The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Blog
“Saving Babies: Exposing Sudden Infant Death” was a 14-month project using mortality records maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Analysis of 40,000 mysterious infant deaths over a 12-year period disclosed chaotic procedures police and coroners use to investigate unexpected deaths that usually are diagnosed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The project went…
Read MoreSeveral Web sites and documents can help journalists track federal stimulus spending and the ongoing economic turmoil, according to Ron Nixon, a reporter for The New York Times. Taxpayers for Common Sense aims to provide more transparency in government spending. USA Spending is the federal government’s site for tracking all federal contracts, grants and awards.…
Read MoreIn the latest developments from the The Columbus Dispatch series “Test of Convictions,” a Columbus man was declared innocent and freed from prison after serving 25 years. He is the second inmate to be tested and released as part of the ongoing investigation of inmate DNA testing. Ohio lawmakers are introducing a bill with sweeping…
Read MoreAs many as 24,800 Tulsa County residents live in areas not reached by outdoor tornado sirens, a Tulsa World analysis found. Many of those residents live in the county’s remote north or southwestern sections where farms have yet to give way to residential developments. Included with the story are searchable databases listing all the tornadoes…
Read MoreSharon Coolidge of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that a “review of city health records found that 55 of the 268 properties identified as having lead hazards have been on the city’s books since before 1999. Yet the properties have not been cleaned and the owners have not been prosecuted.” Families have continued to move into…
Read MoreA report by Alan Judd of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reveals that the food safety system overseen by Georgia’s Agriculture Department is riddled with problems. Only after a fatal outbreak of salmonella was tracked to a Georgia peanut processing plant did the Agriculture Department develop guidelines for inspecting such plants. “The lax oversight of Peanut Corp.’s…
Read MoreStudents in a state-funded program that sends them from the city to suburban high schools are far less likely to attend top-tier colleges than are the suburban residents of the schools they attend, a study by The Boston Globe has found. Almost 90 percent of the students enrolled in the program go to college. But…
Read MoreA report by Steve Eder of The Toledo Blade shows the federal and state governments spend more than $800 million each year in Lucas County, Ohio, on programs for low-income residents. Even with the large infusions of cash, people working with the poor say they have grave concerns about the county’s readiness for aiding the…
Read MoreAs part of the Los Angeles Times’ continued coverage of the drug war in Mexico, Andrew Becker and Patrick J. McDonnell report on a new class of refugees seeking asylum in the United States. Law enforcement officers, business owners and journalists are increasingly trying to escape the violence and danger linked to Mexico’s drug war.…
Read MoreDozens of public and private schools opened in recent years in areas where government records show students could be exposed to air tainted by high levels of industrial pollution. While environmental regulations typically require builders to examine the effect that a structure might have on the surrounding ecosystem, in most states, school officials are not…
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