|
www.ire.org |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
Send comments and suggestions to .
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
CAR June 13, 2008 Pentagon's logistics concerns mean profit for transportation companies Air freight companies are profiting from the war as the Pentagon increases its investment in logistics, reports Michael Fabey for Air Cargo World. "Contracts and contract modifications for companies flying cargo and passengers to the war zones in 2006 and 2007 totaled about $5.6 billion, according to an Air Cargo World analysis of data." Data for this story was provided by NICAR. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 10, 2008 Overtime a strain on workers, county budgets Mary Beth Pfeiffer and John Ferro of the Poughkeepsie Journal compiled a two-part report examining overtime at the Dutchess and Ulster county governments. The report found correction officers and deputies at the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office earned $3.9 million in overtime in 2007 - a 21 percent increase from 2006 at a time when the sheriff's payroll grew by less than 4 percent overall, and that a nursing home accounted for more than one quarter of all overtime in Ulster County. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 14, 2008 Schools promote students despite widespread failure After a 10-month investigtion, The Arizona Daily Star reports that many students in Tucson-area school districts are being socially promoted and not earning the grades they deserve. "In the 2006-07 school year alone, nine in 10 students were moved to the next grade level, but data show that nearly a third of them failed basic courses in English, math, science or social studies." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 09, 2008 Aging sewer systems continue to pollute rivers, streams A Gannett News Service analysis by Larry Wheeler and Grant Smith shows that "America's aging sewer systems continue to dump human waste into rivers and streams, despite years of fines and penalties targeting publicly owned agencies responsible for sewage overflows." Wheeler and Smith analyzed enforcement and compliance records gathered by the EPA and state regulators from January 2003 to February 2008 for the report. Enforcement actions taken by federal or state authorities against municipal sewer authorities across the country are available in an online database. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 06, 2008 Fatal RV flaws An investigation into RV safety by Chris Halsne, of KIRO (Seattle, Wash.), found that the government only requires "front-end crash and brake tests for the empty chassis." Data analysis revealed that many fatalities in RV accidents are the result of poorly secured interior elements, braking problems, and the weak structural integrity of the fiberglass and wood frames. In response to the investigation, the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association said, "NHTSA (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) hasn't crash tested finished motor homes because they are fundamentally safe — there simply haven't been enough deaths to warrant the cost of purchasing and testing these types of vehicles." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 16, 2008 Obama's fundraising linked to law lobbyists Despite claims that he hasn't taken money from lobbyists, Senator Barack Obama's fundraising efforts have been linked to Washington lobbyists according to USA TODAY's analysis of campaign finance data. Ken Dilanian reports that his fundraising team include "38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show." Of those 38 lawyers, 31 are partners at their respective firms and "typically receive a share of their firm's lobbying fees. At least six of them have some managerial authority over lobbyists." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 10, 2008 Retired city workers profit from unpaid sick time St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters Kevin Crowe and Jake Wagman did a quick-hit CAR story about how much money retirees from the city have been getting for unused sick pay. "Of 281 employees who received payment for unused sick days, 149 workers walked away with at least $10,000; 15 of those workers received more than $50,000." The story includes a searchable database of the cashed-in sick pay. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 07, 2008 Profits balloon for business improperly certified as disadvantaged Elizabeth Newell and Robert Brodsky of Govermnent Executive report that a Miami-based defense contractor saw a significant increase in his business after being improperly labeled as a small disadvantaged business. AEY, Inc. is currently under investigation for providing faulty munitions as part of a $289 million contract to provide the Afgahanistan Army and police force with ammunition. Since being incorrectly labeled as a SDB, AEY has earned over $204 million from federal contracts. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 01, 2008 Thousands of underground fuel tanks must be upgraded in South Florida An investigation by Mc Nelly Torres of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel revealed that forty-three percent of underground fuel tanks in South Florida must still be upgraded to be in compliance with state environmental laws. A state law requires all underground tanks use a "double-walled system" by 2009 to prevent soil and groundwater contamination. The Sun-Sentinel's analysis of Florida Department of Environmental Protection data revealed that "11,168 underground fuel tanks in Florida — out of 26,529 — have not been replaced with the proper systems". Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 12, 2008 Unnecessary transplants boon for clinics at great cost to patients The three-day special report by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters Andrew Conte and Luis Fabregas found that hundreds of patients each year undergo unnecessary liver transplants. The story cites national data for transplants at 127 hospitals across the nation between 2002 and 2006. The reporters looked at MELD scores—a government-approved standard used to determine how urgently a patient needs a liver— to see how sick transplant patients were and how patients with the least urgent conditions fared post-surgery. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post College athletic scholarships often shortchange expectation A story by The New York Times' reporter Bill Pennington and data analyst Griffin Palmer uncovers the discrepancy between the expectations of families and the reality of college athletic scholarships. Analysis of previously undisclosed National Collegiate Athletic Association data showed that scholarships are rarely as lucrative as parents and student athletes assume. "Excluding the glamour sports of football and basketball, the average N.C.A.A. athletic scholarship is nowhere near a full ride, amounting to $8,707. In sports like baseball or track and field, the number is routinely as low as $2,000...Tuition and room and board for N.C.A.A. institutions often cost between $20,000 and $50,000 a year." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post "Free to Flee" Fugitives can flee and don't have to hide, an investigation by Joe Mahr of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed. Mahr's three-day series reported that hundreds of thousands of felony arrest warrants from across the nation are not entered into the FBI national fugitive database, including warrants for violent crimes such as homicide, rape and robbery. He found that while all states check a national database to see whether an applicant for a drivers license or state ID has a suspended license, only six states check to see whether an applicant is wanted on a felony warrant. Other stories showed that even when fugitives are found, they frequently are not extradited, and that in St. Louis, officials don't seek warrants in thousands of cases. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 04, 2008 Over 17,000 bridges nationwide are overdue for inspection An investigation by MSNBC.com's Bill Dedman shows that at least 17,000 bridges went more than two years between inspections, despite the federal law requiring an inspection every 24 months. The investigation was based on newly released data from the Federal Bridge Inventory which includes inspections through 2006. "Although Congress in 1971 ordered rigorous standards for inspecting bridges every 24 months, the records reveal a system in which the buck is passed down from federal to state to local governments, without penalty for those that fail to protect the public." The investigative package includes an interactive tracker which allows the reader to map the status of bridges on their own frequently travelled routes. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 25, 2008 Gaps in Wisconsin tornado warning system identified After tornadoes ripped through the southern part of the state earlier this month, Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that thousands of southeastern Wisconsin residents are out of range for tornado warning sirens. Using mapping software, Poston plotted nearly 75 siren locations in Milwaukee and Racine counties and then overlayed census data to identify gaps in the warning system. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Drought threatens nuclear power in Southeast AP's Charlotte correspondent Mitch Weiss identified 24 nuclear reactors located in areas of severe drought that could potentially force reactors in the Southeast to reduce power or shut down later this year. The drought threatens the rivers and streams that supply massive amounts of cooling water. Weiss reports that, while utility officials issue public assurances about the plants' operability, documents reveal warnings about potential shutdowns and the expense of buying power from alternate sources. His analysis and mapping covered 104 nuclear reactors nationwide. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 24, 2008 Georgia purchasing cards abused to the tune of $370 million Andrea Jones and Megan Clarke of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that abuse of government purchasing cards cost the state approximately $370 million in 2007. An analysis of over four million transactions showed that the credit cards have been used to pay for such things as pornography, tattoos, concerts, and dating services. In addition to the problem charges, around 2,100 cards have been lost or stolen since 2005. Included in the report is a online database of all the credit card transactions. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 10, 2007 Insiders profit from FDA's Fast Track A seven-month investigation by The Plain Dealer's Joel Rutchick and Brie Zeltner into the FDA's Fast Track drug review program has proven benefits to investors while doing little or nothing to speed up the availability of new medical treatments, compared to expedited review options that already existed before the drug industry lobbied to create Fast Track."Fast The news of Fast Track designation creates a boon for day traders, hedge funds and others looking to make quick money off biotech stocks." Securities information shows that stocks surge at the announcement of Fast Track designations, resulting in hefty profits for company insiders. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 07, 2007 Danger of common chemical downplayed In a second installment of "Chemical Fallout," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust, Meg Kissinger and Cary Spivak found that the chemical industry has funded much of the science claiming that the popular chemical bisphenol A is safe. The reporters built a database of 258 scientific studies spanning 20 years of research into the chemical and found that 80 percent of the research showed the chemical poses health risks to laboratory animals. Bisphenol A can be found in hard plastics — including baby bottles, dental sealants, PVC pipes and reusable water bottles. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Emergency response times lagging in Ohio's Delaware County An investigation by Paul Aker of WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, shows that Delaware County's emergency response times fall short of the industry standard. The National Fire Protection Association's voluntary guidelines call for processing 99 percent of calls within 90 seconds. In Delaware County, the 911 center's interim director told Aker he wants to see dispatches under two minutes. WBNS looked at a sample of calls for suspected heart attacks and found that 59 percent took more than one minute to process and 30 percent took at least 90 seconds. The story also revealed that the center does not track how long the phone rings before a dispatcher picks up. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 04, 2007 Seniors targeted in subprime refinancing Susan Kelleher and Justin Mayo of The Seattle Times looked at how older borrowers and homeowners are targeted for predatory loans. Analysis of over 4,000 loans from Ameriquest Mortgage uncovered the trend of elderly homeowners being targeted for subprime refinancing that they would never be able to repay, resulting in the loss of their home and other assets. The project profiled a woman with Alzheimers who lost $2 million in assets, in part to predatory loans. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 29, 2007 Some Houston banks more prone to ATM robberies This investigation by KHOU-Houston used crime data to map the locations of ATM robberies. The analysis showed that some bank branches seem to be hot spots for robberies. Reporter Jeremy Rogalski spoke with police about why some areas are more vulnerable than others and how consumers can protect themselves from being robbed at an ATM. The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism assisted in the data analysis for this story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 28, 2007 Dallas property values derived from small sampling of sales Paul Adrian of KDFW-Dallas/Ft. Worth investigated disparities in property taxes set by the Dallas Central Appraisal District. Fox 4 learned that values for neighborhoods are set by home sale data reflecting an average of 3 percent of the properties, while assessors said that 10 percent or more would be ideal. A database of appraisals includes information on the property that was used to set the valuation.
The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, helped with the data analysis and mapping for this story.
Police cruisers involved in hundreds of accidents in Massachusetts An investigation by Maggie Mulvihill and Joe Bergantino of WBZ-Boston shows that Massachusetts state troopers are causing numerous accidents on those same roads they're monitoring. Internal police data revealed that troopers have caused "nearly 500 crashes in their own cruisers in the past seven years." Many troopers investigate their own accidents excusing themselves of fault 55 percent of the time. The accidents have cost taxpayers $2 million in settlements and repairs. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 26, 2007 No-proof loans fuel foreclosure problems Dale Kasler, Phillip Reese and Jim Wasserman of The Sacramento Bee examined the impact of stated-income loans in the wave of subprime loans devastating the area's housing market. Analysis of "61,000 Sacramento-area mortgages over two years reveals striking discrepancies — gaps as high as 25 percent — between what homebuyers earned and what was listed on their loan applications." They also found higher gaps in lower income neighborhoods and aggressive use of stated-income loans, which do not require documentation of the borrower's income, in the late phase of the housing boom. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post State data reveal high veteran suicide rates A five-month investigation by Armen Keteyian of CBS News uncovered a startling suicide rate for veterans. Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs keep accurate numbers on veteran suicide rates. CBS News requested suicide data from all 50 states dating back to 1995, and 45 states provided the information. In 2005, "there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That's 120 each and every week, in just one year." Among veterans 20 to 24 years of age, the suicide rate was two to four times greater than non-veterans of the same age. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 19, 2007 D.C. property tax refund fraud In a Washington Post analysis of Washington D.C. city records, Dan Keating and Carol D. Loennig report that seven years' worth of fraudulent property tax funds have cost the District $31.7 million. On Nov. 7, the former manager of property tax refunds was arrested and charged for the refund fraud, along with five others. Federal authorities reported $20 million in fraudulent payments, but The Post analysis found more fraudulent refunds than had been publicly reported. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Sex offenders not deterred by residency laws Lisa Fletcher of KNXV-Phoenix mapped "level 3" sex offenders — considered the most dangerous and most likely to re-offend. Data analysis located 123 offenders living within 1000 ft. of schools and daycares in Maricopa County in violation of residency laws. One expert, Dr. Tom Selby, a psychologist who specializes in work with sex offenders, suggest these laws only provide a false sense of security. "In terms of it having any significant impact on reduction of sex offenses, research in general says that residency laws have no impact on recidivism rates," he said. The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, assisted with the data analysis. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 14, 2007 Convicted killers in Texas receive probation After a Texas man convicted of shooting an unarmed prostitute received probation, Brooks Egerton and Reese Dunklin of The Dallas Morning News decided to see whether his sentence was a fluke or representative of a larger trend. They analyzed thousands of government records, some of which came from confidential criminal files and interviewed more than 200 people, including police, attorneys, victims’ families and the killers themselves. The reporters found that in Dallas County, more than twice as many murderers get probation as go to death row. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 08, 2007 Tennessee gun permits mapped WBIR-Knoxville reporter John Becker and producer Jake Jost looked at gun permit holders around the state, from pockets outside of Memphis where up to 11 percent of residents have a permit, to a rural area where six percent of residents own guns. Data analysis and mapping suggested a broad profile of gun owners: "They tend to live in rural areas. If they are anything like the typical person in their area, the numbers suggest they are upper middle-class, white, and own their own homes. They have a family, and the household makes between $50,000 and $150,000 each year." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Foreclosures: Living in the zone KSHB's Keith King reported on foreclosure rates in and around Kansas City. Analyzing data from RealtyTrac.com, King mapped all the foreclosures between June 2006 and July 2007 to see what neighborhoods were impacted the most. Foreclosures affected more residents on the Missouri side of the metro area, where there is no court oversight of foreclosures, compared to neighborhoods in Kansas. A searchable database lists foreclosures in the greater Kansas City area through September 2007.The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, assisted with the data analysis for this story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 05, 2007 Sex offenders clustered near school bus stops An investigation by WTEV-Jacksonville, Fla. found "more than 500 sex offenders and predators living within two blocks of local bus stops," according to Celine McArthur. Certain sex offenders are barred from living within 1,000 feet of bus stops, but there are so many bus stops that enforcing the rule would place most of the city off-limits. The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, assisted with the data analysis and mapping. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 02, 2007 Felons issued hunting licenses in Wisconsin Analyzing state data on hunting licenses, Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that dozens of convicted felons in Wisconsin were issued gun-deer hunting licenses last year despite a state law that bans them for life from possessing firearms. Felons with armed robbery, rape and weapons convictions all bought gun-deer licenses in Wisconsin in 2006, the analysis shows. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 31, 2007 Twin Cities residents pocket farm subsidy payments Matt McKinney and Glenn Howatt of The Star Tribune report that millions in farm subsidies are being paid to people who live in urban areas, including some of the toniest neighborhoods of Minneapolis-St. Paul. "The flow of federal largesse comes thanks to rules that allow landowners — including some 2,000 in the metro area — to collect subsidies without farming the land themselves, a legal and increasingly common practice as farm ownership has consolidated over the past few decades." A current $280 billion farm bill before Congress aims for reform, but few expect real change. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 30, 2007 Earmarks added $11.8 billion to defense bill The Seattle Times kicked off an occasional series on Congressional earmarks, the companies that benefit and the political fundraising connected to the pork projects. David Heath and Hal Bernton report that, after months of collecting and checking data from press releases and campaign finance reports, they were able to "tie about half of the 2,700 earmarks in the 2007 defense spending bill to members of Congress." The estimated cost of the defense bill's add-ons: $11.8 billion. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 29, 2007 One-third of S. Florida gas pumps inaccurate A report by Mc Nelly Torres of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel shows that 34 percent of gas pumps in South Florida failed accuracy tests over the past three years. "The analysis found 580 of more than 2,500 stations in South Florida had at least one pump dispensing more gas than customers paid to purchase, while 477 provided less fuel than they should." A database of gas pump inspections is included online. There is also a map of those stations which failed 10 or more pump tests over three years. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 19, 2007 Illinois lags in tracking teachers' misconduct Scott Reeder, writing for Quad-CitiesOnline.com, found that Illinois ranked 49th in a nationwide analysis of disciplinary actions against teachers. The state has no system in place to investigate or flag teachers accused of misconduct. To determine how Illinois compares to other states, Small Newspaper Group obtained information on 20,000 cases of teacher licensure discipline from all 50 state departments of education. The newspaper group then built a computer database to analyze it." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 16, 2007 FEMA aid distribution uneven to victims of NY storms Patrick Lakamp, Mary Pasciak and Susan Schulman of the Buffalo News report on FEMA's uneven aid to areas hit by a surprise storm last October. "Almost one-half the nearly 18,000 residents in Western New York who applied for FEMA money got some help. But in Buffalo, one-third of the applicants received aid." In North Buffalo, only 20 percent of applicants received aid, even though some areas looked like "a war zone." An East Side neighborhood where FEMA workers went door-to-door encouraging residents to apply received the largest sum. "A News computer analysis was able to determine what items FEMA approved, and at what cost, for 98 percent of the claims." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Subprime crunch felt on Jersey Shore The Asbury Park(N.J.) Press analyzed federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to report that in Monmouth and Ocean counties subprime lending accounted for one out of five mortgages in 2006, a total of $3.1 billion. Reporter Jason Method found "the income of subprime borrowers was 5 percent lower than those taking out traditional mortgages, yet the subprime borrowers took out loans that were 10 percent larger." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Discipline system for teachers, staff flawed in Ohio schools The Columbus Dispatch delves into Ohio's flawed system of disciplining and tracking teachers, coaches, aides, counselors and administrators. The Web site for The ABCs of Betrayal includes asearchable database of Ohio educators disciplined since 2000. The 10-month investigation found educators remained in the classroom despite misconduct such as theft, assault and abuse of children. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 10, 2007 Paychecks shrinking when inflation considered David Knox of the Akron Beacon Journal takes an in-depth look at eroding income levels. The Beacon Journal examined more than 50 years of census data to consider " what happens when older workers retire, exchanging their big paychecks for smaller Social Security and pension checks? The logical answer is that they would be replaced by workers with markedly lower wages, resulting in an overall drop in purchasing power and the nation's standard of living." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Demographic analysis shifts Dallas crime ranking A database analysis found that while the city of Dallas is once again ranked among "the worst large cities for violent crime," the numbers change when the sample is more closely examined. Jennifer LaFleur and Tanya Eiserer of The Dallas Morning News used "statistical tools that correct for the effect of factors such as poverty, unemployment, low homeownership, family structure and racial composition" and found that the city ranked 58th in violent crime out of 436 cities studied. The story also reports that the Dallas crime rate dropped from 2005 to 2006. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 03, 2007 Nearly $18 million in overtime paid to Milwaukee police officers Gina Barton and Ben Poston of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analyzed city of Milwaukee salary and overtime data and found that the police department spent $17.8 million on overtime last year — a 23 percent increase over the previous year. Officers worked enough overtime to hire 380 more officers and pay their benefits. One officer alone earned more than $64,000 in overtime last year, more than doubling his salary. He was one of 42 officers who got paid more than $100,000 a year in 2006. The story includes a searchable database of city of Milwaukee salaries. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 26, 2007 Speculators driving foreclosures in Nevada Southern Nevada's foreclosure rates are the nations highest, due primarily to investors walking away from their property. "Roughly 85 percent of actual auctions or repossessions of homes from March 1 through Aug. 31 involved properties not occupied by their owners," according to a report by Jeff German, Steve Kanigher and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun. They were able to identify the investor-owned homes from owner-occupied foreclosures using property tax records. The story includes a map of Las Vegas-area properties that have either been auctioned or repossessed since January 2006. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 19, 2007 CEOs of healthcare nonprofit netting top dollars The Honolulu Advertiser examined nonprofit salaries and reported that "the largest healthcare nonprofits in Hawai'i pay their chief executive more than $820,000 on average. Large foundations and trusts in Hawai'i pay an average of $341,000 to their top manager. Executives at a sampling of service providers were paid the least, averaging $133,100." The healthcare companies say competition and job performance played a role in the high salaries, but critics say executive pay is inflating health care costs. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 13, 2007 Wis. dam inspections fall behind schedule Ben Poston and Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analyzed a database of state dam inspections and found that Wisconsin inspectors have failed to inspect dozens of dams that could pose a danger in the event of a break. In all, the state Department of Natural Resources has not inspected at least 230 state-regulated dams — including 67 that are considered a "high or significant hazard" — since August 1997, despite a state law that requires inspections at least once every 10 years. The reporters also posted a searchable database of the state-regulated dams on the newspaper's Data on Demand site. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 09, 2007 Undue Influence Eric Nalder and Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found "cops confronted with a drunken-driving arrest fare better than the average citizen," according to an investigation of seven years' worth of internal discipline records, arrest reports, accident reports, license-suspension files and court documents from around Washington state. The P-I's findings also determined Washington's police disciplinary system is "broken, illogical and unevenly applied." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 07, 2007 Baltimore aims to avoid bridge disaster, repairs started Following the collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis, Tisha Thompson of WMAR-TV (Baltimore, Md.) evaluated federal inspection reports and found that over 300 bridges in Maryland are "structurally deficient" some with holes in the deck and, in one case, two-by-fours holding up a section of a major bridge. In Baltimore County, the replacement process has started on about 10 bridges. This map shows the bridges eligible for replacement in the greater Baltimore area. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post A look at Arizona's "structurally deficient" bridges Lisa Fletcher and Dan Siegel of ABC-15's I-Team look at the safety ratings of bridges in Arizona. In the state, 107 bridges are rated as "structurally deficient and in need of major repairs." Along with ASU civil engineering professor, Ed Kavazanjian, they looked at several of the bridges, analyzing what could hasten structural demise of some of the compromised bridges. Information on the bridges, listed by county, can be found here. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 02, 2007 Bridge data adds context to collapse Following the collapse of an I-35 bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, journalists turned to the National Bridge Inventory database, available from IRE and NICAR, to check the bridge's inspection history. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press. and The Star Tribune reported that inspection data from 2005 showed that the Minnesota Department of Transportation deemed the bridge "structurally deficient." The Pioneer Press also noted a federal report's finding that Minnesota ranked high in overall bridge safety with 3 percent of its bridges rated deficient in 2006. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 26, 2007 Chicago's drug war toughest on minorities A Chicago Tribune analysis of federal data shows that enforcement efforts in the the war on drugs hits minorities far harder than whites. Darnell Little reports that inner-city dealers are hit much harder than the more discrete dealings in suburban areas. Prison populations also reflect harsher penalties for minorities. Analysis of Chicago's predominantly African-American neighborhoods revealed that "97 percent of East Garfield Park, 99 percent of West Garfield Park, 98 percent of Woodlawn, 96 percent of Englewood and 82 percent of Austin fall within 'safe zones'" — designated areas that are covered by mandatory sentencing rules. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Overtime tops $500 million in California state prisons Inmate overcrowding and the increasing number of staff vacancies in California's prisons are spiking overtime costs for the state's corrections department, which spent more than half a billion dollars last year on overtime pay, according to analysis of payroll records by the San Francisco Chronicle. Tom Chorneau and Todd Wallack report that the surge -- a 35 percent increase from the agency's overtime bill in 2005 -- comes as the department prepares for a major expansion of the prison system. The Chronicle analysis found that almost 15 percent of the department's 56,000-member workforce earned at least $25,000 in overtime in the last calendar year -- more than eight times the amount paid to the average state worker over the same period. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 19, 2007 Political speed zones Sarah Okeson of Florida Today looked into a new law that sets up enhanced penalty zones in which drivers who speed get higher fines. Reviewing more than 1 million crashes in Florida from 2002 to 2005, she found that the speed zones aren't located in areas with the highest rates of speed-related crashes. The state officials in charge of the program didn't calculate the rates for speed-related crashes using numbers for how much traffic was on the roads. The law set up the zones in counties where the bill's top supporters lived. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 17, 2007 State pensions profit from nuclear waste, rogue states Nevada's pension fund for state workers, legislators and judges holds investments in companies that have pushed to dump nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain— even though the state has fought to keep the shipments out. Steve Kanigher and Alex Richards of Las Vegas Sun discovered that the $23 billion portfolio, run by independent fund managers, holds hundreds of millions in controversial investments, such as companies that do business in Iran, which the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorists. The fund invests in firms accused by critics of war profiteering (Halliburton), using child labor (Nestle) and furthering toxic pollution (Newmont Mining Corp.)." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 21, 2007 Florida migration patterns show boom has slowed Through analysis of IRS data from 1999-2000 and 2004-05, St. Petersburg Times reporters James Thorner and Dana Oppenheim looked at the huge migration of people and income to Florida from other states in the first half of the decade, mapping the myriad locations from which people arrived. The analysis found that surprisingly, hot spots for Tampa Bay were other major cities in Florida and places in the Northeast. However, this trend might be changing. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 19, 2007 Cheating on standardized tests rampant in some Texas schools The Dallas Morning News worked with a Canadian professor and found that test scores of more than 50,000 students over two years show evidence of cheating. Joshua Benton and Holly K. Hacker report that their in-depth data analysis contradicts claims by the Texas Education Agency which said cheating was "extraordinarily rare and that the agency has done a good job of policing it." They found cheating concentrated in the two largest districts in Texas - Houston and Dallas - as well as in charter schools. The entire series can be viewed here. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 14, 2007 Paris Hilton: The true Hollywood CAR story The Los Angeles Times found that, if hotel heiress Paris Hilton serves 23 days out of a 45 day sentence for her DUI-related charges, she'll do more time than 80 percent of people convicted of similar offenses. In L.A. County, such offenders are routinely released early due to overcrowded jails. "Because of the high media interest, Hilton was one of only a few inmates whose premature release received publicity — and the judge who originally sentenced her noticed. She is believed to be the first inmate in years who actually was sent back to jail to serve more of her term," the Times reports. An analysis by Doug Smith and Sandra Poindexter looked at similar cases in county booking and release records from 1999-2005. "The Times analyzed 2 million jail releases and found 1,500 cases since July 2002 that — like Hilton's — involved defendants who had been arrested for drunk driving and later sentenced to jail after a probation violation or driving without a license." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 13, 2007 Fresno fire stations fail in timely response to fires An investigation by Brad Branan of the Fresno Bee shows that the Fresno County fire district is failing to meet the national standard for response time when called, leaving residents and property in peril. An analysis of about 1,500 fires over a 21-month period revealed frequent failure to respond in the 5-minute window. One district only met that national standard on 16 percent of their calls. The county cites too few stations as their main problem. A graphic maps the stations with the percentage of fires they respond to within five minutes. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 30, 2007 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." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 21, 2007 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. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 15, 2007 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. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 14, 2007 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. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 11, 2007 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. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 20, 2007 Numerous South Florida restaurants cited for critical health code violations Mc Nelly Torres of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that nearly 2,500 restaurants in South Florida were cited for critical violations by state inspectors between July 2006 and January 2007. Since 1997, there has been a 66 percent increase in the number of confirmed food-borne illnesses tied to restaurants. "In December, the state issued disciplinary actions against 276 restaurants in the state -- 94 of them in South Florida -- and collected a total of $253,550 in fines, the Sun-Sentinel's analysis shows. South Florida's restaurants paid a total of $101,950 in fines." Included in the story is a database which allows readers to search the inspection records of South Florida restuarants. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 13, 2007 FBI's terrorism mission leaves white-collar crime unpunished A story by Paul Shukovsky, Tracy Johnson and Daniel Lathrop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on a profound shift in the FBI's mission. Due to a shift in focus to national security following 9/11, the FBI has failed to pursue thousands of white-collar crimes. "Five-and-a-half years later, the White House and the Justice Department have failed to replace at least 2,400 agents transferred to counterterrorism squads, leaving far fewer agents on the trial of identity thieves, con artists, hatemongers and other criminals." Lathrop built a database from the records the P-I collected for their investigation and "the newspaper was able for the first time to fully measure the dramatic decline in the number of cases and convictions resulting from the FBI moving resources to terrorism and walking away from areas of criminal enforcement. Copies of the analysis were given to federal officials in Seattle and in Washington, D.C., who did not dispute the newspaper's findings but wouldn't make database experts available to discuss the analysis." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 26, 2007 One third of fatal accidents linked to shady driving records Sarah Okeson of Florida Today investigated Brevard County drivers involved in fatal accidents, specifically looking at drivers charged with DUI manslaughter or vehicular homicide between 2000 and 2006. She found that more than a third of them didn't have a valid license to be on the road at the time of the wreck, had a prior conviction for DUI, or had been convicted of at least five traffic violations in the three years prior to the fatal accident. The investigation also revealed problems with coordination between courts and the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles in dealing with high-risk drivers. Note: IRE and NICAR Database Library offers data from the Dept. of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, database. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 15, 2007 Campus accidents increase as inspection rates fall Jeffery Brainard of The Chronicle of Higher Education discovered an increase in accidents on campuses as proper inspections have declined. "Serious accidents in which workers were killed or hospitalized have became more common on college campuses, according to a Chronicle analysis of federal safety-inspection records...nearly 200 significant campus incidents were cited by government officials between 1996 and early 2006, up from the 140 serious injuries in the decade before." Included with the article are data on inspections and violations, colleges and their workplace fines, and information on how the data was analyzed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) workplace inspection data is available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 14, 2007 Response times faster on inner-city fires John Tedesco, Karisa King and Kelly Guckian of the San Antonio Express-News analyzed six years of San Antonio Fire Department response-time data and found that firefighters reach inner-city structure fires quicker than in the outlying areas where firefighters cover more territory with fewer stations. In response to the Express-News coverage, local officials pledge to address the fire department's slow response times by either relocating or building new stations. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Lax inspections leave Pennsylvania pets in peril Tim Darragh and Christopher Schnaars of The Morning Call investigated the inspection of Pennsylvania dog kennels. Analyzing a database of 20,000 inspections since 2003, they found that kennel owners almost always got a satisfactory grade, even when they had violations. This kennel inspection data was made availabe on The Morning Call's site and is searchable by county and kennel. The governor of Pennsylvania is considering significant new regulations on the state's kennels. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 27, 2007 More tired truckers on South Carolina roads Andy Pierrotti of WCBD-Charleston looked at every South Carolina truck accident report that noted a fatigued or sleeping truck driver as a contributing factor. He discovered a 75 percent increase in such crashes from 2001 to 2005. Those fatigued drivers contributed to 158 accidents that killed nine people and left more than 100 injured. "Despite property damage, loss of life, and injuries, only 42 percent of those tired truckers were never ticketed." State transport police say the biggest problem with tired truckers in the state lies in the number of interstate rest stops. There are simply not enough rest stops in South Carolina for truckers to park and sleep. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 15, 2007 Houston burglary hot spots mapped Dave Fehling of KHOU_Houston reports on the city's burglary trends. "Analyzing raw numbers from the last two years, a special mapping program found five hot spots." Further analysis of the data showed that the hot spots covered a higher concentration of apartment complexes, where it is easier for unfamiliar faces to move around unnoticed. The IRE and NICAR Database Library assisted with data analysis and mapping for this story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 12, 2007 School bus drivers in Ohio have questionable driving records Using a database of school bus drivers and public records searches, Randy Ludlow and Jill Riepenhoff of the Columbus Dispatch found that more than 150 school-bus drivers have records of drunken driving and drug abuse. "State laws, practice and policies make it virtually impossible for school officials to review complete driving histories maintained by the state," they report. Despite the fact that Bureau of Motor Vehicles knows every offense committed by a licensed driver, not all of this information is shared. Abstracts obtained for background checks only include records from the past three years. Unbeknownst to most schools, full motor vehicle records can be obtained if requested specifically. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 31, 2007 Lottery sales slow in North Carolina The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer analyzed North Carolina lottery data and found that fewer outlets and lower prizes accounted for the slow sales in the new state lottery. J. Andrew Curliss and news researcher Paulette Stiles found "the number of outlets for every resident in North Carolina is significantly behind the saturation levels of the nation's best-selling lottery states." They also noted fewer players in areas that would not receive substantial benefits from lottery revenue distributed to schools. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 29, 2007 Iowa drivers dodge high fines, license penalties The Des Moines Register used data on driving-related offenses in Iowa to identify 78,000 people who owe at least $500 in fines. Reporter Lee Rood and data analyst Michael Corey found "The outstanding debt that all Iowans owe for everything from overdue speeding tickets to drunk driving fines to law enforcement surcharges is at a record high: $438.7 million." With stiff state penalties, the rate of sanctions against drivers' licenses have nearly doubled in 10 years. The online package also includes video and a searchable database of drivers who owe fines. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post License to Carry In a four-part series, Megan O'Matz and John Maines of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel examined Florida's concealed weapons law and found that licenses have been issued to hundreds of people who, due to their criminal histories, wouldn't stand a chance of getting them in most other states. Courts have found them responsible for assaults, burglaries, sexual battery, drug possession, child molestation - even homicide. The newspaper obtained a database of 443,425 names of licensees before the state passed a privacy law last July 1 closing the records. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 23, 2007 Migration patterns mapped The Charlotte Observer and charlotte.com published stories and interactive maps that show county-to-county migration in North Carolina and across the U.S. The report highlighted the trend of upstate New Yorkers moving to the Charlotte region. An accompanying map is based on the most recent five years of IRS county migration data. Click on any county, and you get a table and a thematic map of county flows to or from that county. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 22, 2007 Nail salon violations on the rise in Florida Mc Nelly Torres of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that state inspectors issued 163 citations for violations at nail salons from June 2005 to July 2006, compared to 99 in 2003 to 2004. Torres examined three years of inspection data for salons that received citations from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation and found "ignoring sanitation rules, failing to use disinfectant to sterilize tools, storing dirty instruments with clean ones and, in some cases, allowing unlicensed employees to work for months." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 09, 2007 Dead still hold parking spots Eric Herman, Stephanie Zimmermann and Art Golab of the Chicago Sun-Times investigated a city program that allows residents to request handicapped parking spots near their homes. A computer-assisted analysis found at least 260 dead people on the list of 11,423 participants. "Throughout the summer and fall, the Sun-Times visited the sites of all 260 active permits held by dead people. In neighborhoods around the city, vehicles were parked in those spots, including cars with out-of-state plates, a contractor vehicle, a Dumpster, and in several cases, cars whose owners had transferred the deceased permit holders' placards to their own dashboards." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 08, 2007 A Hidden Shame Alan Judd and Andy Miller of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution presented the first in a series of reports on Georgia's system of state psychiatric hospitals. Reporters used state vital records and death data, autopsy reports and claims filed against the state to flag 115 suspicious deaths among patients in state custody in the past five years. "This study revealed a pattern of neglect, abuse and poor medical care in the seven state hospitals, as well as a lack of public accountability for patient deaths." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 04, 2007 Campaign Consultants: The Price of Democracy The Center for Public Integrity investigated campaign spending for the 2003-2004 federal elections and found that the majority of the money being spent on campaigns is going to campaign consultants. In the 2003-2004 election cycle, approximately 600 consultants were paid $1.85 billion, with 65% of that money going to media consultants. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 20, 2006 Contributions might violate city ordinance In a computer-assisted analysis of campaign contributions, Matt Stiles and Chase Davis of The Houston Chronicle found that elected officials might have accepted contributions in violation of a city ordinance. The ordinance prohibits "donations from contractors with business before the City Council." Their analysis shows that more than $30,000 was contributed by prohibited donors. ,After learning of the violations, some officials immediately returned the donations. In part, the violations are attributed to the archaic system for identifying ineligible contributors which must all be done manually. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 12, 2006 Complaints rampant in insurance industry Mike Casey of The Kansas City Star reports on the rampant dissatisfaction many consumers have with their insurance providers. The paper conducted an 11-month investigation into insurance problems and analyzed almost 35 million records, including over 600,000 complaints logged in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) database from 2003 through 2005. The analysis shows that consumer satisfaction is less of a concern for insurance companies than other financial services, such as banks and brokerage firms. The biggest gripe by consumers is that insurance agencies take too long to settle claims, followed closely by claim denials. David Herzog of NICAR and the Missouri School of Journalism consulted on this story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 06, 2006 Subprime loans cripple minority homeowners Vikas Bajaj and Ron Nixon of The New York Times looked at the impact of subprime loans on minority homeownership over the past six years. The very loans that allowed for the purchase of a home are now crippling buyers' finances as interest rates inflate, leading to an increase in delinquencies and foreclosures. "Industry officials say the number of subprime borrowers losing their home and encountering distress is growing and sure to increase because there have been so many more mortgages issued in recent years. But they argue that on balance, subprime lending has been beneficial because it has given people who previously did not have access to credit the ability to buy homes." The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database can be obtained from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 21, 2006 "Media Tracker" database relaunched The Center for Public Integrity has relaunched its "Media Tracker" database in an updated and expanded form. The improved features of the online database "detail the scope of the political influence of top communications, entertainment and electronic companies" by including information on political contribuntions and lobbying expenditures. Click here to see their press release. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post "Fatal Food" Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service, along with contributions from Sruthi Kunnel and Lee Bowman, completed an investigation into food-borne illness outbreak reports made to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Medical officials in Kentucky have already ordered reform's to the state's disease reporting process as a result of this investigation. Links to the stories and data:
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 03, 2006 Hydrant repair and inspection delinquent in some Washington cities Chris Halsne of KIRO-TV looked at 50,000 hydrant repair records in Seattle and the surrounding area and found that firefighters encountered malfunctions in 10% of area hydrants when they arrived to use them. In addition to malfunctions, the records indicated that proper inspections were not taking place. The National Fire Protection Association dictates that all hydrants are inspected once a year, yet the KIRO investigation turned up some hydrants that hadn't been inspected in 10 years. A map of hydrants in the region - inlcuding inspection records - can be found here. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 24, 2006 Detroit: "The Quality of Urban Life" A 2-day series by Greta Guest and Victoria Turk in the Detroit Free Press examined the state of grocery stores in the city of Detroit. While the housing market in downtown Detroit is experiencing growth, a lack of desirable grocery store options is a "nagging problem in terms of the city's quality of life." Difficulty in attracting chain grocery stores to Detroit is linked, in part, to "a high number of residents on public assistance, which creates a monthly boom-and-bust cycle...About 25% of Detroit households receive cash public assistance or food stamps, compared with 11% in Chicago, 14% in Baltimore and 12% in Pittsburgh, according to 2004 U.S. Census figures, the most recent available." Additionally, Detroit stores are frequently cited for helath and safety violations. "Overall, city of Detroit stores had an average of 6.3 critical and noncritical violations a year, or double the statewide rate of 2.56. About 26% of the 327 stores represented in the state reports were free of critical violations." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 23, 2006 Tribes profit from gaming and grants In a story for the Tulsa World, Ziva Branstetter used FAADS (Federal Awards Assistance Data System) to identify the amount of federal grants going to Indian tribes and comparing those numbers with gaming revenues. She found that during the three most recent fiscal years of data available, gaming revenues among all tribes nationally increased about 30 percent while federal grants and loans to tribes and tribal entities jumped 44 percent. NOTE: The Federal Grants/FAADS data is available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 16, 2006 "Caltrans: Road to Nowhere" A watchdog report by Kimberly Kindy and Natalya Shulyakovskaya of The Orange County Register looks at how the California Department of Transportation "has repeatedly displaced property owners for highway projects that went nowhere -- from the abandoned widening of Pacific Coast Highway through Orange County to Hayward’s failed freeway loop near the San Francisco Bay. Along the way, Caltrans used eminent domain to buy thousands of homes and businesses it didn’t need, holding onto them for decades." This has resulted in neglected and abandoned proprerties all over the state of California. In addition to unnecessarily displaced families, these failed projects have resulted in millions in lost tax revenue for the state. Shulyakovskaya includes a detailed description of the data analysis done for this story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 13, 2006 D.C.'s trendy neighborhoods riddled by robberies Allison Klein and Dan Keating of The Washington Post looked at police data and found that some of the liveliest neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. are also the ones riddled by the greatest number of robberies. "The Washington Post analyzed years of police statistics, focusing sharply on crimes this year, and found the biggest share of robberies happening at night and on sidewalks in neighborhoods north of downtown, including Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights and the U Street corridor." A detailed graphic is included with the story showing, among other statistics, when and where these crimes are committed. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 10, 2006 Faith and foreign aid Farah Stockman, Michael Kranish, and Peter S. Canellos of The Boston Globe, with Globe correspondent Kevin Baron, examined the complete database of USAID prime awards from 2001 to 2005, containing more than 52,000 funding actions, to reveal that USAID gave more than $1.7 billion to 159 "faith-based" organizations. The percentage of USAID funds to NGOs that are faith-based doubled from 2001 to 2005, and 98.3% of the faith-based funds go to Christian groups. Bush's orders altered the longstanding practice that groups preach religion in one space and run government programs in another. The administration said religious organizations can conduct services in the same space as they hand out government aid, so long as the services don't take place while the aid is being delivered. The newspaper found many Christian groups are leveraging their proselytizing and missionary activities with US funding - doing the bare minimun, if that, to separate out their church and state functions. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 09, 2006 Ambulance diversions at St. Louis area hospitals Deborah L. Shelton and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used local data to revisit a topic the paper first examined five years ago: ambulance diversions from full hospitals. “Five years after Missouri hospital officials vowed to get a handle on the problem, many emergency departments in the St. Louis area still regularly turn away ambulances. Half of the time in the first seven months of this year, at least one hospital was diverting ambulances.” Included is an interactive presentation illustrating how often hospitals turn away ambulances. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 03, 2006 State SAT score rankings are misleading Student reporter Sarah Rabil at The Daily Tar Heel analyzed state SAT rankings to take into consideration the impact of poverty and participation on these rankings. "An analysis by The Daily Tar Heel shows that the percentage of students taking the SAT in a given state dramatically affects a state's average score. Poverty levels also are an indicator of a state's average performance on the test, the analysis shows. After taking out the effect that poverty and participation have on each state's score, North Carolina ranks 16th in the nation - a jump of 22 positions from its unadjusted 2006 ranking." Included is a graphic showing state rankings with both adjusted and unadjusted scores. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 02, 2006 High cost of US subsidy bailouts for cotton farmers In an extensive investigation into cotton farming and US subsidies, reporters Dan Chapman and Ken Foskett with CAR specialist Megan Clarke of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution take a look at the impact of this "multibillion-dollar entitlement" program on farming here and abroad. They also look at how "farmers game the system to evade subsidy limits, and the difficulties regulators face trying to detect fraud and abuse in increasingly complex farming transactions." Their investigation included hundreds of interviews and extensive data analysis "including 182 million USDA subsidy transactions from 1994 to 2005...Clarke calculated payments by state, county and farmer. She examined USDA data on loans and insurance losses, and bankruptcy, land value and welfare payment records." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 28, 2006 Quality cardiac care correlates with wealthier counties in US A story by Robert Benincasa and Jennifer Brooks of the Gannett News Service shows that the best cardiac care is typically found in higher-income counties. "Using data provided by hospitals to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and covering the period of October 2004 through September 2005, GNS rated the nation's hospitals on heart care. The ratings show how often they gave standard treatments to heart attack and heart failure patients who were supposed to get them." The data used for their analysis came from the US Department of Health and Human Services. It can be found here . Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 13, 2006 Oklahoma campaign donors ranked Mick Hinton, Randy Krehbiel and Curtis Killman of the Tulsa World used state campaign finance data to find the top donors to Oklahoma elections during the current cycle. Enid attorney Stephen Jones led the list with $73,600 in contributions this year, followed by energy and real estate executives. The reporters also noted, "Several of those who made the top 10 list did not return calls seeking comment. In the past, their contributions have remained less public before a rule went into effect requiring computerized filing by candidates and political action committees." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Ground war costs dominate defense budget The most recent Pentagon contract data show more payments for logistics, support and ground vehicles and less money for aviation programs, compared to a year ago. "One year of wartime operations equals about four years' worth during peacetime, analysts say. In Iraq, with the harsh environment, the ratio has been more like one to five." Michael Fabey of Aerospace Daily & Defense Report analyzed 1.5 million defense contracts and related revisions found in the federal contract database available from the IRE and NICAR Database Library. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 01, 2006 Student data from financial aid forms shared with FBI Jonathan D. Glater of The New York Times reports that, as part of post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts, that Federal Education Department shared personal information obtained on student loan applications with the FBI. "Under the program, called Project Strikeback, the Education Department received names from the F.B.I. and checked them against its student aid database, forwarding information...Neither agency would say whether any investigations resulted." This story was broken by Laura McGann, a graduate student at the Medill School of Journalism "as part of a reporting project that focused on national security and civil liberties." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Aviation deaths down but accidents increasing for Army Michael Fabey of Aerospace Daily reported that while aviation-related deaths have decreased, serious accidents have seen a dramatic increase in 2006 over the past three-year period. Analysis of the Army's aircraft records database revealed this trend. "The largest increase, percentage-wise, has been in the number of incidents involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - which only relatively recently have been used by the Army and included in the database - and ground-related aviation mishaps. The Army reported 113 such mishaps in 2006, which was 25 percent more than the 90 reported in fiscal 2005 and a 126 percent increase compared to the three-year average of 50, the Army reported. Class B accidents increased by 50 percent for the year and more than 150 percent compared to the three-year average." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Sex offenders loosely monitored in Delaware Andrew Tangel and Mike Chalmers of The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal found that sex offenders in the state of Delaware have been inadequately monitored. By mapping "the addresses of more than 1,200 moderate- and high-risk sex offenders, 1,900 child care centers and 350 public and private schools", Tangel and Chalmers found hundreds of instances where sex offencers were living within 500 feet of day cares - but day care centers don't count as schools under Delaware's lax version of Megan's law. They also found that 40% of sex offenders do not keep their addresses up-to-date in the system. Included in this report are details on how this investigation was done. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 15, 2006 ACS Data Spawns Slew of Stories Following the release of the American Community Survey data by the Census Bureau, Mary Jo Sylwester of the St. Paul Pioneer Press compiled a list of stories utilizing the data set. Some of these include:
Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 10, 2006 Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks a dangerous playground Mike Sherry of the Kansas City Star used federal data to determine that the Lake of the Ozarks is the "third-most accident-prone waterway in the country." The Lake of the Ozarks trails only the Atlantic Coast and the Colorado River in number of of serious mishaps according to his analysis of over decade's worth of data from the U.S. Coast Guard. (Note: The Coast Guard's boating accident data and boat registration data is available to journalists from the IRE and NICAR Database Library.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 27, 2006 Workplace safety in Canada The CBC's investigative unit obtained data from workplace safety insurance boards across Canada to track top national trends in the workplace of today. "Canada's record for reducing workplace fatalities over the previous 20 years was the worst. The project looks at health-care workers, mines, fatalities by province, and more. Audio reports are included in the package. The CBC says the project, the first of its kind, "is the result of three years of research. Journalists with CBC's Investigative Unit navigated freedom of information laws and negotiated for data from workplace safety insurance boards across Canada." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Murders cost Tenn. more than $110 million annually Melvin Claxton of The Tennessean has a three-part series on the price of murder in Tennessee, finding that "homicides cost state and local governments more than $110 million each year. The bill for Nashville alone, which has accounted for 17 percent of the state's homicides over the past two decades, exceeds $18.7 million annually." The paper's analysis of police and judicial costs puts the average murder case at $626,648. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Schools pay for new boss' travel Bill Dedman and Michael Brindley of The (Nashua, N.H.) Telegraph studied Nashua's city credit card records and found that "school Superintendent Julia Earl has spent public money to travel out of state at least seven times in her first nine months on the job, including five trips to her home state of Texas." The total cost was more than $8,000. The Telegraph also found that the superintendent owes $147,000 to the Internal Revenue Service, $8,000 to the county for back property taxes, and $2,400 to her homeowners association. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Companies find new way to win contracts Michael Forsythe and Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg analyzed Federal Election Commission records and found that a growing number of companies had found "a new business model: locate facilities in lawmakers' districts and shower them with campaign cash. " The companies were taking advantage of lawmakers' increasing penchant for "earmarking,'' which was at the center of the scandal involving a California Republican serving a prison sentence after admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to help secure defense-company contracts. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 21, 2006 Minorities denied for loans more often Mc Nelly Torres and Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed the federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for 2000-04 and found that "blacks and Hispanics who have applied for conventional mortgage loans in South Florida were denied more often than white applicants, even when income levels were about the same." The analysis also showed that when people of color were approved for loans they tended to pay higher interest rates than whites. Homeownership among minorities is at an all-time high nationwide, but minorities continue to struggle. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Disorganized transplant program costly to patients In an 11-part series, Anna Werner of KPIX-San Francisco analyzed national transplant data and found serious questions about the kidney transplant program at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. "Kaiser's transplant program was set up poorly and still today is disorganized" and many patients were left waiting. Numerous accusations of disorganization and delays had have affected patients' health. State regulators launched an investigation into Kaiser Permanente's kidney transplant program. The complete 11-part series began May 2. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 12, 2006 NY boat operators without training increase risk John Ferro of the Poughkeepsie Journal analyzed the Coast Guard's recreational boating accident database and found that "the rate of boating accidents in New York involving operators who never received any kind of formal safety training has consistently exceeded the national average." In 2004, the rate was 57 percent, the highest since 1996. New York's rate is well above the national rate, which has declined steadily. Overall, the number of boating accidents and deaths is declining, both across the country and in New York. Read more stories about boating safety: Being informed benefits boaters and Bills seek stricter education requirements for boat operators. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Abuse and neglect at Mo. mental health facilities Carolyn Tuft and Joe Mahr of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reviewed thousands of paper and electronic records from the Department of Mental Health and found that "mentally retarded and mentally ill people in Missouri have been sexually assaulted, beaten, injured and left to die by abusive and neglectful caregivers in a system that for years has failed at every level to safeguard them." The investigation uncovered widespread mistreatment in 19 large state institutions and hundreds of smaller group homes supervised by the state across Missouri. There were 2,287 confirmed cases of abuse and neglect of residents since 2000. Of those, 665 resulted in injuries with 21 deaths. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 08, 2006 Rating communities' performance Michael Mansur and Rick Montgomery of The Kansas City Star used Data Envelopment Analysis to analyze the budget and performance numbers from 18 area cities and rank how efficiently they provided eight municipal services. "Four cities tied in police services: Belton, Grandview, Liberty and Prairie Village. Three cities tied in fire and fire-and-ambulance services: Belton, Gladstone and Liberty. Four cities tied in municipal court services: Gladstone, Lawrence, Lenexa and Shawnee" The newspaper found most cities aren't doing well scoring themselves or even keeping key data, much less weighing it all against nearby peers. Read more about how the story was reported. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Planes dangerously close in Canadian skies Robert Cribb, Fred Vallance-Jones and Tamsin McMahon of The Toronto Star analyzed the aviation data and found that "more than 80,000 passengers have been put at risk over the last five years when airplanes they were travelling in came dangerously close together in Canadian skies." Between 2001 and mid-2005, there were more than 800 incidents in which planes got too close to each other. "The investigation found a safety system straining at the seams. Experts — pilots, mechanics, airline workers and people who study aviation data — warn significant changes must be made to prevent a major catastrophe." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Police break into six-figure club Thomas J. Dolan of The Buffalo News analyzed police contracts and 2005 payrolls for seven towns and the City of Buffalo and found that "47 officers from Buffalo and the near suburbs broke the $100,000 mark in 2005, the last year for which complete figures were available. And nearly three dozen more are poised to do so, with gross pay in the high five figures." The investigation showed police receive a wide variety of "perks," from allowing them to cash in their unused sick time, to a contract provision that allows Cheektowaga officers to claim time and half pay if their lunch is interrupted by police work. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 05, 2006 Congressional travel adds up to $50 million An analysis of more than 25,000 travel disclosure documents over a 5½-year period by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Northwestern University's Medill News Service found that "members of Congress and their aides took at least 23,000 trips — valued at almost $50 million — financed by private sponsors, many of them corporations, trade associations and nonprofit groups with business on Capitol Hill." While some of these trips no doubt were educational, others appeared to be thinly veiled attempts by special interests to influence lawmakers and their advisers. Also see Top Gun of Travel and Rangel Trip Raises Ethics Questions. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Some Minn. schools doing well at teaching poor students Megan Boldt, MaryJo Sylwester, Meggen Lindsay and Doug Belden of St. Paul Pioneer Press analyzed three years of test scores from all 731 Minnesota elementary schools and found that 13 high-poverty schools were "doing better than predicted and seem to have found a way to overcome education's biggest challenge — teaching high numbers of poor students well." Read about how they reported the story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 01, 2006 Farm subsidy payments in Denmark go up Farmsubsidy.org has released new data on farm subsidy payments, with an analysis by Nils Mulvad, co-founder of farmsubsidy.org and director of the Danish International Center for Analytical Reporting, analyzed new data on farm subsidy payments in Denmark in 2005 and found that "the new Single Farm Payment Scheme has dramatically increased the number of farm subsidy recipients in Denmark, though many of these new recipients receive relatively small payments." "The Danish authority paid €1.3 billion to more than 70,649 recipients. There was a significant increase in the number of recipients compared to former years. Some 17,290 'first time' recipients were paid a total of DKK 440.645.234 or just less than 5 percent of all farm subsidies paid out over course of 2005." The Single Farm Payment Scheme also increased the concentration of payments among the largest recipients, with more than 80 percent of payments going to the top 20 percent of recipients. See the report of the new data. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 31, 2006 Tracking of excessive force inconsistent in Texas Nancy Martinez and Sarah Viren of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reviewed a database from the state Attorney General of in-custody deaths and found a lack of records of excessive force complaints and inconsistencies in the records that did exist. "No reports are sent outside the department unless someone dies, no agency collects comparable data on excessive force complaints, and a statewide database of deaths that occurred in law enforcement custody contains data-entry glitches and missing information." In one of the in-custody deaths, the investigation found that city officials said the video of the in-custody death proved officers followed policy, but they didn't share that. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Motorcycle fatalities on rise; helmet laws repealed Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service studied records provided by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and found "deaths in U.S. motorcycle crashes have nearly doubled in a decade, mounting to 4,000 annually, as more states have repealed mandatory helmet safety laws." The analysis of 2004 federal accident data showed that "the per capita rate of motorcycle fatalities in 2004 was 41 percent greater in states that do not require helmets for adult motorcyclists." The story notes that motorcyclists have "formed powerful state and national lobbies, persuaded Congress to muzzle federal highway safety experts and convinced lawmakers in 30 states to roll back their statutes." Hargrove also found that "an unusually large number of divorced middle-age men are dying in motorcycle accidents." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 30, 2006 Hundreds of Texas racehorses fatally injured John Tedesco of the San Antonio Express-News examined the Texas Racing Commission's database of horse injuries, which never had been analyzed by outsiders, and found that "at the state's five licensed tracks, Marsh and other veterinarians with the Texas Racing Commission have euthanized or documented the deaths of 300 horses in the past five years, usually after the animals broke ankles, legs or even spinal cords during races." Although thousands of horses compete safely in Texas, the investigation reveals an ugly side to a industry struggling to fill empty seats. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 25, 2006 Sleepy truckers cause crashes, don't get ticketed Nancy Amons of WSMV-Nashville analyzed truck accident reports statewide over the past five years and found that "64 crashes where a trucker who was listed as 'apparently asleep' injured or killed someone. In 70 percent of those cases, the trucker never got a ticket." Analysis of another database of Department of Safety inspection reports found that in three years, more than 1900 truck drivers were cited for driving over the allowable number of hours. A recent federal study found that when a trucker causes a crash, 13 percent of the time it is because he is fatigued. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 17, 2006 High-interest payday loans increase in N.H. Karen Spiller of The (Nashua, N.H.) Telegraph found that payday loans with high interest rates — as high as 500 percent or more — are increasing in New Hampshire, the only state in New England not to regulate them. "Last year alone, more than 100,000 payday loans were written in the state for an average loan of about $360, according to the New Hampshire Banking Department. " The number of loans rose 28 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to data The Telegraph requested from the state banking commissioner. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Prisoners paroled early despite lifetime sentences Robert Patrick of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used court records and Department of Corrections data to show that prisoners who were sentenced to prison terms of double their lifetimes or more have been quietly released after doing only a fraction of their time in Missouri and Illinois. "In all, at least 189 murderers and 40 people convicted of sexual assault, rape or sodomy in Missouri are among roughly 400 of the state's inmates originally sentenced to at least 25 years in prison and paroled in the past 10 years, according to the Department of Corrections." They are prisoners who were convicted before legislators and prosecutors tightened the rules and began chipping away at the discretion of the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 12, 2006 N.J. funds schools that manage money poorly Jean Rimbach and Kathleen Carroll of The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record analyzed audits of more than 100 state-funded preschools in New Jersey's poorest communities, reviewed tax returns, financial documents and contracts and interviewed dozens of state and local officials, owners and teachers to show that seven years after New Jersey launched its landmark program for disadvantaged preschoolers — with $561 million budgeted this year alone — the state continues to send tax dollars to programs that have flagrantly misspent or wasted money. The four-month investigation found sloppy bookkeeping at virtually every school, inflated rents, six-figure salaries and $900,000 in personal loans while some schools shortchanged teachers' wages and benefits and uninterrupted funding for schools showing clear financial distress, such as tax liens, negative bank balances, lapsed insurance policies and failure to meet payroll. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Fighting eminent domain mostly a losing battle Steve Kemme and Gregory Korte of The Cincinnati Enquirer analyzed real-estate sales records and found that those who sold their homes for an urban renewal project in suburban Norwood made more than twice what their homes were worth — while those who had their properties taken by eminent domain made three times their appraised value. The reporters analyzed every eminent domain case in Hamilton County in the past eight years to show that when government moves to take private property, owners can rarely — if ever — stop it." The investigation found that owners do get 85 percent more in court than the government was willing to pay when it filed the condemnation action. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 11, 2006 Legal claims, retirements paid by taxpayers In a continuation of the "Conduct Unbecoming" series, Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer examined "state pension and payroll records of eight King County sheriff's deputies and found example after example of how such problem officers continued drawing salaries and earning service credits for years." The investigation also found that "taxpayers have paid hundreds of thousands more in settlements of legal claims brought by alleged victims of four of the deputies" along with millions in work and retirement pay. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 10, 2006 Campaign finance reform plan lacks scope Kevin Begos and Doug Stanley of The Tampa Tribune analyzed records to show that the campaign finance reform legislation backed by Senate President Tom Lee would have a serious effect on only about 5 percent of soft money groups in the state, leaving vast loopholes in other places. "Of the 816 soft money committees listed with the Division of Elections, 41 are controlled by legislators — the focus of Lee's bill. " The main reforms of Lee's bill are restrictions on links between politicians and soft money committees and increased reporting requirements. Also, politicians wouldn't be able to solicit or accept campaign contributions of more than $500 for the committees they control. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 08, 2006 Tenn. legislative workers get hefty raises Nancy Amons of WSMV-Nashville compared databases of state employees' salaries in 2003 and 2006 to show that most state employees got a 9 percent increase over a three-year period, while some top executives took home raises of 45 percent and more. The investigation found that the clerks of the State House and Senate got increases of more than 25 percent, although they do not have any kind of performance reviews. Ten staffers in the legislature were found who make more than $100,000 a year each averaged a 20 percent increase from 2003 to 2006. "That's more than TWICE what the average state worker got during the same time period — 9 percent. " The state also has a record number of employees making more than $200,000 a year. This number of employees has increased from 2 in 2003 to 11 in 2006. The story includes achart of salary increases for the 25 highest-paid legislative employees. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Sex offenders working at McDonald's around the nation Phil Williams of WTVF-Nashville used the state's registry of sex offenders to show that McDonald's restaurants across the country have repeatedly hired sex offenders and child molesters. For instance, the investigation found that a twice-convicted rapist and child molester in Indiana heads a list of 13 McDonald's employees on the sex offender registry. Another convicted child molester in Alaska is among 14 McDonald's workers — sex offenders — who are listed on that state's registry. The franchisees are not required to do background checks, and a statement sent to use by McDonald's suggest the corporation may not always do background checks. A map shows a state-by-state analysis Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Serious problems with tornado sirens Bob Segall of WTHR-Indianapolis used county records to find there are serious issues with many of central Indiana's tornado sirens. The investigation found problems that included sirens that have failed thousands of times, to inoperable sirens, to local officials who have no idea whether sirens are working or even where the sirens are. "For example, on a single test date in October, 2004, records show 70 siren failures. But the week before, only one siren failed, and the week after, 23 sirens failed. " Records show sirens have failed to work properly 4,689 times over the past six years, both during regular Friday morning testing and during actual storms. There were several dates when more than half of them weren't working — at least 70 sirens listed as failing simultaneously. The story includes a sidebar on the coverage area and how they reported the story Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 02, 2006 Analysis paints picture of killers, victims Jo Craven McGinty of The New York Times analyzed homicide records over the past three years to provide a detailed description of New York killers and their victims. From 2003 through 2005, 1,662 murders were committed in New York. With crimes that were solved, men and boys were responsible for 93 percent of the murders. "They killed with guns about two-thirds of the time; their victims tended to be other men and boys; and in more than half the cases, the killer and the victim knew each other." The offender and victim were of the same race in more than three-quarters of the killings. "At least a quarter of the city's murders in these three years, were committed by strangers, and in those instances, most were the result of a dispute. " More than 90 percent of the killers had criminal records; and of those who wound up killed, more than half had them. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Taxpayers subsidize college athletics Mark Alesia of The Indianapolis Star finds that "athletic departments at taxpayer-funded universities nationwide receive more than $1 billion in student fees and general school funds and services." The investigation analyzed the 2004-05 athletic budgets of 164 of the nation's 215 biggest public schools. The Star compiled and put online what is says is the "most detailed, publicly available database of college athletic department financial information ever assembled." The data comes from forms required by the NCAA for the 2004-05 school year that the paper obtained through freedom of information requests. Matt Moore, Mark Nichols, Chris Phillips, Ole Morten Orset, Ben Thomas, Jimmy Trodglen and Kandra Branam helped compile the data. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Politicians use leadership PACs for campaign contributions Deirdre Shesgreenand and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used campaign records to show that leadership PACs, set up separately from regular re-election accounts, are an increasingly popular tool politicians use to rake in extra campaign dollars that they then dole out to their colleagues — usually the party's most vulnerable incumbents or top challengers. "The accounts are a way for elected officials to get around campaign finance limits and wring yet more money out of special interests." In the process, critics contend, the PACs give lawmakers an extra political fund to dip into for travel, consultants and other items that fuel their own ambitions. Lawmakers can use leadership accounts to pay for a wide range of political expenses, including some that have little to do with a PAC's stated purpose of contributing to federal candidates. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Overtime a burden in N.H. town Andrew Nelson of The (Nashua, N.H.) Telegraph used city payroll records to look at overtime costs. While the city is laying off schoolteachers, it continues to pay $9 million a year in overtime and other extra pay to city employees. The investigation found that "nearly 50 city workers added at least 50 percent to their regular pay" and "more than 200 city workers added at least one-third to their pay. Only two of them work in schools, where administrators say they will cut more than 100 jobs in the next month to meet the mayor's budget targets." The bulk of the extra pay is in the traditional bastions of overtime: Nashua Fire Rescue ($3,098,945 in extra pay) and the police department ($2,514,591). But in percentage terms, the biggest winner was the solid waste department ($366,546, or 35 percent more than the base pay). A sortable database online includes every city employee and overtime pay. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 01, 2006 Students often call police about peers' parties Brian Charlton and Don Jordan of The State News at Michigan State University analyzed noise and party violations from 2004 and 2005, including 1,025 noise, 41 unlawful party and two nuisance party violations, and found student neighborhoods were saturated with violations. The most ticketed areas were student apartment complexes, a finding that surprised police who thought most complaints would come from where student neighborhoods adjoined areas where more permanent residents lived. "Most of the noise citations are given out after someone calls police with a complaint. There were more than 1,600 complaints in both 2004 and 2005 — three times more than the number of citations handed out." The investigation used Access to find the noisiest apartment complex, apartment, street, block, weekend, day of the week, time of the day, month of the year. They also found the police officers who issued the most tickets. The story includes an interactive map of violations and a PDF of the data. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Firms employ brokers who have regulatory records Paul Foutch and Will Deener of The Dallas Morning News used state securities board data to show that four firms in the Dallas-Fort Worth brokerage industry have brokers with extensive regulatory records. The investigation used NASD data (the industry's self-regulatory body, formerly known as the National Association of Securities Dealers) obtained from the Texas State Securities Board, and analyzed the regulatory records of the 14,450 brokers with offices in D-FW as of April 7. "The paper focused on firms with a minimum of 15 brokers, about 125 firms including some insurance, mutual fund and other financial companies." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 14, 2006 Tax breaks prove costly for Detroit David Josar of The Detroit News used State Tax Commission data, property assessments and tax records to show that Detroit is losing more than $63 million in annual revenue because of property tax breaks given to people moving into new houses, condos and lofts. The tax breaks have cost the city and school district more than $400 million since 2000. "The loss in revenue has become so dire that Detroit Public Schools has begun sending its chief financial officer, Dori Freelain, to weekly City Council meetings urging pragmatism with abatements." The investigation found the tax breaks don't always go to the disadvantaged. In one case, the owner of one of America's most successful Chevrolet dealerships, who bought a $1.3 million house, saves $41,999 a year because of several exemptions. When the breaks expire in 2011, the businesswoman will have saved $371,345 in property taxes. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Sonics' owners are a secretive team Jim Brunner of The Seattle Times used public records to construct the most complete roster to date of the investors of Seattle's basketball team, the Sonics. "Some were announced when they bought the team in 2001; others were identified in public records or interviews. Several were recently confirmed by the team for the first time after repeated inquiries by the newspaper. " The team still will not identify about a dozen owners; some are family members of other owners. With a combined wealth in the billions, the owners represent a cross section of Pacific Northwest money and influence. It is a millionaires' club with solid political connections. Owners have contributed more than $2 million to state, federal and local campaigns since they bought the team. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 05, 2006 Drug companies sponsored FDA staff travel Alexander Cohen of The Center for Public Integrity analyzed FDA reports of privately sponsored trips taken by agency officials between October 1999 and September 2005 that cost more than $250 and found a loophole in the agency rules that has allowed its employees to receive more than $1.3 million in sponsored travel from groups closely tied to pharmaceutical and medical device companies. "The investigation found nonprofit associations that draw their members, their boards and even some of their funding from medical and pharmaceutical-related companies paying for the travel of hundreds of FDA employees." Among other findings, five organizations that were tied to FDA-regulated companies sponsored almost 1,000 trips, seventeen Drug Safety Oversight Board members took more than 160 privately-funded trips costing more than $220,000, and eleven Drug Safety Oversight Board members took 55 trips, costing roughly $75,000, sponsored by one or more of the five organizations. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Clerk reports erroneous juror response rates Carl Jones of the Daily Business Review in South Florida analyzed Miami-Dade County juror response rates and found the county actually had about a 25 percent response in 2004-05 — rather than 54 percent as reported by the Office of the State Courts Administrator. And its true average monthly percentage for the last six months was 38.4 percent, not 95.3 percent. The county's Clerk of Courts confirmed his office has used a different method for reporting jury yield than that advised by the state since late 2004. "After the state of Florida took over responsibility for funding core justice system costs in July 2004, the job of jury pool management shifted from courts administrators to the county clerks of the courts. " The jury yield statistics help clerks and court officials plan how many people they need to summon to garner large enough jury pools for judges and trial lawyers to select from. Florida, like most other states, is struggling to improve declining rates of jury service compliance. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 31, 2006 N.C. drinking water safety in doubt In a three-part series, Pat Stith of The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer shows the "state's regulation of drinking water reveals disregard for safety of private wells, weak regulation of public water systems and widespread problems with lead testing." The series includes an interactive map and a sidebar about how the state closely followed Stith's investigation and began responding to problems before the stories were published. "Stith, along with reporters Catherine Clabby and Wade Rawlins and database editor David Raynor, examined a stack of paper records 8 feet high and acquired databases from the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the N.C. State Laboratory of Public Health and Wake County. The reporters also interviewed more than 100 people." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 29, 2006 Nev. rural emergency services face challenges Reporters Steve Timko, Jason Hidalgo and Jim Sloan of the Reno Gazette-Journal examine rural emergency services in Nevada. Timko used data from the Department of Transportation's Fatal Accident Reporting System to identify Nevada's deadliest roads. Other stories in the series look at ambulance response times — finding they are the worst in the country &mdash and the aging equipment used by EMS crews. (Editor's note: For those interested in doing similar stories using FARS data, it is available to journalists through the IRE and NICAR Database Library.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 27, 2006 Federal fines go uncollected across the nation Martha Mendoza and Christopher Sullivan of The Associated Press used federal records to show that the amount of unpaid federal fines has risen sharply in the past decade, in an investigation that examined federal financial penalty enforcement across the nation. Individuals and corporations regularly avoid large penalties for wrongdoing — sometimes through negotiations, sometimes because companies go bankrupt, sometimes because officials fail to keep close track of who owes what under a decentralized collection system. "The government is currently owed more than $35 billion in fines and other payments from criminal and in civil cases, according to Justice Department figures." This is enough to cover the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security. The story includes a breakdown of how much is owed by state. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 22, 2006 Execs benefit from backdating of stock options Charles Forelle and James Bandler of The Wall Street Journal analyzed grant dates and stock movements and identified several companies with wildly improbable option-grant patterns. "The analysis bolsters recent academic work suggesting that backdating was widespread, particularly from the start of the tech-stock boom in the 1990s through the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform act of 2002. If so, it was another way some executives enriched themselves during the boom at shareholders' expense. And because options grants are long-lived, some executives holding backdated grants from the late 1990s could still profit from them today." Read more about the methodology used. (Links to the articles on the WSJ site will be good for seven days for non-subscribers. The article is also available through Factiva or for purchase on the WSJ Web site.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 21, 2006 People with lower incomes risk more on lottery Adam Bell and Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer analyzed four years of data from the South Carolina lottery to show that people with lower incomes spend a greater portion of their income on lottery games than more affluent players. The investigation found people earning less than $30,000 a year spent an estimated $627 per household annually, nearly triple the spending of those making more than $50,000. "In South Carolina, households with the same income levels in predominantly black neighborhoods generally spent more money than people in predominantly white neighborhoods." The paper analyzed ZIP code data in the Carolinas to estimate average household income spent on the lottery. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 17, 2006 Dubious charities raise millions Ronald Campbell of The Orange County Register reviewed more than 10,000 pages of court records, financial reports and other documents and found that former associates of imprisoned charity telemarketing king Mitch Gold have raised more than $83 million in four years for dubious charities. Fundraisers and managers kept almost all the cash, leaving just 7 cents on the dollar for charity. "A typical Gold-style contract guarantees a charity a set amount or a fixed percentage of the take — seldom more than 15 percent and sometimes far less. " The investigation analyzed a GuideStar database of more than 150,000 charities, concluding that only about 500 sizeable charities spend most of their money on fundraising. The package includes a social network analysis diagram (done with UCINET) showing how dozens of charities and fundraisers are related to each other and to Gold. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Dam threats in Hawaii underassessed Karen Blakeman, staff writer with The Honolulu Advertiser, used National Inventory of Dams data from IRE and NICAR for a story about the deadly failure of a privately owned dam on the Hawaii island of Kaua'i. Two bodies have been found and five others are missing. Blakeman reported that state safety inspections of dams across Hawaii are woefully behind schedule and the threats dams pose to people have been underassessed. "Federal records on dams in Hawai'i show very few have emergency action plans." (Editor's Note: IRE and NICAR offer the National Inventory of Dams to journalists.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 13, 2006 States make little use of provision to help hurricane victims Jenni Bergal of The Center for Public Integrity reviewed health records to find that states have barely used $2 billion provided in an emergency bill passed by Congress to help low-income hurricane victims scattered across the country. "Any state that took in Katrina evacuees could tap into the money to offer cash to those who had at least one child and met certain income guidelines qualifying them as poor." But more than five months after the bill was signed into law, only 12 states — including Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — have taken Congress up on its offer. Federal Emergency Management Agency figures show that at least 320,000 of the more than 1.6 million people registered with the agency have addresses outside of the three hurricane-ravaged states. Every state, from Wyoming to Maine, has taken in Katrina evacuees, according to FEMA statistics. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 10, 2006 Md. churches violate law with political donations John Fritze of The (Baltimore) Sun reviewed candidate finance reports to show that more than 100 churches in Maryland — including dozens in Baltimore — have made campaign contributions to political candidates in recent years, an act that is prohibited by federal tax law and blurs the line between politics and the pulpit. Some have given repeatedly, such as the Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore, which made a dozen campaign donations between 2000 and 2004 that add up to more than $3,000. Statewide, at least 115 churches have given to about 40 candidates since 2000, and while the donations are generally small and sporadic, they flout Internal Revenue Service regulations that prohibit churches from advocating for specific political candidates. "Churches that give to candidates can face revocation of their tax-exempt status or a 10 percent excise tax on the contributions, according to the IRS." A variety of candidates from both parties — including many in top leadership positions — have taken money from churches in recent years. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 08, 2006 N.J. Megan's Law deemed one of nation's weakest A team or reporters and editors with the Gannett New Jersey newspapers and Gannett News Service examine loopholes in Megan's Law in a three-part series. The investigation found that New Jersey's law stands as one of the weakest in the nation in immediately warning residents when an offender moves into their neighborhood. "In New Jersey, it can take prosecutors and judges months to notify people if a notorious rapist has moved next door — if they warn you at all. " Monmouth and Ocean counties were home to 1,220 registered sex offenders in January, according to State Police information. The names and addresses of just 253 were posted on the state's Megan's Law Web site; most of the rest are known only to law enforcement. Because of the growing number of residency restrictions, an unknown number of sex offenders may be forced from their homes this year, thus making them shift from inner-city enclaves to suburban neighborhoods. The team who worked on this project includes James W. Prado Roberts, Robert Benincasa, Michelle Sahn, Alan Guenther, Abbott Koloff, Arielle Levin Becker, Ledyard King, Paul D'Ambrosio and Laura Rehrmann. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post County fails to monitor AIDS services program Norberto Santana Jr. and Tony Saavedra of The Orange County Register used data crunching, document digging and old-fashioned gumshoe work to reveal how Orange County bungled its fledgling AIDS program for African-Americans. The investigation found what the county hadn't bothered to look for when hiring an AIDS service provider. " Pastor Aubrey Keys, the person they put in charge had a long history of personal financial troubles calling into question his ability to ably manage federal funds." The reporters audited the county's books and also found Keys, who had disappeared when the AIDS funding ran out. He was unrepentent, as was the county. The story uses a local example to show how AIDS funding nationwide is being put in jeopardy by rogue programs and regulators who are missing in action. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 07, 2006 Data shows most dangerous highways in NY, NJ Brendan Keefe of WCBS-New York investigated highways in New York and New Jersey to determine which were the most dangerous ones. "In 2004, there were 21 fatalities on Interstate 80, 35 on the New Jersey Turnpike and 42 on the Garden State Parkway." New York's worst roads for highway deaths: Interstate 87 — 17 dead. State Route 5, upstate — 24 dead, and on Long Island, Sunrise Highway — 22 dead. Statistically, some roads appeared to be more dangerous than others. But those same statistics show that in three out of four crashes, the human element is the primary cause. (Editor's note: Megan Means of the IRE and NICAR Database Library assisted with the data analysis for this story.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 02, 2006 States progress in reform of lobbying laws Leah Rush and David Jimenez of The Center for Public Integrity report that 24 states have worked to strengthen or improve electronic disclosure systems since the Center's 2003 report, "Hired Guns." Meanwhile, federal lobbying disclosure laws have not changed in the past eight years. Political scandals, in many cases, were the catalyst for changes in state lobbying laws. The Center "evaluated the strength of lobbying disclosure laws nationwide found the federal law to be weaker than those of 47 of the 50 states." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Tax delinquents still get public funding Mark Greenblatt of KHOU-Houston used tax records to show that in Houston, though some local landlords haven't paid their property taxes in years, the government vault is still open to them. "Despite owing the government money, these property owners are still getting millions of dollars in public funding." For instance, the investigation found that in Houston and Harris County, a property owned by UCE Real Estate owed more than $5,000 in taxes dating back 10 years, and yet they received more than $100,000 in government funds. There were about 70 landlords who still owed the government tax money. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Lack of tough measures result in deaths Gregg Jones and Doug Swanson of The Dallas Morning News use a fatal 2004 truck accident near Dallas to illustrate many of the problems in the trucking industry. Miroslaw Jozwiak, a Polish immigrant, plowed the commercial truck he was driving into incoming traffic in 2004, killing 10 people, including three children. The investigation found that since interstate shipping was deregulated in the 1980s, the number of trucking and bus companies has soared from 230,000 in 1990 to more than 677,000 in 2004. "Competition among these companies has transformed the trucking industry into a magnet for immigrants, felons and others with poor employment prospects. It has also produced punishing conditions for truckers, many of whom are paid by the mile. " The political clout of the trucking lobby and of big retailers has helped block tougher laws to police the business. As a result, industry experts and watchdog groups say, untold legions of truckers work unsafe hours, or operate faulty equipment that inspectors fail to curb, or continue driving despite numerous traffic violations, or wipe out innocent people who try to share the road. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Booming housing industry slows in South Fla. Matthew Haggman, Lisa Arthur and Tim Henderson of The Miami Herald analyzed home sales over the past five years and found South Florida has gone through the most explosive housing boom in its history. "The land rush has transformed just about every corner and corridor of the region, sending prices skyward since 2000 — more than 150 percent in Pompano Beach, more than 200 percent in Hallandale Beach and Sunny Isles Beach, and 250 percent in North Bay Village. " But it is predicted that South Florida's 5-year run of annual price jumps of anywhere from 12 percent to more than 20 percent is ending. Prices have wobbled in recent months, with sellers lowering their expectations. Houses are sitting longer on the market — the average time needed to sell a single-family home in Broward County has jumped from 34 days six months ago to 53 days. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post County officials surf Internet during public meetings Garrett Therolf and Matthew Waite of St. Petersburg Times used Internet records to show that three Pasco commissioners visited numerous Web sites during commission meetings over the past three years. The investigation found personal use of county computers has gotten rank-and-file county employees fired. "Like many other workplaces, the county uses software to track employees suspected of misusing their computers, and has fired people for it." The investigation also found that in Pasco, rules that prohibit county employees from misusing the Web do not apply to the commissioners. No state law regulates county commissioners' Web use; if there were, public officials could be punished for using the Web with "wrongful intent." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 28, 2006 Contractors are invisible casualties in Iraq Alejandra Fernandez-Morera of the Scripps Howard News Service found there are significant invisible casualties of the Iraqi occupation. Almost 505 civilian contractors have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. "Another 4,744 contractors have been injured, according to insurance claims by 209 companies on file at the Department of Labor." The investigation found that neither the Pentagon nor American corporations who hire contractors to support the U.S. military in Iraq will identify the Americans and foreign nationals who have died, citing privacy and security reasons. The unnamed civilians have become a significant part of the cost of the Iraqi occupation, accounting for at least one-sixth of U.S. fatalities suffered. Because the Pentagon has outsourced thousands of jobs, American contractors have become a new kind of Unknown Soldier. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 23, 2006 Hawaii's backlog allows many to escape charges Ken Kobayashi and Jim Dooley of The Honolulu Advertiser used traffic records to show that O'ahu, Hawaii, has an estimated backlog of 61,500 bench warrants, costing the state a potential $20 million in unpaid fines and fees and allowing defendants to avoid charges as routine as running a red light and serious as negligent homicide. The three-part series found that poor coordination among law enforcement agencies and the courts results in long delays in processing warrants, missed opportunities to serve the orders and, in some cases, failure to capture fugitives. "The state sheriff's department — the agency tasked with serving more than 80 percent of O'ahu's 61,500 unserved warrants — has only 12 full-time officers dedicated to serving warrants." A practice not widely known even in the legal community allows law enforcement officials to turn down extradition of felony defendants who have left the state, largely because it is costly to return them. About 250 charged with felonies dating to the 1980s have escaped prosecution by leaving the Islands, the newspaper found. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Inequities found in property taxes Andrew Nelson, Bill Dedman and Matt Hersh of The Telegraph used city records to show that thousands of homeowners in Nashua, N.H. are paying too much in property taxes because of wide disparities between sale prices and the city's valuation of properties. Thousands more are paying too little, requiring other taxpayers to pick up the slack. Comparing the sale prices of those homes with the assessor's value, the investigation found 22.7 percent were overtaxed by at least 5 percent, 33.3 percent were undertaxed by at least 5 percent and 44.0 percent were close, pegged within 5 percent of their sale price. "If those homes that sold are representative of all 24,530 homes in the city — and the entire property tax system is based on the assumption that they are representative — then the owners of roughly 6,000 homes in the city are paying too much in property tax, about 8,000 are paying too little, and about 11,000 are paying about the right amount." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Dallas fails to collect parking fines Dave Levinthal and Molly Motley Blythe of The Dallas Morning News analyzed city records to show that Dallas City Hall, perennially strapped for cash, is owed at least $40 million in unpaid parking fines. As of November, the city had yet to collect on nearly 1 million outstanding parking tickets and their corresponding late penalties dating to 1988. "The money is owed by delivery companies and the federal government; city employees and average residents; and folks from every corner of the state and nation. " The investigation found the information recorded about illegally parked vehicles is inconsistent — several different names for the same company, for example — and sometimes incorrect. Also, 10 businesses each owed Dallas more than $30,000. Two of them owed more than $100,000. Dallas has cut dozens of jobs and raised property taxes because of meager budgets. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post High interest mortgages prevalent in rural areas Geoff Dutton, Jill Riepenhoff and Doug Haddix of The Columbus Dispatch analyzed federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and explored the spread of high-interest mortgages from inner cities to Ohio's suburban and rural areas. They found that risky high-interest mortgages have cost record numbers of people their homes, but not just in the big cities. The investigation found people in rural areas were much more likely to sign mortgages with high interest rates, generally above 8 percent, compared with the average of 5 percent for a conventional loan at the time. (Note: For reporters interested in pursuing similar stories, IRE and NICAR offer a beat book, "Home Mortgage Lending: How to detect disparities," as well as Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Fla. fails to inspect elevators regularly John McCarthy of Florida Today reviewed reports by local, state and federal agencies to show the state agency that oversees elevators has failed to ensure proper inspections as state law requires, in a three-day series on elevator safety. The newspaper found that in Brevard County, 221 of 1,113 passenger elevators do not have a current operating certificate. " Ten have certificates that expired in 2002. Some have not been inspected for years — as far back as 1998 in one case — despite a state law requiring annual inspections." Among the buildings with delinquent certificates are high-rise condos, hospitals and even government office buildings. State records reveal 2,235 accidents in Florida since 2000 involving elevators and escalators regulated by the state Bureau of Elevator Safety. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Library plagued by serious violations Chris Halsne of KIRO-Seattle used the internal library database from Seattle's new $169 million downtown library to show it is plagued by some serious security concerns. Hundreds of patrons are kicked out for repeatedly getting drunk, sleeping or more serious matters, like threats, sexual misconduct and assaults. "Records show 491 "code of conduct violations" serious enough to get a patron kicked out. Since June of 2004, documents show 22 incidents of sexual misconduct or public nudity; 60 threats of violence, including loud, racially-motivated or obscene rants; 76 cases of harassment, disruptive behavior, leering, stalking. " Guards documented seven cases of physical assault and at least 13 illegal drug incidents. Patrons have repeatedly been expelled for sexually inappropriate behavior. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 20, 2006 Federal loans granted for risky businesses Ben Welsh of the Columbia Missourian used Small Business Administration loan records to show that over the past five years, the number of government-backed loans to Columbia's bars and restaurants has skyrocketed far beyond previous levels. "Between August 2000 and August 2005, 33 cents of every loan dollar the SBA backed in Columbia — more than $7.7 million of the $22.3 million total — went to finance bars and restaurants. That is more than double what was given out to Columbia bars and restaurants in the previous five years." The investigation found that Columbia surpasses a national trend. Last year the agency's inspector general found that restaurants received 9 percent of all government-backed loan dollars between 1996 and 2003, more than any other industry. And not only were restaurant loans the most common, they were also the most likely to go unpaid. (Editor's Note: In reporting this story, Welsh used SBA 7a data, which is available from IRE and NICAR.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 16, 2006 Classified satellite-related contracts on the rise Michael Fabey of Defense News analyzed 3 million contract and modification records from 2000 through 2004 to show that U.S. agencies made more than 2,100 deals worth $1.2 billion for satellite telecommunications and related work. "U.S. federal agencies issued about 35,000 contracts and related modifications for general space-related work, worth about $40.2 billion, the analysis showed." Space work could include software, equipment or other components for any type of space work, including but not limited to satellites. The records showed that about 800 of the satellite-related contracts were for programs listed as "classified or non-discernible." The total number of all federal government contracts and associated modifications for classified programs show an increase from about 281,000 in 2001 to about 446,000 in 2003, an increase mirrored by space and satellite work. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 14, 2006 School district loans are unreasonable burden on taxpayers Jeffrey Gaunt and Emily Krone of the Daily Herald , outside Chicago, analyzed 206 suburban school district loans to show many taxpayers repay those loans at rates higher than they would on their homes. The investigation found that, despite federal measures that keep government rates low, the district agreed that taxpayers will pay back $6.03 billion for the $3.34 billion borrowed. "In the most costly example, taxpayers will repay $3.09 per dollar — or three times the amount borrowed." The Daily Herald analysis revealed that many districts agreed to interest rates higher than available, got cash bonuses from their lender for doing so and many agreed to pay compounded interest rates -sometimes on the higher rates. Also see the complete analysis and series Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 06, 2006 NFL players dying young because of weight-related ailments Thomas Hargrove of the Scripps Howard News Service tracked the deaths of 3,850 pro football players to show that athletes of the National Football League are dying young at an alarming rate and many of the players are succumbing to ailments typically related to weight. The heaviest athletes are more than twice as likely to die before their 50th birthday than their teammates. "Most of the 130 players born since 1955 who have died were among the heaviest athletes in sports history, according to the study. One-fifth died of heart diseases, and 77 were so overweight that doctors would have classified them as obese, the study found." Twenty years ago, it was rare for a player to weigh 300 pounds. But more than 500 players were listed at that weight or more on NFL training-camp rosters this summer. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Denver code enforcement cases on the rise Daniel J. Chacón of the Rocky Mountain News used local data to show that code-enforcement cases in Denver increased more than 12 percent between 2004 and 2005 and by more than 20 percent in five of the city's 11 council districts, according to data obtained under a Colorado Open Records Act request. "The number of total inspections, including those where no violation was found, nearly doubled from 26,303 in 2004 to 51,756 last year. " Denver has also implemented a new program which carries stiffer fines, and slaps property owners with a $150 fine for the first violation, $500 for the second and $999 for each one after that. Violations include everything from illegal dumping to running an auto repair shop on a residential lot. The two most frequent infractions are uncut lawns and junk cars. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Kansas City speeders plead to lower offenses Michael Mansur of The Kansas City Star used computer-assisted analysis of court records to show the court repeatedly allows thousands of speeders and red-light runners to reduce dangerous moving violations to defective-equipment pleas. That means tickets for serious violations are pleaded down to offenses such as broken taillights, which means no points against a driver's record. The legal tactic — called "buying points" — is common in the metro area, but is spinning out of control in Kansas City, resulting in problem drivers continuing to speed, even when their licenses should be suspended or revoked. "Currently, a driver older than 21 who hires an attorney and agrees to pay a slightly higher fine can get two defective-equipment reductions in a calendar year. That allows some of the worst drivers to get as many as four in a 12-month period — such as two in December and two in January — without any questions. " One driver used the tactic six times in one year, the paper found, while 250 did it three times or more. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 02, 2006 Murderers go unpunished in Newark Jonathan Schuppe and William Kleinknecht of The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger analyzed homicides in Essex County between 1998 and 2003 and found killers went unpunished more often than they went to prison. In the cases in which a defendant was convicted, more than a quarter led to prison sentences of 10 years or less. "Essex County is New Jersey's homicide capital. One in three of the state's killings occur in Newark and surrounding towns. But while taking a life is the most serious criminal offense on the books, police and prosecutors have struggled to put murderers behind bars. " The Star-Ledger, in reviewing the cases and interviewing police, prosecutors, lawyers, community leaders and others during the past six months, found a series of glaring deficiencies in the criminal justice system. The story includes a sidebar about how this story was investigated. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 30, 2006 Miami transit OT draining county budget Jack Dolan, Larry Lebowitz and Scott Hiaasen of The Miami Herald analyzed local payroll data to find that “transit overtime pay — which is 1.5 times as high as regular hourly rates and cost taxpayers more than $129 million over the last five years — is a long-standing drain on county funds that has persisted despite decades of promises from county officials to bring it under control.” The paper found dozens of county bus and train operators who double their pay via overtime work. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Vulnerable live in Sacramento's flood zones Phillip Reese of The Sacramento Bee used Census data and maps to report that “more than 150,000 of Sacramento County’s most vulnerable residents — the elderly, the poor and the disabled — live in areas prone to substantial flooding, and local officials acknowledge they don’t know whether they could quickly get them to safe ground.” Those individuals live in areas of the county that could see floods of at least two feet. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 24, 2006 Loopholes put school bus drivers with violations on roads Brad Branan of the Tucson Citizen used court records to show that Arizona school bus drivers with criminal records or multiple moving violations are escaping state regulatory enforcement and putting children and other motorists at risk. The investigation found that drivers with criminal records or multiple traffic violations are among the most accident prone at Tucson-area school districts. "A Vail Unified School District driver — one of two school bus drivers to transport students while under the influence of drugs or alcohol last school year — was state certified despite numerous traffic violations and a license suspension." The investigation found a number of loopholes in the state system for licensing and certifying school bus drivers including that a school bus driver has to commit two DUIs or other major traffic offenses in a personal vehicle to automatically lose his bus license and that the Arizona Department of Public Safety doesn't check for criminal backgrounds after a driver is certified. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 20, 2006 Aide might have violated ethics rules Thomas Peele of the Contra Costa Times used congressional financial disclosure statements, state and federal campaign finance reports, IRS records, congressional committee and staff disbursement records and other documents to show that Rep. Richard Pombo's top aide, Steven Ding, might have violated congressional ethics rules by not correctly reporting all of his outside political work and making too much money from California campaigns and consultants. "Steven Ding regularly worked for candidates and organizations with close ties to Pombo, a Tracy Republican who is chairman of the House Resources Committee." Despite being chief of staff to the Washington-based Resources Committee, and being paid more than $150,000 a year from the committee's budget, Ding worked primarily from California and commuted to Capitol Hill at taxpayers' expense when the committee was in session. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Foreclosures growing burden on low-income communities Lisa Hammersly Munn, Binyamin Appelbaum and Ted Mellnik of The Charlotte Observer used county records in a three-part series that looks into the rapidly rising numbers of home foreclosres, and the effects on neighborhoods where failed home loans have concentrated since the advent of easy credit by government and lenders. "Home loan failures have more than quadrupled in Mecklenburg County, NC since 1999. More foreclosures are filed here, per person, than any other county in the state."The neighborhoods are often new subdivisions priced for first-time buyers. But instead of building wealth through ownership, the buyers often lost their homes and badly damage their credit. Neighbors who pay their mortgages on time get hurt, too, because concentrated foreclosures can depress home values. Also see how this story was investigated. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 11, 2006 Nation's mine rescue system falling short Ken Ward Jr. reports in the Charleston, W.Va., Sunday Gazette-Mail "the nation's miners face a mounting risk because of a rescue system that is growing ever short on personnel and is in major need of reforms." From 2000 to 2002, the number of safety teams approved by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration dropped by 10 percent. A team of reporters, including Tara Tuckwiller, Scott Finn, Eric Eyre and Dave Gustafson, have contributed to the series of stories. Other stories include a history of the safety violations at the Sago Mine, an analysis of data that indicates lightning strikes may have played a role in the accident, and a story questioning whether the mine had adequate state environmental permits. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 10, 2006 Analysis of high court shows just 29 abortion rulings Keith Epstein and Doug Stanley of the Tampa Tribune analyzed Supreme Court voting data archived by Michigan State University political science Professor Harold J. Spaeth, finding that “since 1953, the Supreme Court has formally ruled on abortion, a privacy issue, only 29 times. Abortion-related cases account for only 0.5 percent of all rulings handed down by the court since then.” The paper’s analysis suggests that senators interested in probing nominee Samuel Alito’s views would do better to ask about topics such as “search and seizure, on which the court ruled 244 times, corporate liability (187 times), federal taxation (162 times) and antitrust cases (161 times).” Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Alito takes hard line on crime, immigration Amy Goldstein and Sarah Cohen of The Washington Post, with a team of reporters and researchers, categorized Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito’s rulings and compared them to other federal appeals court judges, finding that “Alito has taken a harder line on criminal and immigration cases than most federal appellate judges nationwide, including those who, like him, were selected by Republican presidents.” The analysis used data from the Appeals Court Database Project; a methodology is available. The full list of Alito’s cases used in the analysis is published on the Post’s Web site. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Ga. voter registration system unreliable Alan Judd, with data help from David A. Milliron, of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution compared a statewide voter registration database with a list of more than 100 commercial mailbox outlets in metro Atlanta, as well as voter registrations in the downtown business district and at government facilities, to identify flaws in the state's voter registration system. "Georgia relies on an honor system that assumes voters live at the addresses they submit when they register. These addresses determine voters' precinct assignments and, consequently, the elections in which they may cast ballots." The paper's analysis found many people whose listed addresses correspond to rented mailboxes, a high school's tennis court , homeless shelters and even the newspaper's headquarters. Such inaccuracies would be more than enough to make a differerence in November's city council election where five votes separated the two candidates. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 09, 2006 Some Colo. mines incur more violations than Sago Katy Human and Jeff Roberts of The Denver Post examined mine safety records for Colorado and found that its "eight underground coal mines paid fines totaling almost $500,000 for hundreds of safety violations in the past two years." One mine was cited 350 times last year for a total of nearly $50,000. In comparision, the Sago Mine in West Virginia, a more productive mine, was cited 208 times and fined about $24,000 during the same time. The report does say that Colorado's mines are "safer than the national average for several years when measured in terms of injuries, according to federal figures." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Ill. mine fined more than $500,000 last year Jeffrey Tomich, with contributions from Jaimi Dowdell, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used federal data to show that “Illinois’ largest coal mine was fined almost as much for safety violations last year as the rest of the state’s mines combined.” The Galatia mine, owned by the American Coal Co., was fined more than $500,000 by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Mine agency more lenient since 2001 Seth Borenstein, Linda J. Johnson and Lee Mueller of Knight Ridder Newspapers used federal data to find that “since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed.” The Mine Safety and Health Administration has a smaller budget and has won fewer convictions or guilty pleas. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 03, 2006 OC residents donate nearly $2 billion to charity John Gittelsohn and Michele Himmelberg of The Orange County Register used IRS data to show that “Orange County taxpayers donated $1.8 billion to charity in 2002, the most recent tax year available. That’s 2.61 percent of their adjusted gross income, which sounds meager to some, but it’s above the state and national average. In fact, Orange County tied Los Angeles for third in its donation rate among California’s 58 counties, behind only Santa Barbara and Marin.” Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Jails fail to meet standards Mark Scolforo of The Associated Press has a four-part series on Pennsylvania’s county prisons, finding that “many local jails are struggling to meet even minimum standards for safety, housing, food quality and medical care.” The AP obtained state inspection reports under Pennsylvania’s public records law; the jails “are not required to make public their annual state inspections or the reports they file on unusual occurrences, from inmate beatings to suicides and murders.” Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 21, 2005 Gulf Coast homeowner loans lagging Leslie Eaton and Ron Nixon of The New York Times used federal data to show the pace of homeowner loans in the Gulf Coast is lagging. “The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government’s main disaster recovery program for both businesses and homeowners, has processed only a third of the 276,000 home loan applications it has received. And it has rejected 82 percent of those it has reviewed, a higher percentage than in most previous disasters.” The loans that have been approved have been going to higher-income neighborhoods. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Multifamily housing hit hardest by Wilma Brittany Wallman and Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed hurricane damage reports to show that in Broward County, “condos and apartments were hit the hardest, accounting for 55 percent of the buildings declared uninhabitable. Mobile homes made up 28 percent of seriously damaged structures. Houses fared the best. Only 42 were deemed uninhabitable, barely 1 percent of all severely damaged buildings.” Low-income areas had the most buildings declared unlivable. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 19, 2005 Manhattan homeowners pay lower taxes Josh Barbanel of The New York Times used local tax and real estate data to show that "average taxes on Manhattan co-ops and condos are lower than they would be if they were taxed the way some of the most heavily taxed houses are. But it is prewar co-ops that have the greatest tax advantage." The paper examined the sale of 68,000 Manhattan properties, comparing them to city tax files, according to the explainer. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Killers buried among military heroes Richard Lardner and Doug Stanley of The Tampa Tribune report at least 50 veterans who committed homicides in civilian life are interred at Florida National Cemetery, "the final resting place for tens of thousands of military veterans," according to the paper's analysis of cemetery and prison records. The paper reports Congress is expected to pass legislation prohibiting killers from being buried in national cemeteries and receiving military honors at their funerals. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 16, 2005 'High hazard' dams unregulated and in need of repairs Eric Hand, Todd Frankel and Jaimi Dowdell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch examined the state of dams in Missouri and Illinois, following the failure of a dam in southeastern Missouri. They found that hundereds of dams in Missouri and Illinois lack plans for handling emergencies, are regulated by cash-strapped state offices that make intermittent inspections and depend on the willingness of private owners to make repairs, some of which are needed badly. "Of the state's 641 dams labeled "high hazard" — meaning a potential loss of life after a failure — more than half are not regulated. " (Editor's Note: The National Inventory of Dams, one of the sources used for this story, is available to journalists from IRE and NICAR.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 15, 2005 OSHA fines minimal, despite serious safety violations Mike Casey of The Kansas City Star examined OSHA's inspection database for the metropolitan area of Kansas City, Mo., to show that low fines for workplace deaths or injuries are common even when OSHA cites employers for a serious violation. The investigation found that in 80 such fatal and injury accidents, half of the fines Kansas City area employers paid were $3,000 or less. "Regulators and OSHA lawyers reduced employers' initial fines by nearly 60 percent. Adjusted for inflation, fines last year averaged less than they were in 1972." The paper also found that in three accidents that killed five area workers, OSHA changed its most serious citations from willful violations to "unclassified" — removing the word "willful" in describing the violations — and then significantly reduced the fines. Nationwide, fines were even lower in the last decade. Half of the fines employers paid were $2,500 or less in fatal and injury accidents involving at least one serious violation. (Editor's Note: For those interested in pursuing similar stories, IRE and NICAR have databases from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration available for journalists.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Loophole allows sex offenders to disappear Christine Willmsen and Justin Mayo of The Seattle Times analyzed court records, sex offender registries and check-in logs to show that hundreds of sex offenders register as homeless — making their whereabouts unknown. This results in law-enforcement officials not having any way of tracking them, and residents often being unaware of potential threats. The investigation found that in King County, the number of offenders who say they are homeless has nearly tripled in the past five years to 364. "Authorities say that out of every 10 sex offenders who report they are homeless, two or three are actually living in a neighborhood at a particular address." In King County, one-third of the high-risk sex felons say they are homeless. More than half of Seattle's 140 homeless sex offenders, as of last month, had arrest warrants for failing to sign in. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 12, 2005 FEMA program in New York 'dreadfully flawed' Russ Buettner, Heidi Evans, Robert Gearty, Brian Kates, Greg B. Smith and Richard T. Pienciak of the Daily News in New York used FEMA data to show that the federal government's $21.4 billion program to help New York recover from the 9/11 terrorist attacks was dreadfully flawed. "New Yorkers by the tens of thousands received free air conditioners, air purifiers and other clean-air devices in such an illogical pattern that the toxic plume from the smoldering World Trade Center would have had to travel like a wild tornado, arbitrarily touching down here and there throughout the city." The size and scope of abuse in the FEMA-funded program dwarfs any fraud and misuse allegations that have surfaced in disaster aid programs for hurricanes in Florida, wildfires in California and floods in Detroit. The paper found that air conditioners and the other devices were awarded to people living in buildings with central air, in buildings where the windows did not open and in locales where scientific evidence showed there was no environmental impact. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post N.J. lottery sales go up as income goes down Judy DeHaven and Rob Gebeloff of The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger analyzed five years of lottery data by ZIP code, obtained through the state's Open Public Records Act, and found that lottery revenues rose as incomes fell. "This was particularly true for its bread-and-butter money-makers — the Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings and instant games." The investigation found that per-capita ticket sales were much higher in lower-income ZIP codes. In communities with average household incomes that were below $52,000, the lottery sold an average of $250 of tickets per person annually. That was more than double the amount for ZIP codes with $100,000 households. Using minutes of meetings in the last five years, it was also found that faced with unprecedented budget shortfalls, state officials were pressuring the lottery to grow. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 07, 2005 Trains carry dangerous cargo through neighborhoods Phil Pitchford, Ben Goad, David Danelski, Mark Kawar and projects editor Cathy Armstrong of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise examine the safety issues surrounding trains carrying hazardous cargo as they travel through populated areas. "Every day, trains hauling tons of hazardous chemicals roll past Inland homes, schools, hospitals and businesses." The newspaper says residents are "largely unprepared for a large-scale chemical spill along a rail line" while chances of such an incident are increasing. "More than 1.5 million Inland residents live close enough to railroad tracks to be at risk from a serious spill, according to a recent analysis using geographic information systems technology from Redlands-based ESRI." (Editor's Note: IRE and NICAR offer the Hazardous Materials Incident Report Subsystem, maintained by the Department of Transportation. It includes incident reports of unintentional releases of hazardous materials for all modes of transportation — air, highway, railway, and water.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 06, 2005 Smoking bans not affecting businesses Jason Hoppin and MaryJo Sylwester of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press analyzed Minnesota Department of Revenue data on taxable sales at establishments that sell alcohol to see if there was any evidence of widespread economic hardship due to smoking bans that were enacted in some areas of the Twin Cities on March 31. Because tax return information for individual businesses is not public, the reporters persuaded the Department of Revenue to provide summary data by ZIP code. They also created interactive maps using ArcIMS and ASP so readers could click on individual ZIP codes and see the data behind it. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 05, 2005 Most Tasered suspects unarmed Richard D. Walton and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star examined the use of Tasers by Marion County law enforcement officers. "At least 112 unarmed suspects were Tasered while fleeing IPD or sheriff's deputies. At least 87 people were shocked while handcuffed. And only one in 12 Tasered suspects was reported to have been armed." The review looked at 1,100 instances of Taser use during a 19-month period. "The Star's review also shows that blacks and Hispanics were shocked with Tasers at a far higher rate per number of residents than whites." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 02, 2005 Report looks at colleges with highest violent crime rates ABC News used data reported by the country's universities and analyzed reports of campus crime to determine which colleges had the highest reported violent crime rates. The analysis divided the schools into four categories — largest to smallest and were available from 2002 and 2003. "In the smallest category, schools with 2,100 students or fewer, Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, reported the highest violent crime rate, with 29 robberies and aggravated assaults in 2002 alone." The report found that forcible sexual assaults was the most common type of violent crime on campuses throughout the country. Among large schools, those with between 4,400 and 11,000 students, Texas Southern University in Houston topped the list, the only university on the list in a major city. (Editor's note: Other reporters can do similar stories using the same campus crime data. Contact the IRE and NICAR Database Library for more information: 573-884-7711 or jeff@ire.org.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Data on European farm subsidy payments made available Farmsubsidy.org is a project coordinated by the Danish International Center for Analytical Reporting (DICAR) and EU Transparency, a nonprofit organization in the United Kingdom. The Web site obtains detailed data relating to payments and recipients of farm subsidies in every EU member state and makes this data available to European citizens. Subsidies paid to farmers under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy amount to approximately €43.5 billion a year, more than 40% of European Union's entire annual budget, or around €100 a year for each EU citizen. Coordinated from Denmark and the UK, the Web site is the product of intensive collaboration across more than 10 countries. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 30, 2005 Lack of federal oversight of theme park rides Florida Today and WKMG-Orlando used data from a 3-axis accelerometer and data collection device to test the effects of Central Florida's G-forces on theme park rides. They also examined figures on estimates of injuries and deaths involving fixed-site rides and found that state and U.S. agencies only inspect and regulate mobile amusement rides, the kind that travel to county fairs and church festivals. "But, apart from dictating construction and safety standards, they do not directly monitor fixed-site rides in Florida, such as those at major theme parks. " The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that from 1997 through 2004 there were 22,000 injuries and 24 fatalities. The report also examined a 2002 study by the British government that found incidents occurred when G-force levels were within established limits of human tolerability. See how the story was reported. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post D.C. officials violate spending laws Dan Keating and David S. Fallis, with contributions from Bobbye Pratt, of The Washington Post used District of Columbia purchasing records to show that of $2.5 billion in purchases last year, the city spent roughly $425 million in unauthorized payments and no-bid contracts. "District officials routinely violate city spending laws by avoiding competitive bidding, masking purchases under unrelated contracts and paying vendors without contracts or legal authority. "Studies of no-competition contracts elsewhere indicate that the city is overpaying by $50 million a year. The examination found problems that go far beyond sloppy paperwork as employees skirt the laws designed to prevent waste and fraud. A second story examines one the relationship between city government and a contractor who promised big but delivered little. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 22, 2005 Ky. economic incentives fall short A series of Lexington Herald-Leader reports from John Stamper and Bill Estep, with contributions from Linda J. Johnson, computer-assisted reporting coordinator, reporter Linda Blackford and news researcher Lu-Ann Farrar, examines Kentucky's expensive efforts to recruit industries and failures in the program. "Instead, at a cost of $1.8 billion, Kentucky's main economic-incentive programs have overburdened taxpayers and left citizens on the losing side of a high-stakes game with hard-bargaining corporate interests." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Calif. system's additional pay offsets student fee hike Tanya Schevitz and Todd Wallack of the San Francisco Chronicle examine how much the University of California system really pays its administrators. "In addition to salaries and overtime, payroll records obtained by The Chronicle show that employees received a total of $871 million in bonuses, administrative stipends, relocation packages and other forms of cash compensation last fiscal year. That was more than enough to cover the 79 percent hike in student fees that UC has imposed over the past few years." The project includes a database of the system's highest paid employees. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 17, 2005 Mortgage fraud surges in Chicago David Jackson, with contributions from Ray Gibson, Todd Lighty and John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, reviewed thousands of pages of land and court records and interviewed more than 100 people to show that a white-collar crime wave is raking Chicago's poorest communities, robbing vulnerable families of their homes and draining billions of dollars from the U.S. economy. During the past five years, mortgage fraud has surged as home loans become easier than ever to get and identity theft has blossomed. The five-part investigation found that blending face-to-face scams with computer forgery, fraud crews typically include home loan executives, appraisers and scouts who troll for victims. "Mortgage swindling has helped drug-dealing gangs, including Chicago's Black Disciples, solidify their control over street corners, launder money and gain safe houses to launch operations. " The story has prompted Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to call for an investigation into mortgage fraud. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 16, 2005 Land deal results in huge profits for developers Bert Dalmer of The Des Moines Register analyzed land records to uncover an insider land deal that makes big-name developers rich but ends with taxpayers paying twice as much. The operators of a struggling scale-model air show sold 84 acres along Interstate Highway 35 at $15,000 an acre, though other land being sold in the area was going for almost twice that much or more. The land was sold to two developers who had helped bring the air show to central Iowa and who had appointed some of the directors who approved the sale. "The investigation showed that the the nonprofit expo benefited from tax breaks and government loans it would never fully repay for six years." The investigation also found that the state of Iowa last year bought seven acres of the former expo property at $130,000 an acre, a price that amounted to an 866 percent profit for the developers, in a transaction never debated publicly. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 15, 2005 Car stipends guzzling cash Tawnell Hobbs and Kent Fischer of The Dallas Morning News reviewed district records to show that more than 2,300 school district employees are getting car stipends this year, at a total cost of nearly $3.7 million. This despite the fact that their job description does not include travel. "In a year when DISD cut some elementary school counselors and gave teachers small raises while trying to close a $28 million budget deficit, the $3,684,798 for car allowances has escaped the ax. " According to calculations, dozens would have to drive more than 950 miles a month to justify the size of their stipends, using DISD's reimbursement rate of 35 cents a mile. Car allowance recipients, like all DISD employees, also get reimbursed for mileage when they travel outside the district. DISD paid $404,000 in mileage reimbursements in 2004-05 in addition to the amount it spent on car allowances. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Troopers with political connections win promotions Brad Schrade of The Tennessean analyzed three years of the patrol's promotions and proposed promotions to show that two-thirds of Tennessee Highway Patrol officers tapped for promotion under Gov. Phil Bredesen gave money to his campaign or had family or political patrons who did. Among those with such connections, more than half were promoted over troopers who scored better on impartial exams or rankings. "Sixty-two of the promoted officers — 49 percent — contributed or had close family members who contributed to the governor's campaign before they were promoted ". The newspaper demonstrated how the THP is using a promotions loophole to let lesser-qualified candidates advance, a practice now being reviewed by the state personnel department in response to the newspaper's investigation. See web extras which include previous highway patrol coverage, documents online, and a 1966 Tennessean story reproduced to show the history of politics in the Highway Patrol. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Elevators lack safety inspections in Fla. Dave Bohman of WTSP-Tampa Bay reviewed computer records from the state of Florida and found that in the Tampa Bay Area more than 800 elevators and escalators have not passed a sanctioned inspection in at least a year. This even though a yearly inspection is mandated by state law. State records show that three years had passed since some elevators and escalators had been inspected in some very busy shopping centers, movie complexes, and office buildings. "Records also show that accidents have increased 60-percent in the last two years. In the last 16 months, Tampa Fire and Rescue was called four times to free people trapped in an elevator. " In the last two years, the state has fined 245 elevator owners for a total of $40,000. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 11, 2005 Blacks excluded from juries in Louisville, Ky. Jason Riley, Kay Stewart and Mark Schaver of The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal , analyzed records of 34,000 residents summoned for jury duty in a year's time, to show that people who live in predominantly African-American areas of the county are less likely to serve on juries than those who live in mostly white areas. "The newspaper found that residents of the county's five ZIP codes with black majorities are being disproportionately eliminated in almost every stage of the selection process — from the moment they are called for service through the time lawyers decide whether to seat them on juries. " Black jurors are excluded by prosecutors and defense attorneys in criminal cases, as well as by lawyers for both sides in civil trials. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Banned drivers flout law in Va. Bill Burke and David Gulliver of The Virginian-Pilot used local court data to show that " from 2000 to 2004 in Hampton Roads, 42,606 people were convicted of driving on a suspended or revoked license, according to an analysis of court records." More than 4,600 people were found guilty three or more times, and some had more than 10 convictions. Though more than a dozen states have recognized the problem in recent years and taken actions to remove violators from the road, Virginia has no such initiatives, instead eliminating judges' most powerful weapon for punishing chronic suspended-driving offenders — the state’s habitual offender statute. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 08, 2005 Taser use on the rise in Ind. Richard D. Walton and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star reviewed reports on more than 1,100 instances of Taser use in Marion County, Ind. as part of a broader look at Taser use in Indiana. The investigation found that a pregnant woman, a man in a wheelchair and a 13-year-old girl fleeing police after a rock-throwing incident were shocked with Tasers during a 19-month period. "As the number of the stun guns carried by Indiana Police Department quadrupled to more than 400 in the past two years, use also rose sharply. " Indicriminate use of the stun gun by police officials has lead to 112 unarmed suspects being Tasered while fleeing IPD or sheriff's deputies and at least 87 handcuffed people being shocked while handcuffed. The Star's review also shows that blacks and Hispanics were shocked with Tasers at a far higher rate per number of residents than whites. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 07, 2005 Campaign contributions may bolster charges against Delay Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg Markets analyzed Federal Election Commission records to find the Republican Party's $190,000 in donations to seven Texas politicians in 2002 is five times more than any of the other contributions the national party made to state legislative races that year. "The charges may bolster a prosecutor's accusations that Tom DeLay, who has now been indicted on charges of money laundering, channeled funds through the party to skirt a Texas law banning corporate contributions to political races." The money was distributed by Delay's political action committee, two weeks after the national party got $190,000 from the PAC. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 04, 2005 Child abuse fatalities went unreported Tim Evans of The Indianapolis Star used state records to find that "the deaths of 10 Indiana children from abuse or neglect were not reported in the state's 2004 child fatality report. If included, they would have brought the number to 66, making it the deadliest year on record". The paper compared the state records on child deaths to media accounts and other sources. Deaths discovered by paper that were not in the report include two cases investigated and confirmed as abuse or neglect by child protection workers. At least eight other deaths apparently were not investigated or counted, though their circumstances were similar to others that were scrutinized. See how the story was investigated. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Camera system ineffective in reducing accidents Matthew Benson of the Fort Collins Coloradoan analyzed a decade of accident data to show the ineffectiveness of the camera system at reducing red-light running and preventing collisions. The number of accidents and accident rates, at a certain intersection in Fort Collins, Colo., have steadily increased in the years since the city installed a system in 1997. "The investigation found that the rate of accidents per 1 million vehicles entering the intersection climbed from 1.31 in 1994 to 2.4 last year. " The intersection remains the city's second most dangerous in terms of the accident rate. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post November 01, 2005 Bush's re-election campaign contributers reap benefits in Ohio James Drew and Steve Eder with contributions from Mike Wilkinson, Christopher D. Kirkpatrick, Jim Tankersley, and Joshua Boak of The Blade report that the Ohio business leaders and lobbyists who contributed at least $4.1 million to President Bush's re-election campaign last year collected more than $1.2 billion in taxpayer dollars for their companies and clients. The payback also featured choice appointments from state and federal officials, including an ambassadorship to Germany and a seat on the Ohio State University board of trustees. "The fund-raisers included Tom Noe, a former Toledo-area rare-coin dealer who is facing multiple investigations into the state's failed $50 million investment in rare-coin funds. " An analysis of a state expenditure database shows that the state of Ohio paid about $800 million to the companies and lobbying clients of Ohio's 30 Pioneers and Rangers during the last six years. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Gun crime plea deals common in Del. Mike Chalmers of The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal analyzed 115,000 felony cases overseen by Attorney General M. Jane Brady during her 11-year tenure, to show that plea deals involving gun crimes are common in Delaware. The newspaper found that "of the nearly 16,000 weapons-related cases filed from 1994 through 2004 — years Brady served as the state's top prosecutor — three-quarters ended without a felony-level weapons conviction. ... A third of the 16,000 cases ended with a conviction on another felony. " To examine how Brady's office handled felony cases, The News Journal reviewed computerized records, obtained after a six-year legal battle from the Delaware Criminal Justice Information System, or DelJIS, which tracks criminal cases from arrest through prosecution and punishment. Of the nearly 9,000 cases involving the charge of possession of a deadly weapon, only 6 percent ended with a conviction on that charge. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 27, 2005 Suburbs pay for St. Paul's mayoral race in Minn. Tim Nelson and MaryJo Sylwester of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press analyzed nearly 12,000 campaign contributions to show that St. Paul, Minn., suburbs are paying for most of the mayoral race. According to the analysis, suburban residents have made 52 percent of the campaign contributions to the two general election candidates so far whereas donations from St. Paul residents now account for only 31 percent of the contributions. "All told, nearly 60 percent of the money for the mayoral candidate's re-election comes from the suburbs and just 26 percent of it is from St. Paul. " Experts contend that the suburbs' influence may be as much political as economic and that the voters that are most affected by the mayor's policies may not be seeing the payoff the way people from the suburbs do. See how the data was analyzed. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 24, 2005 CEO salaries soar at disabled workers' expense Jeff Kosseff and Bryan Denson of The Oregonian found that executive pay has soared at nonprofits that often give disabled workers less than the federal minimum wage. "In Texas, one of the biggest nonprofits paid $4.6 million to a management firm founded by its CEO. In Baltimore, another charity's top executive earned more than $700,000 in cash and benefits. And a Tennessee nonprofit boosted its CEO's pay and benefits eightfold over four years to $500,000. " The newspaper found more than 100 executives earning six-figure pay and benefits at the 50 most active nonprofits in the Javits-Wagner-O'Day program during 2003. This when eight of the biggest charities in the Javits-Wagner-O'Day program paid 1,644 subminimum wage workers a median rate of $1.93 an hour, according to Department of Labor records analyzed by the newspaper. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 17, 2005 Few minority businesses take advantage of federal program Jeff Raymond of the The Brownsville Herald reviewed the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development program participant database to show that "only 10 of the Valley’s more than 12,000 minority-owned businesses identified in 1997 U.S. Census statistics avail themselves of the leg up. " Although the Rio Grande Valley is, on average, 85 percent Hispanic, few businesses are certified under a federal program meant to make minority-owned firms competitive in the marketplace. Through interviews with various minority business owners, it was found that the reasons for delays in enrolling in the SBA program for most amounted to this: Too little time for research and rumors that the government was a difficult customer. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 14, 2005 Breakdowns in equipment thwart forecasts Debbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald used forecast verification reports to show that breakdowns in crucial weather-observing equipment are foiling forecasters at the National Hurricane Center — the nation's first line of defense against tropical weather. "Buoys, weather balloons, radars, ground sensors and hurricane hunter planes, all part of a multibillion-dollar weather-tracking system run by the federal government, have failed forecasters during nearly half of the 45 hurricanes that struck land since 1992." Records show that forecasters have predicted tracks hundreds of miles off course, anticipated weak storms that grew all powerful, and powerful storms that eventually grew weak. The story includes information on how this story was researched and reported. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Vast scope of priest abuse in Los Angeles Jean Guccione and Doug Smith with contributions from William Lobdell of the Los Angeles Times tracked the assignments of 228 priests from 1950 through 2003 who have been named or identified as the subject of abuse complaints. The analysis reveals that because the accused priests moved around the archdiocese on average every 4.5 years, the total number of parishes in which alleged abusers served is far larger —more than three-fourths of the 288 parishes. "In at least eight cases, the archdiocese allowed priests to remain in ministry after receiving information about their alleged sexual interest in minors. " Starting in the 1950s, the percentage of diocesan priests who eventually would be accused of wrongdoing climbed steadily from about 6% to a high of 11.5% in 1983. See priest abuse accusations in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 13, 2005 Unlicensed drivers responsible for deadly accidents in Va. Bill Burke, with contributions from David Gulliver, of The Virginian-Pilot report that with swelling illegal migrant populations in Va., rogue vehicles being driven by unlicensed drivers have been responsible for a string of deadly accidents . "Since 2002, more than 90 people have been injured and 18 killed on the Eastern Shore in accidents involving Hispanic workers driving rogue vehicles. "Tennessee's lax registration regulations enable several migrants to get Tennessee tags because Tennessee does not require identification or proof of insurance when a vehicle is titled and plates are issued, as long as the motorist pays cash. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Metro officials spend excessively on travel in Mich. Steve Neavling of The Bay City Times reviewed records to show that the Bay Metropolitan Transportation Authority has spent about $200,000 since 1999 on airfare, lodging, rental cars, valet parking, out-of-town meals and other travel expenses. These expenses came at a time when the agency was forced to reduce the schedules of bus routes and offered employees an early-retirement buyout to trim a $320,000 deficit. "The review of Bay Metro records is part of a Times ongoing examination of travel and meal expenses incurred by public agencies in Bay County. The first story revealed that the county's Road Commission spent more than $75,000 since 2001 on meals and travel expenses. " Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 10, 2005 Hmong girls raped, prostituted by gangs Pam Louwagie and Dan Browning of the Star Tribune report on the growing problem of young Hmong girls who are raped and prostituted by Hmong gangs. A preliminary analysis found that "these girls were six times more likely than other victims to have been raped by five or more males ". The newspaper used an FBI list of Hmong surnames to extract data on prosecutions of these crimes. The stories explore the clash of cultures that hampers investigation of the crimes and allows them to continue with increasing frequency. See how this story was reported. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 07, 2005 Tough measures keep prisoners behind bars for life Adam Liptak of The New York Times , examined information about prisoners serving life sentences in all 50 states, finding "that about 132,000 of the nation's prisoners, or almost 1 in 10, are serving life sentences. The number of lifers has almost doubled in the last decade, far outpacing the overall growth in the prison population . Of those lifers sentenced between 1988 and 2001, about a third are serving time for sentences other than murder, including burglary and drug crimes." Janet Roberts of The New York Times' computer-assisted reporting unit led the research for this series. The story includes a sidebar about how the story was reported. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 06, 2005 Maps show campaign contributions in Va. With the Virginia governor's race just weeks away, the Virginia Public Access Project used mapping technology to create online dynamic maps of campaign contributions received by Virginia's statewide candidates. The map shades contributions by county and city, and links to detailed data on individual donors in those localities. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Despite crimes, U.S. soldiers immune from punishments in Iraq Russell Carollo and Larry Kaplow of the Dayton Daily News and Cox News Service used a Pentagon database to show that "dozens of soldiers have been accused of crimes against Iraqis since the first troops deployed for Iraq. But despite strong evidence and convictions in some cases, only a small percentage resulted in punishments nearing those routinely imposed for such crimes by civilian justice systems." The paper analyzed records from the Army Court-Martial Management Information System, finding 226 soldiers charged between the initial deployment and Jan. 1, 2005. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Homes in high-risk areas predate Navy base Jon W. Glass and David Gulliver of The Virginian-Pilot used city property records to show that " hundreds of homes in the highest-risk areas around Oceana Naval Air Station were built before it became an air base and before Navy flight patterns exposed some neighborhoods to potential jet crashes." A base-closing commission has recommended that Virginia Beach condemn and purchase properties in the neighborhoods around the base if its jets are to remain. More than 3,400 such properties exist, nearly twice an earlier city estimate. The story also includes a link to all residences in Oceana's highest crash zone, by street. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post October 04, 2005 Sacramento nursing homes fail to meet minimum standards Phillip Reese and Nancy Weaver Teichert of The Sacramento Bee used state inspection reports to show that " Sacramento nursing homes failed to meet minimum federal and state standards more often than facilities in the rest of the top 10 largest cities in California during the last two years". The leading complaints were quality-of-care, and "inspectors levied more fines for state citations against Sacramento homes than in any other city in the state during 2003 and 2004: $444,200 total, an average $19,300 per home." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 30, 2005 Data reveals no-bid contracts for hurricane clean up Eric Lipton and Ron Nixon of The New York Times used federal contract data covering hurricane response to show that "more than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition ... provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse." FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers have spent the most so far. (Note: For other stories looking at what went wrong in the Katrina disaster, please see IRE's Katrina resources page.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Mayoral candidates raise money far and wide Gregory Korte of The Cincinnati Enquirer analyzed campaign finance reports and found that more than half the contributions in a mayoral race comes from outside Cincinnati. There have been fund-raising evemts for the race held in San Francisco, New York City, Denver and Washington, D.C. The analysis also reveals that one candidate relies on larger contributions from more individuals while the other receives donations from industry groups. Maps show where the candidates' contributions come from. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 22, 2005 Missteps, fraud have plagued FEMA Megan O'Matz, Sally Kestin, John Maines and Jon Burstein of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel continue the paper's investigation into FEMA. "The handling of aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina is only the latest in a series of missteps and fraud that has plagued this tax-funded government agency. The Sun-Sentinel took a look at 20 recent disasters and found mismanagement and misallocation abound." Among the findings: thousands of claims in Cleveland for damaged washers and dryers after a thunderstorm when the city received only 73 complaints; claims of smoke damage in Los Angeles from wildfires that were 30 miles or farther away; and $9 million paid to people up to 37 miles away from a tornado that touched down in South Florida. The package includes more information about how reporters reseached the agency. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Nonprofits mislead about destination of donations Kelby Hartson Carr of The Times in Munster, Ind., looks into the accuracy of IRS 990 forms filed by nonprofit organizations. After an examination of all 990s filed for "fiscal year 2003 by nonprofit agencies based in Lake County, Porter County and Chicago's south suburbs," the paper found that 70 percent that raised public donations reported no fund-raising expenses. Experts say it is difficult to raise money without spending money and "zero-expense fund-raising claims always should be questioned." The project includes a database of the nonprofits that includes the data from their 990 forms. Other parts of the series look at nonprofit employees who make six figures and have generous benefits packages, the powerful part nonprofits play in the local economy and tips to evaluate a charitiy before donating. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Lax oversight contributes to high foreclosure rate Geoff Dutton and Jill Riepenhoff of The Columbus Dispatch investigated Ohio's high foreclosure rate, "a problem fueled by a weak economy, aggressive mortgage brokers, financial overreaching and tepid state oversight.". The newspaper analyzed Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, obtained U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development audit reports of homebuilders through the federal Freedom of Information Act, and analyzed state and county foreclosure records and sheriff's sales data. On the second day of the series, state lawmakers from both political parties vowed to tighten Ohio's loose regulation of the mortgage industry. (Note: For reporters interested in pursuing similar stories, IRE and NICAR offer a beat book, "Home Mortgage Lending: How to detect disparities," as well as Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 19, 2005 Poorer and university neighborhoods supported tax Lee Ann O'Neal and Ian Demsky of The Tennessean used spreadsheets and mapping software to analyze Nashville's failed Sept. 13 sales tax referendum. They found the greatest support for the half-cent sales tax increase was in poorer neighborhoods and the areas around Vanderbilt and Belmont universities. Themap identifies voting precincts and how they voted on the referendum. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 16, 2005 Vulnerable in Fla. county could be left behind in hurricane Matt Reed and John Kelly of Florida Today used Census data to identify neighborhoods in Brevard County that are "home to higher-than-average numbers of seniors, poor people and families without cars — people who may need help fleeing" a hurricane like Katrina. They found that thousands of seniors, poor people and families without cars might not be able to evacuate areas almost certain to flood. The county would provide free rides to them, but they must register beforehand, something many are not aware of or willing to do. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post W. Va. cashes in on video poker Lawrence Messina and Vicki Smith of The Associated Press have a three-part series examining the impact of the video poker industry on West Virginia. They found that nearly 2,000 businesses have the gambling machines installed and "fifteen businesses, families or partnerships — out of more than 1,300 that held one or more licenses — collected one-fifth of the $173 million in profits, and accounted for a similar share of the money wagered and the revenue to the state." Video poker terminals are in all but one of West Virginia's 55 counties. Parts two and three address the concentration of ownership and state regulation. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Mo. tops in alcohol-related boating accidents Bente Birkland and Catherine Rentz Pernot of the Columbia Missourian used data from the U.S. Coast Guard to determine that "between 2000 and 2004, Missouri led the nation in alcohol-related boating accidents." Among other findings: "The Lake of the Ozarks topped the list for boating accidents in Missouri, and it is the most dangerous body of water to drink and boat. Between 2000 and 2004, the lake had more alcohol-related accidents than anywhere else in the nation, including the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico ..." (Note: The Coast Guard's boating accident data and boat registration data is available to journalists from the IRE and NICAR Database Library.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post September 13, 2005 Call for entries: Philip Meyer Journalism Award The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism; the Knight Chair in Journalism at Arizona State University; and IRE are proud to introduce the Philip Meyer Journalism Award, a contest to recognize the best journalism done using social science research methods. The awards are in honor of Philip Meyer, Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Meyer is the author of Precision Journalism, the seminal 1972 book (and subsequent editions) that focused growing numbers of journalists on the idea of using social science methods to do better journalism. He pioneered in using survey research as a reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers to explore the causes of race riots in the 1960s. Three awards will be given annually — a first, second and third place — to recognize the best work using techniques that are part of precision journalism, computer-assisted reporting and social science research. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 31, 2005 Blacks pay higher interest on home loans Binyamin Appelbaum and Ted Mellnik of The Charlotte Observer used mortgage loan data from 25 top lenders to show that “blacks who bought homes in communities across America last year were four times as likely as whites to get high interest rates for mortgage loans.” The interest rate disparities occurred even when blacks had substantially higher incomes. The paper looked at 2.2 million mortgage applications from 2004 for its study and posted a breakdown of patterns on the Web. (Editor's Note: Others interested in doing similar stories should see Jo Craven McGinty's IRE Beat Book, Home Mortgage Lending: How to detect disparities. In addition, IRE and NICAR offer the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database to journalists and journalism educators.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Legislators leasing vehicles Chris Casteel of The Oklahoman used rarely-scrutinized records detailing congressional office expenses, finding that “Rep. John Sullivan is leasing a sport utility vehicle in his congressional district for $1,242 a month at taxpayer expense. Rep. Frank Lucas rented a car in December in Oklahoma City and paid more than $1,500 for it out of his congressional office account.” Both lawmakers opted to rent or lease rather than seek reimbursement for using their personal vehicles. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 30, 2005 Judging school performance Sanjay Bhatt of The Seattle Times used achievement and growth data from Seattle Public Schools to examine "high-performing" schools. Bhatt explains: "I used Excel's pivot table feature to do a neat 3 x 3 table that gave readers new insight on looking at test scores. I triangulated two different types of data — achievement and growth. The achievement data shows the percentage of students who passed the state's high-stakes test. The growth data shows the average student made high, normal or low growth in a year. What you see when you triangulate is that there are lots of low-achieving schools (with disproportionately high numbers of poor children) whose staff accelerate students' learning by more than a year's worth of progress. There are also high-achieving schools whose students make less than a year's worth of progress." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Developers take advantage of agricultural breaks Samuel P. Nitze and Beth Reinhard of The Miami Herald used local property data to show that “under a 1959 state law intended to preserve agriculture, developers reap huge property tax breaks by herding cows or raising crops in the most unlikely settings. Some pay less in annual property taxes than the average homeowner on parcels slated for multimillion-dollar projects.” One developer saved a quarter-million dollars last year by placing cows on land containing industrial warehouses. Florida has lost about 8 million acres of farmland since the law intended to preserve such property went into effect. With a methodological description. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 29, 2005 Disparities in distribution of fed transportation money Erica Werner of The Associated Press analyzed county-by-county spending in California contained in the recently-passed federal transportation bill, finding “vast disparities in how the money was doled out, and perhaps no contrast was more stark than between California’s two fastest-growing counties. Riverside County has five times as many people as Placer County. But residents of Placer County, which connects Sacramento and north Lake Tahoe, are getting five times as much money per person in special projects as residents of Riverside — $261 each in Placer compared with $47 per capita in Riverside, half the statewide average of $95 per person.” Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Crime data shows drug arrests in blighted area Bryan Chambers of The (Huntington, W.Va.) Herald-Dispatch used local crime data for a story about the city’s effort to clean up a blighted area. “Between September 2003 and May 2004 nearly 21 percent of the city’s 290 drug violations either occurred on Artisan Avenue or within a two-block vicinity, according to a Herald-Dispatch computer analysis of statistics compiled last year by the Huntington Police Department. A little more than 6 percent of the citywide violations occurred in the 1600 block of Artisan Avenue.” Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 26, 2005 Little oversight of profitable charter school The Philadelphia Inquirer's Connie Langland and Dale Mezzacappa report on a charter school's manager "who has turned Chester Community Charter School into a profitable, expanding business in the heart of the virtually bankrupt school district." Vahan H. Gureghian's Charter School Management Inc. has a 20-year contract with the school's board of trustees that both have refused to make public. The county has paid the company about $10 million since 1999 for management, with a large percent of that going toward Gureghian's management fee. The agency charged with overseeing the school's finances "says it has been too preoccupied with the district's own fiscal woes — now being investigated by the state attorney general — to even ask for basic documents from Chester Community. The Inquirer's examination of the school's finances was based on state data and financial reports and six years of federal tax filings ending in 2003-04, the most recent year available." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 25, 2005 Deadly force used to end car chases Roma Khanna and Rosanna Ruiz of the Houston Chronicle analyzed police shootings to find that "Harris County sheriff's deputies have turned to deadly force during car chases four times since 2002, killing one and wounding four ... Among the people they pursued and shot were a man driving with his headlights off and another who had stolen DVDs from a drugstore." Although the number is small, "the Houston Police Department and most other Harris County agencies have not used deadly force to end a car chase in more than six years." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 23, 2005 Day cares fall below standards Lee Rood of The Des Moines Register checked state child care facility inspection records to find that "at least one in 10 licensed centers — including several newer programs — failed to meet several of the state's minimum standards for health and safety during their last licensed renewals." Many of the programs receive only sporadic oversight, with inspectors visiting as little as once a year. "Licensing records do not always include details of abuse allegations or document how centers resolve serious safety issues, such as complaints about lack of supervision." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Low-income residents less likely to appear for jury duty Hurst Laviana of The Wichita Eagle used local court records to show that "less than half of the Sedgwick County residents summoned report to the courthouse in any given week. And low-income residents — many of them minorities — are far less likely to report for jury duty than residents of white middle-class neighborhoods." Poor address-keeping is a major cause for why some potential jurors either never get their notices or get them too late. The paper combined the juror information with Census data using mapping software. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 22, 2005 O.C. sheriff's office falls short of averages Tony Saavedra, Monica Rhor and Aldrin Brown of The Orange County Register analyzed eight statistical categories for Orange County's police agencies and found wide disparities in way police prevent and solve crime. The categories analyzed included response times on emergency calls, the success rates for solving homicides and other violent crimes, officer-to-resident ratios and the overall direction of crime rates for each of the county's 34 cities. A main finding: The 12 cities patrolled on a contract basis by the Orange County Sheriff's Department have fewer officers and much slower response times than the county average. Those cities pay a total of $76.7 million for the department's services, representing 13 percent of the department's total budget. The project includes a map of response times and an explanation of how the criteria were weighted. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 19, 2005 Chlorine plant is top mercury polluter Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette used EPA data and records to show that a chlorine-producing plant in Natrium is West Virginia's single-largest air polluter, emitting more than 1,200 pounds of mercury into the air every year. Although much of the focus on mercury pollution centers on coal plants, chlorine producers are responsible for more mercury emissions. "Nationally, the average coal-fired power plant reported 84 pounds of mercury emissions in 2003. The average chlorine plant reported more than 1,074 pounds. Of the 100 power plants with the most mercury emissions, the average total air discharges was 484 pounds - less than half the average from a chlorine plant." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 18, 2005 State lax on enforcing weight limits on trucks Pat Stith of The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer, with assistance from database editor David Raynor and news researcher Brooke Cain, reports that "the state Department of Transportation has ignored a series of increases in truck weights approved by the legislature and failed to protect more than 1,000 bridges that are not strong enough to routinely handle the added weight." As North Carolina legislators increased weight limits four times since 1993, the state did not identify and update information on bridges affected by the changes. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 17, 2005 Drunken driving cases often end in dismissals Brad Branan of the Tucson Citizen used databases from two courts to analyze about 33,000 drunken-driving cases filed from 1999 to last year. He found that "thousands of motorists are charged with drunken driving each year in metro Tucson, giving the area one of the highest DUI arrest rates in the country. But nearly half of those accused escape conviction in the courts that handle most DUI cases." More than 60 percent of the drunken-driving cases that don't end in conviction in Tucson City Court and Pima County Justice Court are dismissed. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 16, 2005 Politics plague state's safety aid program Rick Hepp of The (Newark) Star-Ledger analyzed state and federal spending on homeland security in New Jersey, finding that politics can make a big difference: Somerset County towns in the past three years "have received more than $2.7 million in federal Homeland Security grants designed for 'first responders,' but only $235,000 from New Jersey." The state money was controlled by the governor's office, often as a way to "reward Democratic Party loyalists. That was not a good equation for Republican-dominated Somerset County, which got 1 percent of the state grants between 2002 and 2005." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Money, debts high in Texas county Paula Lavigne of The Dallas Morning News used Census and state economic data to show that while residents of Collin County, Texas, are among the wealthiest nationwide, many also have large debts: "On average, Collin County residents have more credit card debt - $4,200 - and a lower net worth - $125,000 - than residents of other high-income counties throughout the country... the county is full of young couples with children who take on excessive debt, in many cases simply to keep up the lifestyle of their friends and neighbors." Lavigne will chat online about the story on Aug. 16. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 15, 2005 Home prices rose sharply Bob Fernandez and Alletta Emeno of The Philadelphia Inquirer analyzed real estate data from the region to find that a rising tide of prices is lifting many boats: "the gains are broad-based and remarkably even, with the median gain ranging from 13 percent in Bucks and Camden Counties to 17 percent in Philadelphia and Gloucester Counties. The region's median price rose to $177,500 in 2004 from $155,000 in 2003, a 14.5 percent increase." The paper also has a database of median home prices. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Most schools fail spending requirement Dion Lefler of The Wichita Eagle used Census data to show that a new Kansas requirement that school districts spend 65 percent of their money in the classroom will require a lot of changes: "An Eagle computer-assisted analysis of 2003 Census data found that only 30 of the 302 school districts in Kansas met the 65 percent standard, under the definitions used by the U.S. Department of Education. Wichita, the state's largest district, has one of the lowest classroom spending percentages in the state and compared to districts of similar size across the country. At 56.1 percent, Wichita is No. 276 on the list of 302 Kansas school districts." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Very few hold power in Richmond Staff at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, along with Aaron Kessler used the social network analysis program UCINET and more than 50 interviews to investigate who really wielded power in Richmond, Va. The series includes a story about the four men central to Richmond's power, a story about minorities and how political influence does not equal power, as well as a sidebar on how the series was done. The series includes an interactive network map detailing the Web of power. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 11, 2005 State lobbyists spending nears $1 billion An analysis by The Center for Public Integrity found that lobbyists and their employers in 42 states reported spending nearly $953 million in 2004 attempting to influence state legislators and executive branch officials. That figure is up from the $904 million reported in 2003. "It seems likely that state lobby expenditures will exceed the $1 billion mark this year." The investigation includes a sidebar on methodology and general breakdowns of their findings. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 09, 2005 African-American voter turnout high Nancy Cook Lauer of the Tallahassee Democrat used local voter data to show that federal oversight of elections in five Florida counties meant to ensure African-American participation seems to have worked: "voting behavior in the five counties under federal scrutiny - Collier, Hardee, Hendry, Hillsborough and Monroe - pretty much reflects voting behavior in the state as a whole." Nearly two-thirds of black voters in those counties went to the polls last November, slightly higher than the turnout for the entire state. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 08, 2005 County grant program riddled with problems Daniel Chacón of the San Diego Union-Tribune analyzed county grant receipts finding a multimillion-dollar system riddled with shoddy bookkeeping and lax oversight. The investigation "found that records for 54 grants totaling nearly $1 million are missing. Receipts that have been collected show that money has been spent on everything from Cheetos to seared ahi crostini." Many of the organizations receiving grants are considered grassroots organizations and don't have paid staffers to handle financial reports. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 05, 2005 'Highly qualified' teachers don't always equal high student scores Amy L. Kovac and Jaci Smith of New Jersey's Herald-News used state education data to show that in Passaic County, having a "highly qualified" teacher doesn't always mean that students will do better on standardized tests. "The largest disparity was in Passaic's Lincoln Middle School. About 71 percent of eighth-graders there failed to achieve proficiency on their state exam; 89.2 percent of their classes were taught by teachers who meet the federal definition of 'highly qualified.' At The Learning Center in Passaic, 96 percent of fourth-graders scored at or above proficient on their standardized test; 60.5 percent of classes in the school were taught by 'highly qualified' teachers." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post August 01, 2005 Most traffic chases caused by minor infractions Eunice Trotter, Tom Spalding and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star analyzed police pursuit data to investigate the 86 deaths Indiana saw in the last decade following police chases. They found that "initiated pursuits that ended with at least one injury or death in one of five cases." Most of the pursuits were found to be for minor infractions, with almost three out of four set off by a traffic violation. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 28, 2005 Prescription drug overdoses top illegal drug deaths Nancy Amons of WSMV-Nashville analyzed state autopsy records to investigate accidental prescription drug overdoses in Tennessee. "In 2004, 300 people statewide died of accidental overdoses of prescription drugs, 70 people more than the year before." Prescription drugs kill far more people than methamphetamine or other illegal drugs. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 27, 2005 Hate crimes down in New York Jo Craven McGinty at The New York Times reported this weekend that hate crimes in the city are down 44 percent between 2000 and 2004. The crimes are broken down in graphics and maps. A member of New York's hate crimes unit credits people "just behaving better" in the city in the wake of a hate crime law put on the books in 2000. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 26, 2005 Homicides on the rise in Milwaukee John Diedrich and Bob Purvis at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detail a sharp rise in the number of murders in Milwaukee this year, finding that "through Friday, 72 people have been killed this year, compared to 49 at that time last year. In response, police last week beefed up patrols in the hottest parts of Milwaukee and community agencies increased their presence, trying to address social and economic issues underlying the violence." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Calif. donors use 527 groups to bypass regulations Ronald Campbell of The Orange County Register analyzed California campaign finance data to find that the top 100 donors gave more than $150 million to candidates and political committees in 2003 and 2004. Donors also helped put California in the stem-cell business. "Some 26 wealthy couples and individuals contributed more than half the campaign money for Proposition 73, the state's $3 billion bet on the biotechnology frontier." Individual donors got around campaign finance legislation by writing their checks to so-called 527 groups, which operate outside normal campaign-finance rules. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 25, 2005 Lack of inspection data raises concerns for Utah school safety Nate Carlisle and Jessica Ravitz The Salt Lake Tribune report on the state of fire inspections in public schools, following a fire that destroyed Wasatch Junior High School. The school was old and did not have modern fire safety features. "Yet state records show the last time inspectors examined the school was four years ago." State records show that some Utah schools have no record of fire inspections since the 1980s. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Failed oversight helps surge in air ambulance crashes Alan Levin and Robert Davis of USA Today reviewed hundreds of documents on air ambulance crashes and analyzed a database they created from the documents. They found that since "2000, 60 people have died in 84 crashes — more than double the number of crashes during the previous five years." Despite this surge, air ambulance companies and the federal agency that oversees them failed to take steps that might have averted tragedy and saved lives. The FAA issued a warning to air ambulance companies requesting that they adopt better safety practices, following this investigation. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 22, 2005 Medicaid fraud plagued by lack of oversight Clifford J. Levy and Michael Luo of The New York Times used state Medicaid data to find that "the program has been misspending billions of dollars annually because of fraud, waste and profiteering. A computer analysis of several million records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law revealed numerous indications of fraud and abuse that the state had never looked into." Examples of the potential fraud include a dentist who billed for as many as 991 procedures a day and a Buffalo school that sent more than 4,000 students "into speech therapy in a single day without talking to them or reviewing their records." Medicaid fraud has turned into a $44.5 billion target and the Times investigation uncovered "numerous indications of fraud and abuse that the state had never looked into." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 21, 2005 Inspection data shows problems often found with pools Michelle Keller and Kevin Spear of The Orlando Sentinel used county pool inspection data to show that "at least one in eight failed tests for chlorine, meaning they could pose a health risk for swimmers who use them." The findings roughly mirror an early federal study and the paper's previous surveys of inspection reports. "This year's Sentinel survey found chlorine violations at mobile-home parks in Lake County; hotels and motels along U.S. Highway 192 in Osceola County; apartment and condo complexes in Seminole County; beachside motels and resorts in Volusia; and at subdivisions, apartments and condos in Orange County." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post State, university employees' salaries swell Jane Stancill and David Raynor of The (Raleigh/Durham) News & Observer analyzed state payroll data to find that "there are already more than 2,200 state and University of North Carolina system employees who are paid more than $100,000 in state money a year; more than two-thirds of them work at the universities." Pay for university employees has arisen as an issue now that UNC system is searching for a new president. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 19, 2005 Kentucky residents' health plagued by bad habits, poverty Laura Ungar of The (Louisville) Courier-Journal spent a year assessing the health of Kentucky's residents, finding that "Kentucky is one of the sickest states in America, a place where too many people die too soon, and many who live endure decades of illness and pain." Bad health habits ingrained in the state's culture, including high tobacco use, along with poverty, combine to make the state a "perfect storm" for health. "Poverty is at the center, tied to everything from nutrition to health habits to the medical care people receive. Kentucky has 43 of the nation's 340 persistently poor rural counties. Only Mississippi, which ranks neck and neck with Kentucky on an index of health measures, has more." The report includes loads of graphics describing the state's condition. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Illinois police pull over minorities at higher rate Ryan Keith of the Associated Press analyzed the results of a state-mandated study on Illinois traffic stops, finding that "black and Hispanic drivers in large downstate cities are pulled over by police at a rate that far exceeds their share of the local population." The state legislature had every police agency turn over data on its 2004 traffic stops to the state, which then compiled more than 2 million records. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 18, 2005 Thousands of home permits issued for fire-prone areas Jim Miller and Ben Goad of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise use mapping software to plot thousands of new home permits issued since the 2003 Southern California fires and then compared the points to state maps showing fire threat. "In the 18 months after the firestorms of 2003, Inland cities and counties issued permits for more than 2,500 homes in areas the state identifies as facing 'very high' or 'extreme' fire danger." (Editor's note: IRE and NICAR offer resources for covering wildfires) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 14, 2005 Disability program plagued with problems Maxine Bernstein and Brent Walth of The Oregonian investigated Portland's police and firefighter disability progam, finding that "the city's system is an open checkbook, with rules that allow injured police and firefighters to collect checks until they retire, even if they can earn a living in another job." One in nine Portland police officers and firefighters is on disability and half of those have been receiving benefits for more than 10 years. "A claim for lost wages in Portland costs $37,390 a year on average — seven times that of police and firefighters statewide.' Trustees of the program sued to prevent the paper from obtaining certain financial records. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 12, 2005 Many businesses not inspected, study shows Reporter Christina Murphy and Assistant City Editor Jennie Coughlin of The Daily News Leader analyzed five years' worth of Department of Labor and Industry inspections obtained from the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration. They found that "many businesses are not inspected each year. In fact, the labor department performed too few safety inspections between 1999 and 2003 to reach even a quarter of the construction businesses in more than a third of the state, though construction is considered a high-hazard industry." The story includes a section on how the investigation was done. (Editor's note: IRE and NICAR offer the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Workplace Safety Database for purchase.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Paper finds inaccuracies in after-school claims Paul Tosto of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on discrepancies the paper found in a report the state published claiming that Minnesota has more young children taking care of themselves after school than any other state in the country. They found that the "commission did not have statistics showing Minnesota with the nation's highest percentage of teens home alone every afternoon," and "the commission did not have scientific research backing up the statistic that 'about 50 percent' of young Minnesotans weren't in any structured after-school programs." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 08, 2005 Human smuggling networks linked to terrorist groups Pauline Arrillaga and Olga R. Rodriguez of the Associated Press reviewed court records from Mexico and the United States as part of an investigation into "the many pipelines in Central and South America, Mexico and Canada that have illegally channeled thousands of people into the United States from so-called 'special-interest' countries - those identified by the U.S. government as sponsors or supporters of terrorism." Individuals affiliated with Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers were among those who attempted to or were able to cross the border into America. "Even when caught, illegal immigrants from those countries and other nations are sometimes released while awaiting deportation hearings, then miss those court dates, according to the AP's investigation, which also documented deep concerns about security threats along the lightly patrolled, 4,000-mile U.S.-Canada border." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Cable barriers fail to prevent deaths Scott North, Diana Hefley and Lukas Velush of The (Everett, Wash.) Herald used Washington state transportation data to show that a stretch of I-5 where a cable barrier separates the opposing lanes of traffic may not be preventing as many accidents as other areas. In one three-mile section, "vehicles went over, under or through the cable barriers in seven of 35 accidents along the median ... That means the barriers didn't work in one out of five accidents. The rate is more than triple what the data suggest has occurred along the other seven miles of cabled highway examined." Overall, the cables stopped 91 percent of cars that went into the median. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Loophole endangers drivers in Canada Kevin McGran of The Toronto Star used federal and provincial records to show that "if you rent a U-Haul, you've got a 50-50 chance of getting a truck that won't pass a road safety check." Ontario police failed nearly half of such vehicles during road examinations between 2002 and 2004, and Ministry of Transportation data suggested a similar pattern at the federal level. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 07, 2005 Drug lobby spends millions to influence legislation A team from The Center for Public Integrity reports on spending by the pharmaceutical and health products industry on lobbyists. "The drug industry's huge investments in Washington — though meager compared to the profits they make — have paid off handsomely, resulting in a series of favorable laws on Capitol Hill and tens of billions of dollars in additional profits." Pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $116 million lobbying the government, a figure not uncommon for the industry. "In 2004, drug makers upped their reported expenditures on lobbyists to $123 million, a record amount for the industry." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 06, 2005 Dog owners receive majority of tickets Chris Barge of the Boulder Daily Camera analyzed city animal enforcement records to show that "roughly seven out of every 10 tickets written by Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks rangers over the past three years have cited dog-related violations." About a quarter of all dog-related infractions occurred in the Wonderland Lake management area - mostly for having unleashed pets. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Data shows heart attack death numbers declining Stephen Smith of The Boston Globe used state data to show that "deaths from heart attacks in Massachusetts dropped by 24 percent in eight years," a decline doctors attributed to increased usage of angioplasty and aspirin. "Nationwide, the number of people succumbing to heart attacks has also decreased, although at a somewhat slower pace than in Massachusetts." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Study finds high levels of pollutants in Calif. family Douglas Fischer of Alameda Newspaper Group spent nine months investigating chemical pollutants in a family that "lives at one end of the consumer-chemicals spectrum — they eat organic, avoid common household cleaners and pesticides, don't have wall-to-wall carpets or large new appliances." The paper consulted a commercial research ethics board, responsible for protecting study participants' rights and well-being, and had scientists analyze hair, blood and urine samples. They tested the family's 20-month old boy and found high concentrations of flame retardants, "at concentrations higher than measured almost anywhere in the world for someone not handling the stuff for a living." The series includes information on how the series was done, an index of chemicals commonly found in the body, a virtual tour of the common household fridge and what chemical pollutants reside in common food items, and tips on how to reduce the intake of chemicals. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 05, 2005 Investigation uncovers purchase card problems Steve Lackmeyer and Ryan McNeill of The Oklahoman analyzed a never-completed 2002 audit of Oklahoma's purchase card system. They found that for, "17 of the 20 agencies with cards at the time, receipts were not reviewed or verified to see whether the goods or services were received." The state auditor is preparing to investigate the purchase card system following the Oklahoman probe. The story also includes a side bar detailing the lack of rules the state has over cards issued to state employees. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Analysis finds atypical campaign finance expenditures Michael Cass of The Tennessean reports on an analysis of 2004 disclosure forms for all Tennessee legislators, which found political expenses in places not typically incurred. One expense was for "$1,414 to Interstate Liquors by Sen. Jerry Cooper, D-McMinnville." The story includes detailed sidebars outlining what the law says, how to follow the money and personal spending of campaign finances. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post July 01, 2005 Companies tied to bureau donate heavily to Republicans Mark Naymik and Joseph L. Wagner of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer analyzed state campaign contributions to show that "top Ohio Republican officials and political committees have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from companies managing money for the Bureau of Workers' Compensation. Almost two-thirds of the 212 companies hired by the bureau to invest its money gave a total of nearly $5 million to Republicans and their causes while virtually ignoring Democrats from Jan. 1, 1997, through 2004." Gov. Bob Taft, who had two campaigns during that period, was the leading recipient of money from those companies. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Increase in upper-income black professionals found in Dallas/Fort Worth Jennifer LaFleur of The Dallas Morning News used Census data to show that "the number of black households in the metro area that earn at least $100,000 tripled during the 1990s, propelling Dallas-Fort Worth into the ranks of the nation's leading metropolitan areas for upper-income black professionals." Much of the gains came in the area's suburbs. "The D-FW area also posted the fifth-biggest gain in upper-income black households during the 1990s, growing from about 5,300 to more than 16,000 households." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 30, 2005 Restaurant prices outpace inflation in NYC Jennifer Steinhauer and Jo Craven McGinty of The New York Times used restaurant price information from Zagat Guides and the paper's own reviews to show that "in 1994, the average one-star meal cost $33; it now costs a little more than $50, pushing it outside many people's weekend budgets. That is a 51 percent increase, and even after adjusting for inflation, it represents an 18 percent increase." As a result, New York is losing some of the good, cheaper eateries that existed 10 years ago. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 29, 2005 Contribution through multiple companies help corporate donors elude limit Ben Smith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution analyzed campaign contributions to Gwinnett County commission races in the past two years, finding that "thousands of dollars in donations from companies sharing common addresses and company executives that appear to violate campaign contribution limits. Among them: nine companies headed by two developers whose firms gave to former Commission Chairman Wayne Hill. The contributions, in one case, amounted to twice the donations Hill could legally collect from a single source, and in the other, nearly three times the limit." The donors involved said they were unaware that state law prohibits the practice. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Developers have big plans for rural areas John McCarthy of the Florida Today analyzed and mapped data from the Brevard County Property Appraiser's database to report on growth and development in Brevard County, Fla. McCarthy found that land developers in the county "plan to turn agricultural land in the far reaches of the county into upscale housing developments ..." The project includes a sidebar by Jeff Schweers about how the public can have its say on rezoning and other issues and the online version of the project includes a flyover three-dimensional map, produced by online enhancement coordinator Lee Nessel Daszuta. Assistant Managing Editor Matt Reed oversaw the project and Graphic Artist Tim Standish produced a map for the print edition based on a map McCarthy created with Arcview 9. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 27, 2005 Private contractors pour $2.5 billion into city L.A. Lorek of the San Antonio Express-News used federal contracts data to examine the largest military contractors in San Antonio. Lorek found the Pentagon's reliance on private companies has let to a boom for local businesses who "provide everything from oil and food to aircraft parts and weapons research." In 2003, the top 20 contractors received $2.5 billion worth of contracts, making San Antonio the second-largest military contracting city in Texas. That money went toward making canteen covers, ammunition vests, aluminum cots; meals ready to eat; developing software, building and maintaining aircraft. (Editor's Note: The Federal Procurement Data System is available to journalists from IRE and NICAR.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 23, 2005 Lobbyists use nonprofits to finance congressional travel Bob Williams and Stephen Henn of the Center for Public Integrity investigate lobbyists who sit on the governing boards of nonprofits. Lobbyists are not supposed to pay for congressional travel, but the investigation found "that a favored way to evade the prohibition on picking up the tab is to do so through charitable non-profits..." The investigation includes a map detailing the most popular congressional junket locations, a list of the top companies and lobbying firms, and a summary of their findings. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Problems plague state's biotech partnership Clint Riley of The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record investigates New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey's plans to promote biotechnology in the state in a four-part series. The investigation found problems with New Jersey's partnership with the biotechnology industry. "Millions of your tax dollars have gone to companies that take valuable research, profits and jobs from New Jersey and strengthen the biotech industry elsewhere." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 22, 2005 School crime numbers higher than reported Liz Chandler, Peter Smolowitz, Melissa Manware and CAR specialist Adam Bell from The Charlotte Observer report on their findings that more crime in being committed in Charlotte schools than is being reported by the school district. The investigation found "1,473 crimes reported to police at schools, 631 of them violent or threatening." Compare that to "12,681 suspensions of students for violent or threatening acts. That includes 11,378 for "aggressive physical or verbal actions," ranging from verbal confrontations to serious assaults." An Observer investigation found that "CMS relies heavily on suspensions, which soared to a record 52,648 in 2004." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Calif. budget crunch doesn't affect best-paid workers Todd Wallack of the San Francisco Chronicle uses state employee data to analyze California's highest paid workers. "Close to 2,000 state employees earned more than $132,000 last year, up from 1,021 in calendar year 2002 and 1,194 in 2003, according to data from the state controller's office." The story includes a chart and a sortable list of California's 2,000 highest paid employees. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 21, 2005 City pays private attorneys millions Steve Neavling of The Bay City Times has a six-part series on Bay County government spending on private attorneys. "Between 2001 and 2004, the county paid private lawyers nearly $1.13 million — more than twice the amount spent by each of four other Michigan counties with similar populations. And that does not include the more than $470,000 Bay County spent on attorneys to defend lawsuits." The paper used county billing records to show that the staffer who oversees legal work "routinely turns to outside lawyers, who charge up to $140 an hour to handle lawsuits, bankruptcy cases, property transfers and union negotiations." With a graphic showing how much outside firms were paid. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 20, 2005 Experts cast doubt on cause Jason Method and James W. Prado Roberts of the Asbury Park Press raised questions in the airplane death seven years ago of a pilot who was about to buy Marlboro Airport, now the center of a massive political bribery scandal. The NTSB ruled the 1998 crash death of Lino A. Fasio an accident due to a probable bird strike, but five experts who reviewed the report and new photographs of the wreckage for the Press said there is no evidence to support the government's claim. "There have been six known fatal accidents involving birds in civil aviation in the United States in the last 15 years. But in every case - except Fasio's - investigators found solid evidence of birds or bird remains." The series includes 14 chapters, ranging from a bird theory to sabotage claims. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 17, 2005 Many school bus drivers have bad records Cynthia Kopkowski of The Palm Beach Post, with assistance from William M. Hartnett and researchers Krista Pegnetter and Angelica Cortez, reviewed school bus accident data and motor vehicle records for 130 drivers to find that "nine drivers have been charged with crimes within the past 10 years or within several years of being hired. One current driver was charged with two counts of homicide and convicted of manslaughter in both cases. She was hired within five years of leaving prison. Although 10 of the drivers reviewed have clean motor vehicle records dating back to 1995, the remaining 120 accrued 190 citations within the past decade." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Minorities face tough discipline Melissa Jenco of the Daily Herald analyzed Illinois education data to show that "racial disparities in discipline are not just a suburban trend. Statewide, during the 2002-03 school year, the expulsion and suspension rate for black students was three times higher than for white students. There were similar disparities for Latino students, too." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 14, 2005 Lobbyists banking billions on no-bid contracts Greg B. Smith of the New York Daily News used state data to show that "in the state Department of Transportation alone, lobbyists schmoozed the agency on nearly $1.3 billion in contracts in the past two years ... only a handful of these contracts were awarded competitively with sealed bids, a process that significantly restricts influence-peddling." Lobbyists are not required to detail efforts made to win government contracts for their clients. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Bridge safety ratings drop despite high funding Bruce Golding, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon and Dwight R. Worley of The Journal-News used state and federal data to show that "safety ratings for the Tappan Zee Bridge have dropped back to some of the lowest levels in a decade despite an infusion of at least $316 million." The span is New York's most profitable, generating about $45 million in "excess revenues" a year, but is nearing the end of its planned 50-year life. "In addition to the drops in the deck and structural ratings, federal records show the Tappan Zee's guardrails have not met acceptable standards in three of four categories since at least 1994." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 09, 2005 Driving after losing your license not uncommon Andy Nelesen of the Green Bay Press-Gazette used county data to show that driving after losing your license (known as OAR) isn't uncommon: "In 2003 and 2004, more than 250 people racked up more than one OAR case in one year." In one extreme case, a man has been arrested for driving without a license at least 52 times since 1993. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 07, 2005 D.C. subway system suffers from mismanagement Lyndsey Layton and Jo Becker of The Washington Post obtained and reviewed documents and data on the performance of the DC-area subway system, finding that "trains break down 64 percent more often than they did three years ago, and the number of daily delays has nearly doubled since 2000. Although the vast majority of trains are on time, more than 14,400 subway riders a day are inconvenienced by a delay or a mechanical problem that forces them off broken trains." The second piece of a four-part series revealed that "time and again, records show, the public transit agency has disregarded the advice of experts and failed to address safety issues." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Schools fail to report all crime An investigation by the Charlotte Observer has found that a lot more violent and threatening behavior takes place in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools than officials disclose in the state's public report on crime. Observer reporters Lisa Hammersly Munn, Liz Chandler, Melissa Manware and Peter Smolowitz, along with database reporter Adam Bell, used school and police records and databases to reveal thousands of incidents of crime, violence and threatening acts that the state doesn't require for its report and that aren't disclosed to parents. Also, the newspaper found that CMS failed to disclose some crimes the state report requires. The investigation includes a downloadable school violence report and school violence charts. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post State homeland security problems uncovered Bert Dalmer of The Des Moines Register reports on an analysis done by the Register using Iowa's critical-asset list. The list "has played a key part in determining how the state divides homeland-security money among Iowa's counties." They found that some "dams and schools on the list have been found not to exist." Historic buildings were left off, while "the state liquor warehouse in Ankeny, Living History Farms in Urbandale and the Danish Windmill Museum in Elk Horn" were put on the list. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 03, 2005 Florida wetlands vanishing In a two-part series, Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite of the St. Petersburg Times report on the destruction of Florida wetlands. The Times analyzed satellite imagery to determine the acres of wetlands lost to urban development. Their investigation uncovered that the federal agency primarily responsible for regulating wetland in Florida failed to keep records on how many acres they were allowing to be destroyed and doesn't track projects they were requiring to make up for the destruction. "... since the policy took effect in 1990, at least 84,000 acres of Florida wetlands have disappeared..." The Times found a system that creates the illusion of environmental protection while doing little to stem the destruction. "The corps approves more permits to destroy wetlands in Florida than any other state, and allows a higher percentage of destruction in Florida than nationally." The series includes interactive graphics and a complete methodology on how the series was done and tracks how pressure from Congress is used. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Motor Vehicle Bureaus use varies Michele McNeil of The Indianapolis Star used state data to show that "at least 30 motor vehicle license branches do as little business as those in the 12 small towns already scheduled to close." In addition, the paper found that the number of cars and trucks processed by branches fluctuates wildly. "For example, the average number of transactions handled per employee last year was 2,966 at the Virginia Avenue branch in Indianapolis, compared with an average of 9,777 at the Plainfield branch." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Tax abatements benefit downtown owners Gregory S. Reeves of The Kansas City Star analyzed county data on tax breaks given to properties in downtown Kansas City, finding that "more than 1,700 properties in Jackson County enjoy some kind of property tax abatement," including several expensive condo buildings. Meanwhile, many residential property owners are facing double-digit increases in their assessments. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post More students attending four-year colleges Rich Cholodofsky of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports on findings that more of Pennsylvania's graduating high school students are going to four-year colleges. "Within the past five school years, entering the work force, attending technical training or joining the military have fallen behind college as graduates' first option after high school, according to a Tribune-Review analysis of postgraduation reports from the 1998-99 and 2003-04 classes. " Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post June 01, 2005 Sexual harassment rarely reported on Oregon campuses Alan Gustafson and Shawn Day of the Salem, Ore., Statesman Journal analyze Oregon University System's handling of sexual harassment. They found that the system lacks "data on the extent to which sexual harassment is happening on Oregon campuses." The university system also fails to inform students on the proper way to file a complaint. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 31, 2005 Police chases lack restrictions Eunice Trotter, Tom Spalding and Mark Nichols of The Indianapolis Star built a database of reports on police chases, showing that "police are virtually unrestricted when they chase suspects. They pursue fleeing vehicles at high speeds and usually for traffic infractions." One of five chases resulted in an injury or death, and state police chases averaged 88 mph. The paper analyzed records from nearly 1,000 chases in 2003 and 2004. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 27, 2005 Governor ignores clemency board recommendations Amanda J. Crawford and Ryan Konig of The Arizona Republic analyzed state records on clemency, finding that "the number of inmates recommended to the governor for shortened prison terms by the Board of Executive Clemency has skyrocketed" during the past 10 years. "But in the vast majority of cases, even in those where the trial judge agrees with the board that a sentence is too long, the governor has rejected the board's recommendations." Arizona "has more people per capita in prison than any other Western state, tougher sentencing laws than most states and no parole." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Cities, counties ignore misdemeanor warrents to save money Chris Halsne of KIRO-Seattle reports on why many criminals with outstanding misdemeanor warrants don't have to worry about going to jail. The KIRO-Seattle investigative team analyzed 145,000 active misdemeanor warrants in Washington. They found "a growing number of cities and counties ... don't want to pay for the cost of jail time or transportation of a criminal with a misdemeanor warrant. Instead, they routinely tell the deputy to let the criminal go right there on the spot." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 26, 2005 Felons registering, voting in Oklahoma Nolan Clay and John Perry of The Oklahoman used state voter data to show that "about 2,500 felons may be registered to vote. About 1,100 may have voted in last year's general election. An exact count is difficult — in part because voters sometimes sign the wrong lines in poll books." The paper found that Oklahoma election officials have ignored records on felons provided by prosecutors in and outside the state. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 25, 2005 New evidence casts doubt on convicted killer's guilt Scott Glover and Matt Lait of the Los Angeles Times use scores of documents shedding doubt on the guilt of a man convicted of killing his mother over 20 years ago. Among the evidence discovered was a bloody footprint found at the scene that didn't match the convicted killer's shoes and a mysterious phone call made from the crime scene. The footprint was attributed to Bruce Lisker at trial. But a recent analysis by the Los Angeles Police Department concluded "that the footprint did not match Lisker's shoes, suggesting there was another suspect in the house at the time of the killing." When the reporters contacted eight of the 12 jurors, "five said the new information about the case would have prompted them to acquit Lisker." The former prosecutor in the case, after being shown the findings by the Times, said, "The bottom line is I now have reasonable doubt." The story includes PDFs of 14 documents ranging from a rap sheet of a jailhouse snitch to an inventory record listing the contents of the victim's purse, which includes the $120 that was alleged to have been a motive in the murder. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Medium home value soars William M. Hartnett of The Palm Beach Post analyzed ten years' of housing sales for Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties, finding that median home prices have jumped dramatically during that period. In a special section published Sunday, the paper mapped neighborhoods according to median sale value and reported that water access costs more than it ever did. A number of other maps and photos also illustrate the data, and the paper provided an explainer of its work. Hartnett credited similar work by the St. Petersburg Times last year for inspiring the project. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 24, 2005 Governor still wins, analysis shows Emily Heffter and Mike Carter of The Seattle Times, with help from Cheryl Phillips, Justin Mayo, Jonathan Martin and Nick Perry, analyzed lists of voters claimed by both Washington political parties to contain the names of felons who voted improperly in the state's gubernatorial election last year. Using a method proposed by Republicans, the paper found that Democrat Christine Gregoire "would still prevail over GOP challenger Dino Rossi." The paper also went beyond the parties, finding that "both parties made mistakes in compiling their lists: Some people on the lists were not felons - nor had they voted." An explanation on how the story was done is also availabe. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 23, 2005 Indiana bridges failing in comparison to Illinois bridges The Northwest Indiana Times analyzed federal inspection records for 771 elevated road bridges in Lake and Porter counties (Ind.). They found "that as of 2003, 27 percent were either structurally deficient or unable to accommodate rising traffic loads because of size constraints or outdated design." Using data from the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2003 bridge inventory they found that "47 bridges had sufficiency ratings of 50 or less, which means they're eligible for federal replacement funds." The Times review of Illinois bridges found a much lower percentage of deficient bridges. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 20, 2005 Extreme speeders get off easy Scott Powers of The Orlando Sentinel used county traffic ticket data to show that "last year Florida Highway Patrol troopers, Orange County deputies and police ticketed 342 high rollers for driving at least 100 mph." Those who are caught typically are young, white men and many were traveling on the Central Florida GreeneWay. "And though the penalty for a 100-mph speeding ticket normally includes a stiff fine of $305, the vast majority of high rollers last year avoided getting traffic-violation points attached to their license records, usually by attending traffic school. Officially they are not convicted, so their insurance companies cannot raise their premiums." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Many to blame for social programs mess Karen Augé of The Denver Post used state records to show that "nearly every agency, contractor and department that touched the state's new $200 million computer benefits system in some way contributed to its debacle." Colorado's new system was a year late when it came online last fall, and the contractor and state officials have blamed each other for its failures. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post State senator makes big bucks with bank Craig R. McCoy, Jennifer Lin and Mario F. Cattabiani of The Philadelphia Inquirer detailed the relationship between state Sen. Vincent J. Fumo and the bank he heads, finding that "PSB Bancorp Inc. has served one man especially well: its chairman, Sen. Fumo. The bank paid Fumo $709,800 last year. For a few years, it provided him a Mercedes-Benz roadster. He also has received $950,000 in reduced-rate loans, a 'golden parachute' estimated at $4.2 million to $6.4 million if the bank is sold, and stock worth millions more." Fumo helped the bank grow from a single office to 13 branches in the Philadelphia area, and the board includes "the manager of Fumo's South Philadelphia legislative office, his biggest campaign donor, and a city councilman whose campaigns are heavily financed by Fumo's campaign funds." Fumo and PSB Bancorp declined to respond to the paper's inquiries, citing "the unadulterated bias that the Inquirer has shown toward Senator Fumo and PSB Bancorp." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post N.C. judges influenced by local lawyers Ames Alexander of The Charlotte Observer, working with database editor Ted Mellnik, investigated the relationship between lawyers and judges in the North Carolina's judicial district that is most lenient on drinking and driving. "District judges there acquitted suspects in more than 87 percent of the DWI trials in which they rendered a verdict. Statewide, the acquittal rate is 39 percent, state courts data show." One lawyer, John Nobles won 203 straight DWI trials from 2000 to mid-2004. The story also links to in-depth information on the judges, the lawyers and information on how and why the data was analyzed. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 19, 2005 Sex offenders clustered in impoverished areas Brady Dennis and Matthew Waite of the St. Petersburg Times mapped the locations of registered offenders to show that "9 of 10 people in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco counties live within a half-mile of a sex offender." Most are clustered in poor areas, and state law restricts some offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Incentives pay millions, while companies fall short Mike McAndrew and Michelle Breidenbach of The (Syracuse) Post-Standard report on how New York Governor George Pataki's administration gives millions of dollars to businesses that promise to hire people, but often don't. The Post-Standard uses the state's Freedom of Information Law to obtain financial accounts, as well as records on companies' penalties. "The newspaper's review of those records shows that in 2004, companies with active grants and loans fell short of their combined targets by at least 6,000 jobs. In all, 47 percent of the companies missed their targets." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Fund-raising costs average at state college Lynn Campbell, Erin Jordan and Madelaine Jerousek of The Des Moines Register analyzed fund-raising costs by state universities, finding that "foundations at ISU and the University of Iowa are about average in the amount they spend on salaries, travel and other overhead to raise money for their universities." The two schools spend about 11 or 12 cents per dollar on fundraising costs compared to other Big Ten and Big 12 colleges. The University of Northern Iowa spends about 16 cents per dollar raised. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 18, 2005 Confusing stats help mask plant deaths Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle continues the Chronicle's investigation into the 1995 explosion at the BP oil refinery. Olson used OSHA data to uncover why few deaths had been attributed to refineries in the past. "Increasingly, the accuracy of government safety statistics is undermined by the changing work force. These days, up to half of refinery workers are contractors, who generally get some of the most dangerous jobs." Olson also reports on how BP is the fatality leader in their industry in the United States. "BP leads the U.S. refining industry in deaths over the last decade, with 22 fatalities since 1995 — more than a quarter of those killed in refineries nationwide ..." The paper included this explainer on how they did the story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Top 10 businesses top $1 billion in St. Petersburg Helen Huntley of the St. Petersburg Times analyzed the cities top 10 companies finding that, for the first time ever, all 10 are more than $1 billion in revenue. "Eight of the 10 increased revenues by double digits last year. Their average return on equity was 20 percent." The story includes graphics that provide details ranging from most valuable company to fastest growing company. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 17, 2005 Delay gives more to colleagues than any other legislator Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg Markets analyzed Federal Election Commission records finding that House Majority Leader Tom Delay "gave more money to U.S. congressional candidates than any lawmaker in the last decade ... the Texas representative has contributed $3.5 million to 432 congressional candidates ..." After Delay, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is next in helping out colleagues. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Dateline analyzes America's most dangerous roads Dateline NBC analyzed five years of federal crash data to uncover the deadliest roads in America. "There are 400,000 miles of two lane highways in the United States, many with a disproportionate share of accidents." The most dangerous road they found was Florida's US-19, a six-lane highway stretching 30 miles up the coast. The highway has incurred 100 fatalities in the last five years. The story includes a searchable database, searchable by state, county and road, listing road fatalities, speeding accidents and drinking related accidents. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Bad bridges plague Oklahoma Steve Lackmeyer and John Perry of The Oklahoman used state and federal data to find that "fixing Oklahoma's bridges — the nation's worst — would cost taxpayers billions of dollars. All proposed remedies fall woefully short." The state has had the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges for at least three years. The bulk of such bridges are owned and maintained by county governments, which receive fuel tax revenues from the state for repair and upkeep. "Oklahoma has 140 bridges more than 80 years old. With the current funding structure, the agency can only replace about 324 bridges over the next decade. By that time, the state will have another 800 bridges more than 80 years old. The state has 199 highway bridges with either wooden structures or decking." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Front-runner grabs majority of contributions Andrew Conte and Mark Houser of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review analyzed and mapped campaign contributions for the Pittsburgh mayoral race. They found that "nearly two-thirds of the $1.2 million raised by front-runner Bob O'Connor ... has come from outside the city." A lot of O'Conner's contributions were found to have come in large chunks. The story also features a graphic detailing the analysis. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 16, 2005 LAPD spends millions over overtime budget Jason Kandel of the Los Angeles Daily News obtained overtime expenditures from the Los Angeles Police Department and used Excel to analyze the data. He found that the LAPD has already overspent their overtime budget by $8 million with two months still remaining in the fiscal year. "The Los Angeles Police Department spent $62.8 million through April 30, although it had budgeted $54.7 million for 1.2 million overtime hours for the fiscal year that ends June 30, documents show." The biggest chunk of the expense was found to be from court-related activities. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 13, 2005 State education formula flaws found Betsy Hammond of The Oregonian analyzed state school spending data to find that "Oregon took nearly $200 million last year from taxpayers in Washington and Multnomah counties and shipped it to schools in poorer parts of the state." Most students live in districts that spend close to the state average of $7,500 per student, but some rural districts in Eastern Oregon receive subsidies that push their per-pupil spending over $10,000. "Oregon's formula does not account for differences in cost of living from one community to another. Districts that can pay lower salaries can hire more teachers and provide more programs." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Death penalty in Ohio applied unfairly Andrew Welsh-Huggins of the Associated Press analyzed Ohio death penalty cases since 1981, finding that "Ohio's death penalty has been inconsistently applied since it was enacted in 1981...Race, the extensive use of plea bargains, and where a crime was committed all play a role in who is sentenced to death." Defendants charged with killing a white person were twice as likely to get the death penalty than those accused of killing a black person, and counties with a strong Democratic lean handed out death sentences less often than jurisdictions with a more conservative population. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 12, 2005 Home assessment accuracy up Gregory S. Reeves of The Kansas City Star used Jackson County real estate data to show that "an old problem - over-valuing homes under $50,000 - may have gotten worse with the new property tax appraisals ... and homes that sold for $600,000 and up remain under-appraised by 25 percent." Most houses, the paper found, were appraised accurately. Overall, the county's houses were appraised at around 91 percent of market value, up from last year's average assessment of 75 percent or less of market value. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Police fail to report missing children Thomas Hargrove of Scripps Howard News Service analyzed data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to find that "dozens of police departments across the nation failed to report at least 4,498 runaway, lost and abducted children in apparent violation of the National Child Search Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1990. Seventeen of these unreported children are dead, 131 are still missing." Twelve percent of the more than 37,000 children reported missing to the NCMEC between 2000 and 2004 were not reported to the FBI. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 11, 2005 Police failing to prevent false identifications Bill Moushey and Nathan Crabbe of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in conjunction with the Innocence Institute at Point Park University, investigated potential wrongful convictions in Pennsylvania, finding that "police failed to follow the steps that can help prevent false identifications." Many police agencies in the state either were not aware of federal guidelines for eyewitness identifications or disagreed with them, the project found. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 10, 2005 Domestic violence suspects avoid jailtime through pretrial program Rick Brundrett of The (Columbia, S.C.) State studied records from pretrial intervention programs to find that South Carolina "prosecutors accepted more than 1,800 suspects accused of criminal domestic violence into a program that allows their charges to be dropped over the past five years." Violent offenders aren't supposed to be eligible for the program, but a loophole in state law permits those charged with domestic violence to enter. "Until last year, even the most serious criminal domestic violence charge - criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature - was not classified as violent. That meant suspects charged with the crime for the first time also could be admitted into PTI." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Pension abuses hurt employees Michael L. Diamond, with contributions from Paul D'Ambrosio and Nicholas Clunn, Eileen Smith and Peter Spencer of Gannett New Jersey newspapers reviewed the state's pension program, finding that "while the private sector has sharply cut pension and health insurance benefits, the state has gone the opposite way. New Jersey's system features generous payouts to retirees and is subject to abuse." Other employees hold multiple positions: using 2002 data, the papers found "at least $238 million was paid in salaries to 9,500 individuals holding 24,700 government jobs. That represents about 3 percent of the entire payroll in local, county and state government, excluding police, firefighters and teachers." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Immigrant women adapting, are as likely to work as U.S. women Peggy O'Crowley and Carrie Stetler of The (Newark) Star-Ledger, with assistance from Robert Gebeloff, used Census data to show that "immigrant women, who comprise one of four mothers in New Jersey, are less likely to work outside the home — at least when they first arrive. After 10 years, though, they are as apt to hold jobs as native-born women." The rates varied for different ethnicities, although some immigrants who traditionally stayed at home in their homelands do work in New Jersey. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 09, 2005 Poor care at nursing homes leads to light punishments Jeffrey Meitrodt, Jan Moller and Steve Ritea of The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune used state data to show that "most of Louisiana's 300 or so nursing homes have been cited since 1999 for mistakes that harmed or endangered residents. But in the sometimes illogical world of nursing home regulation, facilities in Louisiana often pay little or no penalty for fatal errors. In fact, homes that make mistakes resulting in a resident's death or serious injury often pay less than those cited for repeating minor violations." The paper's five-part series has numerous stories about the system, how other states regulate nursing homes and lots of photos. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 05, 2005 Top schools not necessarily producing best scores Mary B. Pasciak and Andrew Bailey of The Buffalo News analyzed fourth-grade standardized test scores from the area to find that "top performing schools - those that get the most from their students regardless of family income - often are the ones teaching students who have the least ... These top schools didn't necessarily have the best raw test scores, although some did. But when adjusted for poverty, their scores were all well above what they would be expected to achieve given the economic background of their pupils." The Buffalo News also found that schools spending the most money are not necessarily producing the best students. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Profits high, payroll low for Pittsburgh Pirates Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette spent two months delving into the finances of the Pittsburgh Pirates, owned by a private company, to project "that the Pirates will make a $12.8 million profit in 2005." The average Major League Baseball franchise generated about $4.4 million in profits last year, and the Pirates' payroll has been among the lowest in the league - it increased by $1.4 million since 2004. The team's managing partner said that "the team has chosen to apply most of that profit toward a debt that is estimated by knowledgeable sources at $110 million. The rest, he added, is being used for capital projects such as the $2 million scoreboard the Pirates bought for PNC Park this year." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 03, 2005 Disney looks to improve parks to further growth Jerry W. Jackson, Debbie Salamone and Sean Mussenden of The Orlando Sentinel used public records to determine that Walt Disney World represents a more than $4 billion-a-year business in Central Florida. The paper reviewed state, local and county tax records, corporate annual reports and 15 years' worth of federal SEC filings, using computer-assisted reporting, to analyze the company's size and impact on the community, as well as its contribution to the revenue and profitability of the theme park division and to Walt Disney Co. overall. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Restaurant inspections find high number of infractions Lee Davidson of The Deseret Morning News uses computer assisted-reporting to analyze nearly 10,000 restaurant inspections during 2003 and 2004. The data were obtained through a state open records request. "The analysis shows which restaurants had the most violations per inspection and the fewest, with 25 establishments averaging 13 or more critical violations per inspection, while 30 had perfect scores with no violations of any kind during the two years." The most common violation of any type, cited 5,3739 times over the two years, was the "critical" violation of using unclean equipment. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post May 02, 2005 Rush hour trains running late Rob Gebeloff and Joe Malinconico of The (Newark) Star-Ledger analyzed state data to find that while New Jersey Transit's overall on-time performance is close to 95 percent, "on-time rates for dozens of rush-hour trains are twice as bad as the overall average." The paper's analysis also showed that "on the Northeast Corridor, one of every six trains during the morning rush hour ran late. In contrast, the Bergen County Line missed the on-time mark by just one out of every 32 trains." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Police chases up in Nashville Ian Demsky of The (Nashville) Tennessean used local police data to show that "a record number of police pursuits zipped through Nashville streets last year, even as beefed-up safety measures caused officers to cancel more of the dangerous car chases than ever before." A third of the 269 police chases in 2004 led to some kind of property damage. "While officers and supervisors called off 67 pursuits last year - almost twice as many as they did in 2003 - the number of chases for minor traffic violations, nonviolent crimes and stolen vehicles rose from 153 to 175." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 28, 2005 Radiologist's long hours invoke suspicion Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber of the Los Angeles Times used California's Public Records Act to show that "Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center paid more than $1.3 million over the last year for the services of a radiologist who said he worked an average of 20 hours a day, seven days a week, during one recent six-month stretch." Supervisors signed off on the employee's timesheets even when they indicated working more than 20 hours a day at the facility. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 27, 2005 Felony, not petty criminals fill jail Karen E. Crummy of The Denver Post analyzed county data to find that "most of the inmates crammed into the Denver County Jail are accused of robbery, burglary, selling drugs and even violent assaults. Relatively few of them are the drunken drivers and petty drug users whom people often associate with county jail." Local residents will vote in May on building a new jail. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 25, 2005 City insiders' tickets dismissed at much higher rate than most Patrick Lakamp of The Buffalo News analyzed 24,000 parking ticket hearings, finding that most Buffalo residents pay the majority of their fines, whereas as a select few city insiders get their fines dismissed. "They just write letters to the city's parking enforcement director. Two-thirds of the time, their tickets go away." A deputy commissioner of jurors saved $1,205 when 95 percent of his contested fines were waived. The story also includes a sidebar detailing the city's biggest benefactor Paul G. Gaughan, deputy commissioner of jurors in Erie County. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 18, 2005 U.S. implements secret policy to win over Islam David E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Reports details how the White House is implementing a secret policy to intervene not just in the Muslim world, but within Islam itself, and how Washington has set up a program of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War forty years ago. The project details how the U.S. government is quietly funding Islamic schools, mosques, think tanks, and media around the world. The piece also includes a graphic detailing the United States' projects to influence Islam globally, and two sidebars, the first describing the role of rocket scientists in the strategy, and the second examining Sufi, a moderate sect of Islam and an enemy to al-Qaeda and other extremists organizations. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Orlando convention center fails to meet high standards Dan Tracy of the Orlando Sentinel spent more than six months investigating the Orange County Convention Center and the industry surrounding Central Florida's largest single public-works project. "The center's $748 million expansion, which opened in August 2003 in the midst of a tourism and travel slump, attracted only 154,317 new visitors during its first full year of operations — less than a third of the 500,000-plus who had been projected." In their second installment in a series of three, Orlando's biggest competitor, Las Vegas, was analyzed to see why the city has been and continues to be the number one draw for conventions. The series also includes time-lapse video of the convention center project, details about the numbers, four detailed graphics and information about the series. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 12, 2005 Faulty oversight put youth at risk Jonathan D. Rockoff and John B. O'Donnell of The (Baltimore) Sun analyzed spending by 25 companies that run group homes for foster children, finding "a broad failure by the state to protect the interests of 2,700 youths who live in 330 privately run homes in Maryland. The state licenses and funds the facilities but does not routinely hold them accountable for the quality of care they provide - putting children at risk." In some cases, the paper found that deaths of children were not recorded in state files and "unqualified or unfit caregivers are hired because the state does not enforce training requirements and leaves screening to the operators." Also included is a section about how the series was done. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post State offers big incentives at a large price Sydney P. Freedberg and Connie Humburg of the St. Petersburg Times wrote about Florida's attempt to attract business by offering large incentives to help companies create jobs. The incentives were not working with some companies shipping jobs oversees instead of creating them. These economic efforts come at a big price with Florida's economic development efforts costing the state government more than $900 million. "In a state with a $61-billion proposed budget, $900-million could pay for nearly 11,000 new teachers, prekindergarten classes for 150,000 4-year-olds and all of next year's tuition increase for more than 250,000 university students." The story also includes 14 charts that break down details from wages to cash grants. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 11, 2005 FEMA paid for too many funerals Sally Kestin, Megan O'Matz and John Maines of the Sun-Sentinel used federal records to show that "the federal government has paid funeral expenses for at least 315 deaths" in the wake of hurricanes in South Florida last year, "including those of a man who shot himself and a stroke victim hospitalized more than a week before the last storm hit." A state official said that the actions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency constituted a "Free Funeral Payment Act". The total cost of the funerals was $1.27 million, according to the paper's analysis of FEMA data. The paper is suing to force disclosure of the names of all recipients of FEMA aid related to the hurricanes. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 07, 2005 Police issue tickets more frequently by the beach Rick Neale of Florida Today analyzed 2004 traffic ticket data from Brevard County, finding that "beachside police ticket at far higher relative frequencies than their mainland counterparts." The county's smaller towns write far more tickets per capita than larger cities. "Melbourne Village issues almost eight times more tickets per capita than Brevard's biggest city, Palm Bay." Police mostly blame tourist traffic on State Road A1A and commuters seeking alternate routes. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post April 05, 2005 Washington D.C. drives Baltimore housing boom Jamie Smith Hopkins of The (Baltimore) Sun used data on home sales to find "clear signs that proximity to D.C. is driving the boom in Baltimore and its five surrounding counties, over and above what extraordinarily low mortgage interest rates have achieved nationwide. This region's fastest appreciation came in Howard, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties, which border the traditional edge of Washington's reach. Prices there jumped 75 percent combined during the past five years - compared with 41 percent nationally. Together, the average price in those counties rose to about $340,000 last year." The paper included a searchable database of area home sales from 1999 to 2004 and several charts detailing the growth in home prices. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 31, 2005 High-risk drivers make up majority of DUI offenses Matthew Junker of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review used arrest data from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to determine that fully 56 percent of the people arrested last year were in the most intoxicated category under Pennsylvania's .08 DUI law. "Statistics for the law's first 11 months -- from Feb. 1, 2004, to the end of that year -- show that more than half of those charged with drunken driving had a blood-alcohol content of 0.16 percent or higher, twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 30, 2005 Emergency fund used by legislators Eric Eyre and Scott Finn of the Charleston Gazette examined records of a contingency fund controlled by West Virginia's governor, finding that "Hardy County received $6.7 million from the contingency fund since 1997 - more than any county in the state - even though the county ranks 42nd out of 55 counties in population." The link? Delegate Harold K. Michael, D-Hardy, chairman of the House of Delegates Finance Committee, which helps steer the contingency money. "The governor's contingency fund was set up to help out West Virginians during disasters — floods, fires and ice storms. But during the past eight years, more than $72 million has been spent on items that were hardly emergencies." A PDF chart shows how much went to recipients in each county. Another story details $8 million in state education funds that state officials didn't request. "Legislative leaders won't say exactly what they earmarked the money for. And state schools Superintendent David Stewart doesn't have a clue about the purpose of the funds. Stewart said the $8 million came with just one caveat: that it can be released only on orders from Harold K. Michael, D-Hardy, chairman of the House of Delegates Finance Committee." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Hispanic girls lack high school sports participation MaryJo Sylwester, in her swan song at USA TODAY before joining the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, used federal education data to help illustrate the comparative lack of participation in high school sports by Hispanic girls. "Nationally, about 36% of Hispanic sophomore girls played interscholastic sports, compared with 52% of non-Hispanics for the 2001-02 school year." Money doesn't seem to be a factor, but rather the influences of culture and family that may emphasize home obligations over after-school activities. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 28, 2005 Train delay rates climbing Sewell Chan and Jo Craven McGinty of The New York Times studied delays on New York's subway system, finding that "a typical weekday rider on the subway today is likely to experience a train delay roughly once every three weeks, compared with about once every five weeks in September 2003, when the number of stalled trains reached a record low." The delays - defined as being at least five minutes late at the end of a run - occur for a wide variety of reasons, including worker error or signal malfunction. Passengers who hold doors open also contribute to the lateness. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Oil tanker regulations ignored, trimmed back Eric Nalder of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer investigated the inner-workings of a tanker fleet owned by the third-largest oil company in the nation, ConocoPhillips. The series was inspired by a mystery spill in Puget Sound. The company had denied that its ship, the Polar Texas, was the spiller, while the U.S. Coast Guard said the oil matched the vessel's cargo. The investigation revealed a much wider pattern, that on the West Coast important reforms following Exxon Valdez spill are being undermined, ignored, violated and, in the case of tug escorts, trimmed back through the influence of the oil company. The P-I revealed through interviews and internal company documents a wide pattern of misconduct and dangerous behavior aboard a number of the company's huge ships, vessels that regularly carry nearly 40 million gallons of oil over some of the roughest seas in the world to refinery ports in Washington and California. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 24, 2005 Dot com insiders made millions, while investors lost Reporters Sharon Pian Chan and David Heath of The Seattle Times used unsealed documents successfully won in state and federal lawsuits to investigate Infospace's rise and downfall. At its peak, Infospace was worth over $31 million, but a bad investment on a Canadian wireless investment and questionable business dealings led to the eventual collapse of the dot com giant. They interviewed 100 people, ranging from former employees, investors, experts and regulatory officials. The three-part series details who the winners and loser were, how company insiders fled, dumping their stocks, making millions and the series will feature the aftermath of the downfall March 8. Emails, voicemails and documents are also included in the series, as well as a piece about how the series was done. The Seattle Times Executive Editor Mike Fancher wrote a column discussing the series. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Detroit high on list of top spenders Kathleen Gray and Marisol Bello of The Detroit Free Press used federal data to show that "Detroit spends more on city government than most of the nation's big cities." The city ranks fourth in government employees per capita and fifth in overall general fund spending per capita, "behind New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Chicago, spending $1.7 million for every 1,000 residents." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 23, 2005 White coaches lasting longer than black coaches in NBA David Leonhardt and Ford Fessenden of The New York Times used regression analysis to show that "over the last decade, black NBA coaches have lasted an average of just 1.6 seasons, compared with 2.4 seasons for white coaches ... That means the typical white coach lasts almost 50 percent longer and has most of an extra season to prove himself." The paper used all coaching tenures since 1989 involving 110 men who are not currently working as head coaches in the league (more on methodology). Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post City program accountability questioned Toni Coleman of the St. Paul Pioneer Press analyzed data on the city's Sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) grant program, finding that "accountability under STAR is uneven because of the program's complicated structure. Most projects go through a structured review process, for example, but individual City Council members circumvent that if they want. In addition, some of the money is earmarked for cultural improvements, but city officials have a pattern of breaking their own guidelines for how to use it." The city council has taken some of the STAR money and given council members the right to dispense it as they want, often under less scrutiny. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 22, 2005 City shooting data shows race, location similarities Nathan Gorenstein, Barbara Boyer and Rose Ciotta of the Philadelphia Inquirer summarized shootings in the city last year: "On average, more than four people a day were struck by bullets. About one in six died. On one day alone - Oct. 22 - 19 people were shot, one fatally. It's a toll of injury and death that falls most heavily on the same few neighborhoods year after year: North Philadelphia. West Philadelphia north of Market Street. The southwestern edge of South Philadelphia." During the past four years, half of all shooting victims were under 25, and most of those were African American males. An interactive graphic displaying shooting victims per square mile is included. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Utah dams improve, but high hazard conditions still exist Lee Davidson of The Deseret Morning News used state data to show that "44 percent of such Utah 'high hazard' dams meet all minimum safety standards - more than a sixfold improvement" since the paper last examined Utah's dams in 1988. "At that time, officials rated as safe a mere 7 percent of those dams classified as 'high hazard,' defined as those where failure would likely kill people and cause extensive damage." Salt Lake City is downstream from eight unsafe dams. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 21, 2005 Wealthy schools benefit more from construction money Steve Chambers and Robert Gebeloff of The (Newark) Star-Ledger analyzed state school construction data to find that "New Jersey's wealthiest districts have been far more successful qualifying for state money than middle-class or blue-collar ones. And with two-thirds of the state money already spent or committed, affluent districts have landed 24 percent more construction funding per pupil than other districts." The state's first-come, first-served method for distributing the money "left many poor and middle-class districts in the lurch." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 14, 2005 Police response times longer in certain areas Paul Goodsell and Lynn Safranek of the Omaha World-Herald examined 911 calls between 2000 and 2004 to find that "police took longest to respond to west Omaha calls. East of I-680, it took an average of 6 minutes and 31 seconds last year for the first officer to arrive on the highest priority calls. West of I-680, the average time was 8:28. The difference held true for priority two calls, which are less urgent and far more numerous. In the east, the average response time was about 11 minutes. In the west, 14 minutes." The gap between east and west widened in 2004 compared to earlier years. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 07, 2005 Delays, inconsistencies plague veteran affairs Chris Adams and Alison Young of Knight-Ridder Newspapers sued the Veterans Administration to obtain records never before released to the public. They showed that "injured soldiers who petition the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for those payments are often doomed by lengthy delays, hurt by inconsistent rulings and failed by the veterans representatives who try to help them." Knight-Ridder compiled a database comparing VA regional offices, finding "wildly inconsistent results" in providing care to vets. Ted Mellnik of the Charlotte Observer assisted with formatting the database for display on the Web site; here's how the series was done. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 04, 2005 Texas hispanics dying at an alarming rate in Iraq Juan Castillo and Bill Bishop of the Austin American-Statesman studied military deaths from the war in Iraq to find that "Hispanic Texans are dying in Iraq at a rate more than 60 percent higher than the rate for the nation's military-age population as a whole." Texas Hispanics and rural Americans serving in Iraq have some of the highest mortality rates. Statistican Robert Cushing did the analysis for the paper. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Crime data compares parolee data by ZIP code Jeremy Finley of WSMV-Nashville compared prison parolee data to ZIP codes in the Nashville area, uncovering a trend that is populating felons together and trapping ZIP codes in a "cycle of violence." He found the highest number of felons living in the 37207 ZIP code. "There are more than 200 convicted criminals in this ZIP code including convicted murderers, rapists, and drug dealers." The report also provides data that lists the number of parolees by ZIP code in Davidson County. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 03, 2005 Traffic stop study raises racial profiling questions Karisa King and Kelly Guckian of the San Antonio Express-News analyzed 12 months' of traffic and pedestrian police stops, finding that "blacks were more than three times as likely as whites to face certain types of police searches. Yet police found contraband in the searches at about the same rate for both races, a finding that civil rights groups said shows the disparate treatment was unwarranted." The data, from 2002, show that "San Antonio police stop minority and white drivers at rates that are roughly similar to their share of the population." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post March 02, 2005 Poor districts failing despite recent education reforms Mc Nelly Torres from the San Antonio Express-News investigated the progress of a Texas public school reform legislation dubbed "Robin Hood". She focused on the Edgewood School District, where the high school has an hispanic population of 97 percent. She found that the "total revenue per student was $8,729 last year, compared with $4,315 in 1994." A vast improvement for the district, however, the school keeps failing from constant changes in leadership, a divided school board and other problems that generally plague a poor school district. Enrollment has also dropped, due to the diminishing population in the district. A spreadsheet that shows the school district expenditures and a slideshow on how the Edgewood school district is shrinking are also provided. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 25, 2005 Teacher pay rising faster than inflation Kurt Rogahn of The (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) Gazette found that teacher pay "is increasing at rates better than inflation, despite warnings from the state's leading teacher organization that Iowa's average teacher pay hasn't kept pace with inflation." One researcher says the numbers show pay has gone up quite a bit, though the averages say it hasn't. "A Gazette analysis shows that though average teacher pay rose 16 percent between 1996-97 and this school year in the two Technology Corridor counties, base salaries for beginning teachers rose an average of 26 percent." Inflation over the same period was 21 percent. Rogahn points out that most news stories focus on average pay, a measure that can be misleading. (Extra! Extra! readers get special access to the story for one month by entering username "ire" and password "sherlock8" — both without the quotes.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 17, 2005 Teenage driving accident rate drops Leon Fooksman, John Maines and Chris Kahn of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel used state and federal data to show that "in Florida, the rate of car crashes for drivers between ages 15 and 19 dropped 23 percent from 1996 to 2003, the last year of available statistics. The crash rate has declined for everyone, but it's down twice as much for teens as any other age group." While fatal accidents involving teenage drivers grab headlines, young drivers in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties all had fewer accidents during the seven years studied. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 15, 2005 Google staff contributions favor Democrats Jim Hopkins from USA Today looked into campaign contributions by employees for Google Inc. and found that most of the money donated by employees is going to the Democrats. "Google employees gave $207,650 to federal candidates for last year's elections, up from just $250 in 2000 when it was still a start-up." Neither party has been able to woo over Google, Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. "Their company shares are worth $7.2 billion each. Yet federal campaign finance data do not show a single contribution from either one last year." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 14, 2005 War fatalities hit hardest in Vermont Jody Tillman of the Valley News used state-by-state analysis to compare Vermont's fatality numbers compared to other states. The Valley News found that Vermont had the "highest death rate of any state among soldiers and Marines deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan between March 1, 2003, and October 31, 2004: 5.6 per 1,000 troops." They also found that "Vermont had the highest number of deaths when measured against state population. As of Jan. 8, Vermont had 1.64 military deaths per 100,000 residents, more than three times the national average." Also included is a state-by-state comparison of per capita deaths among soldiers and marines, as well as a deaths per 1,000 deployed and National Guard participation. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 11, 2005 Campaign contributions still high despite law David S. Bernstein of The Boston Phoenix analyzed campaign contributions to Massachusetts state legislative candidates, finding that "of the 650 registered lobbyists and 167 active PACs in the state, just 20 prominent lobbying firms and 10 large PACs collectively pumped more than $1 million into legislative candidates' war chests in the past two years. And of the 1000 lobbying interests on Beacon Hill, a mere two dozen of them are responsible for about $20 million, or a fifth, of total lobbying expenditures." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post February 07, 2005 Fire response times on the rise Bill Dedman investigated nationwide fire department response times, staffing, and civilian and firefighter fatalities for The Boston Globe and found that while firefighters are being laid off and fire stations are closing, firefighters are taking longer to respond to fire alarms. Among the resources Dedman used was a database called the National Fire Incident Reporting System, maintained by the U.S. Fire Administration. The online presentation includes a ranking of fire departments, supporting documents and spreadsheets. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 31, 2005 Jump in murder rate fails to follow national trend Jeremy Hudson of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger analyzed details of the 57 murders committed in the city last year, finding that "at least half of the victims had prior criminal records. Seventy percent of the homicides, or 37, occurred in low-income areas that surround downtown." Jackson's murder rate is five times higher than the national average. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Ga. laws tough on borrowers Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Ann Hardie, Alan Judd and Carrie Teegardin analyzed foreclosure laws in all 50 states, tracked foreclosure notices and interviewed consumers, lawyers and bankruptcy experts about Georgia's foreclosure law, which drives a bankruptcy rate that is among the nation's highest. David A. Milliron, computer-assisted reporting and analysis editor, and news researchers Nisa Asokan and Alice Wertheim contributed to the reporting. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 27, 2005 Congressional travel soars despite regulations A team of graduate students from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, along with Marketplace and American RadioWorks, researched congressional perks to see if recent regulations have cut down on lobbysits' lavish expenditures. What they found was there has been a significant decrease in expenditures, but not when it comes to travel. More than $14 million was spent by corporations, universities and other institutions, "sending representatives around the world, for sometimes questionable reasons." Their research details how the process works, who is benefiting from it and who the "king of travel" is. The group also has compiled data detailing individual expenditures, as well as breakdowns based on party affiliation and the top beneficiaries and spenders. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Consultants benefit from relationship with senator Christian Berthelsen, Jim Herron Zamora and Todd Wallack of the San Francisco Chronicle used state campaign finance records to show that four political consultants have benefited from their association with state Sen. Don Perata: "they have collectively grossed $1.4 million from campaigns and political funds associated with Perata over the last 10 years." In addition, Perata has had business relationships with some of the same consultants yet has disclosed "far less about his outside work" than other prominent legislators. "Starting in 2001, Perata changed the way he did business. Instead of having several clients, all disclosed, he had a single client — Timothy Staples. And state law does not require him to be specific about his work for Staples." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 25, 2005 Convicted felons vote in Washington David Heath, Susan Kelleher, Justin Mayo, Christine Willmsen, Cheryl Phillips, Jonathan Martin and Mike Carter of The Seattle Times used state data on convictions and voting to show that "scores of convicted felons voted illegally in the state's 2004 general election, and officials never noticed because of serious flaws in the system for tracking them." The paper found at least 129 felons in King and Pierce counties who cast a ballot in the November election, some by absentee ballot. An excerpt from the methodology: "The Seattle Times found felon voters by comparing databases of nearly 100,000 court records and more than 1 million voter records in King and Pierce counties. The Times matched full names and birth dates, narrowing the search to more than 600 names. After checking court records for those cases, Times reporters eliminated cases in which felony charges had been reduced to misdemeanors or in which felons' voting rights had been restored." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 24, 2005 Homicide victims linked to drug trade Michael Grabell, Tanya Eiserer and Holly Yan of The Dallas Morning News tracked murders in Dallas in 2004, finding that "most of the 248 people who made Dallas one of the nation's deadliest big cities last year died in obscurity. Many were almost industrial byproducts of the city's drug trade...The drug trade draws customers from every race and economic group. But overwhelmingly the city's homicide victims are young minority men. Four out of five homicide victims in 2004 were black or Latino. And about half of the victims were black and Latino males under the age of 35 - even though that group accounts for only about 22 percent of Dallas' population. The killers are often black and Latino, too." The paper's tally of 248 killings is four more than the city reported and an 11.2 percent jump over 2003 figures. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 20, 2005 Lack of background checks give firearm licenses to felons An investigation into hunting liscenses by the investigative team for KSTP-St. Paul/Minneapolis has uncovered that 150 violent felons with a lifetime ban on owning a gun were issued firearm licenses. Comparing data from the Department of Natural Resources and a list of violent felons obtained from the Department of Corrections they discovered the dangerous contradiction that "one branch of government says violent felons can't touch a gun and another one sends them off into the woods to shoot deer." The investigators found the only background check performed when buying a license only checks for owed back child support. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 19, 2005 Paper ballots out match touch-screen voting Jeremy Milarsky of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel analyzed voting data from the 2004 elections, finding that "Florida's touch-screen voting machines performed better in the Nov. 2 presidential election than they did in the March primary, but were still outmatched by older voting devices that use pencil and paper ballots." Voters who cast their ballots using electronic voting machines had more spoiled ballots or undervotes in the presidential race. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 18, 2005 Data provides insight into NFL injuries Carl Prine of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review used numerous interlinked databases for a comprehensive report on how and why professional football players get injured. "To understand how football affects the bodies and minds of those who play it, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review analyzed four years of NFL injury data; interviewed more than 200 current and former players, coaches and managers; and delved into thousands of pages of the latest medical research." Among Prine's findings: in four seasons, NFL players racked up 6,558 injuries; defenders are injured more than their foes on the offense; and quarterbacks, tight ends, wide receivers, safeties and cornerbacks routinely suffer high rates of brain concussions and spine injuries. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post State wastes millions paying workers never hired Pam Kelley and Eric Frazier of the Charlotte Observer have a three-part series on group homes that found that "North Carolina has wasted tens of millions of dollars since 2001, paying group homes for workers who were never hired, a six-month Observer investigation shows. That mistake made the group home business in North Carolina so lucrative that hundreds of new homes opened, so many that the state couldn't regulate them." The state raised the rate of reimbursement to group homes in 2001, costing taxpayers another $81 million through July 2004. The money was supposed to go to hire more workers, but many facilities didn't increase staffing. The series also focuses on group home violations and weak state oversight. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post School funding estimates overstated Duane Schrag of the Salina Journal used Kansas education data to show that a district judge's estimate of $1 billion to improve the quality of education was far off the mark. "An analysis by the Salina Journal suggests that the actual cost of implementing the controversial study's recommendations in the 2003-04 school year would have been $493 million, less than half the figure widely accepted today." Using formulas developed by an outside firm, the paper combined enrollment figures with spending estimates to reach its conclusion. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Many deaths on state highway Brandon Ortiz and Linda J. Johnson of the Lexington Herald-Leader used state highway data to judge the safety of Kentucky's roads. Among the findings: "U.S. 23 through Pike County had more deaths than any other road in the state from 1999 to last November. Thirty-eight people died in 31 accidents, ranging from cars pulling into oncoming traffic during the day to cars rear-ending slow-moving coal trucks in the dark of night." The county-by-county analysis also used federal data to show that "at least 53 people have died and 536 have been injured in accidents with trucks licensed to haul coal" during the past five years. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 13, 2005 Newspapers boost circulation with unsolicited deliveries Jacques Steinberg and Tom Torok of the New York Times analyzed newspaper circulation data to show that "across the country each week, more than 1.6 million people who are not on newspaper subscriber rolls are being delivered copies that did not cost them a cent - but they are still being classified as paying customers." Many large papers, including The Miami Herald, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe, make such unsolicited deliveries. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 11, 2005 Causes of bankruptcy complex in Utah Rosemary Winters, Julie DeHerrera, Steve Oberbeck and Tony Semerad of the Salt Lake Tribune analyzed a sample of bankruptcy filings in Utah between 2003 and 2004, finding that "nearly two-thirds of bankruptcy filers have one or more dependent children, making them twice as likely to be supporting children younger than 18 as the average household nationally. Utahns face the financial responsibilities of home-making and supporting a family early in life when they are just embarking on their careers and earn little." The paper described its methodology for the project. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 10, 2005 Affluent parts of Buffalo targeted Patrick Lakamp and Jay Rey of The Buffalo News analyzed parking ticket data to show that "ticket writers don't treat all Buffalo neighborhoods equally. While downtown and the relatively affluent Upper West Side are prime targets for the city's parking enforcement officers, they spend a lot less time in South Buffalo." The city also has higher fines and shorter payment periods than many cities. The paper also profiled a man who has been ticketed 102 times during the past two years, paying nearly $4,000 in fines. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 05, 2005 Superintendents' pay outpaces teachers' pay Amy Hetzner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analyzed state data to find that "pay for most school superintendents in metropolitan Milwaukee has risen faster than average teacher salaries in their districts over the last decade, despite a state law that links pay for the two." A Wisconsin law says that superintendents be given a 3.8 percent raise or the same increase given to teachers in the previous year. "Since the law was enacted in 1993, the Legislature has approved enough loopholes that the law can be largely ignored. There also is apparently no oversight other than local school boards and their voters." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Traffic enforcement lieutenant wrote majority of tickets to Hispanics Kevin Krause of The Dallas Morning News used local traffic stop records to show that "the lieutenant over Denton County's traffic enforcement unit wrote 86 percent of his tickets to people with Hispanic surnames during the last two years." Hispanics account for about half of all Texas truckers, and overall Denton County traffic officers issue tickets to people with Hispanic names about half the time. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 04, 2005 Teacher turnover highest in poor areas Seattle Times' reporter Sanjay Bhatt documents disparities in teacher turnover in Seattle's public schools. He found that chronic teacher turnover ranged between 7 percent and 35 percent annually among elementary schools, and was highest in the city's poorest areas. Bhatt obtained employee data from Seattle Public Schools under a public records request and worked with a university graduate student who had done her own analysis of teacher turnover using data from Washington state's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Bhatt used SPSS and ArcGIS for the story. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post January 03, 2005 Poor districts get inexperienced teachers Kerrie Frisinger of the Newport News, Va., Daily Press used local data to show that "Hampton and Suffolk, which have some of the highest percentages of black students and students receiving free or reduced-price lunches, also have more inexperienced teachers than other school districts." Hampton pays starting teachers up to $2,000 less than other Virginia districts, but experts said that reputation often was a bigger factor in a school district's ability to retain teachers. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Companies pay only fraction of clean-up costs David Pace of The Associated Press used federal records to show that "bonds posted by companies with federal oil and gas leases cover only a small fraction of the projected costs of plugging wells and restoring land once the fuel is extracted, leaving taxpayers with the potential for huge cleanup bills." The price tag for cleanup could reach as much as $1 billion, while the Bureau of Land Management has raised $132 million from companies that maintain more than 100,000 oil and gas wells. "The current rates were set in 1960, and gas and oil companies are the only federal mineral lease holders that aren't required to post full reclamation bonds. Coal and hard rock mineral companies must post bonds equivalent to the estimated cleanup costs." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 22, 2004 Polluters get lenient treatment in Colo. Miles Moffeit and Theo Stein of The Denver Post reveal that "the London Mine, one of the richest gold-ore strikes in Colorado history, has hemorrhaged toxic metals into South Mosquito Creek for decades, killing fish habitat over a mile-long stretch," yet the state's Department of Public Health and Environment has never levied a fine. "This year, the mine owner and a developer persuaded the state to relax the pollution limits. Now the mine won't violate them so often." Researcher Monnie Nilsson and CAR Editor Jeff Roberts contributed to the story. (Editor's note: For useful tips on reporting similar stories, see the latest IRE Beat Book, "Covering Pollution: An Investigative Reporter's Guide.") Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Cleveland students advance despite test scores Ebony Reed and Thomas Gaumer of The (Cleveland, Ohio) Plain Dealer analyzed state education data to find that "more than 95 percent of Cleveland fourth- and sixth-graders were promoted at the end of last school year, even though better than half the students in those grades failed state reading or math exams." Promotion rates varied among schools and grades, but "the gap between promotion rates and test scores is even more pronounced for black and Hispanic students, who fail the tests more often than their white classmates." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 21, 2004 Pregnant women more likely to be killed A year-long examination by Donna St. George of The Washington Post, using death-record data, documents the killings of 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers since 1990. This is only part of the national toll, because no reliable system is in place to track such cases." Several statewide studies have shown that pregnant women and new mothers are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any single natural cause. "The Post's analysis shows that the killings span racial and ethnic groups. In cases whose details were known, 67 percent of women were killed with firearms." Many women were slain at home, usually by men they knew. Writer David S. Fallis and researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to the report. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 20, 2004 Data shows suspicious gains in test scores Holly Hacker and Joshua Benton of The Dallas Morning News turned a story about one school's alleged cheating on standardized tests into a piece about cheating across the state. She used regression analysis to show some suspicious improvements among historically low-performing schools, including a "desperately impoverished school where the fourth-graders have trouble adding and subtracting - but nearly all the fifth-graders got perfect scores on the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills." The Morning News also reports that the Texas Education Agency doesn't use their own data to perform a similar analysis. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 16, 2004 Iowa employee travel costs on increase Jonathan Roos of the Des Moines Register analyzed spending on travel by Iowa government employees, finding that "spending on state employee travel, after dropping during a round of belt-tightening, is again on the rise despite continued tight budgets." The state spent $41 million on travel during fiscal 2004, and more than 500 employees racked up at least $10,000 in travel costs. Athletic recruiting by state university coaches was a significant factor: "Sixteen of the 20 state employees with the biggest travel tabs came from the university ranks. Seven were coaches. Four were professors. Three were administrators." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 15, 2004 Poor schools get teachers who failed Chris Davis and Matthew Doig of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune find that a third of Florida teachers failed the teaching certification test at least once; that schools in poor neighborhoods and those with a high number of minority students get teachers who failed the test more often, and those teachers scored lower on every section of the test. The series includes a sidebar detailing what data the paper used and its methodology. There is also a story about the state's reluctance to release public information. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post D.C. donors trade easements for tax breaks Joe Stephens of The Washington Post, with contributions from Sarah Cohen and Alice Crites, has a two-part series on the practice of donating historic facade easements to nonprofits in turn for a tax break for the homeowner. "Such tax deductions are increasingly common although the District already bars unapproved and historically inaccurate changes in the facades of homes in the city's many historic districts. As a result, easement donors largely are agreeing not to change something that they cannot change anyway." The paper identified about 900 residences with such easements in Washington, with the average assessed value of the property at more than $1 million. The Web presentation includes an interactive map. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 13, 2004 Tax abatements have pitfalls L.A. Lorek of the San Antonio Express-News found that 42 percent of San Antonio companies that have been granted tax abatements since 1989 have either failed, transferred their abatement or didn't do the approved project. Also, the number of created (and the type of jobs) fell short of the number of jobs promised. A sidebar on school tax abatements also details how a Texas law now permits school districts to grant abatements once again. And a searchable database lets the public examine all 57 tax abatements. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Limited improvement made in nursing homes Alice Dembner and Bill Dedman, in The Boston Globe, find that in the past two years nursing homes have made "progress in some areas of patient care, but no gains in others." The analysis looked at changes made after the Bush administration's move to publicly grade nursing homes and post the quality scores on the Internet for the nation's 16,500 nursing facilities, designed to marshal public pressure to spur change."Fewer residents are suffering from untreated pain and fewer are being placed in physical restraints, according to the analysis." However, the Globe found no "significant impact on the portion of residents with pressure sores. Nor did it increase the share of residents who were able to walk, or feed themselves, or use the bathroom on their own." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Tampa Bay has most mobile homes Baird Helgeson and Doug Stanley of The Tampa Tribune used state data to show that "the Tampa Bay area, where many of more than 3 million people are jammed along bays and beaches, has the heaviest concentration of mobile homes in the state." Most of the region's mobile homes were built before tougher standards were put in place in the wake of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and one-third were manufactured before any federal safety requirements were enacted. In addition, "thousands of owners have not registered their mobile homes with the state as required by law. Though state records show about 400,000 mobile homes in Florida, more than in any other state, the U.S. Census pegs the number at more than double that, at 850,000." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post N.C. car owners miss out on tax break Pat Stith and David Raynor of The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer analyzed state records to find that a North Carolina tax break for high-mileage vehicles often goes unclaimed. "You're entitled to a break if your car or truck has high mileage, but you have to ask. Tax officials have some mileage information — and could get the rest — but they don't adjust the bills before sending them out. About 290,000 vehicles in the Triangle qualify for a tax cut." Local tax collectors say that while one-third of the cars in the area qualify for the tax break, less than one percent of owners appeal their tax bills. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 10, 2004 Businesses use farming to avoid taxes Paula Lavigne, Kevin Krause and Ed Housewright of The Dallas Morning News used property tax data to show that "on thousands of acres of North Texas land, big business and other private interests have found a way to save millions of dollars with agricultural side operations. For these savvy corporations and land speculators, every munching cow and hay bale spells annual savings, thanks to property tax breaks originally intended to help farmers." Dallas, Denton, Tarrant and Collin counties lose millions in annual tax revenue, particularly taxes for public schools. A map shows the proliferation of these land parcels. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Police use stun guns for compliance Robert Anglen of The Arizona Republic analyzed police reports of Taser-related incidents in 2003 and "found that Phoenix police were far more likely to use the stun guns to make someone obey orders at a traffic stop than to bring down an armed robber." More than 5,000 police agencies, including 108 in Arizona, have armed their officers with Tasers. "The Republic's analysis of use-of-force records shows that in nearly nine out of 10 cases, individuals did not threaten police with weapons." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 08, 2004 Charity has links to global terror group Mark Morris of The Kansas City Star, working with Jaimi Dowdell and Aaron Kessler, used documents from the Treasury Department and other agencies to compile a list of organizations and individuals connected to a Columbia, Mo., charity that federal officials allege is "part of the Islamic African Relief Agency, a global charity whose officers had raised at least $5 million for terrorists." The reporters used social network analysis software to produce a visual representation of the network. "The analysis showed that IARA officials allegedly performed services or favors for bin Laden and his organizations. Other times, IARA was alleged to have teamed with bin Laden to support other terrorists." The story includes a graphic representation of the IARA connections around the world. (Warning: Large PDF) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Questionable expenses uncovered in N.Y. school district Karla Schuster, Eden Laikin and Theresa Vargas of Newsday, with assistance from Stacey Altherr and Richard Dalton, obtained computerized spending records for Long Island's 125 school districts, finding that spending in Hempstead often exceeded similarly-sized districts: "While Hempstead students were served spoiled food and attended class in crumbling buildings, the school district was spending millions of dollars on expenses that had little direct benefit for children, such as professional travel, temp agencies, catering, cell phones and consultants." Since July 1, 1999, the Hempstead district has spent hundreds of thousands on travel, catering and temporary labor, among other items. "The district's expenses for bottled water totaled about $315,000 between July 1999 and June 2004, an average of about $63,000-a-year -- more than 22 times the combined annual average of all the other districts analyzed." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Revolving door for Florida's juvenile justice employees Kathleen Chapman and William M. Hartnett of the Palm Beach Post used state data to find "at least 200 employees hired at juvenile justice centers in recent years after they were fired from similar jobs for violence, misconduct or incompetence. The taxpayer-funded privately operated companies that run the bulk of Florida's juvenile justice system hired workers who had sexual relationships with teenagers they were supposed to protect. They hired workers who kicked, punched, choked, tackled and head-butted teens in their care. Supervisors across the state repeatedly checked 'do not rehire' and 'not eligible for rehire' in the files of employees fired for such offenses. But managers at other centers never knew of those histories." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 07, 2004 Top-notch employees cost city top dollars Joseph Gerth of The (Louisville) Courier-Journal reports that the $700,000 savings in salary created by the merger of Louisville and Jefferson County governments "is now gone, and for the right reason, according to Mayor Jerry Abramson: to pay top-dollar salaries to attract qualified administrators." The paper compared salary data for managers at the "assistant director" level and above, finding that "total pay for those jobs rose by about 10 percent since February 2003." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Iowa schools face heat on standards Madelaine Jerousek of The Des Moines Register compiled records on the academic performance of Iowa high school graduates, finding that " one in 10 college freshmen who graduated from Iowa's high schools failed to muster at least a D average at the state's three public universities last school year." About 5 percent of the nearly 7,000 students who graduated from Iowa public high schools in 2003 and enrolled at a state university took remedial math courses covering material they should have learned in high school. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 06, 2004 Deadly errors and politics betray a hospital's promise Tracy Weber, Charles Ornstein and Mitchell Landsberg of the Los Angeles Times, with assistance from Steve Hymon, Scott Wilson and Sandra Poindexter, spent months investigating the state of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a public hospital in L.A.'s Willowbrook neighborhood. "The investigation reveals that King/Drew is much more dangerous than the public has been told." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Construction workers falling to deaths Barbara Clements and David Wickert of The (Tacoma) News Tribune investigate deaths of construction workers and find that three workers die every day in the United States, with about a third of those from falls. A review of Washington state data shows that such workers are more likely to fall to his death than any other cause. Clements and Wickert review the reasons. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 03, 2004 U.S. 50 deadly in Kansas Hurst Laviana of The Wichita Eagle used a state database of highway deaths to show that the Kansas portion of U.S. 50 is "arguably the state's deadliest highway. Ninety-seven people died on the highway from 1999 through the end of 2003, more than any other two-lane road in the state." Interstate 70, which has many times the traffic of U.S. 50, also had 97 deaths during the same period. Each county that U.S. 50 passes through in Kansas had at least one fatality. The paper also described its methodology. (Editor's note: The November/December issues of The IRE Journal and Uplink feature investigations of transportation issues, including drunken drivers, speeders and trucks violating safety rules.) Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post County records missing, incomplete Steve Patterson of the Chicago Sun-Times examined records from the Cook County Forest Preserve District, which provides low-cost housing to employees who perform a series of monthly tasks: "Check for fires, trespassers, illegal dumping and hunters, then fill out a checklist every month of what was found. But records provided to the Chicago Sun-Times show 93 percent of those employees aren't doing the bare minimum. And, officials admit, they can't provide housing report records from 1999 through 2002 because they can't find them. The records they did find show six employees have virtually ignored the basic requirement of turning in a monthly report, filing fewer than three reports each since 2003." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 02, 2004 Fla. county's 911 calls delayed, unanswered In a four-month investigation, Scott Zamost and Patricia Andreu of WTVJ-Miami tracked how long it takes operators to answer 911 calls in Broward County. The station obtained computer records of emergency call times to Broward's main 911 center, and found case after case of delays in answering emergency lines. WTVJ examined nearly 29,000 emergency calls made to the Broward Sheriff's Office and found that an average of only 65 percent of calls were picked up within 10 seconds, with more than 350 ringing more than a minute in the two-week period examined. Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post December 01, 2004 Wis. sentencing law costly Mary Zahn and Gina Barton of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel used state prison and court records to show that "a state law that gives criminals virtually no chance for early release will cost Wisconsin taxpayers an estimated $1.8 billion for inmates admitted through 2025 if current trends continue." The law, known as truth in sentencing, requires inmates to serve every day of their sentences, with no time off for good behavior. "The law will cost taxpayers an estimated $398 million extra just for the inmates who have entered the system in the first 4 1/2 years under truth in sentencing, as the time they would have been released under the old system comes and goes." Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Many nursing home deaths preventable Brad Heath of The Detroit News used data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to show that "nationwide, malnutrition and dehydration killed at least 13,890 nursing home patients — including more than 800 in Michigan — between 1999 and 2002, the most recent year for which numbers are available." Experts said that while not all of those deaths could have been prevented, at least some of them could have. "'Obviously, we're all going to die at some point. But people should not be dying of malnutrition or dehydration,' said Jeanie Kayser-Jones, a professor of nursing at the University of California San Francisco and one of a few researchers to study malnutrition in nursing homes. 'It's really neglect, and we should call it what it is.'" Direct LINK to This Extra! Extra! Post Fla. voting rights restored unevenly Debbie Cenziper and Jason Grotto of The Miami Herald, continuing their investigation of Florida's clemency system, reported that the state's Clemency Board "has restored voting rights to murderers, rapists, batterers, drug traffickers and corrupt public officials — at the same time it barred thousands of lower-level criminals from the polls." The paper identified at least 400 felons released from custody between 2001 and 2003 who had their civil rights restored even though they appeared ineligible under the state's clemency rules. Doz |
RSS 1.0
Searchable indexes of 
