The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Unnecessary transplants boon for clinics at great cost to patients
The three-day special report by Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters Andrew Conte and Luis Fabregas found that hundreds of patients each year undergo unnecessary liver transplants. The story cites national data for transplants at 127 hospitals across the nation between 2002 and 2006. The reporters looked at MELD scores—a government-approved standard used to determine how urgently a…
Read MoreCollege athletic scholarships often shortchange expectation
A story by The New York Times‘ reporter Bill Pennington and data analyst Griffin Palmer uncovers the discrepancy between the expectations of families and the reality of college athletic scholarships. Analysis of previously undisclosed National Collegiate Athletic Association data showed that scholarships are rarely as lucrative as parents and student athletes assume. “Excluding the glamour…
Read More“Free to Flee”
Fugitives can flee and don’t have to hide, an investigation by Joe Mahr of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed. Mahr’s three-day series reported that hundreds of thousands of felony arrest warrants from across the nation are not entered into the FBI national fugitive database, including warrants for violent crimes such as homicide, rape and robbery.…
Read MoreNebraska fails to oversee death investigations
Karyn Spencer of the Omaha World-Herald discovered Nebraska has no state oversight and few standards to ensure quality death investigations by coroners or law enforcement. The lack of oversight and standards lead to murder cases remaining unsolved, coroners skipping autopsies to save money or guessing at the cause of death and bodies being exhumed to…
Read MoreTactical Response Unit sued for use of excessive force
The San Antonio Express-News conducted a three-month study of the Tactical Response Unit of the San Antonio Police Department, a unit created to reduce violent crime. “The unit used force to subdue only three of almost 1,000 Anglo suspects it arrested. By comparison, officers struggled with nearly six times as many minorities per 1,000 arrests,…
Read MoreOrlando officials talk “green,” yet guzzle gas
Despite championing “green” firehouses and pledging to be more environmentally friendly, Orlando’s city officials are driving some of the biggest gas-guzzling vehicles on the road. Dan Tracy and Mary Shanklin , of the Orlando Sentinel, requested records from about 90 local government agencies and found that Ford Expeditions and Explorers were the vehicles of choice…
Read MorePsychiatric screening of military personel still lagging
The Hartford Courant‘s Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman continue their coverage of the U.S. military’s mental health policies with a report revealing that fewer than 1 percent of deploying combat troops received mental-health evaluations in 2007 despite a congressional order to improve screening, as revealed in pre-deployment data for nearly 350,000 soldiers sent to war.…
Read MoreProbe finds trace pharmecueticals in US drinking water
A five-month probe by Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard, of the Associated Press, found traces of medications in the drinking water supplies of over 40 million Americans. While the testing found pharmaceuticals diluted to miniscule concentration levels, some scientists question the long-term effects of sustained exposure. The AP reports: “The situation is undoubtedly…
Read MoreForced Out
A series by Debbie Cenziper and Sarah Cohen of The Washington Post looks at the condo boom in the District of Columbia. Tenants are being displaced as landlords convert apartments to condos using “vacancy exemptions” — sidestepping tenants’ approval and avoiding conversion fees that would offset renters’ relocation costs. Through the analysis of government documents,…
Read MoreBlacks arrested for obstructing police more often
Eric Nalder, Daniel Lathrop and Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer found in a three-part investigation that Seattle police’s use of the “obstructing a public officer” charge leads to arrests of African Americans at a rate eight times higher than whites, and that nearly half of all obstruction cases are dropped before trial due to…
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