Archive for the ‘Original’ Category
Reporting: ‘Voluntary’ immigration program really isn’t
Cities and counties can’t stop U.S. immigration officials from sifting through local police records to root out illegal immigrants, even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement has characterized the program as voluntary since it started up two years ago, federal documents show. …
Reporting: States working harder to collect online sales taxes
Sales taxes or similar levies have always been in place on most online purchases in most states. But they are almost never paid. And with their budgets in crisis, states are more determined than ever to get their share.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Reporting: Most U.S. gas lines don’t use latest inspection technology
Almost two-thirds of America’s natural gas pipelines — including the 30-inch main that exploded last week in San Bruno, Calif. — are susceptible to potentially deadly faults because they can’t use the industry’s best technology for testing and cleaning them, federal records show.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Reporting: Steel gas mains draw regulators’ scrutiny
Natural gas mains made of steel, like the one that apparently failed in Thursday’s deadly explosion in California, are considered especially susceptible to corrosion and leaking, leading regulators in some states to consider replacing them.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Reporting: Gulf Coast could be poised for comeback
After five years, there are still so, so many questions: Can the Gulf Coast make it all the way back — not just from Hurricane Katrina, and not just from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and not just from the recession, but from the toxic multiplier effect of all three?
The answer to all of those questions, Gulf Coast leaders, environmental scholars and economists say, is yes.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Exclusive: Last U.S. combat brigade leaves Iraq
Live reporting of this was an NBC News/msnbc.com exclusive:
NEAR THE IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER, Aug. 18, 2010 — The last U.S. combat troops were crossing the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, bringing to a close the active combat phase of a 7½-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com and Richard Engel and Charlene Gubash/NBC News)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Reporting: Hundreds of millions in Katrina funds remain unspent
Five years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than 200,000 Louisiana homes, the state program established to help families rebuild still hasn’t paid out more than three-quarters of a billion dollars and has come under fire from a federal judge for discriminating against black homeowners.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com and Kiran Chawla/WDSU)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Portrait of stabbing suspect emerges
My profile of serial stabbing suspect Elias Abuelazam: Quiet and friendly — until he would explode:
“Abuelazam grew up in a well-to-do Christian Arab family in the city of Ramle, Israel, where former neighbors and acquaintances described him as a shy, quiet geek who fell in with the wrong crowd. They said he eventually fell prey to drugs and ‘criminal elements,’ which led his single mother — his father is reported to have died when Elias was very young — to send him to the United States, where many relatives now live. He arrived sometime around 1995.”
Full post (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Florida college students’, staff members’ personal data exposed
The central library system for Florida’s public colleges is sending out e-mail notices this week to as many as 126,000 summer school students, faculty and staff at six colleges disclosing that it exposed their personal information online from May 29 to June 2.
Investigators with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office discovered that “some personal information had been accessed by unauthorized persons and that some was available through Google until the search engine was notified,” the College Center for Library Automation said.
“The records of these institutions were contained in temporary work files that were being processed by CCLA at the time of exposure” during a software upgrade, it said.
While “CCLA has found no indication that the data has actually been obtained or misused,” it urged students, faculty and staff at the six institutions — Broward College, Florida State College-Jacksonville, Northwest Florida State College, Pensacola State College, South Florida Community College and Tallahassee Community College — to immediately place fraud alerts on their credit files.
Reporting: Branded! Public schools court corporate sponsors
Schools across the country are dropping their resistance to advertising, selling the rights to name their facilities to local businesses as education budgets fall further behind in the stagnant economy.
That’s why field hockey and lacrosse players at Hempfield High School in Landisville, Pa., practice and compete on Heart of Lancaster Hospital Turf Quad. At Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pa., the baseball team plays at SmileMaker Dental Field. At Wilson High School in West Lawn, Pa., the basketball teams compete at Discovery Federal Credit Union Gym.
Full story (Alex Johnson/msnbc.com)
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
Alex Johnson - Journalist at Large 