Howard Berkes
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Rates are now the highest they've been in nearly 50 years among veteran coal miners. Mining experts blame toxic silica dust, now more common in mines. -
Forty years after the Challenger disaster, NPR explores the engineers' last-minute efforts to stop the launch, their decades of guilt and the vital lessons that remain critical for NASA today. -
Allan McDonald, who directed the booster rocket project at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol, urged delaying the launch of the space shuttle before it exploded in 1986. He has died at age 83. -
The power of family history can lead a person to do a lot of things. For Howard Berkes, the family tradition of facing crises head-on led him to sign up for experimental testing of a COVID-19 vaccine. -
Howard Berkes covered the 1980 eruptions of Mount St. Helens for NPR and has returned to the volcano for multiple stories over the years. He recalls the massive blast and its aftermath. -
A Labor Department audit found no correlation between the federal system that fines mining companies for unsafe conditions and safety in mining operations. -
Coal miners will press members of Congress to fully restore a coal excise tax that supports miners diagnosed with black lung. The tax was cut more than 50% at the end of last year. -
Federal regulations for silica dust in coal mines haven't changed in decades. But since an NPR/Frontline report into black lung, some are calling for a new response. -
An extensive NPR and Frontline investigation finds that government data showed that thousands of miners were exposed to toxic dust. And despite multiple warnings, regulators didn't act to stop it.
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More than 2,000 miners in Appalachia are dying from an advanced stage of black lung. NPR and Frontline have found the government had multiple warnings and opportunities to protect them, but didn't.
