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OGD: VA nurses get second lives
By Sarah Dorsey Apr 16, 2010 5:09 p.m.Recruiters have long used video games to sell military service to young people. The armed forces also use games -- er, "computer simulations" -- to train troops for battle. Now the Veterans Affairs Department plans to join the fun by sending its nurses to Second Life.
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Local officials say they’re in the dark on dangerous freight rail traffic
By Jim Morris Apr 16, 2010 11:07 a.m.Sixty-two cities in the United States have been deemed "high threat urban areas" by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning they’re susceptible to attack by terrorists targeting railroad tank cars loaded with chlorine gas or other deadly poisons. Under a 2007 law, freight rail companies were ordered to analyze their operations in these and other areas and select the "safest and most secure practicable" routes for hazardous cargo.
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"Heart of the Matter" Finalist for Journalism Award
By Nancy Watzman Apr 16, 2010 11:05 a.m.We're honored to announce that our investigative piece, "The Heart of the Matter: How Congress and Special Interests Kept Crucial Clinical Trial Data Secret," is a finalist for the NIHCM Foundation's Sixteenth Annual Health Care Journalism Award.
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Treasury department holding back on details of mortgage modification program
By Claritza Jiménez | Apr 14, 2010 2:18 p.m.Just how effective is the Obama Administration’s effort to help homeowners stave off foreclosure? It’s hard to know, in part because detailed data that could provide part of the answer is not available to the public.
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OGD: Food access mapping tool provides more than just its title
By Lisa Chiu Apr 13, 2010 10:39 a.m.As part of the First Lady’s campaign to combat childhood obesity, the Department of Agriculture in February launched the Your Food Environment Atlas – an online mapping tool of the nation’s access to food at the county level.
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OGD: Future Medicare data looks promising
By Sarah Dorsey Apr 12, 2010 3:28 p.m.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services appear to be on to something with their promised new datasets. It's a leap for an agency whose previous offerings were a confusing mishmash of poorly-labeled files. If they continue to add granularity as they roll out more features, journalists could have a useful and innovative set of tools on their hands.
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Hawaii Superferry: An ulterior motive?
By Ryan Sibley Apr 12, 2010 11:13 a.m.Was the Hawaii Superferry project conceived of as a means of securing a military contract? Speculation in Hawaii among activists that the ferries might have eventually been used for interisland transport of the Army’s Stryker brigade and other military equipment fueled conflict between protestors and Superferry supporters.
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Government agency with a history of taxpayer losses keeps at it
By Ryan Sibley Apr 12, 2010 11 a.m.Between 2004 and 2009, the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, a federal agency that supports the U.S. shipbuilding industry and merchant marine, made just one loan from its troubled Federal Ship Financing Program, also known as Title XI. The borrower was Hawaii Superferry Inc., a politically connected company that hired a former chief counsel and deputy administrator of MARAD, among others, to lobby the agency. In 2005, Hawaii Superferry got a taxpayer-guaranteed loan for $139 million to build and operate a pair of high-speed ferries in the fiftieth state. Just four years later, the company filed for bankruptcy, listing assets of a mere $1 million.
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OGD: Labor releases five enforcement datasets
By Anupama Narayanswamy Apr 9, 2010 4:27 p.m."I now realize that I must have had my first glimmer of the need for preventive journalism as a young West Virginian who would hear of a mine disaster, then read heartbreaking stories of weeping widows and indignant editorials demanding effective safety regulations. But in the years that followed, no reporter went down into the mines to see if they were safer. We only found out they were not after the next disaster when a new round of heartbreaking articles and indignant editorials would appear." -- Charles Peters, Understanding government.com
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Other dangerous mines? Federal data can't tell you
By Anupama Narayanswamy Apr 6, 2010 1:28 p.m.Monday’s explosion that killed 25 miners at Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia came at a mine that had been flagged by inspectors for a series of violations – 3000 since 1995 and more than 500 in 2009 alone.
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New Gov’t Contractor Integrity Database Will Be Off-Limits to Public
By Claritza Jimenez Apr 5, 2010 2:07 p.m.For the first time, the government will centralize information detailing whether a contractor was terminated, disbarred or suspended from a federal contract or grant, in addition to any civil or criminal convictions linked to contracting work. The FAPIIS database will track any administrative agreements that a vendor signed to avoid getting suspended or disbarred, and will show “determinations of non-responsibility,” when a contractor showed a lack of integrity or poor performance.
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Introducing Recovery Explorer
By Anupama Narayanswamy Apr 1, 2010 5:09 p.m.More than a year has passed since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Federal agencies have been distributing some $787 billion appropriated by the act to jump start the economy. According to Recovery.gov, the Web site that tracks spending under the act, about 40 percent of that money has been spent, sent around the country in the form of contracts, grants, loans, tax benefits and entitlements.
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Stimulus Spotlight: What we're finding in Recovery.gov data
By Anupama Narayanswamy Apr 1, 2010 12:42 p.m.A research group that played a key role in the Manhattan Project is one of the biggest recipients of contracts from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
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Stupak 11 post: What we got wrong
By Bill Allison and Anu Narayanswamy Apr 1, 2010 9 a.m.We set out to look at how leadership--of both parties--persuades rank and file members to vote their way. In the 111th Congress, we've seen enormous discipline on both sides of the aisle on a series of high profile votes. Our hunch is that the leadership of both parties has something to do with that, and understanding what levers they have--whether it's funding earmarks, supporting their campaigns with money, appearing at fundraisers or through other means that we still can't track with the current state of congressional disclosure--is something we want to follow in the coming months.
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