Reports In The News

In the News: Links to Background Material

This page provides links to studies and reports that have been in the news recently or background material on news events, most recent listed first.

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Base Realignment and Closure Reports

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/brac.htm

A backgrounder on the history of BRAC, with links to official documents from the 3 US service branches. Also see a collection of GAO reports on the

BRAC process at http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/featured/brac.html and a backgrounder on Military Base Closures from the University of Louisville Library at http://library.louisville.edu/government/federal/agencies/defense/

Hours after the Defense Department announced which military facilities the Pentagon had put on its shutdown list, state leaders began scrambling to save the installations, especially in Connecticut, Georgia, Maine and South Dakota where major bases with thousands of jobs were targeted for closure. But veterans of past closures said states are better off channeling their energies into a backup plan. http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136& languageId=1&contentId=31625

Dangerous Roads

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/tvnews/dtl_dangerousroads2005/form.asp

A searchable database of America's most dangerous roads, as reported on

MSNBC's Dateline.

Aging to take toll on state workforces. More than 25 states will experience huge employee turnover in the next decade as aging public servants retire. Recent studies that document the problem found that the state of Washington will be hardest hit, and that Maine, Tennessee, Michigan and Pennsylvania are right behind.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId =136&languageId=1&contentId=22518

California law on ID theft seen as model.

When con artists recently illegally gained access to Social Security numbers and other sensitive personal data of nearly 145,000 people, only the 35,000 Californians affected were initially notified by ChoicePoint, the data collection giant that erroneously disclosed the information. Now 26 other states are considering imitating California's effort to guard against identity theft.

http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId =136&languageId=1&contentId=22828

Spurred by Massachusetts' 2003 ruling to legalize same-sex marriages, states are racing to pass constitutional amendments prohibiting courts from issuing rulings in favor of gay unions. The drive builds on the political backlash in last year's elections, when voters in 13 states overwhelmingly approved amendments codifying marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Article with links is at http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId =136&languageId=1&contentId=20695

Ever wonder how much money your local school spends on education per student? Or how many students there are per teacher? Or how well the students score on standardized tests? Or how about comparing all that information - per pupil spending, student teacher ratios, proficiency scores - side-by-side with neighboring schools, or even compare it with state-wide or national averages? All this data and millions of other education snippets now are a mouse-click away for parents, educators and policy makers, thanks to an innovative Web site launched March 29 by the National Education Data Partnership, a collective of national education groups. Created by Standard & Poor's School Evaluation Services, http://www.SchoolMatters.com contains the largest collection of public education data ever assembled - and it's free. Stateline news article is at http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId =136&languageId=1&contentId=21827

REPORT BY THE COMMISSION ON THE INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES OF THE UNITED STATES REGARDING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (March 31, 2005) A harshly critical report to President Bush, prepared by a commission that he appointed, concludes "that the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This was a major intelligence failure." It is at http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/wmd33105rpt.pdf

The Kaiser Family Foundation report on attitudes toward sex education in school and supporting material, in Adobe Acrobat format, is available at http://www.kff.org/content/2000/3048/

Census report showing improvement in health-care coverage as of 1999, including state figures, is available in Adobe Acrobat format at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthin99.html

An analysis of the Census Bureau's report on improved health-care coverage in 1999, by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (which describes itself as a nonpartisan research organization most interested in policies affecting low- and moderate-income people), is at http://www.cbpp.org/9-29-00health.htm

Report by National Academy of Sciences on improving prevention of AIDS is at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309071372/html/

Opening statement from public briefing on the report is at http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/(ByDocID)/ 5A7B8F6D6FE72D3E85256967004C5F36?OpenDocument

FTC statement, delivered Sept. 13 by Chairman Robert Pitofsky, on marketing of violence to children by entertainment industry, is at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2000/09/violencerpttest.htm

The FTC report on the issue is available at: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/09/youthviol.htm

Census Bureau's latest report on poverty in America is available, in Adobe Acrobat format, at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povty99.html. At the same location are sections of the report that can be read on the Web and the press release announcing it.

An analysis of the Census report on poverty by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which describes itself as a nonpartisan research organization specializing in issues that affect low- and moderate-income people, is at http://www.cbpp.org/9-26-00pov.htm. (9/27)

Report by UN Population Fund on status of women globally is at http://www.unfpa.org/swp/swpmain.htm. (9/22)

Study by National Low-Income Housing Coalition on housing cost vs personal income is available at http://www.nlihc.org/oor2000/index.htm

Report of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on earthquake vulnerability, in Adobe Acrobat format, is at http://www.fema.gov/pdf/FEMA366.pdf

Independent prosecutor's statement on Whitewater investigation is at http://www.oicray.com/000920.htm

Report by American Association for Advancement of Science says that... "neither science nor society are ready for research that would transmit genetic changes to offspring... [and] argues that trials involving inheritable genetic modifications (IGM) are unsafe, and should not proceed without proper oversight and until questions of ethics, efficacy, and safety have been addressed." The report, in pdf format, is available at http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/sfrl/germline/main.htm.

Urban Institute study, "What Accounts for the Growth of State Government Budgets in the 1990s?". (9/3)

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presents long-term trends in the school performance of nine-, thirteen-, and seventeen-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science: "NAEP 1999 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance" (9/1)

National Center for Educational Statistics has released projections to the year 2010 for enrollments, teachers, graduates, and expenditures: "Projections of Education Statistics to 2010" (9/1)

The Health Resources and Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services has unveiled a new Web site that makes available health data for all 3,082 US counties: Community Health Status Indicators Project

Federal study of drug use, with state-by-state figures.

Report on violence by postal workers, in Adobe Acrobat pdf format.

Report of the National Institute on Aging released Thursday, 8/10, on the improving health and longevity of older Americans, is at http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/agingstats/chartbook2000/default.htm (8/14)

Released on August 9, a new 462-page report from U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher argues that smoking rates could be cut in half within a decade if proven antismoking efforts are fully implemented. http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/tobacco_use/ (8/13)

Interim reports by the National Transportation Safety Board on crash of Egypt Air Flight 990 are at http://www.ntsb.gov/events/EA990/docket/EAContents.htm

The report by the National Center for Children in Poverty, tracking child poverty by state, is available at http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/cprb2txt.html

The Fed Reserve's report on cooling of the economy is at http://federalreserve.gov/FOMC/BeigeBook/2000/20000614/default.htm, with links to the reports from each district.

FYI: With the cost of electricity soaring in some deregulated markets, the staff of the Federal Trade Commission has prepared a very thorough, technically sophisticated (and very long) analysis of the structure of, and forces affecting, the deregulated electric utility business; it is at http://www.ftc.gov/be/v000009.htm

The World Health Organization's report, Tobacco Company Strategies to Undermine Tobacco Control Activities, is at: http://filestore.who.int/~who/home/tobacco/tobacco.pdf

Common Cause has provided a Web site dealing specifically with the soft-money issue in financing political campaigns, and which includes a search tool to find soft-money donors by locality (as well as industry). Most recent data is from 1999. http://www.commoncause.org/laundromat/

FYI: The text of the study in the Journal of the AMA on the Brady bill, which found that "implementation of the Brady Act appears to have been associated with reductions in the firearm suicide rate for persons aged 55 years or older but not with reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates," is at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v284n5/full/joc91749.html

9/24/00