The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
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Utility district manager’s retirement party cost customers thousands of dollars
Water customers at two Greene County utility districts helped throw a more than $6,400 retirement bash for the woman who helped lead the districts for many years, WJHL reports. Who authorized the expenses? According to the itemized receipts, Collins’ daughter, acting manager Kandie Jennings approved the expenses. Jennings is among the family members on unpaid…
Read MoreToo Much of Too Little
Millions have crossed through the fence from Mexico to America, both legally and illegally, making Hidalgo County, Texas, one of the fastest-growing places in America. “El Futuro” is what some residents have begun calling the area, and here the future is unfolding in a cycle of cascading extremes. The country’s hungriest region is also its most overweight,…
Read MoreTo expand Khamenei’s grip on the economy, Iran stretched its laws
A Reuters investigation into the Iranian supreme leader’s $95 billion economic empire—which was partly built on confiscating family property from ordinary citizens: Several other Iranians whose family properties were taken over by Setad described in interviews how men showed up and threatened to use violence if the owners didn’t leave the premises at once. One…
Read MoreThe Most Senseless Environmental Crime of the 20th Century
“Fifty years ago 180,000 whales disappeared from the oceans without a trace, and researchers are still trying to make sense of why.” The Pacific Standard investigates one of the most irrational environmental crimes of the century.
Read MoreMinnesota campaign finance regulators’ database isn’t adding up
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the online files from the Minnesota agency charged with tracking candidate and campaign fundraising are riddled with inaccuracies, leading to errors that total as much as $20 million over the past decade, according to an analysis. About 7,000 records of donations between Minnesota groups are incorrect — an error…
Read MoreSeattle school managers get questionable OT payments
A KIRO 7 investigation finds that some at Seattle’s schools may be violating the HR policy by paying overtime to select district managers who aren’t entitled to make extra money. A months-long investigation reveals a radio station supervisor is the exempt manager making the most OT, banking about $70,000 in the last 2 ½ years.…
Read MoreThe secret, dirty cost of Obama’s green power push
The ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today. Farmers have wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and contaminated water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found. Five million acres of land set aside for conservation have been converted.…
Read MoreLouisiana Purchased
Last year, 25 percent of nursing home beds in Louisiana were empty. Yet the state paid $23 million for them. In the third part of a series on the topic, Fox 8 News and NOLA.com investigated how and why the state has dished out millions of dollars for services that aren’t being used in.
Read MoreBody found in hospital stairwell: San Francisco sheriff details what went wrong
In September, Lynne Spalding checked into San Francisco General Hospital for a bladder infection. Soon after, she went missing. No one ordered a full search for Spalding until nine days after she disappeared. In that time, Lynne Spalding Ford’s family scoured the city and passed out thousands of fliers — only to find out she was dead in…
Read MoreAlmost Without Hope: The State of Health Care on the Rosebud Indian Reservation
The physical complications of poverty, joblessness and epidemic rates of alcoholism, diabetes and depression spill over into the wards at the only hospital on the Rosebud Reservation, which has a population of 13,000 and stretches across 1,970 square miles of South Dakota prairie. Life is short, violence high and health care lacking in Todd County,…
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