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Mitch Weiss of the Associated Press found that the system set up to protect consumers from rogue appraisers following the savings and loan crisis nearly 20 years ago has failed, playing a major role in America’s housing collapse. His six-month investigation showed more than two dozen states and territories are violating federal law by failing…
Read MoreDave Umhoefer and Alan J. Borsuk of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found in a three-part series “Subtraction by Addition” that Milwaukee Public Schools spent $102 million on a building spree on bigger neighborhood schools but that the building program has largely failed. Today, many of those new classrooms are empty. Declines in enrollment and falling…
Read MoreMore 13-year-olds — 10 since 2001 — were shot in hunting-related accidents than persons of any other age, a Tulsa World analysis found. That’s more than two times as many hunting accidents than any other age group since 2001. Three of the 10 accidents were fatal. Experts site inexperience and immaturity as likely reasons for…
Read MoreBy Julie Karceski NICAR Data Analyst One year later, and we’re back where we started. The one-year anniversary of the Minnesota bridge collapse, Aug. 1, sparked a flurry of articles — more than 100 in the anniversary week — reflecting on the event. Many revealed that bridges in certain states are in worse condition now…
Read MoreClark Kauffman of The Des Moines Register reports that in the past five years, 38,000 Americans, including 267 Iowans, have complained of medical-privacy violations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. More than half of those complaints nationally have been disposed of with no investigation. Until last year, no one nationally ever was prosecuted…
Read MoreIRE is partnering on two upcoming training sessions next month that focus on two key areas of beat coverage: business and health. We’ll be in New York City on Sept. 20-21 co-hosting an Investigative Reporting on Business and Finance Conference. A stellar line-up of journalists will cover a wide range of topics from the foreclosure…
Read MoreA recent study shows that the number of “dead zones” in bodies of water across the globe has doubled every decade since the 1960s, reports Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post. Fertilizer in agriculture run-off and air pollution are two factors that are causing hypoxia in coastal waters. “A few hypoxic ecosystems have improved in…
Read MoreA Mother Jones investigation by James Ridgeway, Daniel Schulman and David Corn reveals that an NRA spy had infiltrated anti-gun groups for the past several years. The investigation shows that Mary Lou Sapone, a freelance spy for the NRA, spent years posing as gun control activist Mary McFate. McFate had penetrated the highest ranks of…
Read MoreReporter Mike McAndrew of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) used interviews, emails, contracts and other documents to show that the operators of New York’s State Fair contrived the justification to award a lucrative no-bid contract to a national concert producer. The reporting pokes holes in the reasons cited by public officials when they circumvented state law…
Read MoreRobert McClendon of Columbus, Ohio was freed from prison by a Franklin County judge after serving 18 years for a child rape that new DNA tests showed he did not commit, report Geoff Dutton and Mike Wagner of The Columbus Dispatch. McClendon was one of 30 prisoners identified by The Columbus Dispatch and the Ohio…
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