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 "The Williams Co" ...
-
Tons of Questions
After wildfires destroyed 365 homes in San Diego, the city rushed to enter contracts with two companies to haul away mounds of potentially toxic debris. The Union-Tribune investigated and found that the contractors, A.J. Diani Construction C. of Santa Maria and Watsonville-based Granite Construction Co., claimed to haul far more rubble than privately hired companies did from comparable lots, failed to provide accurate documentation of how many tons they removed and billed the city millions more than stated in their contracts.
Tags: contractors; natural disasters; restoration; fraud; overcharging; demolition permit applications
-
Broken Promises
Tax-exempt deals that provided $7 billion in bonds for low-income housing or inner-city schools turned out to be another way for banks and advisers to make money. Bloomberg investigates situations such as a deal in which JPMorgan Chase and Co. and American International Group "pocketed fees, along with their advisers, totaling $12 million." AIG and CDR of Beverly Hills actually had a deal "in which the financial firms made more money and faced less risk if none of the $220 million in bond funds was used by the public. None of it was." There were 70 other such deals across the country in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri. The investigation also includes similar situations of schools being neglected while insurance companies, banks and advisers profit.
Tags: school bonds; Wall Street; JPMorgan Chase and Co.; American International Group; Bank of America; housing bonds
-
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
San Francisco Chronicle reporters broke the story that some elite athletes used drugs to "run faster, hit harder, and cash in on the fame that comes only to those at the very top of their games." Fainaru-Wada and Williams used"Federal Grand Jury transcripts and federal investigative reports... court records and state health department records," among other documents. (332 pages)
Tags: steroids; drugs; BALCO; Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative; San Francisco Chronicle; Victor Conte; Major League Baseball; football; track and field; California Public Records Act; Federal Grand Jury; sports agents; trainers; sports doping; Olympics; Justice Department; IRS; U.S. Anti-Doping Agency; USADA
-
Toxic Legacy
The authors investigated the massive quantity of waste produced by Ford Motor Co. The waste has polluted watersheds and other environmentally sensitive areas 25 years after the automaker closed the assembly plant in Mahwah, NJ. The water supply for one quarter of the state's population is threatened by leaching industrial waste.
Tags: industrial waste; pollution; environment; Ford Motor Co.; toxic waste; environmentally sensitive areas; FOIA; water supply
-
Zipped Up!
This story is part of Russell's ongoing investigation into how the Roman Catholic hierarchy covers up sex-abuse by priests. Specifically, this story focuses on how former San Francisco Archbishop William J. Levada co-opted district attorneys in three California counties to help keep decades of alleged sexual misconduct by priests secret.
Tags: Catholic Church; religion; sexual abuse; sexual harassment; clergy; child abuse; state government; priests; pedophiles; Archbishop William J. Levada; district attorneys; cover-up; cover up
-
ANIC insurer under scrutiny
Behind all the good intentions, the construction of a commercial building by the Augusta Neighborhood Improvement Corporation (ANIC) is wrought with scams. Thanks to the misdeeds of Nevada-based Global Bonding Co. which was involved in a tax funnelling exericse, the building contractor was scammed. "Global was also paid, up front, nearly $ 60,000 in premiums for a performance bond-or insurance-policy that wasn't worth the paper it was written on".
Tags: Millennium Bonding; Nevada Division of Insurance; Robert Joe Hanson; Reve M. Pete; Pete Fletcher; Robert Cooks; Pat Mathis; Mayor Bob Young; Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine
-
Radioactive Water Flowed to Thousands of Homes
This series detailed how high levels of radium 226/228, known human carcinogens linked to bone and nasal cancers, contaminated public drinking water wells that provided water to thousands of people in Northwest Florida between 1996-2000. The public utility responsible for water safety resisted state efforts to clean the radioactive material and inform the public, because it cost too much money. The Utilities Authority conducted tapwater samples that measured high concentrations of radium coming out of fountains at an elementary school, regional airport, government offices, and the tourist welcome center, but the results of these samples were never made public.
Tags: radium; human carcinogens; bone cancer; nasal cancer; contaminated drinking water wells; radioactive material; Escambia County Utilities Authority; drinking water; Agrico Chemical Co. Superfund hazardous waste; U.S. Florida Department of Environmental protection; radium-tainted water; Escambia County Health Department; Pensacola Regional Airport; Santa Rosa Island Authority; Cordova Park Elementary School; Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water; American Agricultural Chemical Co.; U.S. Geological Survey; maximum contamination level; MCL; Northwest Florida Management District; water cleanup; Environmental Protection Agency; "limited action" cleanup DuPont; ConocoPhillips; Conoco Inc.; The Williams Co.; Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
-
Dan Gordon, Merrill Lynch and the Missing $43 Million
Dan Gordon, a 24-year-old Merrill Lynch energy trader, embezzled $43 million from the world's largest securities firm, which ignored warnings of criminal conduct by Gordon and which didn't disclose the theft until after it was reporter by Bloomberg News, three years after Gordon's crimes. Four months after the first Bloomberg News story, Gordon pleaded guilty to fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy.
Tags: Williams School; Merrill Lynch & Co.; U.S. Justice Department; Dan Gordon; embezzlement; energy trade; offshore companies; offshore accounts; conspiracy; securities; Yale University; Boston University; money laundering; Ostrich Capital; Kings Holdings LLC; AIG Private Bank; Constellation Energy Group; Newport Pacific Financial Group SA; Allegheny Energy Inc.; Mellon Bank; K2 Energy Corporation; Falcon Energy Holdings; Daticon; fraud
-
BALCO Steroid Conspiracy Case
These stories from the San Francisco Chronicle, investigate two men who were suspected of supplying elite athletes with steroids that could not be detected through drug testing. These two men worked with a nutritional supplement lab and supplied steroids and human growth hormones to NFL football players, major league baseball players and Olympic athletes.
Tags: Food and Drug Administration (FDA); steroid supplements; Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative; Victor Conte; drug use by athletes; drug testing; NFL; baseball
-
Airline Regulators Fret Over Several Breakups Of GE Jet Engines
The Journal writes about the engine failures in DC-10 aircraft. Most of the failures involved a disintegration of the engine with shards of metal flying about. The engines were CF-6 engines made by General Electric Co and the story further states the efforts GE is making to avert any more jet-engine breakups.
Tags: jet; aircraft; engine; airline; accident; Continental; GE; CF-6 engine; flying; flight; FAA