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Covering Hurricane Irene: The next few days and beyond
By Kyle DeasGraduate student, University of Missouri It’s looking increasingly likely that Hurricane Irene will wreak havoc up and down the Eastern seaboard this weekend. As the storm gathers strength and speed, you may be wondering how to cover its landing and the aftermath. This past week, after an earthquake hit Virginia, we published a blog post called “Breaking…
Read MoreU.S. Navy struggling to maintain ships
Michael Fabey, from Aviation Week, reports on the deteriorating health of some our Navy’s ships, mostly due to budget cut backs tied with our involvement overseas. “As conflicts were heating up in the latter years of the previous decade, the Navy shifted its funding focus from ship repair to buying items like helicopter components or…
Read MoreTowing Services Division continues to rack up high overtime payouts
Since 2007, the city of St. Louis has worked to cut overtime costs. Many departments have been successful, though one stands out as continuing to rack up high overtime payouts: the Towing Services Division. Reporter David Hunn of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, writes that the foremen “in the towing division serve as examples of how the…
Read MoreBreaking News Tips: Resources to cover earthquakes, other natural disasters
IRE is collecting resources for journalist who are covering today’s earthquake, which affected large portions of the Eastern Seaboard. Share ideas with us at tips@ire.org or send us a note on Twitter or Facebook. Story suggestions: Request your community’s emergency/disaster plans. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many areas beefed up their disaster response plans. Were those procedures followed?…
Read MoreWilkes-Barre mayor used used summer jobs program to hire family, friends
Citizens Voice reporter, Andrew Staub, uses DocumentCloud to publish documents showing Mayor Tom Leighton has been hiring his kids and relatives for summer jobs. Over the past 8 years, Leighton hired his children for over a dozen different positions. However, it’s not just his children he’s hiring, but also affluent children from his neighborhood. “The hires have clouded…
Read MoreCharity’s director has felony past, including theft
Shaun Hittle, of the Lawrence Journal-World, investigates one charity in Lawrence, KS, and the man behind it. Andrew Gruber, The Purple Heart Veterans Foundation’s director who payed his brother’s fundraising business nearly a half million dollars in 2010 is now being investigated on past criminal charges. Among many other charges, Andrew spent time in a Kansas prison for…
Read MoreCMS reports over 600 pages of neglect at Dallas County public hospital
Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, which offers care to much of the poor community in the Dallas County area, have been targeted by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. They found countless incidents of deficiencies in the hospital, including “patients lost in hallways, buckled over in pain. Children discharged without medical screening or stabilizing…
Read MoreFungal infections post Joplin tornadoes spur disagreement between state and local health officials
In the aftermath of the devastating Joplin tornadoes, cases of a rare fungus that cause potentially deadly infections in humans began showing up in Southwestern Missouri.Local health officials in Green County contacted state health officials with the evidence and suggested sounding a statewide alert. However, Missouri officials declined citing the concern of causing public panic.…
Read MoreBailed-out banks that agreed to help struggling homeowners are caught praticing the opposite
Rob O’Dell, of the Arizona Daily Star, reports on the shameful acts of three of the largest banks in Arizona. “Banks that took bailout money were supposed to use part of the taxpayer-provided cash infusion to help customers avoid foreclosure, but instead, many of them are buying up struggling homeowners’ tax debt. The tax liens…
Read MoreFannie Mae pressures banks to foreclose, despite their own policy
“Detroit Free Press investigative reporter Jennifer Dixon reports Sunday that Fannie Mae is privately telling banks to foreclose on homeowners who are more than a year deliquent even if the borrowers are seeking a federal loan modification. The policy, uncovered in confidential Fannie Mae records, is contrary to Fannie Mae’s public assurances that homeowners will be…
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