The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
A report by Joshua Kors in The Nation explores the Army’s fraudulent use of personality disorder diagnoses to discharge soldiers, thus stripping them of their disability benefits and long term medical care. The article details the case of Chuck Luther who suffered a concussion during a mortar attack in May 2007. After reporting his symptoms,…
Read MoreAn investigation by Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica reveals how “the hedge fund Magnetar helped create mortgage-based securities, pushed for risky things to go inside them and then bet against the investments, resulting in billions in losses for investors and ultimately making the financial crisis worse.” The story can also be heard on…
Read MoreA collaboration by the five McClatchy newspapers in California examines how pension obligations are hurting local governments at a time of diminished resources throughout the state. “The initial logic of increasing retirement benefits to retain quality employees has been turned on its head: Paying for those benefits is forcing local governments to lay off employees…
Read MoreCongratulations to several IRE members who won Pulitzer Prizes today. Daniel Gilbert, who won the Public Service Pulitzer, also won an IRE Award this year. The Pulitzer committee wrote that Gilbert’s work illuminated “the murky mismanagement of natural-gas royalties owed to thousands of land owners in southwest Virginia, spurring remedial action by state lawmakers.” Gilbert,…
Read MoreHunter L. Gorinson, of The Hill Rag (Washington, D.C.), exposed how Sinclair Skinner, a politically connected subcontractor, bilked the city out hundreds of thousands of dollars in overcharges for contract work as a surveyor for a D.C. park renovation project. Skinner’s company, Liberty Engineering & Design (LEAD), is not even licensed to survey in the…
Read MoreRick Moriarty of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) reports on abuses of loopholes in the state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, a law meant to encourage development on contaminated property through tax credits for environmental cleanup. The developer of Destiny USA, a stalled shopping mall expansion project, could collect up to $54 million in tax breaks despite insignificant…
Read MoreJames Drew of The Dallas Morning News found that a criminal investigation into alleged abuse by two workers at a state veterans home in West Texas languished for more than two years because of confusion over who should investigate, cumbersome bureaucracy, and conflicts among local police, state officials, and veterans home administrators. Felony charges were…
Read MoreJust a quick reminder that IRE and NICAR have resources available to assist in covering the fatal explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia. A list of links and resources can be found in our Breaking News archive. Contact the Resource Center (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) or the Database Library (573-884-7711) for additional…
Read MoreTom Vanden Brook and Ken Dilanian of USA Today? report that Defense Secretary Robert Gates “ordered an overhaul of the Pentagon’s use of retired senior officers to advise the military, limiting the pay of “senior mentors” and requiring them to disclose their business ties to defense contractors.” This move is in response to a USA…
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