Robert Benincasa

An NPR investigation finds that many people with VA loans who got a COVID forbearance are at risk of losing their homes. The VA has a fix, but it could be too late unless it halts foreclosures.

Miners and their advocates testify in favor of new silica regulations aimed at preventing black lung disease

At a hearing miners asked regulators to crack down on silica dust which causes lung cancer. They want rules to require more air monitoring and contain specifics about citations and fines.

The Labor Department has proposed a new rule limiting miners' exposure to silica — a toxic dust linked to a recent epidemic of severe black lung disease among coal miners.

More than half of the counties in the nation's so-called Diabetes Belt also have high rates of medical debt among their residents, an NPR analysis found.

A 2017 NPR investigation found that many funeral businesses failed to disclose prices to consumers. The FTC may modernize the existing rule to make such information more transparent.

Elderly homeowners in Florida are suing the billion dollar company that owns their mobile home park. Big companies are buying up parks around the country, but critics say residents pay the price.

Hundreds of cities and towns are seriously short of housing, both homes to buy and rentals, according to a new study. It's the main reason that home prices and rents are so high.

A new study links the epidemic of severe lung disease among coal miners to toxic silica dust. The findings echo a 2018 investigation by NPR and the PBS show Frontline.

Investors and companies are swooping in to buy mobile home parks. They raise fees and rents, and evict people who can't pay — using billions of dollars' worth of low interest, government-backed loans.

Heat has killed hundreds of workers in the U.S., many in construction or agriculture, an investigation by NPR and Columbia Journalism Investigations found. Federal standards might have prevented them.

Landfills are among the nation's largest sources of methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. But accurately measuring methane is a major challenge to reducing it.

A recent government report called the mine safety standard regulating deadly silica dust "out of date," and difficult to enforce. The Biden administration may finally change that standard.

Most of the largest civil settlements for police killings were in liberal areas in the year after the Ferguson unrest. Now, lawyers say current protests are hardening political divisions on policing.

Seven multi-million-dollar contracts are at the center of a House subcommittee probe. Investigators say the companies lacked experience and some had political connections to the Trump administration.

The small business sectors that received the largest share of federal loans from the coronavirus relief package known as PPP include restaurants, doctors' offices, car dealerships and law firms.

In the government's hurried pandemic response, more than 250 companies, some with little or no medical supply experience, got contracts worth more than $1 million without fully competitive bidding.

Car traffic took a big dip beginning in late March, and headlines celebrated clean air around the U.S. But an NPR analysis of EPA data tells a more troubling story.

Faced with lost revenue from canceled elective procedures, hospitals laid off 1.4 million health care workers in April, including nearly 135,000 from hospitals.

In an analysis of 78 nursing homes in New York where six or more residents have died from COVID-19, NPR found nursing homes with more people of color were more likely to have more deaths.