The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Court documents never made public
A Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) investigation into filing practices in Monroe County state courts revealed that documents critical to the outcome of countless civil lawsuits have never been made public because they were never filed with the court as required by state rules. The investigation prompted the New York State Office of Court Administration to…
Read MoreTeachers supported Prop 8 while their union opposed the measure
A report by NPR’s Robert Benincasa shows that California’s teachers’ union was giving money to oppose Proposition 8 while members of the union were making donations to support the ban on gay marriage. “Teachers, aides and counselors in California public school systems gave about $2 to support the marriage ban for every $1 they gave…
Read MoreHome Wreckers: How Banks are Worsening the Foreclosure Crisis
BusinessWeek‘s Brian Grow, Keith Epstein and Robert Berner detail efforts by the banking industry and its lobbyists in Washington to delay, dilute and obstruct attempts to rescue homeowners. The story describes how those efforts continue, and tracks campaign contributions by financial institutions and large lobbying expenditures by TARP recipients.
Read MoreTexas homeowners paying more for less coverage
Jennifer LaFleur and Ed Timms at The Dallas Morning News have found that, despite legislation to reform homeowner insurance coverage, many Texans pay some of the country’s highest premiums but receive below-average coverage. The story also includes an explanation of the computer-assisted reporting for the piece. This is the fourth and final installment in the…
Read MoreOffice Depot investigated for pricing fraud
“A two month I-Team investigation into Office Depot and its lucrative contracts with local governments and schools, is prompting swift action by Missouri’s Attorney General,” reports Leisa Zigman of KDSK-St. Louis. The investigation revealed deceptive pricing and over-charging on products outlined in the contracts. Former Office Depot senior sales account manager David Sherwin stated, “The…
Read MoreMillions lost in overpayment of child care subsidies
In a third installment of the series “Cashing in on Kids,” Raquel Rutledge of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that the state of Wisconsin has overpaid parents and child care providers more than $13 million in recent years – including millions of dollars for bogus child care. But the state has a poor record of…
Read MorePhoenix emerges as kidnapping capital of U.S.
“In what officials caution is now a dangerous and even deadly crime wave, Phoenix, Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City and over 370 cases last year alone,” according to a report by Brian Ross, Richard Esposito and Asa Eslocker…
Read MoreFormer police informant admits to lying
Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Daily News report that a former police informant in Philadelphia claims that he and a narcotics officer lied about information used to convict alleged drug dealers. The informant, Ventura Martinez, said he fabricated information to earn money, fight the Philadelphia drug trade and to honor his close…
Read MoreSalon.com launches series examining Army suicides
Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna of Salon.com have launched “Coming Home,” a weeklong series that “focuses on preventable deaths at Fort Carson, a U.S. Army post in Colorado, among troops who have returned from combat tours in Iraq.” The series comes soon after the U.S. Army announced that January showed the highest soldier suicide rate…
Read MoreProPublica, WNYC launch project to track stimulus spending
WNYC-New York and ProPublica have started a Web site dedicated to providing “documents, data and original reporting to help citizens monitor the progress and effectiveness of the largest domestic spending bill in U.S. history.” The site, called ShovelWatch, can be found at http://www.shovelwatch.org/.
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