The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Extra Extra
Mortgage crisis fueled by financiers’ lack of liability
While reckless mortgage lending threatened the American economy, the Bush administration, Congress, free marketers and industry lobbyists protected the responsible parties from both civil liability and government investigations. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Eric Nalder reveals in a series “Green Light for Greed” a little-known battle where Wall Street financiers and lenders were protected from civil liability…
Read MoreKansas City Star looks into police department’s secret complaints file
An analysis of Kansas City police department complaint records by Michael Mansur of The Kansas City Star revealed that the vast majority of complaints result in no action. Four percent of complaints referred to Internal Affairs were sustained against officers, a number far below the national average of 10 percent. In response to The Star,…
Read MoreAtlanta-area school districts fail to enforce vaccination requirements
While most schools in the Atlanta area meet the Georgia state standard for vaccination requirements, Alison Young of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that at least 99 schools’ kindergartners and 81 schools’ sixth-graders failed to meet that standard during the 2007-2008 school year, with many of the schools in Atlanta’s Fulton County. Before Young’s investigation, the…
Read MoreDetective accused of ignoring evidence in Bailey case
Thomas Peele, Bob Butler and Mary Fricker of The Chauncey Bailey Project — a collaboration of those continuing the work of murdered Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey — report that that the lead homicide detective assigned to the slaying ignored evidence that pointed to a broader conspiracy to kill Bailey.
Read MoreDeceased voters cast ballots in Harris County, Tex.
An analysis by TexasWatchdog.com matched information from Harris County, Tex. voter rolls to Social Security death data and found ballots had been cast in the names of dead people more than 40 times since 2004. They also found more than 4,000 people currently on the voter rolls who, according to the Social Security death data,…
Read MoreTrial lawyers offer continued support to Biden
Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg News reports that trial-lawyer firms are among the biggest lifetime donors to Senator Joe Biden. Biden has been a reliable vote for them in the Senate even when fellow Democrats Barack Obama and Edward Kennedy went the other way.
Read MoreLarge firms awarded small business contracts by U.S. agencies
An analysis by The Washington Post found “U.S. government agencies made at least $5 billion in mistakes in their recent reports of contracts awarded to small businesses, with many claiming credit for awards to companies that long ago outgrew the designation or never qualified in the first place.” The Post looked at sample data from…
Read MorePollution credits profitable for landfills
Jeffrey Ball of the Wall Street Journal reports that landfills all over the country may be capitalizing off the sale of carbon credits for environmental initiatives they already had in place. A pollution credit allows a company to offset their own “carbon footprint” by purchasing credits earned by others for their green initiatives. “The credit…
Read MoreCampaigns benefiting from large donors
The latest campaign finance disclosures point to a proliferation of large donors supporting candidates and their parties and much of that money is coming from donors with interests in Washington, according to a report by Michael Luo and Griff Palmer of The New York Times. Fine print in campaign finance laws allow for larger donations…
Read MoreTobacco Underground series
A six-part investigative series by The Center for Public Integrity’s International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) details the booming global trade in illegal cigarettes. Since 1999, the ICIJ has tracked the illegal tobacco trade, and found corporate collusion with the criminal networks diverting tobacco shipments to black markets around the world. Crackdowns starting in 2004…
Read More