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The art of mortgage fraud
In final installment of the The Miami Herald‘s Borrowers Betrayed series, reporters Jack Dolan, Matthew Haggman and Rob Barry show the anatomy of a massive mortgage fraud network in Florida that generated $550 million in loans during the housing boom years, and the failure of state regulators to stop one of its lead brokers.
Read MoreEscalator safety issues spotlighted
A story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution details escalator injuries throughout the metro area. Every week in metro Atlanta people are badly injured riding escalators. They fall and crack their heads, or get their clothing or luggage tangled in the machinery. And in the worst cases, they suffer amputating injuries. Injuries associated with children wearing Crocs-like…
Read MoreOur Hungry Planet series
In a seven-part multimedia series, the Star Tribune examines the phenomenon of the global food market through the eyes of farmers and consumers from Cambodia to Papua New Guinea to southern Minnesota. Reporters Matt McKinney, Chris Serres and Richard Meryhew explore the powerful and conflicting forces around the world influencing the supply and price of…
Read MoreAviation accidents on the rise in U.S. Army
Over the past decade, there has been a marked increase in the number of Army aviation accidents, according to a report by Michael Fabey of Aviation Week. In the first year of the Bush administration’s “global war on terror,” fatalities increased by 875 percent — from 8 in 2000 to 78 in 2001. This trend…
Read MoreThe murky world of online gambling
A joint project by The Washington Post and 60 Minutes explores the world of online gambling. The industry clears $18 billion annually, but exists in murky legal territory. One group of online poker players had to take it upon themselves to unearth a $20 million cheating scam. But they could not turn to U.S. officials…
Read MoreIn memory of Holly Whisenhunt Stephen
Holly Whisenhunt Stephen was the best executive producer an investigative reporter could ever ask for. Holly, an award-winning journalist and a longtime IRE member, died Nov. 28 after a long battle with cancer. She was 38. Holly spent much of her career in Texas, working for TV newsrooms in Stephenville, Waco, Austin, Houston and San…
Read MoreMexico under siege
An extensive series by The Los Angeles Times details the war on drugs underway in Mexico. Since January 2007, it is estimated that 6,285 people have died in the efforts to curb the drug trade — a number greater than the total U.S. fatalities in the Iraq War. The series explores the war as it…
Read MoreMapping, interactively
As IRE has grown and evolved, so have the services offered to our members. Just a few years ago, one of the most common requests of our Database Library was a conversion of electronic information from tape to disc. Nowadays, Database Library staffers are working with open-source database technology, Web scraping and dynamic mapping. Recently …
Read MoreIndia: Driven to compete
Steve Eder of The Toledo Blade reports that the embattled U.S. auto industry is facing yet another threat — India. In a three-part series, The Blade shows how India’s automakers are ramping up plans to sell their cars globally. The project, which included interviews with auto executives, parts suppliers, engineers, politicians and peasants in India’s…
Read MoreCertain majors find large clusters of student athletes
USA TODAY looked at the majors of more than 9,000 junior and senior athletes in football, baseball, softball, and men’s and women’s basketball and found high rates of concentrations of athletes in certain majors at 83% of schools. Some schools had several “clusters” and more than half of the clusters are what some analysts refer…
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