The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Extra Extra
Business College undergrads rack up criminal convictions
This investigation by The Gazette reveals that more than 18 percent of students graduating from the “University of Iowa’s prestigious Tippie College of Business” have “at least one non-traffic criminal conviction.” The percentage of convictions possessed by students of the Business College is 6 percent higher than any other University of Iowa undergraduate. Some of…
Read MoreTexas tap water turning plumbing radioactive
KHOU-TV’s Mark Greenblatt finds so much radiation in the water of Central Texas cities, that even the pipes that carry it set off Geiger counters, and citizens are afraid to drink it. Greenblatt also uncovered a 10-year old state scientific report calling the water serious health risk”, but Texas officials all but ignored it. The…
Read MoreYou don’t always get what you pay for at the pump
In this project by the Scripps Howard News Service, reporter Isaac Wolf investigates the chemical makeup of national gasoline brands. An independent lab test of five different national brands reveals that they “differ widely in their levels of crucial engine-cleaning detergent additives.” The levels of detergent additives can impact a vehicle’s engine quality as well…
Read MoreThe murder of Edwin Pratt
In a five-year investigation, Seattle Weekly reporter Rick Anderson has brought to light the 1969 murder of the Northwest civil rights activist and leader, Edwin Pratt. This detailed report discloses new details on a decades old case that has gone unsolved and reveals “the likely solving of the historic racial assassination of the director of Seattle’s…
Read MoreSurgeon with nine malpractice suits continues operating
In this investigation by the Duluth News Tribune, reporters Brandon Stahl and Mark Stodghill revealed that one of the “highest-paid physicians at St. Luke’s,” neurosurgeon Stefan Konasiewicz, had a lengthy track record of complaints and malpractice suits. Konasiewicz cut and failed to repair a young woman’s aorta during a spinal surgery that resulted in her…
Read MoreLenience in juvenile court system may have cost one woman’s life.
John Diedrich of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reports on the disturbing facts of how some very violent juveniles slip through the cracks of our court system. One, Markus Evans, first encounter with the courts was when he was 7 years old, after stabbing his kindergarten teacher with a pencil. 10 years later, he is…
Read MoreMore ties to researchers omitting findings in lieu of royalties.
“Since 2002, Medtronic and a group of doctors with financial ties to the medical device company were aware that a new biological agent used in back surgery was linked to sterility in men. But that crucial information was not revealed in medical journal articles written by those doctors, including surgeons who would receive millions of…
Read MoreSome investors in PA still waiting after 20 years.
“The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa. showed how the leadership of Lehigh Valley International Airport followed a risky strategy of buying land around the airport in the mid-1990s. That strategy led to an inverse condemnation and court fight pitting the airport against a group of investors who had hoped to build on the land. Despite…
Read MoreCalifornia National Guard accused of fraud
The Sacramento Bee reporter Charles Piller reports that the California National Guard’s internal auditor has accused 100 Guard members of “collecting fraudulent or improper pay” dating back as far as 2006. The pay, totaling half a million dollars, largely accrued by “violating dual compensation and travel expense rules.” This story is the latest in a…
Read MoreAdults with disabilities paid extremely low wages
In this series that was “inspired by a session at the IRE conference in 2010,” The Columbus Dispatch reporters Rita Price, Jill Riepenhoff and Jennifer Smith-Richards reveal that thousands of adults with intellectual disabilities working across Ohio are receiving wages that “pay less money than a teen-age baby sitter earns.” A provision in the federal…
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