The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Behind Glock’s profits
Paul Barrett, Brian Grow and Jack Ewing of BusinessWeek investigated several rumors and allegations surrounding Glock, one of the leading arms manufacturers in the U.S. The accusations include a complicated network of shell companies, illegal campaign contributions and a close look at the attempted murder of the company’s founder, Gaston Glock.
Read MoreAccuracy of Florida school safety reports called into question
WFOR-TV (Doral, Fla.) conducted a six-month investigation into school violence in Florida and discovered “wide discrepancies” between the numbers of violent incidents reported on the state’s Department of Education website and actual police reports filed about violent incidents at schools in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The state claims that the discrepancies can be linked to…
Read MoreFormer governor scored deal on coastal property
Reporters Jay Price, J. Andrew Curliss and Joseph Neff of The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) broke the story of how former Gov. Mike Easley and his wife Mary accepted a $137,000 discount on a coastal lot from a developer who had gotten key permits from the Easley administration. The story continued a string of…
Read MoreClean Water Act violations leave many suffering
Charles Duhigg of The New York Times reports on states’ negligence in enforcing clean water laws. In West Virginia, tests found tap water containing “arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.” When companies disclosed that they were pumping illegal…
Read MoreMassachusetts slow to discipline problem lenders
An investigation by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University (NECIR-BU) shows that regulators in Massachusetts have been slow to discipline problem mortgage brokers and lenders compared to other New England states. “Between January 1, 2007 and June 1, 2009, The Massachusetts Division of Banks took its most stringent actions against less…
Read MoreDirector’s pay increased as layoffs and losses mounted
Even as the biggest non-profit affordable housing agency in Tacoma, Wash. spiraled deeper into debt, forcing more than a dozen layoffs and property foreclosures, its executive director continued to be paid in full. In the latest development of his ongoing coverage into the Martin Luther King Housing Development Association’s meltdown, The News Tribune’s Lewis Kamb…
Read MoreLoophole allowed illegal immigrants to register vehicles in Ohio
Randy Ludlow of The Columbus Dispatch revealed “a loophole in an Ohio policy allowed thousands of undocumented immigrants to register cars and get license plates even though many did not have valid Social Security numbers or car insurance.” He reported that Ohio officials delayed a crackdown on illegal immigrants registering their vehicles with fraudulent power-of-attorney…
Read MoreHomeland security funds wasted across California
G.W. Schulz of California Watch found widespread waste and mismanagement of homeland security grants awarded to agencies throughout the state of California. Schulz reviewed thousands of pages of documents from state monitoring reports and found scores of problems and questionable purchases.
Read MoreFraud in child care system linked to lack of oversight
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Raquel Rutledge exposed flaws in Wisconsin’s taxpayer-financed child care system – and the case workers, supervisors and politicians responsible for costing taxpayers millions. In a two-part series, Rutledge looked at the case of a woman who collected nearly $3 million in taxpayer money while running a questionable operation. For a decade,…
Read MoreNepotism bogged down struggling Tacoma housing agency
Lewis Kamb of The News Tribune (Tacoma, WA) used IRS 990 forms, non-profit records and meeting minutes, and interviews to piece together the developing story about financial mismanagement at Tacoma’s largest private non-profit affordable housing agency. This story is the latest installment in a series about nepotism in hiring practices involving Washington state’s former Speaker…
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