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Milwaukee Police Department misreporting violent crime
“A Journal Sentinel investigation has found that even though the Milwaukee Police Department have been touting a fall in crime for four years, hundreds of beatings, stabbings and child abuse cases were missing from the count.” “More than 500 incidents since 2009 were misreported to the FBI as minor assaults and not included in the…
Read MoreChildren who skip vaccinations raise threat of dangerous outbreak
An Arizona Star investigation has found that “one in three Arizona schools last year had kindergarten classes with vaccination rates so low children were left vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks such as measles, mumps or pertussis.” It was discovered that “the worst offenders, by far, are charter and private schools, some with vaccination rates as…
Read MoreAnalyzing Governor Walker’s calendars
In a three-part series for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Kate Golden and Amy Karon used the state’s open records law to receive Gov. Scott Walker’s official calendars. “To analyze how Walker has used his time as the state’s chief executive, WCIJ reporters created a database of the more than 4,400 entries in Walker’s…
Read MoreCredit-reporting agencies fail to correct mistakes
“Mistakes on credit reports can inflict widespread damage. And because there are insufficient rules on how credit-reporting agencies must correct them, Americans are left virtually powerless to erase the mistakes.” Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner of The Columbus Dispatch “documented the plight of thousands who, through no fault of their own, have been denied the…
Read MoreNECIR takes a five-year look back at public servants charged with crimes and ethics violations
“In the past five years, Massachusetts residents have been forced to witness an embarrassing parade of fallen public servants caught up in corrupt acts, handcuffed and led away.” However, according to a new analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting “an overwhelming majority of public servants embroiled in criminal or ethical scandals since…
Read MoreThousands of crumbling Florida homes owned by the biggest banks
“Thousands of vacant homes across South Florida have deteriorated into eyesores that violate local health and safety laws, depress property values and spread blight. The owners of these homes: some of the world’s biggest banks.” “In an extensive investigation of foreclosed homes plaguing neighborhoods, the Sun Sentinel found more than 10,300 property code violations lodged…
Read MoreS.C House Speaker’s PAC channels hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican Party
“South Carolina’s House speaker is affiliated with a political action committee that has doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and private contracts to sitting state lawmakers.” “According to publicly filed data analyzed by The Post and Courier, the Speaker’s PAC has channeled about a half-million dollars in the last four years to…
Read MoreUConn absorbed nearly $3 million in unsold Bowl Championship Series tickets
Mac Cerullo, of The Daily Campus, reports that the “University of Connecticut sold fewer tickets to the 2011 Fiesta Bowl than any other public school that has appeared in the Bowl Championship Series over the past three years, according to bowl documents obtained.” Cerullo found that the school ended up absorbing nearly $3 million in…
Read MoreEPA fails to warn families of lead contamination where smelters once stood
“USA Today’s investigative team found the EPA failed to tell people about or take action on hundreds of former lead smelting sites they’d known about for years. Alison Young and Pete Eisler tested the soil around former plants in 13 states and found potentially dangerous levels of lead remain in people’s yards and in parks.”…
Read MoreMillion-dollar hospital bills on the rise
Phillip Reese and Darrell Smith, of The Sacramento Bee, analyzed hospital discharge data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development to determine that, “The number of Northern California hospital stays resulting in charges of $1 million or more rose sevenfold in the past decade, from 430 in 2000 to almost 3,000 during 2010.”…
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