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FBI statistics show violent crime is down, but politicians keep funding more cops, lavishing them with military equipment, and training and encouraging them to act like soldiers instead of peace officers.
In the final part of our series, the story of the color film of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that was locked and hidden from Americans—and even the Japanese—for decades. Frame by frame, the footage captured the horrors. If not for certain people, almost no one would have ever seen it.
A quick look back at some of the groundbreaking reporting WhoWhatWhy has done on the Boston bombing case—why we’ve done it, and why we believe it matters.
A poll in Boston turned up a surprising finding—42 percent of those polled are unsure if Boston Marathon Bombing suspect Dzohkhar Tsarnaev is guilty. That’s a shock given the dominant media narrative that says he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet the case is still full of lots of contradictions and unanswered questions that beg for answers.
There’s a rush to judgment about who shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. That’s clearly dangerous with Ukraine a flashpoint in what appears to be turning into a new Cold War. Here are some things to think about as we try to separate fact from speculation and even outright fiction.
When looking at the aggressive, almost military police response to unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, a big dose of collective amnesia makes it easy to forget that the United States has been here before. And may yet be there again.
An update on the strange one-car crash involving ex-FBI chief Louis Freeh. He nearly took out several motorists. An unidentified FBI man materialized quickly at the rural scene. And more curiosities.
The Secret Service cordon around President Obama is looking more like a sieve after two security breaches in as many days. The most serious one involved a former soldier getting into the front door. He’d already been stopped outside the White House a month before—carrying a hatchet. Is he another “lone nut” to be dismissed reflexively or a sign of something else?
In the rush to pin the blame on the Tsarnaev brothers for virtually every crime in Boston around the time of the marathon bombing, is it possible that law enforcement has left the real killer on the loose?
The Ferguson riots fast-tracked the debate over whether police should be forced to wear cameras, to protect citizens from abuse and cops from false accusations. Yet officers in Ferguson and elsewhere have demonstrated rogue behavior when they’re being filmed, and few are being reined in. Are more cameras the answer to deeper problems underlying police accountability?
The CIA torture report is as grim as can be imagined, and damning enough proof to change things. But it won’t.
Here’s a hand-picked collection of our best journalism this year. We hope it arms you with the power of information, and inspires you into the new year.