With better gear, firefighters no longer surround and drown a fire - they go in.

An investigation by msnbc.com shows that the CDC routinely takes as long as a month - and sometimes as long as nine months - to visit the scene of firefighter deaths.

After a plane or train crash, the National Transportation Safety Board dispatches its experts within two hours. The investigators in their familiar jackets take charge of the scene, secure evidence, follow leads.

Mohammed al-Qahtani was not alleged to be a leader of the Sept. 11 plot. He was not trained as a pilot. If he was involved, he was one of the 'muscle' hijackers.

Less than a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, al-Qaida attacks were continuing: the firebombing of a synagogue in Tunisia in April, a bomb outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in June.

John Glenn's father, known as Herschel, was mostly deaf from injuries in World War I. To help out at home, young Glenn sold rhubarb all over town from the family garden.

Huguette Clark was an artist, a painter and doll collector.

The Manhattan district attorney has closed the well-publicized investigation of the handling of the $300 million fortune of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark - without charging anyone with a crime.

Some parents believe that competition helps prepare children to succeed. Others fear that their children will not be able to handle failure.

A 'Globe' examination found that Boston police officers exercise broad discretion when deciding whether to issue a ticket.

If police officers routinely issue tickets for the most serious traffic offenses, they'll be treating drivers of all races, sexes, and ages equally.

The Secret Service once watched for people who fit the popular profile of dangerousness: the lunatic, the loner, the threatener, the hater.

In Illinois, where legislators are paid $45,000, plus as much as $10,000 for leadership work, about half are full-time politicians.

Unlike the United States Congress, which mostly forbids outside employment, state legislatures are generally composed of people with other careers.

Like most other states, Illinois has little regulation of the economic interests of legislators and relies on public disclosure to keep the lawmaking honest.

In the Illinois State Capitol, in Springfield, farmer-legislators write the agriculture laws.

Jason McDermott's political career, however bogus, appears to have had an early and promising start.

The real Representative McDermott said Jason McDermott is no relation. The Congressman does have a son, but his name is James and he does not live in the Midwest.

Jason McDermott can be the most ingratiating young man: a born politician.

New flood maps in many states have raised the estimation of flood risks along rivers, streams and oceans, adding many properties to flood zones for the first time.

In New York, FEMA granted the Mamaroneck Beach & Yacht Club's request to be remapped from the high-risk flood zone in August 2012 - just two months before the club was damaged and its outbuildings destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, which stacked up yachts at its docks like pick-up sticks.

FEMA says that it does not factor in previous losses into its decisions on applications to redraw the flood zones.

In more than 500 instances, from the Gulf of Alaska to Bar Harbor, Maine, FEMA has remapped waterfront properties from the highest-risk flood zone, saving the owners as much as 97 percent on the premiums they pay into the financially strained National Flood Insurance Program.

NBC News found that FEMA has redrawn maps even for properties that have repeatedly filed claims for flood losses from previous storms. At least some of the properties are on the secret 'repetitive loss list' that FEMA sends to communities to alert them to problem properties.