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Reveal, an investigative radio show

prx.org

Join us on Sunday July, 13 at 7:00 p.m. for Reveal, an investigative radio show from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. In this episode: an investigation into accidents and equipment failures in the military; a collaborative investigation into US water standards; and another in CIR's series of veteran investigations.

Profiting off of the GI Bill

Credit Adithya Sambamurthy/CIR
David Pace works as a maintenance electrician at Naval Base San Diego, despite having a University of Phoenix degree paid for with GI Bill funds.

Under an expanded GI Bill, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars can now go to college tuition-free. But there’s one campus in particular that has received more GI Bill money than any other campus in the country: the University of Phoenix in San Diego.

CIR reporter Aaron Glantz explains the phenomenon and why veterans who graduate from there say they can’t get jobs with their degrees.

The Coast Guard’s string of deadly accidents
 
The U.S. Coast Guard – the fifth branch of the military – has suffered a string of potentially avoidable and sometimes deadly accidents, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment damage, lawsuits from civilians and internal investigations that have questioned safety procedures.
 

Credit David DelPoio for CIR
Ronald Gill Sr.’s son was killed in 2007 after being thrown from a boat while serving with the Coast Guard in Washington’s Puget Sound.

  CIR reporter G.W. Schulz examines the safety record of the Coast Guard dating back to 2000 and finds lapses in judgment and missed opportunities to strengthen safety standards to protect crew members and civilians.

Schulz introduces us to a Coast Guard pilot whose helicopter ran into transmission wires that weren’t properly marked. He also talks with the family of a Coast Guard member who died as a result of a risky boating maneuver. And he speaks to the former commandant of the Coast Guard about the service’s safety record.

The battle over arsenic

You may not know it, but you probably consume arsenic regularly in the food you eat and the water you drink. In 2008, scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that arsenic was 17 times more potent a carcinogen that previously thought. But a closed-door maneuver in Congress has blocked the EPA from issuing its findings.

The Center for Public Integrity reporter David Heath takes us to Maine, where researchers have found that children drinking water containing arsenic – even water that met federal standards – scored significantly lower on IQ tests. The research is just one of hundreds of studies that call into question whether the current drinking-water standard for arsenic is adequate. 

Heath unravels the backroom deals that have stalled the EPA’s latest assessment of arsenic. He examines how one paragraph of a congressional committee report attached to a bill instructed the agency not to take any actions based on its scientific findings. Heath investigates how one lawmaker received campaign contributions from a lobbyist for two pesticide companies that sell weed killer that was set to be banned on the condition that the EPA complete its scientific review of arsenic. Because of political interference, that ban never happened, and the weed killers are still on the market.

Buying execution drugs in secret

Missouri is one of several states that are buying their execution drugs in secret.

But last year, St. Louis Public Radio reporters Chris McDaniel and Véronique LaCapra uncovered the identity of the state’s then-supplier, a pharmacy in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The pharmacy was not licensed to sell drugs in Missouri. The reporters also found that a top corrections official paid the pharmacy in cash – $11,000 per execution.

Since the initial investigation, the state has become even more secretive. McDaniel has sued the state for withholding records.

Jason has served as WRVO's news director in some capacity since August 2017. As news director, Jason produces hourly newscasts, and helps direct local news coverage and special programming. Before that, Jason hosted Morning Edition on WRVO from 2009-2019. Jason came to WRVO in January of 2008 as a producer/reporter. Before that, he spent two years as an anchor/reporter at WSYR Radio in Syracuse.