ProPublica

The computer that ran the machine happened to be in the same corner, and, being curious, I read what was on the screen. The monitor showed my son's name, date of birth and other basic info – that all looked good. But it also said it was set to do an X-ray on a moderately sized adult. That didn't sound right. My boy only weighs about 80 pounds!

A congressional subcommittee Tuesday plans to take up the topic of missing war records from Iraq and Afghanistan, the subject of a ProPublica-Seattle Times investigation last month.

In a natural disaster or other emergency, one of the first things you're likely to reach for is your cellphone. Landlines are disappearing. More than 30 percent of American households now rely exclusively on cellphones.

When the multibillion dollar medical device maker Synthes enticed doctors to use its bone cement on people’s spines, patients died on the operating table. The company’s actions led to indictments and prison time for executives.
Journalist Mina Kimes of Fortune magazine investigated how it all happened, talking to doctors who performed the treatments, former company employees and the families of patients who died. Her report, “Bad to the Bone: A Medical Horror Story,” lays out in detail how the company navigated around Food and Drug Administration rules meant to inform and protect patients.

Amid the media frenzy over former CIA director David Petraeus' extramarital affair, we were struck by a quick reference in a Washington Post story about Petraeus' time running the war in Afghanistan.

In late October, Syria asked Iraqi authorities to grant air access for a cargo plane transporting refurbished attack helicopters from Russia, according to flight records obtained by ProPublica. With Turkish and European airspace off limits to Syrian arms shipments, the regime of Bashar al-Assad needs Iraq’s air corridor to get the helicopters home, where the government is struggling to suppress an uprising.

BP has been criminally convicted in four previous cases — including a 2005 explosion in Texas that killed 15 workers — and the EPA has been considering broader debarment proceedings against the company since at least 2005. The agency had actually been nearing a decision on a contract ban in January 2010, just a few months before the Deepwater Horizon tragedy unfolded, killing 11 workers and sending more than 200 million gallons of oil into the sea.

As the final hours of the campaign ticked away, we challenged ProPublica readers to help us “free the files” in Las Vegas, which aired more political ads this election cycle than any other market in the country. The results indicate a leading conservative dark-money group and its affiliated super PAC spent more than $9 million on television advertising in Las Vegas during the election— one in every five ad dollars spent in the market.

Time magazine's Michael Scherer talked with a group of Obama campaign advisers this past weekend, and provided an inside look at some of the data and targeting tactics behind the president's re-election. The article touches on many different aspects of the campaign's data operation, from television advertising to campaign insiders' wagers about which email subject lines would be most successful.

With campaign finances limits rendered nearly meaningless, election spending is on pace to set records. Where does each presidential candidate stand on how to regulate money in politics?
Here are the details: