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 "subsidies" ...
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"Fiesta Bowl Under Fire" "BCS The Money. The Games"
Discovery of violations of state and federal campaign finance laws at the Fiesta Bowl and widespread financial mismanagement, including employees being reimbursed for taking luxurious out-of-town trips and visits to strip clubs. The investigation of the BCS found that public universities lose money playing in BCS games; bowls spend heavily on gifts for schools' top athletic officials; pay for the highest executives at the BCS bowls more than doubled since they reunited in the late 1990s; and three of the top bowls accepted large government subsidies even as their revenue and assets have grown.
Tags: BCS; Fiesta Bowl; college; football; fraud; financial mismanagement
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"KZN Reverands Prey On The Dying"
At one time, Reverends Harris and De Witt brought comfort to the patients of The Dream Centre, an HIV-Aids hospice center in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This was before they fled the country with a stash of cash. The two men had been largely inflating their subsidy claims to the Department of Health and taking the extra money for their own use.
Tags: Cape Town; KwaZulu-Natal; The Dream Centre; National Department of Health; Les Harris; Neville de Witt; Mophela Housing Project
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Flights to Nowhere
"Essential Air Services" paid airlines millions to fly near-empty planes to cities that most people have never heard of. Thirty years after the program began it has grown into a $127 million a year subsidy. It was found that the government pays for 2.4 million empty seats to be flown a year.
Tags: airplane; fly route; tourist; travel; flight; airfare;
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section 8: Subsidizing Surburbia
"Thousands of poor people have moved out of Cincinnati's inner-city ghettos and settled into homes on middle-class, suburban streets- exactly the result a federal housing program intended. But that victory comes at a cost: Poor families with government subsidies that help pay the rent are creating new pockets of low-income housing in formerly stable, middle-class neighborhoods."
Tags: clustering; relocation; township; housing; property; real estate; urban development;
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A Girl's Life
The single 7,500-word story chronicled the life and death of Acia Johnson, a South Boston girl who seemed to be doing everything right: getting good grades in school, becoming a standout basketball player with a chance at a scholarship to go to a good high school and taking care of her younger sister. That was until her house was set ablaze last April in what authorities said was a jealous rage by her mother's lover. Acia burned to death along with her three-year-old sister in her third-floor bedroom closet. Her mother stood, safe, on the ground with the family dog. Her father was in jail. It was the last in a long list of instances of neglect recounted in the story. Anyone could have saved her life--her parents, drug addicts and sometimes violent petty criminals who never managed to get straight' neighbors who knew about the violent family fights and often didn't call police; friends who did nothing though thought it unusual that Acia was left to care for her sister while their parents were out running thr streets; social workers who had declared Acia's parents unfit in 2003 and placed her in the custody of her grandmother but who never figured out that she was still living with her mother. They didn't figure it out even though they frequently visited Acia at her mother's house, including two days before the fire. They didn't figure it out even though her mother reported Acia was living with her when she applied for housing subsidies, food stamps and cash assistance. And they didn't figure it out even though her mother's house was listed as Acia's primary residence at her middle school.
Tags: social workers; arson; child death; neglect; custody; Boston
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farmsubsidy.org
Farmsubsidy.org reports on what happens to the billions spent by the European Union on Common Agricultural Policy. These articles discuss where the subsidies go, and how much money is spent on unhealthy products like alcohol, tobacco, sugar and animal fat.
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Cotton Bailout: How your tax dollars turn markets upside down, prop up big growers and squeeze small farmers
"The series examined the impact of U.S. agricultural subsidies on small farmers in the United States and Africa, and investigated the buse of federal payment limits by large growers."
Tags: agriculture; AJC; Georgia; Congress; USDA; subsidy; subsidies; farming; growers; Africa; USA; United States
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Harvesting Cash
"Harvesting Cash examined waste, fraud and abuse in the multibillion-dollar system of federal agricultural subsidies crafted by Congress and administered by the USDA."
Tags: USDA; Congress; farming; realtors; Loan Deficiency Program; Livestock Compensation Program; powedered milk; drought; Federal Crop Insurance Program;
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Charity for Disabled Fraud
Billions of dollars are spent by the government each year in Medicaid subsidies to help people with severe disabilites to get jobs. Unfortunately there is no meaning to the jobs, and the government doesn't check on how poorly the money spent is working.
Tags: handicapped; set-aside contract; segregation; charity; charities; workshop
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Cheap Power, No Jobs
Businesses in New York state can enter the "Power for Jobs" program under which they get subsidies for their power bills if they meet hiring targets. McAndrew found that more than a third of the companies in the program hadn't met their job targets and the state did almost nothing to force them into compliance.
Tags: Taxpayers; state government; government oversight; jobs