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Andy Nelesen of the Green Bay Press-Gazette used county data to show that driving after losing your license (known as OAR) isn’t uncommon: “In 2003 and 2004, more than 250 people racked up more than one OAR case in one year.” In one extreme case, a man has been arrested for driving without a license…
Read MoreAn investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found that “millions of dollars in purchases by Washington art collectors have gone untaxed, and that an agent’s effort to collect that revenue was squelched by upper management at the Department of Revenue, then suspended late last year.” A week after the Post-Intelligencer first reported the story, the Department…
Read MoreBert Dalmer of The Des Moines Register reports on an analysis done by the Register using Iowa’s critical-asset list. The list “has played a key part in determining how the state divides homeland-security money among Iowa’s counties.” They found that some “dams and schools on the list have been found not to exist.” Historic buildings…
Read MoreRosalind Rossi of the Chicago Sun-Times, with assistance from Art Golub and Dave McKinney, used Illinois state records to find that “the highest-paid public school employee in the state last year was the No. 2 person — the man in charge of finance — at a one-school district in north suburban Lincolnshire.” James Hintz took…
Read MoreLyndsey Layton and Jo Becker of The Washington Post obtained and reviewed documents and data on the performance of the DC-area subway system, finding that “trains break down 64 percent more often than they did three years ago, and the number of daily delays has nearly doubled since 2000. Although the vast majority of trains…
Read MoreKirk Mitchell and Sean Kelly of The Denver Post investigated Colorado’s system for notifying communities about sexually violent offenders, finding that “since a state law went into effect in 1999, Colorado has labeled only two men not in prison as sexually violent predators, even though more than 1,300 sex offenders met the initial criteria to…
Read MoreJames M. O’Neill of The Dallas Morning News used documents and court records to show that Dallas County Jail’s new Adult Information System has resulted in “at least 40 cases in which defendants were imprisoned too long after the launch of AIS. Some officials say the total number is far higher.” The $3 million system,…
Read MoreRich Cholodofsky of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports on findings that more of Pennsylvania’s graduating high school students are going to four-year colleges. “Within the past five school years, entering the work force, attending technical training or joining the military have fallen behind college as graduates’ first option after high school, according to a Tribune-Review…
Read MoreGreg Barrett of The (Baltimore) Sun reviewed thousands of pages detailing homeland security spending in Maryland, finding that while most of the $161 million since 2002 has gone to assist first responders, “Maryland is so flush with anti-terrorism grant funds and spending authority is so broad that the state has struggled, at times, to manage…
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