NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

A closer look at the case that has Sonia Sotomayor under fire

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Wes Allison - May. 31 (News Analysis) - In 2003, New Haven, Conn., offered a test to determine firefighter promotions. When no black firefighters scored high enough to make lieutenant or captain, the city scrapped the results. And the white firefighters who scored highest didn't get promoted either. Those are the facts behind the federal court case known as Ricci vs. DeStefano, and you're going to be hearing a lot more about it in the coming months.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

100 Days into his presidency has won over voters who once distrusted him

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Wes Allison - Apr. 26 (News Report) - Pat McMullen is sipping a cocktail in a cozy booth inside Pat McMullen's Irish pub just east of downtown, an easy stop after work to talk politics. "I didn't think he'd be good," McMullen is saying. "No, you didn't," his wife, Margaret, affirms. "I wasn't on the bandwagon," McMullen says. "He came from nowhere. A lot of people told me, This guy's going to be the one. I said, I dunno."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Obama White House vs. the Truth-O-Meter

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Apr. 23 (Special Report) - President Barack Obama and his top administration officials have faced the Truth-O-Meter 21 times since they took office, and they can claim a small victory: They haven't earned any Pants on Fire ratings. But their record for their first 100 days is far from perfect. We've given the Obama White House four False and two Barely True ratings. The Barely True ratings, along with a couple of the Half Trues, illustrate that the Obama White House has quickly learned the art of cherry-picking, selectively choosing the best scenarios and most favorable numbers for their claims.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 11 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

For their own good

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Ben Montgomery, Waveney Ann Moore - Apr. 19 (Special Report) - They were screwed-up kids, sent to the reform school in Marianna for smoking, fighting, stealing cars or worse. The Florida School for Boys -- that'd straighten them out. Fifty years later they are, by their own account, screwed-up men -- afraid of the dark, unable to love or be loved, twisted by anger, scarred by the whippings they endured in a cinder block hell called the White House.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Obameter: Tracking Barack Obama's Campaign Promises

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Apr. 15 (Special Report) - PolitiFact has compiled about 500 promises that Barack Obama made during the campaign and is tracking their progress on our Obameter. We rate their status as No Action, In the Works or Stalled. Once we find action is completed, we rate them Promise Kept, Compromise or Promise Broken.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average - 8 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Special interests funnel $6 million to Florida lawmakers

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Steve Bousquet, Breanne Gilpatrick, Alex Leary, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - In the latest election cycle, dozens of Florida legislators raked in $6 million in special-interest campaign money and spent a good deal of it on themselves for meals, rental cars, plane trips and hotels. Some lawmakers are feeding at the trough of contributors, enjoying expensive dinners at upscale restaurants with donors' money at a time when one of every 10 Floridians is on food stamps. Others are churning cash from one political committee to another, using it to finance direct contributions and attack ads for other candidates, thereby strengthening their own clout in a virtually untraceable shell game.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Out of options, single mom turns to food stamps

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Lane DeGregory - Jan. 11 (Special Report) - She sat alone in the stuffy waiting room, her thin hands folded in her lap. "I shouldn't be here," she said, mostly to herself. "I shouldn't have to be here." Lizvette Perez surveyed the dingy interior of the state office building. She saw a young mother with two toddlers dangling off her arms, a broken-looking man dragging a sleeping bag, a man in a starched shirt carrying a leather briefcase.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

A case study in housing collapse

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Michael Van Sickler - Nov. 30 (Investigative Report) - Thousands of miles from the trading floors of global stock markets, an abandoned house in one of Tampa's poorest neighborhoods is an improbable place to learn about why the world's financial system is collapsing. But if you want to understand how we got into this mess, the stucco house at 4809 N 17th St. isn't a bad place to start.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 11 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama aide promotes job plan, warns automakers

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Jim Kuhnhenn - Nov. 23 (News Report) - The market's positive reaction to President-elect Barack Obama's choice of treasury secretary was gratifying, a top Obama adviser said Sunday, and set the stage for a massive economic aid plan in January. The market soared almost 500 points on Friday with word Obama had settled on Timothy Geithner (pronounced GITE-ner) as a leader in the new economic team that he planned to announce Monday. The president-elect also outlined a plan over the weekend aimed at creating or saving 2.5 million jobs over the next two years by spending billions of dollars on public work projects and developing alternative energy sources.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Campaign of lies disgraces McCain

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - Sep. 14 (Editorial) - McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were so attracted to him.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 8 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Shift on immigration could cost McCain

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Alex Leary, Wes Allison - Jun. 21 (News Report) - The issue of illegal immigration used to set Sen. John McCain apart. While many in his party called for taller fences and harsher penalties, McCain wanted to give undocumented workers a path to citizenship. When his Republican rivals for the presidential nomination called him soft on border security, McCain flew to Miami last June to say they were "pandering for votes." Now McCain is the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, and he's still running as a party maverick on fighting global warming and cutting federal spending. But not immigration.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The John McCain file

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - Jun. 03 (Special Report) - John McCain is a U.S. senator from Arizona, a post he has held since 1986. He previously served two terms in the U.S. House. McCain is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and spent his career in the military, as his father did. He was a combat pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent 5 1/2 years as a prisonor of war. He was born in 1936 in Panama. He and his wife, Cindy, have four children together. McCain also has three children from his first marriage.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average - 17 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Why McCain should worry women

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Robyn E. Blumner - Mar. 09 (Opinion) - What scares me most about McCain, beyond our 100-year presence in Iraq, his itchy trigger finger relative to other foes, and his enthusiasm for tax cuts for the rich, is his fiercely conservative record on women's reproductive freedom. Here, there is no moderate McCain or reach-across-the-aisle McCain. On issues related to abortion and even birth control and sex education, McCain is as ideological as any Operation Rescue activist crawling around in front of an abortion clinic.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Crist endorsement is surprising, risky

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:40:00 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Adam C. Smith - Jan. 29 (News Report) - There may be no move Crist has made as governor that stunned so many friends and political insiders as his last-minute endorsement of McCain on Saturday.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

1 out of 56 equals 'most'? No, it doesn't

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:08:35 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Bill Adair, Angie Drobnic Holan, Shirl Kennedy - Oct. 23 (Special Report) - During the Republican debate, Mike Huckabee said he believes one of the defining issues facing the country is the sanctity of human life. Arguing that the issue is of historical importance, he invoked the Declaration of Independence's rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and said that most of the signers of the declaration were clergymen. Not even close.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Mud in your inbox

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:28:46 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Bill Adair - Oct. 21 (Review) - SUMMARY: Chain emails spread rumors about candidates that ricochet around the Internet for years. The emails sometimes begin with a grain of truth but often distort the facts, as we found with an attack against Hillary Clinton that falsely claims she refused to meet with the Gold Star Mothers.

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Debatable claims in N.H.

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:21:33 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Bill Adair - Sep. 07 (Review) - Immigration and the Iraq war dominated the Republican candidates' Sept. 5, 2007, debate in Durham, N.H. We're still trying to verify Duncan Hunter's claim that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay dine on glazed chicken and rice pilaf. But in the meantime, here are a few claims we have checked.

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Fact Check: Firing federal workers is difficult

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:34:57 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Sep. 06 (Review) - During a stump speech urging reforms of the federal workforce, John McCain invoked the stereotype of the incompetent federal worker who can never be fired, and he wasn't far off the mark.

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How much credit does Giuliani deserve for fighting crime?

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:59:51 -0700

St. Petersburg Times - By Wes Allison - Sep. 04 (News Analysis) - Violent crime in New York began falling three years before Giuliani took office in 1994, U.S. Justice Department records show. Property crime began falling four years before. The decline accelerated during his administration, but the "turnaround" he claims credit for started before him.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Jennings has another loss at voting machines

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 07:20:05 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By Anita Kumar - Feb. 24 (News Report) - Results of a comprehensive audit released Friday show that the voting machines used in the disputed Sarasota-area congressional race were not flawed. The findings are a blow to Democrat Christine Jennings, whose main argument in disputing her narrow loss to Republican Vern Buchanan is possible machine malfunction.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Habitat built it, no one wants it

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:37:31 -0800

St. Petersburg Times - By By Abhi Ragunathan - Feb. 10 (News Report) - ST. PETERSBURG - The house is neat and new, with three bedrooms, white concrete walls and a pretty lawn. And no family searching for a deal could ask for a more generous seller: Habitat for Humanity. But it seems Habitat can't find a buyer willing to live in Bartlett Park, even in a brand new house that comes with a zero percent interest loan.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer