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 Auto and Highway Safety, Cell Phones, Gadgets and Distracted Driving, FairWarning Reports |
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, Pharmaceutical Industry and Drugs, Uncategorized |
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, Firearms |
By Stuart Silverstein on April 11, 2016
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 Aviation Safety, Environmental Safety and Health, FairWarning Reports, 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 Auto and Highway Safety, FairWarning Reports, Uncategorized, 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, 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, Uncategorized, 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 Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, FairWarning Reports, Smoking and Tobacco Industry, Workplace, Workplace Safety and Health |
By Stuart Silverstein on April 7, 2015
When workers get cheated out of wages, it’s often not enough just to win a court order for back pay. Often the court ruling is a hollow victory because the employer has gone out of business or claims to have little or no money to pay the judgment. That’s the challenge likely facing 101 workers…
Posted in FairWarning Reports, Workplace |
By Stuart Silverstein on April 1, 2015
The Obama administration has repeatedly trumpeted its plan to boost the average fuel economy of new cars and light trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by the 2025 model year. In a 2011 White House news release announcing an agreement with automakers to reach the goal, President Obama called it the “the single most important…
Posted in Air Pollution/Toxic Exposure, FairWarning Reports |
