The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "El Paso" ...
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A Damaged District
For more than a year, Zahira Torres overcame obstacle after obstacle to document one of the worst school cheating scandals in the nation's history. Where other cheating scandals involved altering accountability tests, the El Paso Independent School District gamed the state and federal accountability systems by targeting Mexican immigrant students. In a number of cases, district officials refused to enroll students or pushed out students already enrolled -- denying countless students their constitutional right to an education. In other cases, they arbitrarily reclassified grade levels or altered transcripts, all in an attempt to keep students out of the testing pool. Torres' reporting sparked numerous results. The superintendent who masterminded the scheme went to federal prison. The state education agency removed the school board. And when Torres' reporting documented that the state was aware of details of the cheating in 2010 and cleared the district anyway, the new education commissioner ordered an independent investigation of how the agency missed the cheating.
Tags: schools; scandals; education; school board
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The Daughters of Juarez
The book investigates the series of murders that have been occurring to women and girls in Juarez, Mexico for over ten years. The authors also explore the impact that NAFTA has had on the local economy.
Tags: murder; Mexico; economy; Juarez; El Paso; North American Free Trade; factories; law enforcement; rape; DNA testing; Amnesty International;
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Harvest of Women: The True Story About the Murders of Girls and Women in Juarez, Mexico (1993-2005)
Author Diana Washington Valdez examines the circumstances behind the approximately 470 deaths of girls and women between the years of 1993 and 2005 in the border city of Juarez, Mexico. Her investigation discusses the brutality with which many of the victims were murdered, and the inability of local law enforcement to properly investigate these killings. Various law enforcement authorities undercounted the tally of dead by about 100, tried to blame the crimes on scapegoats, ignored viable suspects and "rejected or minimized information and leads provided by the FBI in El Paso, Texas." Investigations were further hindered by the fact the police and military were involved with the Juarez drug cartel, which "has operations in all the places where similar murders were committed during the past six years." Members of the Mexican government "protected prominent people involved in some of the murders and hid the findings of previous investigations. Therefore, it is unlikely the case will ever be completely solved, and the killers brought to justice.
Tags: Murder; murder of women; brutal murder; mutilated victims; mutilation; rape; drug cartel; government corruption; law enforcement corruption; unsolved murder
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Bad Deed
This investigation followed a botched land auction by the El Paso Sheriff's Office. The story revealed that the sheriff auctioned off a parcel of land with a deed problem. The buyer lost $20,000 and was not compensated by the government.
Tags: El Paso; real estate; property auction; deeds; sheriff; contest entry
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City to Union-Busters: "Welcome to El Paso!"
The Texas Observer reports on how Mediacopy, a California-based business with tainted reputation, Mediacopy, moves to Texas and receives a $1.9 million break in local property taxes. The story reveals that "charges flew on the West Coast that the firm was mistreating its workers, encouraging INS raids, and even manipulating employees trying to organize a union ... Mediacopy Inc. might not have gotten as far as it did, if the El Paso Times had not slept through the abatement story."
Tags: tax-abatement programs; National Labor Relations Board; business; corporate interests
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County coliseum series
Simon uncovers bribes, corruption and other problems in El Paso County, specifically in relation to the operations of the county coliseum. Simon's investigation found that a coliseum concessionaire's close relationship to an El Paso county commissioner benefited both sides. While the commissioner received campaign contributions, the concessionaire was able to steal money, as the coliseum's revenue began to drop.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; County government
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The Energy Crunch
San Francisco Chronicle follows the controversies surrounding the energy crisis in California over a 10-month period. The package of stories examines the political manipulations relating to the talks between the energy companies and the state and federal regulators. Some of the articles also look at how the energy deregulation approach has been applied in other states and with what results. One of the findings is that "despite the huge run-up in prices and revenues, only a handful of regulators today can say whether the energy wholesalers are engaged in brazenly illegal price-fixing, merely unethical market manipulation or just good business." The investigation exposes "the veil of official secrecy that allows the companies to bid on lucrative energy deals behind closed doors."
Tags: California Public Utilities Commission; San Diego Gas & Electric; Enron Corp.; consumers; taxpayers; wholesale costs; Pacific Gas and Electric Co.; bankruptcy; Edison; El Paso Natural Gas; Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; power plants; blackouts; electricity; Duke Energy Corp.; California Power Exchange; economy; business; market; SoCalGas; Mexico; Pennsylvania; Nevada; deregulation; nuclear power; coal; environment; Green Mountain Energy
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Boone Pickens wants to sell you his water
Texas Monthly looks at the risk of depleting the Ogallala Aquifer, "a vast underground reservoir that stretches from the High Plains of Texas all the way to the Dakotas" and the "largest single groundwater source in the United States." The story exposes the plan of Boone Pickens, a former "oil tycoon and a feared corporate raider," to pump up water from Ogallala and to sell it to "cities like San Antonio and El Paso that are running out of water." The reporter finds that the dangerous approach of treating water like a marketable commodity results from a Texas law, which allows a property owner to "pump as much as he wishes ... no matter if he dries up his own water and his neighbors' water along with it."
Tags: Roberts County; farming; irrigation; draught; Panhandle; population boom; groundwater; conservation; Rio Grande; rivers; springs
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Judge Not
The controversy over President Clinton's nomination of Enrique Moreno's nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has lead to the baladeering of Moreno in folk songs usually reserved for the legendary and the dead. Questions concerning whether his experience was adequate for such a high court were raised to Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Others contend that Moreno, a Harvard Law Graduate with the support of the El Paso Bar Association and congressman Silvestre Reyes (to name just two), is being rejected on other grounds. Gov. George W. Bush refused to intervene in the case, or even comment on it to the magazine.
Tags: Enrique Moreno; El Paso; George W. Bush; President Clinton; Orrin Hatch; Kay Bailey Hutchinson; Federal Judicial Advisory Group; Hopwood v. Texas; judicial appointment
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The Blood of the Tigua
Texas Monthly reports how "Officially, the issue tearing apart West Texas' largest Native American tribe is one of lineage: who is and is not a member. But the real dispute is over money - earned in unimaginable amounts at the casino on their reservation and coveted by rival factions willing to risk everything....whose casino generates, by the most conservative of estimates, a $60 million tax-free windfall each year. It is a staggering reversal of fortune, an upset in power unprecedented in this corner of the state...Only a generation ago, the Tigua were living in mud huts that they lit with kerosene lamps, scavenging food from the city dump, and walking the streets of El Paso barefoot."
Tags: Casinos; reservations; "Indians"; gambling; economic development