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Foreclosure rescue firm preys on those it claims to help

An investigation by Mc Nelly Torres and Jon Burstein of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel revealed that Florida Housing Council, a foreclosure rescue firm, was defrauding the very people it claimed to aid. Interviews with 11 homeowners, in addition to the review of seven lawsuits and hundreds of property records, uncovered a pattern of deception and fraud on the part of FHC and its owner.

Collateral Damage - Human Rights and Military Aid after 9/11

The Center for Public Integrity has published "one of the most comprehensive resources on U.S. military aid and assistance in the post-9/11 era. 'Collateral Damage' couples the reporting of 10 of the world's leading investigative journalists on four continents with a powerful database combining U.S. military assistance, foreign lobbying expenditures, and human rights abuses into a single, easily accessible toolkit."

Delays impeded implementation of air defense system prior to 9/11

Michael Fabey of Aerospace Daily and Defense Report writes that the inability of the Pentagon and Canadian defense officials to keep a lid on costs and schedules may have cost them the opportunity to modernize their radar-based air defense system in time to possibly thwart the terrorist from completing their 9/11 attacks.

Police chief misrepresents crime report to city council

Will Carless of voiceofsandiego.org reports that San Diego's Chief of Police delivered misinformation in his report to the City Council. "The chief's statements were made at the height of contract negotiations between the police department and the city. While the chief was painting a rosy picture of crime rates before four city councilmen, the police union was busy trying to convince the city that it was in dire straits."

South Florida security questionable

A three-month WTVJ-Miami investigation raised questions about how well Wackenhut, one of the country's biggest security firms, is protecting the South Florida public and whether they're billing taxpayers millions of dollars for guards not even on the job. Investigative producer Scott Zamost and reporter Jeff Burnside tracked down former employees and supervisors, reviewed hundreds of documents and shot video on the Metrorail, which is protected by Wackenhut security, to show what the former guards say is a pattern of unmanned posts and overbilling taxpayers.

Special-ed missteps contribute to violence in Philadelphia schools

A two-part investigation by Martha Woodall and Susan Snyder of The Philadelphia Inquirer, part of a continuing series on violence against teachers, revealed the lapses in the district’s handling of special education students who can become violent and disruptive in classes. As a group, special-education students are responsible for an inordinate number of assaults on teachers and other school staff. While just 14 percent of the city's school enrollment, they committed 43 percent of the 7,547 assaults on staff during the last five years, district statistics show - a fact that stuns many of those who work in the schools daily.

Series a look at Tarrant County (TX) schools

In its series "Measuring Up," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram looked at the area's public schools to see how they were performing. Using school test scores and other data, they identified key trends, including: which schools are doing better or worse than expected on state assessments; a large percentage of students requiring remedial help once in college; and that the best teachers are not working in the schools where their skills are needed most. Online databases allow you to look at the data, comparing information such as schools and student performance throughout the region.

Fire chief retires while under investigation

The fire chief of Aurora, Colo. is retiring following a KCNC-Denver reported that "he had apparently played golf during normal work hours on as many as 23 weekdays during an 8 month period." The city had suspended the chief pending its own investigation into the allegations, but the chief has said that he is retiring of his own volition. CBS4 also found allegations, posted on a former assistant city attorney's blog, accusing the chief of carrying on an affair with the attorney's wife. Brian Maass details the CBS4 investigation here.

US soldiers may be using inferior body armor

U.S. troops are not being provided with the best body armor according to an NBC News investigation. Lisa Myers reported that independent ballistics tests commissioned by NBC show that a product called Dragon Skin is safer than the Army-issued Interceptor armor in stopping the most lethal shots. The Army banned Dragon Skin last year before it was formally tested. Some suggest this is because it was not developed by the Army and that its ban was to protect funding for the Interceptor program. Based on its own testing, the CIA has chosen to provided their elite operatives in Iraq with Dragon Skin due to its superior protection.

Mortgage Meltdown

A broadcast and web package from Tisha Thompson of WMAR-Baltimore uncovers the dirt on home mortgage lending in Maryland. The issue of race and credit is explored as a foreclosure boom is forecast due to an increase the number of subprime loans issued. Included are maps of foreclosure "hotspots" and a glossary of lending terms.

IRE and NICAR assisted with the mapping for this story.

Speeders more deadly than drunk drivers

While alcohol-related accidents and deaths may receive more attention, speed-related accidents kill more people — about 10 each week — in North Carolina, according to a The News & Observer report by Pat Stith, Mandy Locke and David Raynor."But while state legislators and court officials have gotten tough on drunken drivers, they have eased up on speeders." Database editor Raynor analyzed 3.4 million speeding cases from the state court system, plus a decade of highway patrol citations and state motor vehicle data.

ATVs: Deceptively Dangerous

An in-depth special report by The Oregonian explores the dangers of ATVs. "Over the past decade, the machines have soared in popularity, with 7.6 million in use. The result: Record numbers of riders end up in emergency rooms and morgues as accidents kill about 800 people a year and injure an estimated 136,700." The multimedia report includes myriad documents and video footage detailing the reality of ATV safety issues and concerns.

Investigation puts bus drivers' histories online

Lafayette Parish in Louisiana placed the roughly 20,000 children who ride the school bus daily in the hands of drivers with multiple driving and criminal offenses, an investigation by The Daily Advertiser's Jason Brown and Claire Taylor found. "The investigation revealed that the school system lacks policies for handling bus drivers who speed, wreck, steal or drink while driving in their personal vehicles and buses." The Advertiser built and posted online a database that allows parents to search for their child's bus by driver name, bus number, or school.

Will parking violators pay in Peoria?

Nishi Gupta of WHOI-Peoria, Ill., found the city was owed nearly $1.2M in parking fines. She reviewed thousands of cases and found many people owed hundreds, even thousands of dollars. The city would take them to court to collect, but it wasn't successful, despite numerous hearings and bench warrants. At times, the courts would close the cases with no consequences for those who decided not to pay up. After the story aired, Peoria's city hall adopted a policy to collect the fines from parking ticket deadbeats.

Residential areas grow in wildfire risk zones

According to a USA Today report by Brad Heath, "Since 2000, roughly 450,000 people — enough to populate a city the size of Atlanta — moved to Western areas endangered by wildfires." Heath's analysis combined historical fire data from the USGS Forest Service, Census population data, fire modeling software used by researchers and a wild and urban interface map to discover this dangerous migration.

Teachers cheat on California achievement tests

Teachers cheat to improve their students' scores on the high stakes achievement tests, a review of documents by the San Francisco Chronicle found. Although "schools admitted outright cheating in about two-thirds of the cases," cheating is likely more widespread than the numbers indicate, since the California Department of Education currently relies on schools to investigate possible cheating.

Bomb factory workers seek cancer compensation

Nuclear bomb factory workers face steep hurdles getting compensation from the government after contracting cancer. As the U.S. closes many nuclear weapons sites, a growing number of those who helped build bombs are turning to lawyers and legislators to argue they are being treated unfairly, The Washington Post's Michael Alison Chandler and Joby Warrick report.

Eurasian crime syndicates set up shop in U.S.

Los Angeles Daily News staff writer Troy Anderson reports that Eurasian crime syndicates have continued to scam the government since the 1970's. The crime syndicates, which come from a dozen republics in the former Soviet Union as well as Eastern and Central Europe, systematically exploit government funded programs for personal gain. "A recent report by the California Attorney General's Office estimated that 5,000 to 10,000 criminals - including former inmates of KGB prisons - were among the immigrants."

Michigan schools face economic time bomb

According to a report by Ron French of The Detroit News "Michigan's school retirement system is riddled with loopholes and slipshod policies costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and driving the state's public education system toward financial crisis." In the 2006-07 school year, the cost of retirement benefits per student was $1,015 — more than is spent on "books, buses, computer technology and building maintenance combined." Loopholes that qualify retirees for lifetime health coverage could alone cost the system $2 million a year. It's projected that $1 billion could be lost in a program that allows employees to purchase years of service in order to retire early.

Former meth labs declared "safe" still unfit for residence

A report by Debbie Dujanovic of KSL 5 (Salt Lake City) details how seized homes in Salt Lake County that had once functioned as meth labs are being reopened and declared safe without proper clean up. Unsuspecting buyers are moving into contaminated homes because lax disclosure laws negate the need to report homes ever served as meth labs. Upon learning that their house had been a meth lab, one family discovered a child's bedroom had "levels 14 times above what the state considers 'safe.'" listing properities that were considered contaminated at one time.

Seattle issued illegal parking tickets on holidays

Chris Halsne of KIRO-Seattle reports that the city of Seattle has been issuing parking tickets on legal holidays when parking is posted as free. The KIRO 7 investigates team reviewed approximately three years' worth of fines to find 4,416 tickets issued on legal holidays. A local attorney has filed a class action suit against the city on behalf of those who paid their fines requesting that the city return their money. Since this issue has been brought to light, the city has changed the parking ordinance and clearly listed its free parking days.

Citizen Watchdog

Jennifer LeFleur, computer-assisted reporting editor for The Dallas Morning News writes a online column every other week that helps readers understand how they can access, and benefit from, public records. An archive of her past columns can be found here.

Assault Zones

Lisa Fletcher of ABC15-Phoenix reports on crime zones in four Arizona cities. By examining "tens of thousands of aggravated assaults between 2003 and 2006" they mapped the cities of Chandler, Glendale, Phoenix and Scottsdale to find the hot-spots for these crimes. The maps of these areas can be found online.

IRE and NICAR assisted with the data analysis for this story.

Sex offenders dwell near St. Louis area schools

Leisa Zigman of KSDK-St. Louis reports on sex offenders living near schools in the St. Louis metro area. KSDK's investigation found that, despite stringent laws, more than 100 sex offenders were living within 1,000 feet of schools because of failure to enforce existing laws. "According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, from 2004 through 2006, only 12 sex offenders were prosecuted and found guilty for the violation of living within 1,000 feet of a school. Not one of those cases originated from the St. Louis region."

IRE and NICAR performed the data analysis and mapping for this story.

Internet adult entertainment business busted in residential neighborhood

An investigation by WTVJ-Miami reporter Jeff Burnside and investigative producer Scott Zamost led Miami city officials to move in against an Internet sex operation in a residential neighborhood. In "The House Next Door," NBC 6 revealed live sex shows were being broadcast online from a home in a family-oriented neighborhood. Until last year, the company had operated the same business in Chicago, where the health department found a "significant" number of sexually transmitted disease cases. Miami city officials said it was illegal to operate an adult entertainment business in a residential neighborhood.

Army recruits told to hide mental health issues

Phil Williams of WTVF-Nashville investigated questionable Army recruiting practices. In response to a investigation into the suicide of soldier while in basic training, NewChannel 5 took hidden cameras inside Army recruiting stations in Middle Tennessee to see how recruiters handled someone who revealed mental health issues. According to the deceased private's family, he was discouraged from disclosing information about his mental health history or the medications he was prescribed on account that they would disqualify him from serving. In three separate recruiting offices, NewsChannel 5's hidden-camera investigation found confirmation of this practice as Army recruiters discouraged disclosure of mental health histories for the sake of qualifying to serve.

Violence increases in Milwaukee schools

A four-part series by Sarah Carr of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel indicates that violence in the Milwaukee Public Schools system is "intensifying." The stories show that gun seizures have doubled, and a quarter of the 300 teachers attacked every year go on to file worker's compensation claims against the district. A review of daily police logs for the last six months shows that officers are called to the city's 11 largest high schools about twice daily on average. More than 120 teachers were assaulted by students or parents in schools last semester alone.

Medical research group's conflicts of interest revealed

Reporters Susanne Rust and Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed conflicts of interest involving the Constella Group, a private health research company that performs hundreds of millions of dollars worth of work for the federal government while also representing major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline. The reporters analyzed federal contracts data to help tell the story. Among their findings: Constella got a federal contract four years ago to oversee a list of carcinogens. Three months later, the company added a virus to the list while two of its private sector clients were developing vaccines to treat that virus.