California's Attorney General has joined the U.S. Department of Justice and several other states in a whistleblower lawsuit against for-profit educational firm Education Management Corporation. See which attorneys general in other states have launched investigations of for-profit colleges.
Super PACs, independent expenditure groups that can raise unlimited sums from individuals and organizations, already have begun outspending presidential candidates in the 2011 race. Use our database to see who is giving to these groups across the country.
California Watch and the Sacramento Bee have gathered thousands of formal declarations of opposition and support to bills filed in the California Legislature and 2011. Use our database to see which bills powerful organizations are supporting.
This interactive graphic by The Sacramento Bee shows the nearly 150 groups that recorded positions on 10 or more bills in the 2011 legislative session, and declared lobbying expenses during that period.
As of late 2010, the state had issued nearly 1,100 notices to school districts with construction projects that had known safety concerns. We've done our best to identify the projects below, but the state's data is messy.
The USC Annenberg Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism and California Watch commissioned tests to measure the Martin family’s exposure levels to dangerous metals and industrial byproducts. The results were delivered to the family on Jan. 31, 2011.
Prime Healthcare Services, a chain of 13 hospitals in Southern California and one in Shasta County, reports higher rates of several serious medical conditions than other California hospitals. At the same time, former doctors and employees of Prime say that chain owner Dr. Prem Reddy has urged doctors and medical coders to log those conditions, which pay a premium when treating elderly Medicare patients. Here's a primer on how we calculated hospitals' diagnosis rates.
California interest groups have filed nearly 7,000 reports this year disclosing what bills and issues they have lobbied in state government. Use this form to see which bills interest groups have lobbied in the Legislature.
Prime Healthcare Services acquired 11 California hospitals from 2005 to 2009. After Prime acquired each facility, the percentage of seniors with Medicare who were sent from the emergency room to the main hospital increased. Compare the Medicare admission rates at each hospital, before and after Prime Healthcare took ownership.
Despite years of efforts to equalize spending in California schools, some districts receive thousands of dollars more per student than others. But the bigger expenditure didn't assure higher test scores. Browse the spending per student and test score data by county for all school districts in the state.
