The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Vermont" ...
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Dying in Cell 40
Ashley Ellis, a 23-year-old Vermont woman was put in prison for a misdemeanor traffic violation. Under the private company Prison Health Services' care, she died when access to her medication was denied. "Dying in Cell 40" explores how the relationship between the state and for-profit contractors creates a flawed system where death is inevitable.
Tags: Prison Health Services; Vermont; Ashley Ellis; medication; private contractors; state; prison; cell 40;
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"Dr. Buzzard"
Gary Karpin billed himself to citizens of Arizona as a "divorce mediator" and former prosecutor. He was actually a disbarred lawyer from Vermont. Thousands of people flocked to his offices hoping for quick and relatively painless divorces. Over 300 eventually filed complaints against him, and the Maricopa County Attorney's office filed charges against him on 16 counts of theft and fraud.
Tags: Fraud; legal advice; divorce
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Borderline Terror
This story deals with investigating federal plans to protect the Vermont/Canada border from terrorists crossing into the U.S. By talking to customs officials in the U.S. and Canada, News 7 found that the 2 lakes in Vermont that border Canada are not monitored for half of the year. So there is nothing stopping illegal immigrants from swimming or boating to the United States. The investigation also found that the atmosphere at large border stations is more strict when compared to smaller border stations.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; FOI; Canadian National Security Intelligence Report; immigration; immigration policy; customs; customs officials; terrorism; Canada; Department of Homeland Security; illegal immigrants; Vermont border; Canada border; U.S. Department of Immigration
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Solie's prior DWI conviction in Vermont
After the president of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly was convicted of driving under the influence as a first-time offender, the Sun Star uncovered that Rick Solie had indeed been previously convicted of DWI in another state, something both the prosecutor and judge in the case had been unaware of. When open records requests were denied, the paper also filed a lawsuit to gain access to Solie's arrest records.
Tags: DWI; DUI; drunk; drunken; driving; official; prosecution; lawsuit; offender; arrest; law; legal; public records; FOIA
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Code of Silence
This is a collection of stories on medical incompetence. The stories had four concentrations: the surrounding Vermont's medical profession, financial fraud over a construction project at the state's largest hospital, a regulatory system, and state laws that prevented health consumers from obtaining even basic information about the quality of hospitals and doctors.
Tags: medical fraud; doctors; patients; regulation; hospitals
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Act 60 Redux
Can Vermont's school-funding law, Act 60, be fixed and should it? Gov. Howard Dean believes that the new law has been successful in providing the equality of educational opportunity that the Vermont Supreme Court said was required under the state constitution. However, despite its successes, Act 60 has not won the acceptance that Dean and others had hoped it would.
Tags: Act 60; school funding; school-funding law; Vermont's school funding system
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The Christal Jones Story
The Free Press discovers that teenage girls from Vermont have been "hooked on heroin and whisked away to New York" where they have been forced into prostitution. Many of the young women have been in state custody, but the state lacks "the money, manpower or wherewithal to keep track of its incorrigible charges," the investigative series reveals. Some of the stories shed light on the "heroin epidemic that consumed many young Vermonters," and other articles focus on the deviant activity of a Burlington businessman who has been taking tens of thousands of pornographic pictures, some of underage girls. The coverage starts with a story about the death of 16-year-old Christal Jones, a ward of the state who died in a seedy New York apartment, and whose fate has been kept from the public by the state officials.
Tags: drugs; drug addicts; heroin; prostitution; abuse; pornography; juvenile justice; youth; FOI requests; crime; rape
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Code of Silence
The Burlington Free Press tells the story of Lois Tarczewski, a Windsor woman who became a quadriplegic after her doctor, C. Frederick Lord, botched an operation on her spine. This case reveals "how Vermont's doctors practice in a world shielded from public scrutiny" -- Lord had been sued for malpractice many times before he operated on Tarczewski. But she never was able to learn of Lord's checkered past because of strict confidentiality rules, sealed court settlements and the local medical community's unwillingness to turn in one of their own.
Tags: Burlington Free Press; Lois Tarczewski; C. Frederick Lord; Vermont; medicine; FOI
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The High Cost of Historic Preservation
The Vermont town of Brandon is trying to draw visitors and revenue by playing up its historical heritage. Preservation isn't just about saving history, but economic viability. The town is in discussions for the civic game plan on making Main Street aesthetically pleasing, limiting development, and raising money for new projects.
Tags: historic sites; tourism; preservation; downtown revitalization; Act 250; Vermont; National Register of Historic Sites; Preservation Trust of Vermont
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"Norwich Severs Ties With Indonesia"
In two articles submitted on a free-lance basis to the Boston Globe and the Vermont Times (see story # 16096), the reporter traced how graduates from an elite New England military school were serving in East Timor around the time of heated conflict in Indonesia. Several high-ranking members of the Indonesian military's elite special forces who had been accused of human rights violations were linked to administrators at the school. The investigation called into question a United States presidential ban on cooperation with the Indonesian military, and led to the reporter's firing from a daily newspaper.
Tags: Kopassus UN United Nations Norwich University Human Rights Watch ROTC Barre-Montpelier Times Argus