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 "State Farm" ...
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Wage Theft In the Fields
American farmworkers have often experienced egregious abuses, but nothing is more pervasive, nor harder to ferret out, than the wage theft that results from a practice called farm-labor contracting. Found in the fields of every handpicked crop in the country, farm-labor contractors not only provide growers with crews, but also handle wages and manage everything from verifying immigration status to providing workers' compensation. The problem is, the contractors systematically underpay the workers. “Farm labor contractors,” says writer Tracie McMillan, “give American produce growers what companies like China's Foxconn offer to Apple: a way to outsource a costly and complicated part of the business, often saving money in the process and creating a firewall between the brand and the working conditions under which its products are made.” And yet McMillan — a fellow with both the Knight-Wallace program at University of Michigan, and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University — found that enforcement is rare: In 2008, inspectors visited only 1,499 of the more than 2 million farms nationwide; in 2011, California inspectors found just seven minimum wage violations on the state’s 86,000 farms. Fines are minimal: “It's cheaper to violate the law than to follow the law,” says one farmworker advocate. And wage theft is tedious to prove, requiring inspectors to interview workers, analyze time cards, and collect payroll records. That's why workers and their advocates in California are counting on a lawsuit brought earlier this year on behalf of two farmworkers against the contractors who hired them—as well as the growers who outsourced the work. The suit alleges that the contractors routinely undercounted the hours worked, failed to pay minimum wage or overtime, failed to provide safe or sanitary working conditions, and housed the workers in unsafe and unsanitary living quarters. The “collective action” suit—open to anyone who can prove he or she experienced the same treatment—may cover thousands of workers and deliver awards substantial enough to deter other employers from the same practices.
Tags: Labor; farms; working conditions; wage
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Florida's Insurance Nightmare
Six years after eight hurricanes ripped across Florida, state residents still struggle to recover from the storms' legacy - a wrecked property insurance market. Exorbitant premiums, the highest in the world, have soured the state's struggling economy, killed real estate sales and forced families from their homes. Homeowners were told that unless they paid even more, no insurance company would take their hurricane risk. The Herald-Tribune showed that is a lie. Floridians have been lied to about why there is a crisis, where their money is going, and whether they're even protected against storm losses. Public policy has been corrupted by fiction spun by the insurance industry and its supposed regulators. Billions of dollars desperately needed for the next disaster have been siphoned offshore. And millions of homeowners are left to entrust their financial security on a system rigged to extort profit. To expose the hidden truth of Florida's insurance crisis, St. John cultivated key sources deep within every aspect of the insurance industry and sought massive amounts of financial and policy data from multiple state and national entities. When it became obvious Florida's crisis was manipulated from afar, she traveled to Bermuda and Monte Carlo to discover the hidden players truly in charge.
Tags: home insurance; property insurance; Florida; hurricane; real estate; insurance premiums; homeowners; Bermuda; Monte Carlo; state regulators; anti-trust law; State Farm
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Disaster Ahead? Deregulated Dams
A Tennessee law allows old watershed dams to be downgraded to farm ponds from high-hazard dams, exempting them from state safety inspections. The reporter discovered 13 of these dams were downgraded in 2008. The lack of oversight poses serious consequences because fatalities are likely to occur should one of the dams fail.
Tags: dams; farm pond; regulation; inspection; safety; public safety
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Hidden Wells, Dirty Water
An investigation into groundwater contamination in the heavily agricultural Lower Yakima Valley found that local, state and federal agencies responsible for clean drinking water and environmental health repeatedly neglected their regulatory duties. This left low-income Latino farm workers exposed to health threats.
Tags: dairy industry; water; agriculture; Latino; contamination; nitrate; wells; environment
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Toxic Fumes, Blisters and Brain Damage
This story examines a link between the toxic fumes produced by the largest dairy farm in New York state, called Willet Dairy, and the health problems suffered by its neighbors.
Tags: toxic fumes; dairy industry; New York state; dairy farms; factory farms; cows
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M.I.S.T
The investigation "uncovered a plan that began in the mid-1990s with the help of one of the nation's leading consultant firms, McKenzie, to force motorists to sue to recover costs for so-called soft tissue injuries. Led by the nation's two leading insurers, State Farm and Allstate, insurance companies developed a strategy of delay, deny and defend when it came to minor car crashes."
Tags: car crashes; accidents; insurance; injuries;
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Takings Initiatives Accountability Project: The Center for Public Integrity investigates ballot initiatives that would radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states
The [non-partisan]Center for Public Integrity investigated 2006 "ballot initiatives that were designed to radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states. They discovered that a trio of "secret donors" accounted for 99% of the propostions' bankrolls, and some of the initiatives did not comply with campaign-finance and other regulations. Then the Center revealed that 85 percent of the funding was coming from a single wealthy real estate investor and Libertarian activist, Howard RIch All but the Arizona inititative failed at the ballot. The Center for Public Integrity set up a stand-alone website-- www.takings initiatives.org-- and filed more than 50 articles on it. "Our general practice-- and a novel one as far as we can tell-- was to mount verbatim transcripts of the interviews on our website, including audio recordings where available. We sought to allow proponents, opponents funders and experts to have a chance to present their side of the story in their own words." The Center also checked with state and federal regulators for compliance of relevant laws and regulations.
Tags: Takings Initiatives; takings clause; ballot initiatives; land-use regulation; environmental regulation; tax-exempt organizations; Howard Rich; Andrea Millen Rich; Council for Responsible Government; William A. Wilson; state campaign-finance filings; public records requests; state freedom of information requests; America At Its Best; Americans for Limited Government; John Tillman; Howard Ahmanson; Fieldstead & Company; property rights; prefessional signature-gatherers; Colorado At Its Best; term limits; nonprofit advocacy organizations; Sam Adams Alliance; Sam Adams Foundation; Legislative Education Action Drive; Parents in Charge Foundation; Social Security Choice.org; Illinois Charitable Trust Bureau; educational vouchers; tuition tax credits; National Taxpayers Union; First Class Education; Susquehanna International Group; Jeffrey YAss; Cato Institute; Alliance for School Choice; Decision Education Foundation; Eric Brooks; Susan Mitchell; Pete Sepp; Kern Family Foundation; Generac Power Systems, Inc.; Milton Friedman; Taxpayer Bill of Rights; TABOR; Laird Maxwell; This House is MY Home; John Whitehead; Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; Exoxemis, Inc.; Family Farm Preservation Pact; Citizens for Community Protection; Kelo v. City of New London; eminent domain; New York Millionaires Assistance Act; Wallace Global Fund; Nicholas C. Dranias; PRNewswire; Eric O'Keefe; getliberty.com; George Soros
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Cotton Bailout: How your tax dollars turn markets upside down, prop up big growers and squeeze small farmers
"The series examined the impact of U.S. agricultural subsidies on small farmers in the United States and Africa, and investigated the buse of federal payment limits by large growers."
Tags: agriculture; AJC; Georgia; Congress; USDA; subsidy; subsidies; farming; growers; Africa; USA; United States
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Blowing In The Wind
Two whistle blowers share the story of how State Farm Insurance "was systematically defrauding its loyal customers" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Sisters Cori and Sherri Rigsby are State Farm insurance adjusters who told ABC News about how State Farm employees "were instructed to fraudulently alter customers' claim forms and even shred documents so the famous insurance company could avoid paying benefits to families who lost everything in the hurricane."
Tags: Hurricane Katrina; State Farm insurance; Cori Rigsby; Sherri Rigsby; whistle blowers
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Trouble on the Farm: From Research to Waste
This investigation of animal neglect at the University of Nevada, Reno revealed that: administrators set up a camera in a smoke detector outside a faculty whistleblower's lab; students alleged late-night intruders tampered with e-coli experiments to discredit the professor; a network of unregulated "homeland security" cameras kept the campus under surveillance; "valueless" sheep injected with human stem cells were sent to a university ranch as part of a weed eradication project and were swiftly killed by predators. And, although the University denied all the animal abuse allegations, the USDA cited it for 46 violations in May and another 10 in October, which included many of the same neglects documented in the story.
Tags: University of Nevada - Reno; animal abuse; animal neglect; United States Department of Agriculture; USDA; surveillance; human stem cells; e-coli