From iWatch News

By Chris Hamby

Autopsies of the 29 men killed in last year's explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia revealed a surprising fact: Most had coal workers' pneumoconiosis, better known as black lung, a deadly disease that...

By Susan Q. Stranahan

At the Indian Point nuclear power plant just north of New York City, anxieties often center on the potential consequences of a radiation release so close to so many people. More than 17 million, 5 percent of the U.S. population, live within 50 miles of the...

By Susan Q. Stranahan

The safety plan for any nuclear power plant reads like a doomsday book. Earthquakes, floods, airplane crashes, mass evacuations, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, tornadoes -- all are disaster scenarios deemed a risk to reactor safety. The most likely threat, however, involves none of these headline cataclysms.

Fires regularly...

By Peter Stone

In the wee hours next Monday in Las Vegas, when many Sin City visitors are still sound asleep or just going to bed, an army of top fundraisers for Mitt Romney will start dialing for dollars with an eye toward raising millions for his presidential exploratory committee.

By Joanne Kenen and Rochelle Sharpe

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a potential Republican presidential candidate respected for his fiscal prudence, credits his success in government to the business skills he learned as a pharmaceutical executive.

But when Daniels worked as a top executive at Eli Lilly & Co., one of...

Last fall, Iris Cross beamed into millions of homes, the friendly BP worker hailing from New Orleans who assured TV viewers that the oil giant won't stop cleaning up the worst oil spill in U.S. history "until we make this right."

She became the very public face of BP, a...

The Huffington Post is a sponsor of the Center for Public Integrity

iWatch News
by Aaron Mehta

Even as leaders grapple with the nation's fiscal troubles and urge expanded drilling for natural resources, their failure to remedy decades-old systemic shortcomings at the Interior Department may have allowed...

The Huffington Post is a sponsor of the Center for Public Integrity

An Arizona gun dealer pressed by federal agents to continue selling weapons to suspected straw buyers for Mexican cartels repeatedly sought assurances from prosecutors and law enforcement that the government would not let the guns cross into Mexico...

BP will pay a $50.6 million penalty and spend at least $500 million to upgrade its Texas City, Texas, refinery where a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers.

The record fine was negotiated after the U.S. Department of Labor last year found BP "failed to live up to several extremely important...

Fannie Mae executives bungled their stewardship of the federal government's massive foreclosure-prevention campaign, creating a bureaucratic muddle characterized by "mismanagement and gross waste of public funds," according to a whistleblower lawsuit by a former Fannie Mae executive and consultant.

Caroline Herron, a former Fannie vice president who returned to the...

By Chris Hamby and Elizabeth Lucas
The Center for Public Integrity

Tired of waiting for state regulators to take meaningful action, two environmental groups are preparing to file a lawsuit against the nation's largest oil refinery, accusing ExxonMobil Corp, of illegally releasing at least 5.9 million pounds...

By Josh Israel and Aaron Mehta
The Center for Public Integrity

Who has funded the ascent of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? A prominent trial lawyer, his graphic-designer wife, an IBM heiress turned healing-touch practitioner, a land developer, and a savings and loan magnate comprise...

By Josh Israel, Aaron Mehta, and Caitlin Ginley
The Center for Public Integrity

Long before Congressman John Boehner of Ohio rose to his current position as House Republican Leader, he created the "Thursday Group" -- a weekly discussion around a U.S. Capitol conference room table with conservative...

By Josh Israel, Aaron Mehta, and Caitlin Ginley
The Center for Public Integrity

Tobacco and whiskey have helped build Mitch McConnell's political career. Tobacco giants Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. are two of Mitch McConnell's top five career campaign PAC contributors. And three of the...

By Josh Israel, Aaron Mehta, Caitlin Ginley, and Claritza Jimenez

A former professional gambler, a taxi company magnate, a telecommunications lobbyist, and a giant tobacco company are among the top lifetime givers to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 70, of Nevada, who faces the toughest re-election race of his political...

The U.S. government has investigated potentially thousands of BP leaks, spills and other incidents but the information is stored in a Coast Guard database that keeps key details such as investigative findings and penalties out of the public's reach.

More than 8,000 incident reports about BP's U.S. spills, emissions, and...

Coast Guard officials grasped the potential threat of a catastrophic spill within hours of the explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, estimating that 8,000 barrels a day of crude oil could possibly gush out of the well in the event of a complete blowout, according to