Investigations

A builder of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge failed to disclose that a 19-foot section of concrete in the foundation of the span's signature tower had not hardened before it was tested.

Two U.S congressmen – one a Republican, the other a Democrat – are calling for a congressional investigation of the federal government's wildlife damage control program.

Like many ranchers, Bill Jensen drives a pickup, shoots a high-powered rifle and loves to talk about sheep, cattle and the outdoors. But unlike many ranchers, he no longer relies on the federal government for predator control.

The federal government's wildlife damage control program is based on outdated science and indiscriminate tools that kill many non-target animals, including protected species, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by WildEarth Guardians, a Colorado-based environmental group.

Bee investigative reporter Tom Knudson hosted a live chat on his look into the Wildlife Services agency, which specializes in killing animals that are deemed to pose a threat to agriculture, the public and the environment. Replay it here.

Here, in rugged terrain owned by the American public, a little-known federal agency called Wildlife Services has waged an eight-year war against predators to try to help an iconic Western big-game species: mule deer.

A Bee investigation has found Wildlife Service's practices to be indiscriminate, at odds with science, inhumane and sometimes illegal.

The target is most often beaver.

No tool in Wildlife Services' arsenal kills more nonselectively – or slowly – than the leg-hold trap.

The stories of dogs caught in Wildlife Services traps, rare footage of Wildlife Services aerial gunning in 2011, and solutions for predator control.

The often-hidden toll of Wildlife Services trappers on target and non-target species is sometimes recorded in government documents, many tracked down through the Freedom of Information Act. Here is a small sample of records and other materials.

A surging number of Californians are turning the tables on collection agencies as the state experiences an explosion in lawsuits filed against debt collectors.

After writing a bad check for $83.41, Kristy Schwarm began receiving letters purporting to be from the Mendocino County district attorney informing her she was under criminal investigation.

Leading engineering advisers, who met in secret to assess the testing and safety of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, maintain numerous financial and professional ties to the agency whose work they evaluate.

An expert engineering panel has concluded that the foundation of the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is safe and sound, according to its report released Friday.

On his redemptive journey from meth addict to district attorney, Jon Alexander carried one constant companion: a magnet for trouble.

In a sometimes contentious legislative hearing Tuesday, state senators told California Department of Transportation officials that their management of data falsification by a technician in one of the agency's testing units suggests pervasive management problems.

Caltrans released thousands of pages of new information Monday about data fabrications and other problems in its Foundation Testing Branch, a unit that examines the underground supports for bridges and other freeway structures in California.

Bay Area transportation commissioners said Wednesday that Caltrans has much to explain about why it failed to notify other officials that a technician who had fabricated test data on several structures also tested the new Bay Bridge.

A state oversight committee announced Tuesday that it had requested a formal review of the foundation of the new Bay Bridge tower by the state's Seismic Safety Peer Review Panel.