An analysis of the companies and business interests lobbying on the OECD-led global tax deal.
My take: Using web-based tools like Google Sheets, I scraped federal lobbying disclosures for terms mentioning the OECD or the tax deal's two pillars. I then cleaned and verified the data to find total spending which more than doubled between 2019 and 2023.

House lawmakers in spring sought to increase staffer pay by upping member allowances, but the early year optimism had faded among staffers by winter 2021.
My take: I reached out to sources on whether they believed the allowance boost would improve staffer retention and pay. I also found data and reports from CRS and others that I could turn into graphics using DataWrapper.

A look at how, areas that donated to President Donald Trump donated to Arizona's 2020 Senate candidates.
My take: I worked with the Roll Call team to write code to pull Federal Elections Commission data through its API into R, break it down by zip code and group it geographically using U.S. Census data.

A bank where Rogers once served as a director provided millions in Paycheck Protection Loans to business owners.
My take: I used R to filter out the PPP loans made by the bank where Rogers used to sit on the board. Then, I went through each business and created a database of owners and stakeholders. Then I compared that to federal elections data.

Looking at how some Democrats, who tout small-dollar contributions as grassroots support, raised small sums that way.
My take: I cleaned and analyzed FEC data using the programming language R. The story is a summary of my findings and original reporting on how some lawmakers drift away from small-dollar donations.

A data-driven story on how warming temperatures would likely mean earlier blooms.
My take: I used R to help tell a story about how earlier blossoming cherry trees could cause some scheduling snafus for organizers of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. I used R to create a graphic for the piece that showed, historically, when the festival and peak bloom occurred.

A story about Chesapeake Bay conservation program funding levels in the new farm bill.
My take: Two Carto maps were created by joining shapefiles with USDA data in R. The third, about zip codes in Maryland receiving federal funds, was created with data I scraped from the web using the Rvest library. Graphs are built in D3.

Historically D.C. provided more maintenance to affluent parts of the city, but that's slowly changing.
My take: I analyzed the D.C. Tree Inventory with R to see where D.C. trees are planted. Then, I mocked up graphics of my findings and worked with the NBC graphics team to build visuals using Carto and DataWrapper.

A plan to buy and demolish 10 buildings on Main Street was put on hold, and that’s frustrated some business owners.
My take: I used an R library developed by the USGS to analyze data collected at area stream gauges. I also built two graphics: a GIF I created using QGIS and Photoshop, and another that I built using C3. I took all the photos too.

The story looks at fouled wells in a Wake area surrounded by city, but without municipal services.
My take: The citizen initiative first popped up in county commission meetings. I researched area history in both city and N&O archives. I examined county and EPA records, and interviewed residents.

An investigation into why a 7-story apartment building never got built.
My take: After driving by the crane many times, I finally decided to figure out why it hardly moved. Doing that required me to untangle a web of court documents, file an information request and interview neighbors.

The James F. Battin Federal Building was sold by the GSA to Washington-based Colorado Tire Corp. Years later, it's still empty.
My take: I searched court records in several states, state and nonprofit databases, and looked through federal filings to track down the company and some of its mysterious activities.