The most recent Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data released illustrate the great changes that have impacted the U.S. housing market. Stories covering housing and the subprime mortgage crisis have been hot since the bubble began to burst. What's going on in your community? Use this data to find trends and stories about the state of the housing market in your neck of the woods. For calendar year 2006 more than 34 million loan records were reported in HMDA. That number dropped by about half, to approximately 17 million loan records in the 2008 calendar year.

Keegan Kyle of the Green Bay Press-Gazette joined the Voice of San Diego as public safety reporter.

Kristen Lombardi and David Donald, the Center for Public Integrity, won the Society of Environmental Journalists’ first place award in outstanding online reporting, for "The Hidden Costs of Clean Coal."

M.B. Pell and Jim Morris, the Center for Public Integrity, won the Society of Environmental Journalists’ second place award in outstanding online reporting for “Perils of the New Pesticides.” Morris has since joined the Sunlight Foundation.

David E. Kaplan, the Center for Public Integrity, won a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism, for "Tobacco Underground."

Theresa Marchetta, KMGH 7News anchor and investigative reporter, received the 2009 Kaiser Permanente "Thrive Award" for excellence in health care reporting for her "Elite Medicine" report. The award was presented at the Colorado Association of Black Journalists’ banquet.

Marchetta also received a regional Emmy for Best News Anchor.

By Andy Curliss
The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

Our running investigation has focused on former Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina.

We have revealed numerous instances of unreported gifts, favors or other perks provided to the governor while he was in office and shown how many of those people who made the gifts benefited from the governor or his administration. (The Democrat finished his second term in January.) The reporting has included revelations about a six-figure discount for the governor on coastal property, a job for his wife at N.C. State University, free travel, free cars, free golf and more.