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FEATURED SITES

SiloBreaker: An online search service for news and current events that delivers meaning and relevance beyond traditional search and aggregation engines.

Center for International Media Ethics: Group has a goal supporting journalists in maintaining high ethical standards that contribute to the media's consolidation as a fourth power in their country's governance.

NASA Images Library: Look up hundreds of space images.

National Lightning Detection Network Database: Use this site to track lightning strikes in your area.

Lombardi on Football: A former NFL executive blogs about the league. Some great scoops and perspective.

GuerrillaNews.com: Explores various global issues with links to articles, headlines, videos and blogs.

Yahoo! Finance Earnings Calendar: Track when earnings reports are due.

The Center for Public Integrity has compiled a comprehensive two-million-record database that includes every federal lobbying document filed since 1998. Read more.
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Elections and Blogging: There are a record number of bloggers covering the Democratic and Republican Conventions this year, including: Tech President, run by the Presidential Democracy Forum and tracks various campaign sites and postings on YouTube; RealClearPolitics, which publishes commentary, news, polling data and links to important resources from all points of the political compass; and Disaboom focuses on political interests and issues of people with disabilities. Also worth a look: Blue Mass Group Blog and the Crooks and Liars Blog. Related Resources: Daily News Sites.

More Election Coverage: The Toolbox's Election 2008 section is updated often with new resources, including MSNBC Politics: Candidate Brain Trusts, which profiles the top advisers to the presidential candidates. Gallup's election page offers survey results on the presidential race and related issues. Related Resources: Religion, Diversity, Experts, Federal Government and Investigative sections.

Severe Weather Resources: The Toolbox's Weather section features several online storm trackers and resources on tropical storms and hurricanes, including history of past storms. You'll also find some helpful flooding-related resources in the Public Safety section.

Summer Olympics: A new site, SportsFanLive, is covering the Olympics around-the-clock with a mixture of news and social networking for sports fans. You can tailor the page to feed specific stories, comments, a fan-finder using Google Earth and join in on reading the Olympic "blogathon." Also: We've added several new resources, including links to blood doping and sports medicine sites, to the Toolbox's 2008 Summer Olympics section, including history, records, events, background on host city, Olympic organizations, news coverage and issues such as human rights and air pollution at the Games. More Resources: International News Sites, Sports Medicine, Sports Business, Sports Sociology and Sports Law.

Back to School: Beloit College in Wisconsin has released its Mindset List about its freshmen (class of 2012). This is an annual compilation that offers a glimpse of the world as seen through the eyes of each incoming class and offers some fun insight into generation gaps. Also, you'll find dozens of back-to-school consumer statistics on the National Retail Federation site. Related Resources: Education and Business.

Gas and Housing Prices: Gallup.com has a great collection of survey information and news on rising gas costs. Mapquest has a page to track gas prices in your area. Zillow.com gives estimates on individual home values. Use resources in the Toolbox's Business Resources section to track the housing market , gas prices, food costs and other economic issues. Related Resources: Personal Finance and Labor sections.

Military: Troopspace.net is a social networking forum geared toward U.S. troops, families and anyone looking for military connections. The site can be helpful for networking and finding personal/family-generated stories in your area. Ancestry.com: Military Records offers thousands of records, old newsreels, etc. You can search by war, era or follow a timeline of events to find the information.

New Research Tools: Cuil is a new search tool developed by some former Google engineers. Google has launched its Knol site, which is similar to Wikipedia. You can use the SEDAR Database: to search for public records, and Omgili: searches more than 100,000 message boards and forums. IRE and NICAR's Occupational Safety and Health Administration Database contains more than 3.6 million workplace inspections in all states and U.S. territories from 1972 into June 2008. Related Resources: Public Records and Search Engines.

Daily News Sites: The Huffington Post launched a new Chicago section on Aug. 14. The site is planning several more local/regional sites in the coming months.

Food Safety: The Associated Press recently released a poll on food safety. You'll find more helpful resources in the Public Safety, Agriculture and Food and Cooking sections.

Trend Stories: August means back-to-school stories, and you'll find dozens of consumer statistics on the National Retail Federation site. Find more consumer trend resources in the Toolbox's Business section.

Finding Expert Sources: HelpaReporterOut.com, run by blogger and PR pro Peter Shankman, is a free subscription site that allows reporters to submit a query looking for sources. Simply enter the query, and it will get posted on the site's next e-mailing. Queries are sent out three a day to a list of more than 18,000 global sources. If a source has knowledge of a specific query, that source can just e-mail the reporter directly. It's important to note that PR people are kicked off the list for off-topic pitching. The site's definitely worth bookmarking. A lot of reporters are using it. Related Resources: Expert Sources and Public Relations sections.

Wildfires: Use tools in the Public Safety section for backgrounding stories on the California wildfires. You'll need to scroll down the page to find the section.

Iraq: The American Copy Editors Society site has background and an FAQ on military, weapons, media outlets and more. It's great for quick fact-checking. PBS Frontline has a site on Private Companies That Make America's War in Iraq Run. Also find several new resources in the Iraq and Military sections.

Writing With Numbers: SensibleUnits.com converts measurements, distances, weights, etc. into objects to which a reader can relate. Weird Converter is great for analyzing numbers and coming up with odd facts and figures for stories. It's great for comparing sizes, weights and gives the reader some perspective. Find more resources in the Toolbox's Writing With Numbers section.

Journalism Blogs: Find links to journalism and industry news blogs on this new page. Related Resources: Search Engines-Blog Search Tools and News Industry.

Legal Resources: The Knight Center for Specialized Journalism developed a beat guide for courts and law coverage on its website. Simply go to the website and page click on "Learn More" on the "New Resource" box. The International Center for Not-For-Profit Law Directory allows you to search legal documents, court cases, reports, and other civil society resources from countries around the world. ICNL's Online Library currently contains 2,300 resources from 144 countries in 37 languages.

9/11 Terrorist Attacks: Research and background stories in the Toolbox's archived 9/11 Terrorist Attacks section. It includes pages on Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism and the Taliban, Airline Safety, Dealing with the Trauma, other 9/11 Anniversary Archives and media coverage. Also, use the databases in the Expert Sources section for additional background.

Covering People With Disabilities: You'll find hundreds of resources on the Disabilities page.

Free Speech/First Amendment: We've added several new resources to the Free Speech/First Amendment page.

Jobs: The Toolbox's Jobs section features dozens of journalism job databases and search resources. They're organized by news, sports, photography, PR, etc.

Just for Fun: Check out the Cool Sites page for funny, offbeat web tools. The Strange News archive shows that fact truly is stranger than fiction.

Teaching Tools: Many of you who use this site train your newsrooms and classrooms how to do online research: College Media, High School Journalism, Print Design, Broadcasting, Ethics, Writing, Reporting Techniques, Writing with Numbers, Photojournalism and Copy Editing.

Reporting Tools: Reporting Techniques, Phone/E-Mail/Maps Directories, Search Engines, Expert Sources, Investigative, Form 990s, Public Records, Ethics, Check Domain Names, General Research and Writing With Numbers.

Editing and Fact-Checking Resources: The American Copy Editing Society has assembled a collection of 49 online quizzes about everything from AP Style and usage to Iraq and the Middle East. Related Resources: Copy Editing, General Research, History, Domain Sites and Writing With Numbers.

Writing with Statistics: Test your skills with IRE's interactive math quiz. After you've taken the test, click on the link at the bottom of the page to find out how to arrive at the correct answers. You'll find more resources like this one on the Writing with Numbers page. Related Resources: Spreadsheets, Business, Finance and Federal Government Census Data.

Student Resources: College and high school students will find many helpful Toolbox resources for researching papers, reporting and more: Reporting Techniques, Public Records, History, Ethics and Copy Editing.