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A three-month investigation by voiceofsandiego.org examined a real estate scheme involving three condo projects. According to the article written by Kelly Bennett and Will Carless, “The buyers were straw buyers, individuals who agreed to rent out their identities and good credit scores to a Bay Area man named Jim McConville, whose team obtained mortgages in…
Read MoreSteve Myers of Poynter interviewed Sarah Cohen, database editor for The Washington Post‘s investigative team, on her use of data visualization as part of exploratory reporting. Cohen spoke on the topic at the 2009 CAR Conference in Indianapolis. Download the tipsheet from her presentation here (pdf).
Read MoreA story by William Heisel of the Los Angeles Times focuses on the failures of the federal government’s efforts to revitalize the housing market and to increase affordable housing. For a decade, the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) has been giving local governments homes to refurbish and resell to low-income buyers. The story…
Read MoreAn analysis by The Villages (Fla.) Daily Sun found that a driver’s likelihood of getting a speeding ticket in Sumter County increased nearly 400 percent since 2003. According to the article written by Matt Dixon, “In 2007, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office doled out 4,794 speeding tickets, or a 391 percent increase over the 975…
Read MoreA story by Andrew Becker and Patrick J. McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times has found that U.S. citizens are increasingly being mistakenly included in immigration sweeps. Reports of “mistaken detentions are drawing increased attention as immigration officials mount workplace roundups and jailhouse sweeps in search of undocumented immigrants. Immigration raids of factories and other…
Read MoreAn “analysis of NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) has revealed that pilots flying Boeing 737s, the world’s most widely deployed passenger aircraft, have frequently been ignoring an onboard alarm horn designed to warn of a critical loss of pressure, and thus a lack of oxygen, in the cockpit,” reports Michael Fabey for Travel Weekly. …
Read MoreCharles Piller of The Sacramento Bee reports that billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway “owns more than $13 billion of stock in the top recipients of TARP funds – including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., US Bancorp, American Express Co. and Bank of America Corp., all considered by analysts to be in deep trouble before the federal…
Read MoreThe Indianapolis Star reporter Brendan O’Shaughnessy examined the effectiveness of the city’s police surveillance cameras. According to the article, “Police say they have made a handful of arrests thanks to the cameras, including a homicide last year. But without hard data, it’s hard to tell whether the cameras are worth the money.” Each camera costs…
Read MoreA two-part series by the Tulsa World analyzes crime on public school campuses. Since 2005, Tulsa schools have called city police more than 9,450 times. Reasons for the calls include assaults, drug use, weapons found and burglaries. Child abuse was the leading reason for the calls, as teachers and counselors are increasingly finding abused children.
Read MoreAdam Goldman and Randy Herschaft tell the story behind the hunt for Abu Ibrahim, a bombmaker who has eluded authorities for decades. Long forgotten and even presumed dead by some, Ibrahim is very much alive, according to an Associated Press investigation.
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