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truth + creativity
Grading the nation: How accountable is your state? by Caitlin Ginley for iWatch News The tales are sadly familiar to even the most casual observer of state politics. In Georgia, more than 650 government employees accepted gifts from vendors [...]
Four Whistleblowers Who Sounded the Alarm on Banks’ Mortgage Shenanigans by Cora Currier for ProPublica Buried in the sweeping mortgage settlementwith banks, for which final documents were filed this week, are five whistleblower casesthat shed light on the litany of foreclosure abuses by [...]
Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time by Abrahm Lustgarten and Nick Kusnetz for ProPublica In a first, federal environment officials today scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing, concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely [...]
by Nicholas Kusnetz for ProPublica A federal energy panel issued a blunt warning to shale gas drillers and their regulators today, saying they need to step up efforts to protect public health and the environment or risk a backlash that [...]
Billions loaned to California energy projects in wake of Solyndra by Daniel J. Goldstein and Serene Fang for California Watch The U.S. Department of Energy has moved ahead with 4.5 billion in new loans for solar energy projects [...]
This agreement is between the ICMP, the Ministry of Human Rights, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs and the Martyrs Foundation and relates to a specific three-year project that will investigate specific mass graves and surviving populations that can likely be linked to those graves.
The agency spearheading California’s efforts to build a bullet train through the center of the state is plunging forward despite repeated warnings that it may be tens of billions of dollars short of the money needed to build and operate the system, records and interviews show. “There is an air of unreality” about the project’s $45 billion construction budget, a panel of experts warned the state Legislature [PDF] last year.
The Credit CARD Act of 2009, signed into law two years ago, made consumer credit cards safer and more transparent. But, its rules did not apply to cards labeled for business or commercial use, placing millions of individuals and small business owners at risk. Practices the Federal Reserve deemed “unfair” or “deceptive,” such as hair trigger interest rates...
Gazprom, which grew out of the former Soviet Union's state gas ministry, had been busy buying up Yukos' far-flung empire, stoking American fears that soon Russia and its tough leader, Vladimir Putin, would control virtually all of the natural gas flowing to Europe. The United States wanted to stop that from happening. So the American embassy in Slovakia hired a Texas-based oil consultant and began secretly advising the Slovakian government on how to buy the 49 percent stake Yukos had held in Transpetrol, the Slovakian oil pipeline company.
The Obama administration panel named May 5 to study hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas drilling technique that injects thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water into the ground, is dominated by oil and gas industry professionals. Notably, the panel does not include citizens from communities concerned about the damage to health, water and private property posed by the surge in natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.