The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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South Florida feels crunch of exotic loans
Jack Dolan and Matt Haggman of The Miami Herald reported that home buyers in South Florida have been signing so-called toxic mortgages at rates far higher than buyers in other areas of the country. Unlike the well-publicized problems with sub-prime loans, these toxic mortgages are concentrated in some of the nation’s most affluent and desirable…
Read MoreBad loans spread problems across U.S.
Rich Brooks and Constance Mitchell Ford of the Wall Street Journal examine the sad state of the country’s mortgage markets, finding evidence to dispel the conventional wisdom that subprime loans mainly were given out to low-income borrowers who can’t afford the payments. Instead, the newspaper reports that “. Although the concentration of high-rate loans is…
Read MoreDiploma mills help firefighters boost pay
The Sacramento Bee‘s Andrew McIntosh reports that “16 Sacramento city firefighters together pocketed $50,000 in extra pay after using bachelor’s degrees purchased from online diploma mills to obtain raises.” In the end, 28 firefighters, including eight captains, tried to obtain a five percent education incentive raise with questionable academic credentials. New York City penalized a…
Read MoreFlorida faces downturn in real estate, jobs
Florida Today published a three-part report on how the local economic boom has gone bust. “The shifting real estate market has spooked homebuyers, frustrated sellers, stalled new development and trapped some residents with mortgages they can no longer afford.” Reporters John McCarthy and Scott Blake, and assistant managing editor Matt Reed examine the trends and…
Read MoreDeveloper blows whistle on City Hall shakedowns
Reese Dunklin of The Dallas Morning News tells the story of developer Bill Fisher, who became an FBI informant after his low-income apartment complex projects were rejected by the Dallas City Council. Before the vote, Fisher was told that in order to get millions of dollars in economic incentives, he would have to do favors…
Read MoreDemographic analysis shifts Dallas crime ranking
A database analysis found that while the city of Dallas is once again ranked among “the worst large cities for violent crime,” the numbers change when the sample is more closely examined. Jennifer LaFleur and Tanya Eiserer of The Dallas Morning News used “statistical tools that correct for the effect of factors such as poverty,…
Read MoreThe assassination of Chauncey Bailey
The San Francisco Chronicle published a two-part series beginning with a profile of murdered Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey. His suspected killers are linked to Your Black Muslim Bakery, the subject of his last, still unpublished, investigation.“Bailey, 57, became the first journalist assassinated in this country since 1993 — according to the Committee to Protect…
Read MoreReporting of sudden infant deaths vary wildly across the country
The results of an in-depth investigation into infant deaths by Thomas Hargrove and Lee Bowman was launched online this week. They looked at over 40,000 infant deaths since 1992 to find that “the quality of infant death investigations, the level of training for coroners, and the amount of oversight and review vary enormously across the…
Read MoreAnti-poverty agency funded private jet trips to MTV awards
In another installment of The Miami Herald‘s Poverty Peddlers series, reporters Scott Hiaasen and Jason Grotto reveal that the Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust, the county’s largest anti-poverty agency, squandered millions of dollars on lavish parties, bad loans and insider deals. The reporters showed that public money for the poor went to pay for celebrities like Sean…
Read MoreIndentured doctors
Foreign doctors are being exploited by the Nevada physicians who sponsor their visas for U.S. medical residencies, reports Marshall Allen of the Las Vegas Sun. Under the Conrad State 30 program, foreign physicians are eligible for U.S. medical residencies located in underserved urban or rural areas. Instead, Allen writes, “Those sponsoring physicians pull the foreign…
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