The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
During the 26 years that James Preston spent incarcerated for murder, he always told his family that he didn’t commit the crime. Now, the FBI says their analyst’s testimony about key hair evidence in the case exceeded the boundaries of science, raising the possibility that Preston, who died in custody, was wrongfully convicted if not,…
Read MoreAccording to the Associated Press, “A newly-released email shows that 11 days after the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military’s top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder’s corpse or turn them over to the CIA.” When the AP initially asked for emails…
Read MoreExperts say it’s not unusual for impoverished places to have more crime and tougher cases to solve. But the Tribune found that those two factors alone don’t explain what has happened in Harvey, where the competence and integrity of the department frequently come under fire. It’s a suburb that commissioned an audit that ripped its…
Read MoreThe Associated Press originally sought the records for U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan after attacks against Japanese women raised political tensions there. They might now give weight to members of Congress who want to strip senior officers of their authority to decide whether serious crimes, including sexual assault cases, go to trial. The AP…
Read MoreAlthough President Obama maintains that federal officials are focusing deportation efforts on violent criminals, a Baltimore Sun analysis revealed that a high percentage of the cases in Maryland and some other states involve immigrants with no criminal record. In Maryland, for example, more than 40 percent of the immigrants deported under a sweeping federal program…
Read MoreAfter six workers were killed in a massive gas explosion at the Kleen Energy plant in Middletown four years ago, federal investigators tallied hundreds of violations at the site and issued $16.6 million in penalties against more than a dozen companies — the third-largest workplace-safety fine in the nation’s history. But in the years since…
Read MoreTwo Connecticut tribal casinos have placed dozens of liens on homes across the state since the early 2000s, for amounts as small as a few thousand dollars, according to a Globe review of land and court records. Experts interviewed by the Globe — including current and former casino executives, academics, problem gambling counselors, and a…
Read MoreThe historic drought is making average residents think twice every time they turn on the tap, despite the weekend rain. But there is nothing average about the way Californians consume water: A little-known state database that measures water use in every community shows huge — sometimes shocking — differences between California’s water sippers and guzzlers.
Read MoreSpills releasing PCE, the cancer-causing chemical used in dry cleaning and metal degreasing, have produced at least 86 underground plumes across Colorado that are poisoning soil and water and fouling air inside buildings. Cleaning up this chemical is a nightmare — a lesson in the limits of repairing environmental harm. The best that Colorado health…
Read MoreHeroin, long a scourge of inner cities, has infiltrated suburbia and rural towns and is claiming the lives of an increasingly younger, middle-class and white male clientele at an alarming rate. But new statistics compiled for the Democrat and Chronicle by the office, which investigates suspected drug-related deaths across the region, show that more often than not…
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