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Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Rob Perez found that owners of million-dollar historic homes on Oahu were getting major property-tax breaks without meeting a key requirement of the exemption program — that the homes be visible from public streets. He also found that the city did not verify the owners’ required statements that the pre-exemption level of…
Read MoreMichael J. Berens, of The Seattle Times, uncovered hundreds of deaths inside state-licensed adult family homes indicating neglect or abuse, but the deaths were not reported to the state or investigated. Adult homes areless-regulated, less-expensive elder care options found in dozens of states. The Times reported that deaths indicating neglect occur at strikingly higher rates…
Read MoreAn investigation by Laura Burke of the Texas Observer revealed that female employees account for most of the perpetrators of sexual abuse in Texas’ juvenile facilities. Relatively few investigations and convictions have been made, and some attribute this to the perception that sexual abuse perpetrated by women is considered relatively harmless, and often consensual. As…
Read MoreIRE will present two regional workshops this fall to help you get ready for Census 2010 data and learn how to use annual census surveys to produce compelling enterprise stories. The full-day workshops will be held Oct. 16 in Washington, D.C (full details and registration here) and Nov. 13 in Cincinnati, Ohio (full details and registration…
Read MoreA five-day series by The Columbus Dispatch explored the dangers of youth sports. “Little Leagues, Big Costs” found that youth sports are fraught with dangers because they lack uniform standards and oversight. Children are more susceptible than ever to injury, families spend thousands of dollars chasing elusive scholarships, and adults sometimes mar the experience with…
Read MoreAlison Young of USA Today reports that food safety watchdogs are critical of the U.S Department of Agriculture staff on site at the two Iowa egg processors linked to the recent egg recall. They “question whether USDA egg graders should have noticed the vermin problems cited by the FDA, potentially preventing the recall of a…
Read MorePolish your skills in computer-assisted reporting (CAR) and learn how to hold local businesses accountable with this free workshop in Atlanta, Oct. 11, co-presented by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). Even if you’ve never touched an Excel spreadsheet before, you will leave this hands-on workshop with the skills you…
Read MoreBy Jaimi Dowdell, IRE training director A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching at a computer-assisted reporting boot camp in San Diego. The class had been through spreadsheets and databases, and I was finally demonstrating how to deal with pdf’s. After showing some online options, I walked the class through my old stand-by: XPDF. If…
Read MoreA report by ProPublica’s Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger “shows for the first time the extent to which banks — primarily Merrill Lynch, but also Citigroup, UBS and others — bought their own products and cranked up an assembly line that otherwise should have flagged.” These banks dealt in collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. A…
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