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 "balloons" ...
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Their Crime, Your Dime
Some of Washington state's costliest public assistance programs harbored a secret over the years. It went unnoticed as taxpayer-funded programs provided food stamps and cash welfare benefits ballooned following the economic crash. Many worthy recipients came forward to get help. So, too, did criminals who found they could cheat Washington's lax fraud prevention programs to the sum of millions of dollars.
Tags: welfare; taxpayers; criminals; lax; economic crash
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A $191 Million Question
Waste, fraud and criminal activity plague the procurement budget, an expenditure that ballooned to $600 billion in 2007. The Post investigates the sources of the escalating costs and finds government and corporate ties to be appallingly mangled.
Tags: procurement; military; corporate; Washington; army; contracts; O'Harrow; contractor; technology program; manager; billion;
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Death Wish
"Two members of hte national 'right to die' group Final Exit Network secretly assisted a seriously mentally ill Phoenix woman to commit suicide by inhaling helium. The police learned about the assisted suicide only because of blunders by the pair. murder investigation is still ongoing."
Tags: balloons; gas; Jana Van Voorhis; Wye Hale-Rowe; Frank Langsner; Jack Kevorkian; Hemlock Society; Derek Humphrey
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The Deal Makers
An investigation by the Washington Post revealed that America Online "was using a series of unconventional transactions to sustain the appearance of breakneck growth in ad revenue" -- even after the Internet boom subsided and it merged with Time Warner. " Time Warner executives were "mesmerized by the hundreds of millions of dollars in online advertising pouring into AOL ... (and) even when the bubble popped and dot-coms collapsed, AOL continued to report record-breaking growth in ad revenue, reinforcing its image as the medium of the future and overwhelming any second thoughts from Time Warner shareholders and employees." What Time Warner didn't know was that, "among other things, AOL turned legal disputes into ad deals, converted long-term contracts into one-time balloon payments, shifted revenue from one division to another, bartered ads for computer equipment and sold ads on behalf of eBay while booking all the sales as its own... (The) stories immediately prompted two federal investigations of AOL Time Warner."
Tags: America Online; AOL; Time Warner; AOL Time Warner; Enron; advertising revenue; merger; balloon payments; contracts; Internet boom; dot-coms
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The Kid Who Killed
The New Times reports on 13-year-old Nate Brazill, a bright but angry kid, desperate for attention, who shot a beloved teacher after being suspended on the last day of school. According to the article, Nate was more complex than media reports have made him out to be -- not an A-B student, but an A-B-C-D-F student. He liked chess, the internet and band. But for some reason, angry about getting suspended for throwing a water balloon, Nate returned to school with murder on his mind.
Tags: school shootings
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Speed Beats Need in State School Funding: With no system for comparing districts' space problems, those that aren't growing can get millions while many with ballooning enrollments get nothing, a Times analysis shows
Smith reports: "At a time of enormous overcrowding in public schools across California, billions of dollars in state construction money has been distributed erratically in a process based on how quickly districts can build, rather than how badly they need the money. As a result, California officials have handed out more than $6.8 billion in school construction funds over the last decade, yet have failed to deliver a single dollar to more than 100 of the state's fastest-growing school districts." Funding also varied drastically among the school districts that have received bond money over the past decade -- from $1.4 million per new student in one district to $29 per new student in another district.
Tags: school construction bonds; bond money; school overcrowding; school districts
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Teacher killed at Lake Worth Middle School
"Nathaniel Brazill, a student who earned good grades, was sent home after a water-balloon fight on the last day of school and returned with a pistol. When his favorite teacher, Barry Grunow, refused to let him see two girls in his class, Brazill pulled the pistol and shot Grunow to death. The Palm Beach Post in that first-day coverage showed that Brazill was an honors student, that he had told other students about his gun, that he walked in armed despite the school's security measures and that other students could have prevented the shooting if then had told a teacher or someone about Brazill's gun."
Tags: school violence; children; guns; crime; murder
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Plumb Jobs
This "story investigated spending practices and political connections in a formerly tiny water agency whose expenditures ballooned as politicos began using it to fund pet projects and to reward allies. The expenditures were paid out of dramatically increased assessments passed on to cities -- and therefore consumers - who had no choice in whether to pay and had no say in how the agency was run."
Tags: Utilities; public works; water; Water Replenishment District of Southern California cronyism nepotism pork projects
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Storefront Care
Chicago Tribune extensively covers problems with the system of Medicaid, including poor quality care, wasteful policies and duplicative services; includes an analysis of ballooning costs which threaten to bankrupt states.
Tags: Medicaid; medical care; healthcare; health care; clinics; medicine
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No title (id: 9854)
WGBH-TV FRONTLINE (Boston, Mass.) reveals the failings in the $2 billion federal drug interdiction program to stop the flow of cocaine over the Southwest border; findings include that aerostat rader balloons, marine radar systems and border checkpoints are flawed and vulnerable, Feb. 2, 1993.