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 "U.S State Department" ...
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Blackwater Blood Money & Other Scandals
ABCNews.com's "The Blotter" has tracked the operations of one of the most controversial private security companies operating in Iraq, Blackwater. ABC news focused on the investigation following a deadly shooting in Baghdad that left 17 civilians dead. Reporters in the U.S. and in Baghdad followed the investigation by developing relationships with the victims of the shooting and their families, obtaining exclusive documents and developing knowledgeable sources inside the State Department. The team began their investigation by looking behind-the-scenes at Blackwater's effort in Iraq to make compensation settlements with the survivors and victims' families and capped with reporting that one of the Blackwater guards involved in t he shooting signed a secret plea deal to testify against his five indicted co-workers. In the course or reporting, ABC news also uncovered numerous other unreported controversies surrounding Blackwater's operations. Despite being accused of improper use of force, arms trafficking and overbilling, the State Department renewed Blackwater's $1.2 billion contract earlier this year.
Tags: Iraq War; Blackwater; contracting; arms trafficking; improper use of force; U.S. State Department
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Marshall Plant State's Top Mercury Polluter
The PPG Industries Chemical Plant in Natrium, Marshall County, "is West Virginia's largest source of mercury, a toxic metal that can poison the brain and is especially dangerous to children and developing fetuses." Reports filed with the Environmental Protection Agency reveal the plant "emit[s] more than 1,200 pounds of mercury into the air." The plant pumps salty water "through vats of pure mercury" to make chlorine and "only nine U.S. plants still use this 111-year-old process."
Tags: mercury; chlorine; toxic chemicals; chemical plants; West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection; Environmental Protection Agency; EPA; PPG Industries
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FEMA; A Legacy of Waste
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel "exposed waste in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's crisis counseling grants, meant to help people overcome disaster-related mental health problems." In Florida, the $23 million counseling program paid for "puppet shows, Hurricane Bingo and yoga on the beach." Only one fourth of the program supervisors were qualified. Also, the Sun-Sentinel found that "other states had used FEMA grants totaling more than $445 million on activities such as gardening workshops, martial arts classes and "Beat Stress with Crafts." As a result of these stories, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General and the state of Florida each launched an investigation, and a bill was introduced in Congress to "prohibit spending the grants on puppet shows and similar activities."
Tags: FEMA; Federal Emergency Management Agency; Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General; misuse of federal funds; disaster-related mental problems
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Hillsborough County School District Land Investigation
The ninth largest U.S. school district, Hillsborough County (FL), in 2006 was "growing fast enough to fill five new schools" per year. To meet the demand, Hillsborough county used the services of 4 private real estate brokers, without using bids, in violation of its own regulations. Three of the four brokers have records of criminal, legal and financial problems. Some of those brokers simultaneously represented the sellers, or flipped the land themselves, resulting in land purchases often made substantially above appraisal values. Reporters from the St. Petersburg Times documented swampland purchases, and school sites surrounded by the homes of sexual predators.
Tags: land; school board; school district superintendent; real estate brokers; realtors; swampland; bidding practices; state FOI; land flipping; rezoning applications; condemnation; assessments; appraisals; financial investigations; land records; wetland maps; FBI investigation; Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Excel; Matthew B. Cox; Chester B. Luney; Fred Edmister; National Realty Associates; school planning; Wilson-Miller; Florida Real Estate Commission; 2606 East Caracus Land Trust; Laurence E. Fuentes; Fuentes and Kreischer Title Co.; Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation
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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
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Imperial Life in the Emerald City
This book uses the Coalition Provisional Authority's Green Zone Headquarters in Baghdad to detail "the incompetence and arrogance that bedevilled the [American government's]effort to reconstruct and govern Iraq in the crucial first year after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government." Chandasekaran's sources included former CPA employees who had returned to the U.S. after sovereignty was re-established in Iraq.
Tags: Coalition Provisional Authority; CPA; Green Zone; Washington Post; FOIA; Department of Defense; DOD; Pentagon; Government Accountability Office; GAO; State Department; Ambassador Paul L. Bremer; Kurdish Regional Government; de-Baathification; U.S. Agency for International Development; USAID; Persian Gulf War; Sunni Tiangle; Abu Ghraib Prison; Paul Wolfowitz
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Captive Victims
KMOV-TV examines prison "staff sexual misconduct" in Missouri and Illinois. In Missouri, prison staffers were having sex with inmates, but even when the misconduct was discovered, there rarely was prosecution. When there was, the sentences were light. Usually the employees were allowed to resign quietly. In Illinois, the offenders were prosecuted, but the state did not report any of the cases to the U.S. Department of Justice, in violation of federal law.
Tags: prisons; sexual misconduct; department of corrections; Illinois; Missouri
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Unsafe Trucks
This investigation delved into the world of trucking in Alabama where there are too few state troopers, and even fewer inspectors. This story compared the number of truck inspections done in Alabama to other states and the consequences.
Tags: trucks; transportation; Alabama; public safety; truck inspection; weighing stations; Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; U.S. Department of Administration
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Military Outsourcing in Iraq (series)
The author investigated the outsourcing of the Iraqi War by the US government. The reports covered the use of private contractors to train the Iraqi police force, the problems they encountered despite the positive spin from high ranking American military officials and presented a slide show of the training process, giving a visual indication of the difficulty faced by the trainers.
Tags: military; Iraq; Iraqi War; War on Terrorism; Iraqi Police Force; private security contractors; infiltration; insurgents; exit strategy; troop reductions; U.S State Department; SAIC; DynCorp
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Campus crime
This WMAR investigation into the amount of crime on Maryland college campuses was prompted by the stabbing death of a Johns Hopkins University student while he slept in his dorm. The TV station wanted to take a more in-depth look into campus crime, so it analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Education's Clery Act to determine a rate of crime at state college campuses. The investigation also showed footage of campus crimes after a series of challenging negotiations with some college campuses to release surveillance video under state open records laws.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; campus crime; students; colleges; Clery Act database; crime statistics