INVESTIGATIVE

After a storm of criticism, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month abandoned its proposed rule “reinterpretation” that would have allowed commercial landfills to start accepting low level radioactive waste in lieu of the nation’s four licensed facilities.

While access to COVID-19 testing proved to be somewhat easier for the wealthy and well connected, experts say vaccine availability will be tightly controlled and difficult for ineligible recipients to obtain.

The Investigative Unit examines how a local pandemic shut-down order forced a San Mateo family out of their own home, they say.

Infectious disease experts and epidemiologists from universities like Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Oxford say current shelter-in-place policies are not effectively protecting vulnerable people from COVID-19, while devastating public health in ways that will lead to irreparable harm for years to come.

Amid a rapidly-spreading coronavirus outbreak that’s infected about a third of all people incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, dozens of COVID-19 positive prisoners declared a hunger strike this week in protest of what they call “dismal” living conditions during their quarantine, according to sources inside the prison.

NBC Bay Area Investigation finds some dental offices reopening even though serious infection dangers may persist.

Worldwide demand for COVID-19 testing could potentially threaten supply levels of certain chemicals needed to process the tests. Now, a Bay Area company hopes its tiny invention will solve a potentially massive dilemma.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed a rule “reinterpretation” that would allow commercial landfills to start taking in low level radioactive waste, in lieu of the four currently licensed disposal facilities nationwide.

An investigation by NBC Bay Area has found more than two dozen major construction projects worth billions of dollars – either recently completed or still in development or – located in areas along San Francisco Bay that scientific computer models show will be flooded or surrounded by water by 2050 or earlier.

Ships are hitting and killing whales off the California coast at some of the highest rates in more than a decade, according to data obtained and tabulated by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit. The spike in ‘ship strikes’ comes despite a 5-year government initiative to slow down vessels as they make their way into San Francisco Bay.