Limited Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforcement and coverage favors large farms, leaving the rest on an honors system in which dangerous farm practices fly under the radar until a serious, and often fatal, injury occurs.
There have been more than 900 grain-bin entrapments throughout the country since 1964, according to data compiled by Purdue University’s Agricultural Safety and Health Program. More than half of those incidents were fatal.
OSHA’s federal guidelines prohibit it from enforcing regulations through inspections on both family farms and farms that employ fewer than 10 workers. Consequently, many places left vulnerable to grain-bin accidents are neglected.
This IowaWatch collaboration with four Iowa newspapers, published in fall 2013, is particularly pertinent during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday period. It tells you how and why gaps exist in home ownership, jobs and pay, education and crime exist among white, black and Latino Iowans.
Home ownership is taken for granted as the default standard of living for many Iowans. But black and Latino homeownership rates have dropped since 1960, an analysis of census data shows. The reasons are explored in the conclusion of the series, "Iowa's Opportunity Gap," an IowaWatch collaboration wi
Only 10 percent of Latino Iowans graduated college in 2010 compared to 16 percent of black and 25 percent of white Iowans, all below the national averages. Perhaps more alarming because how important a high school diploma is, a gap in high school graduation rates for white, black and Latino Iowans c
Two of every five black Iowans didn’t always live in poverty.
In the 1970 and 1980 censuses, for example, their poverty rate was 28 percent. It jumped to 37
White Iowans have made strong gains in high school and college graduation rates, lowering poverty levels, median family income and home ownership since 1960. But black and Latino achievements have grown far more slowly, or in some cases declined, widening an opportunity gap among the races, an IowaW
A new Center for Public Integrity report details a vigorous campaign by a chemical production industry that is in full gear to smother toxics reform bills filed in states across the country, Iowa included.
Overall, 1 percent of the charities raising money for veterans groups get 86 percent of the revenue. See who they are in this News21 report, which warns that much of the money at other places doesn't reach veterans. Best advice: know where your money is going.
Wind producers in Iowa say they want a level playing field when it comes to tax breaks. They would go so far as to push for cutting tax breaks for other energy producers, like oil and gas. The current tax break wind production gets ends Dec. 31.
Sex sells in the video game business but it often is based on portrayals of curvy women wearing suggestive clothing, if much at all, who are subservient to men during games. Some real women are fighting back, trying to crack what has been called a boys' club.
