CIR and NBC Bay Area are launching a new project to collect Bay Area day care facility records with the help of community volunteers.
Katharine Mieszkowski
Senior Reporter and Producer
Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal. She's also been a senior writer for Salon and Fast Company. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Slate and on NPR's "All Things Considered."
Her coverage has won national awards, including the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award two years in a row, an Online News Association Award, a Webby Award and a Society of Environmental Journalists Award. Mieszkowski has a bachelor's degree from Yale University. She is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.
Posted inEnvironment
Treasure Island cleanup exposes Navy’s mishandling of its nuclear past
This story was also published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. SAN FRANCISCO – Halfway across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, an abrupt exit leads to Treasure Island, a seven-sided plain with spectacular views that inspire grandiose dreams. The Army Corps of Engineers created the island for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, encircling […]
Posted inUncategorized
Calif. to provide limited information on child care inspections online
Weeks after a report by The Center for Investigative Reporting and NBC Bay Area on the inaccessibility of records on California’s nearly 48,000 child care facilities, the Department of Social Services announced it will post basic inspection information online within a few months.
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Posted inU.S. Education
California’s lack of online child care records leaves parents in dark
Denise Davis, shown in her daughter’s bedroom in her San Jose, Calif., home, used to send her children to a day care in Stephanie Newbrough’s home in Milpitas. The day care was shut down last year after a long history of breaking state rules, including a lack of supervision of children. Davis says she would […]
Posted inUncategorized
Radioactive poisoning may still be risk on Treasure Island, memo says
Department of Public Health surveyors found a half-inch-wide radioactive disk under a grassy area between apartment complexes last March. The octagonal shard was so hot that holding onto it for an hour could cause radiation burns and hair loss, according to a memo.Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under […]
Posted inEnvironment, Food Security
Foster Farms salmonella outbreak highlights flaws in food safety system
The Foster Farms chicken processing plant on Cherry Avenue in Fresno, Calif., is one of three plants linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 338 people across the country.Craig Kohlruss/The Fresno Bee via Associated Press Each month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a list calling out chicken processing plants across the […]
Posted inEnvironment, Food Security
9 questions we’re answering about salmonella
Fotokon/Shutterstock.com An outbreak of an especially strong form of salmonella has sickened hundreds of people in 20 states. But how it happened largely has remained a mystery. Here’s what we know about some of the more pressing questions surrounding the outbreak. Have other questions? Email the reporter at kmieszkowski@cironline.org. What led to the salmonella outbreak? […]
Posted inEnvironment
Air Force hopes to stick California city with radioactive waste dump
Video by Sharon Pieczenik If U.S. Air Force official Steve Mayer is bothered by California’s refusal to inherit the radioactive waste dump he’s building outside Sacramento, he doesn’t show it. He’s plowing ahead with plans at the old McClellan Air Force Base to entomb soil contaminated with radium-226, a glow-in-the-dark substance that can cause cancer, […]
Posted inU.S. Education
Open-campus policy eats away at school nutrition effort
Scott Sowko, a sophomore at Berkeley High School, leaves Bongo Burger, a fast food restaurant near the school. Nearly 1 in 3 high school campuses across the country allow students to leave campus during lunch, according to a report from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.Noah Berger/Center for Investigative Reporting At […]
Posted inEnvironment
How we searched for cesium contamination on Treasure Island
Last summer, the Center for Investigative Reporting began looking into reports of radioactive contamination at the former Treasure Island Naval Station. Along the way, a source told CIR that cesium-137 had been found at the site – yet that alleged finding from 2007 was not in official U.S. Navy cleanup reports reviewed by CIR. In […]