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Sold a Nightmare
A four-part series by Binyamin Appelbaum, Lisa Hammersly Munn and Ted Mellnik of The Charlotte (N.C) Observer profiles Beazer Homes USA and the failure of starter-home neighborhoods in the Charlotte area. As it sold homes and arranged mortgages, the company crossed the line between selling to people who could barely afford homes and selling to…
Read MoreLaw firms profit from Empire Zone tax breaks
Michelle Breidenbach and Mike McAndrew of the The Syracuse Post-Standard found some of the state’s biggest and most politically connected law firms cashed in for millions of dollars through a state economic development program that was supposed to encourage new businesses. “At least 70 law firms cost state taxpayers more than $6 million in 2005,…
Read MoreVirginia vanity plates elicit complaints
Aaron Lee of the Lynchburg (Va.) News & Advance used FOIA to obtain complaints to the state department of motor vehicles about vanity license plates that had been issued to Virginia drivers, as well as subsequent correspondence between the DMV and the plate holders. The story reveals a host of complaints against many of the…
Read MoreBroken Trust
In an investigative series by the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune staffers Matt Doig, Tiffany Lankes and editor Chris Davis expose an epidemic of misconduct in Florida schools. In the past ten years, more than 750 Florida teachers have been punished for misconduct toward students, and at least 150 are still teaching today. It’s possible that the…
Read MoreRecognition of judicial inequities lead to man’s release
Brooks Egerton of The Dallas Morning News covered the release of Tyrone Brown “17 years after a single positive marijuana test while he was on probation led a Dallas judge to sentence him to life in prison.” Brown’s story drew national attention last year after The News ran a story on the inequity of justice…
Read MoreCampus accidents increase as inspection rates fall
Jeffery Brainard of The Chronicle of Higher Education discovered an increase in accidents on campuses as proper inspections have declined. “Serious accidents in which workers were killed or hospitalized have became more common on college campuses, according to a Chronicle analysis of federal safety-inspection records…nearly 200 significant campus incidents were cited by government officials between…
Read MoreGiuliani’s firm lobbies for Chavez’s Citgo Corp.
Henry Goldman and Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg report that Rudolph Giuliani’s law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, “lobbies for Citgo Petroleum Corp., a unit of the state-owned oil company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the U.S.’s chief antagonist in the Western Hemisphere.” The law firm first registered to lobby for Citgo in April…
Read MoreMotorcycle fatalities increasing in Brevard County
Jeff Schweers and Sarah Okeson of Florida Today looked at motorcycle fatalities in Brevard County and found that more than twice as many people were killed in 2006 as in 2000, and the county could top that this year. There are now twice as many bikers on Florida highways as there were five years ago.…
Read MoreEmpire Zone tax breaks revealed
Michelle Breidenbach and Mike McAndrew of the Syracuse Post-Standard report on the paper’s victory in a lawsuit that forced New York state to reveal how it distributes $558 million in tax credits to businesses. “The state kept the dollar amounts secret for years, even as the public and state legislators questioned how some of the…
Read MoreResponse times faster on inner-city fires
John Tedesco, Karisa King and Kelly Guckian of the San Antonio Express-News analyzed six years of San Antonio Fire Department response-time data and found that firefighters reach inner-city structure fires quicker than in the outlying areas where firefighters cover more territory with fewer stations. In response to the Express-News coverage, local officials pledge to address…
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