Michael J. Berens

Desperate for help, a retiree from Orland Park wrote to the Illinois attorney general's office last year. He had invested $25,000 of his retirement savings in 1998 with a suburban...

When the U.S. Coast Guard raided a Russian fishing vessel on the Pacific Ocean in 2001, investigators hit a jackpot: more than 12 tons of chalky powder hidden beneath a...

Recently widowed, Harrell "Hank" Maisel, 62, had nowhere to turn. His bagel shop was on the skids. Creditors circled on mounting credit card debt. His home was in the grip...

When the U.S. Coast Guard raided a Russian fishing vessel on the Pacific Ocean in 2001, investigators hit a jackpot: more than 12 tons of chalky powder hidden beneath a...

Class-action attorneys have targeted bad water, poor auditing and a case of mold in an apartment complex. They have taken on faulty tires, police strip searches and even the beer...

In an effort to reduce hospital infections, the nation's health-care workers should wash their hands with fast-drying alcohol gels, which are more effective at killing germs than soap and water,...

The Illinois Department of Public Health's system for tracking infectious diseases is so flawed that it misses more cases than it catches, undermining the state's ability to react swiftly to...

Lapses in infection control and overuse of antibiotics are spawning drug-resistant germs that are spreading from hospitals into the community at unprecedented rates. These new super germs--stronger, more elusive and...

Tamia Jones arrived two months early, weighing less than 3 pounds. For the first three days, her life was charted from precarious to uncertain to probable. By the fifth, she...