Confidential Documents: Red Cross Itself May Not Know How Millions Donated for Haiti Were Spent by Justin Elliott

The American Red Cross is under pressure this week to answer detailed questions from Congress about the spending of nearly half a billion dollars it raised after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. But internal documents newly obtained by ProPublica and NPR call into question whether the Red Cross itself has an accurate accounting of how money was spent. The reports, assessments …

Left in the Brain: Potentially Toxic Residue from MRI Drugs by Jeff Gerth

With a family history of breast cancer, Marcie Jacobs decided in June 2001 that an MRI screening was her best preventive option. As is common with MRIs, Jacobs was injected beforehand with a contrast agent, a drug that helps sharpen the resulting images. But after a few of these treatments, she began noticing some strange cognitive effects. Jacobs began missing …

How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes By Justin Elliott and Laura Sullivan

The neighborhood of Campeche sprawls up a steep hillside in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Goats rustle in trash that goes forever uncollected. Children kick a deflated volleyball in a dusty lot below a wall with a hand-painted logo of the American Red Cross. In late 2011, the Red Cross launched a multimillion-dollar project to transform the desperately poor area, which …

Cold War II to McCarthyism II By Robert Parry

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the U.S. government’s plunge into Cold War II would bring back the one-sided propaganda themes that dominated Cold War I, but it’s still unsettling to see how quickly the major U.S. news media has returned to the old ways, especially the New York Times, which has emerged as Official Washington’s propaganda vehicle of choice. What …