounced on: The states with the worst rates of traffic deaths in the country went solidly for Donald Trump while Hillary Clinton swept states with the lowest fatality rates. That odd association between traffic deaths and how states voted…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Auto and Highway Safety, Cell Phones, Gadgets and Distracted Driving |
By Stuart Silverstein on October 18, 2016
See the editor’s note at the bottom of this story. When the Republican-controlled Congress approved a landmark program in 2003 to help seniors buy prescription drugs, it slapped on an unusual restriction: The federal government was barred from negotiating cheaper prices for those medicines. Instead, the job of holding down costs was outsourced to the…
Posted in FairWarning Investigates | Tagged Pharmaceutical Industry and Drugs |
By Paul Feldman and Stuart Silverstein on June 16, 2016
California lawmakers have agreed to spend $5 million to open a first-in-the-nation gun violence research center, a move intended to circumvent a ban on federal firearm studies. The research center, which would be based at a campus in the University of California system, would take over a job the federal government dropped 20 years ago….
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Firearms |
By Stuart Silverstein on April 11, 2016
Editor's note: See update at bottom of story.
For nearly five years, Darrell Whitman was a federal investigator who probed whistleblowers’ complaints about being fired or otherwise punished for exposing alleged corporate misconduct. He wanted to help whistleblowers, viewing them as a crucial line of defense against employers who violated health and safety standards or wasted taxpayer dollars. But now Whitman, 70, is…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Aviation Safety, Environmental Safety and Health, Whistleblowers, Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Stuart Silverstein on February 24, 2016
Editor's note: See update at the bottom of this story.
A Massachusetts jury Tuesday awarded $32.4 million, plus interest, to the family of a woman struck and killed by an out-of-control SUV in a case that highlighted the surprisingly common phenomenon of storefront crashes. The verdict was a victory for the husband and daughter of Kimmy Dubuque of Chicopee, Mass. Dubuque was 43 when she…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Auto and Highway Safety, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Stuart Silverstein on October 7, 2015
Federal officials responsible for protecting whistleblowers and examining their claims of employer retaliation are mishandling nearly one in five of their investigations, a government watchdog reports. A review by the inspector general of the U.S. Labor Department found that 18 percent of the investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration lack one or more…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Whistleblowers, Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Stuart Silverstein on September 17, 2015
More Americans died on the job last year, with the increase concentrated among older employees as well as self-employed and contract workers. Preliminary federal figures released today for 2014 put the workplace death total at 4,679, up 2 percent from the final count of 4,585 for 2013. The new figures amount to the highest preliminary…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Stuart Silverstein on May 19, 2015
Despite the flood of state and local laws since the 1990s to ban indoor smoking, millions of Americans still are exposed to secondhand smoke on the job. As a bulletin last month from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health pointed out, 20.4 percent of nonsmoking workers say they encounter secondhand smoke at least…
Posted in FairWarning Reports | Tagged Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, Smoking and Tobacco Industry, Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
