The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Surge in Democrats turns Dutchess County, N.Y. blue
In October, Dutchess County went from having a Republican majority among registered voters to a Democratic one for the first time in the county’s history. On Nov. 2, the Poughkeepsie Journal published an analysis that not only showed which municipalities were responsible for that growth, but drilled down to see which individual districts had the…
Read MoreCharter schools paid millions for absent students
An investigation by Thomas Hargrove and Gavin Off of Scripps News Service found that “taxpayers pay millions of dollars every month to educate tens of thousands of high school students who rarely or never show up for class, part of a growing trend of high absenteeism at privately operated schools.” Most charter schools are funded…
Read MoreUnion workers double-dip costing taxpayers over $1.6 million
An investigation by David Andreatta of the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) revealed that “more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money was paid last year to municipal employees in Monroe County for work they performed strictly for their unions, including dozens of labor leaders who have not toiled in their government jobs in years.” Many…
Read MoreOver 2,000 voters in Allen County, Ind. also registered in Florida
The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind. found that 2,172 voters in Indiana’s Allen County had names and birthdates identical to those in Florida. The newspaper performed its analysis cross-referencing the voter registration databases in Allen County with the Florida secretary of state’s election division. Duplicates were examined by hand. Middle names or initials that…
Read MoreCalifornia slow to investigate nurses with criminal backgrounds
Expanding on an article published in October, ProPublica’s Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times, have found that the California nursing board has been slow to revoke or suspend the licenses of registered nurses with criminal backgrounds in the state. The board relies upon nurses to report their own criminal…
Read MoreAirline regulations may misrepresent animal deaths
Alison Young of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that the airline regulation language protecting animal safety excludes the thousands of animals transported by breeders, farms, laboratories and pet stores. The U.S. Department of Transportation defines the word “animal” to mean one “that is being kept as a pet in a family household in the United States,”…
Read MoreFort Wayne series tracks federal spending in region
The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind. published the first section of a 12-part investigation into how federal dollars are spent the northeast region of the state. The Journal Gazette, using numbers from the Census Bureau and the Federal Procurement Data System, tracked the $5,618,386,731.89 the government spent on goods and services in 11 counties…
Read MoreEarly voting data online
The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, has already posted a searchable database of who has voted so far during the early voting period of the general election, using data released daily by the Hidalgo County elections department. Users can find out who voted, where they voted and the date they voted. Staff writer Ryan Holeywell noted,…
Read MoreDellums calls for review of police in Bailey murder
Mayor Ron Dellums said late Tuesday he is asking state Attorney General Jerry Brown to conduct an independent probe of the police department’s handling of journalist Chauncey Bailey’s killing in August 2007. Read the Chauncey Bailey Project’s online story or see the related video story from KTVU-Oakland, Calif..
Read More‘The System is the Crime’
For JudicialReports.com, Mark Lagerkvist examined the “paradox cloaked in robes” that allows New York judges to accept large campaign gifts from lawyers who have pending cases in their courts. The initial story focused on one law firm that gave $157,000 candidates for Supreme Court – including five-figure contributions to nine sitting justices. The follow-up explored…
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