The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Contractors are invisible casualties in Iraq
Alejandra Fernandez-Morera of the Scripps Howard News Service found there are significant invisible casualties of the Iraqi occupation. Almost 505 civilian contractors have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war. “Another 4,744 contractors have been injured, according to insurance claims by 209 companies on file at the Department of Labor.” The investigation found…
Read MoreHawaii’s backlog allows many to escape charges
Ken Kobayashi and Jim Dooley of The Honolulu Advertiser used traffic records to show that O’ahu, Hawaii, has an estimated backlog of 61,500 bench warrants, costing the state a potential $20 million in unpaid fines and fees and allowing defendants to avoid charges as routine as running a red light and serious as negligent homicide.…
Read MoreInequities found in property taxes
Andrew Nelson, Bill Dedman and Matt Hersh of The Telegraph used city records to show that thousands of homeowners in Nashua, N.H. are paying too much in property taxes because of wide disparities between sale prices and the city’s valuation of properties. Thousands more are paying too little, requiring other taxpayers to pick up the…
Read MoreDallas fails to collect parking fines
Dave Levinthal and Molly Motley Blythe of The Dallas Morning News analyzed city records to show that Dallas City Hall, perennially strapped for cash, is owed at least $40 million in unpaid parking fines. As of November, the city had yet to collect on nearly 1 million outstanding parking tickets and their corresponding late penalties…
Read MoreHigh interest mortgages prevalent in rural areas
Geoff Dutton, Jill Riepenhoff and Doug Haddix of The Columbus Dispatch analyzed federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and explored the spread of high-interest mortgages from inner cities to Ohio’s suburban and rural areas. They found that risky high-interest mortgages have cost record numbers of people their homes, but not just in the big cities.…
Read MoreFla. fails to inspect elevators regularly
John McCarthy of Florida Today reviewed reports by local, state and federal agencies to show the state agency that oversees elevators has failed to ensure proper inspections as state law requires, in a three-day series on elevator safety. The newspaper found that in Brevard County, 221 of 1,113 passenger elevators do not have a current…
Read MoreDemand for pardons creates backlog
Rich Cholodofsky of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review analyzed applications for pardons dating to 2000 and found that as the country’s security concerns increased in the wake of 9/11, along with intensified background checks implemented in the late 1990s as a result of the Brady Bill, the number of people seeking to have records of criminal convictions…
Read MoreEx-adviser gets out of jail early, but victims get little
Brent Schrotenboer of The San Diego Union-Tribune used court records in an investigation of John W. Gillette Jr., a former financial adviser to high-profile athletes. He is four years removed from prison after fleecing those athletes out of more than $11 million. He serves as the chief operations officer at Shadow Mountain Community Church in…
Read MoreFederal loans granted for risky businesses
Ben Welsh of the Columbia Missourian used Small Business Administration loan records to show that over the past five years, the number of government-backed loans to Columbia’s bars and restaurants has skyrocketed far beyond previous levels. “Between August 2000 and August 2005, 33 cents of every loan dollar the SBA backed in Columbia — more…
Read MoreMichael Fabey of Defense News analyzed 3 million contract and modification records from 2000 through 2004 to show that U.S. agencies made more than 2,100 deals worth $1.2 billion for satellite telecommunications and related work. “U.S. federal agencies issued about 35,000 contracts and related modifications for general space-related work, worth about $40.2 billion, the analysis…
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