propublica Posts

Many treatments for cancer go unfunded or unresearched simply because they won't make enough money to compete with the "blockbuster" cancer drugs on the market today.

Federal funding for research on gun violence has been restricted for nearly two decades. President Obama urged Congress to allocate $10 million for new research after the Newtown school shooting. But House Republicans say they won't approve it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's budget still lists zero dollars for research on gun violence prevention. One of the researchers who lost funding in the political battle over studying firearms was Dr. Garen Wintemute, one of only a dozen researchers across the country who have continued to focus full-time on firearms violence.

For nearly 20 years, Congress has pushed the CDC to steer clear of firearms violence research. As chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that traditionally sets CDC funding, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has been in a position to change that. Soon after Sandy Hook, Kingston said he had spoken to the head of the agency. "I think we can find some common ground," Kingston said. More than a year later, as Kingston competes in a crowded Republican primary race for a U.S. Senate seat, the congressman is no longer talking about common ground.

The Pentagon spends about $100 million annually to recover and identify missing service members from the Vietnam War, Korean War and World War II, but identified just 60 last year — far short of the 200 per year mandated by Congress starting next year. This latest restructuring is the broadest one yet, taking on the science used to make identifications and creating public-private partnerships, but it's unclear whether it will be a reorganization just on paper like it was in the past.

A judge in Tuscaloosa, Alabama ruled that court-ordered desegregation was no longer necessary for that county's school. Since the ruling in 2000, a sort of time warp has occurred, sending Tuscaloosa back into a pre-civil rights movement age.

Federal agents have been cracking down on Medicare fraud across the country. Too bad the Medicare system's inefficiencies can't keep. Doctors that have been arrested or sanctioned are still receiving payouts.

The Heartbleed computer security bug is many things: a catastrophic tech failure, an open invitation to criminal hackers and yet another reason to upgrade our passwords on dozens of websites. But more than anything else, Heartbleed reveals our neglect of Internet security. The United States spends more than $50 billion a year on spying and intelligence, while the folks who build important defense software — in this case a program called OpenSSL that ensures that your connection to a website is encrypted — are four core programmers, only one of who calls it a full-time job.

Following Superstorm Sandy, donors gave $312 million to the American Red Cross. How did the aid organization spend that money? A year and a half after the storm, it's surprisingly difficult to get a detailed answer.

Over the last year, a rabbi, a state NAACP official, a small town mayor and other community leaders wrote op-eds and letters to Congress with remarkably similar language on a remarkably obscure topic. Each railed against a long-standing proposal that would give taxpayers the option to use pre-filled tax returns. And each may have been misled by lobbyists working for the maker of TurboTax.

A victim of its own success, the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion for lower income families and individuals is hitting a snag. So many have applied and enrolled that states are facing backlogs on getting those people into the system.

Two years after the Department of Labor announced its intent to crack down on unpaid internships, huge loopholes persist. Though the guidelines have become more stringent as to what constitutes an intern, companies are exploiting the system to displace paid employees.

IRS official Lois Lerner has come under fire for targeting conservative groups before the 2012 elections. But she also targeted liberal and nonpartisan dark money groups as well, and it looks more like a problem an with overstressed, understaffed department than a nefarious plot to take down the tea party.

After 24 years in prison, Jonathan Fleming was cleared of all wrongdoing in a 1990 murder. Evidence showing the Brooklyn native was in Florida at the time of the killing was withheld from the defense during the trial.

For the first time, the U.S. Labor Department has gotten involved in a high-profile lawsuit brought by unpaid interns. On Friday, the federal agency filed an amicus brief in support of eight former interns suing Hearst Corporation for back wages.

After troves of documents regarding the National Security Agency's indiscriminate domestic data collection came to light, public outcry was such that something had to be done. President Obama has made some positive steps, and more legislation is coming, but there are some glaring loopholes, as well as some big questions that still need to be answered.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's labyrinthine rules for complaints has citizens out in the cold when trying to report violations by oil and gas companies, and their fracking outfits littering the state.

Pharmaceutical company payments to doctors extend far beyond rank-and-file clinicians — and deep into the leadership of America’s teaching hospitals. A team of researchers examined the boards of the 50 largest drug companies and found that 40 percent — 19 companies — had at least one board member who also held a leadership role at an academic medical center. Sixteen of the 17 companies based in the United States had at least one. Several had more than one.

The Pentagon is overhauling its efforts to find and identify missing service members from past wars, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Monday. The changes address the problems laid out in an investigation by ProPublica and NPR, including outdated scientific methods, overlapping bureaucracy, a risk-averse disinterment policy for the 9,400 unknowns buried around the world, and poor laboratory management that inhibited the mission.

California could become one of the first states in the nation to hold companies legally responsible for wage and safety violations by their subcontractors and temp agencies if a bill proposed Friday becomes law. The bill tackles the longstanding complaint of labor leaders that companies can often shirk responsibility for the abuse of workers by hiring them through agencies or contracting with smaller firms.

Interns of New York City, rejoice. You are now protected against sexual harassment and discrimination based on race, religion and sexual orientation in the workplace. Plus, The New York Times will now pay you minimum wage, New York University is making a greater effort to protect you and Columbia University has told companies it expects its interns to be paid.