The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
IRE training director Jaimi Dowdell and NICAR academic adviser David Herzog have assumed responsibilities for the IRE and NICAR Database Library. Like many companies and nonprofits, IRE has seen a drop in revenue this year. As a result, we were forced to cut expenses. As part of that reduction, we eliminated funding for the Database…
Read More“Commercial real-estate loans could generate losses of $100 billion by the end of next year at more than 900 small and midsize U.S. banks if the economy’s woes deepen, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.” Maurice Tamman and David Enrich report that losses on commercial real-estate loans are much greater than loses…
Read MoreContractors receiving stimulus funds for nuclear cleanup sites across the country include “many that have been cited for serious safety violations and costly mistakes,” according to a report by Kimberly Kindy of The Washington Post. “In the case of the Energy Department program, private contractors do all cleanup work, and they have been involved from…
Read MoreTough economic times and financial fraud go hand in hand, from Charles Ponzi and his 1919 pyramid scheme in Boston to Bernie Madoff and massive investor deception. Regardless of your beat, there never has been a better time to do business-related investigations, according to reporter Ron Campbell of The Orange County Register. While everyone’s making…
Read MoreThe Baltimore Marriott Waterfront has given us an extension to make reservations at our group rate for the 2009 IRE Conference. Make your reservation before Monday, May 25 to take advantage of the group rate and the added incentives. Rooms in our block are going quickly, so book your room today before they are gone.…
Read MoreFollowing a mysterious outbreak of salmonella in 2007 linked to pot pies from ConAgra Foods, corporations have moved to place the responsibility for “food safety” on the consumer through warnings and instructions on how to prepare processed food items. The New York Times reports, “Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processed foods are unable…
Read MoreThe city of Wichita owns more than 11,000 acres that include multimillion-dollar buildings such as City Hall, an overgrown wildlife preserve and small, oddly shaped plots worth as little as $10. But a weeks-long investigation by Brent D. Wistrom of The Wichita Eagle shows disjointed records system leaves city officials and the public unable to…
Read MoreAn investigation into the handicapped accessibility of Chicago Transit Authority stations by a team of reporters from Columbia College Chicago found that “41 percent of the stations designated fully accessible were not.” Using FOIA, the students reviewed over 2,000 ADA-related complaints filed against the CTA from Jan. 1, 2004 through Feb. 28, 2009. Some of…
Read MoreA $3 billion municipal bond loan program run by an ex-politician in Tennessee was overcharging Nashville and two other cities by hiding fees within reported interest rates, The Tennessean‘s Brad Schrade reported. The multi-story investigation used federal bank filings, audits and other public records to expose problems with the non-profit loan program, including lack of disclosure,…
Read MoreA three-part series in the Naples (Fla.) Daily News looks at the town government of Ave Maria, a community that surrounds a Catholic-oriented university started by Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan. Monaghan and a local landowner got a state law passed creating a government that they can control forever at the expense of the town’s…
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