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 "broken parts" ...
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Broken Justice in Phillips County
A five-part series preceded by an initial investigation into dysfunction in the criminal justice system in an Arkansas Delta county known for corruption and poverty. The year-long investigation uncovered errors and archaic practices in the handling of fugitive warrants and speedy trials that allowed felony suspects to remain free for years without fear of answering to the charges against them. As a result, prosecutors had to drop hundreds of cases for failure to take them to trial in a timely manner. Since publication, the Phillips County sheriff has made changes in how his office handles failure-to-appear warrants, and court officials have reduced case backlogs. Nevertheless, problems persist.
Tags: Criminal justice system; corruption; poverty; fugitive warrants
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Outsourcing Safety: Boeing Jets Repairs in El Salvador
KIRO Team 7 investigators travel to El Salvador, uncovering a series of safety lapses at a Boeing jet maintenance facility. We found unqualified $2 an hour mechanics, the use of broken parts, failures to properly connect electrical wiring inside aircraft and the hiring of a work force that had trouble reading English-only Boeing jet repair manuals. This team of reporters also uncovered the locations of where major U.S. carriers take their jets out of the country for repair (Guadalajara, Taipei, Hong Kong, El Salvador, Beijing, Mexico City and Guatemala).
Tags: Boeing; jets; broken parts; U.S. carriers
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The Wasteland
CBS News found that when well-meaning American consumers give their electronics to so-called recyclers, the waste is often smuggled to China and other parts of the Third World, where it is broken down or melted for the precious metals inside. They investigated a major electronic waste recycler in the Denver area, Executive Recycling, and tracked a container that had been filled with cathode ray tubes at the company's loading docks. They followed this container from Denver, to the port of Tacoma, to Hong Kong, which is the main entryway to the part of southern China where electronic waste is broken down in the worst conditions. There, seven out of ten kids have dangerous levels of lead in their blood. Pregnancies are six times more likely to end in miscarriage. The reporters also went to China and found that wasteland, where workers were cooking circuit boards over open flames and separating the gold from other metals in acid baths on the edge of a river. While filming, the crew was attacked by a gang that protects this gray market enterprise. Back in Denver, CBS News confronted the CEO of Executive Recycling. He denied that his company had sent the CRTs overseas, but the evidence was all but irrefutable.
Tags: recycling; gray market; electronics; China; worker safety; pollution;
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Peter Jennings Reporting - No Place to Hide
This investigation tracked the proliferation of government collection of personal data since September 11, 2001. It chronicles how the government coordinates with private industry to amass electronic data on millions of Americans -- in fact, most Americans. It discovered the secrecy meant to conceal the continuation of the government's Total Information Awareness program, which was killed by Congress and then broken into constituent parts.
Tags: federal government; surveillance; electronic data; domestic surveillance; privatization; Total Information Awareness; Choicepoint; Homeland Security; personal data; privacy
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The Broken Promise
TV-4 investigated the use of the N379P airplane and found that it is used to carry suspected terrorists to Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, etc, where they are brutally interrogated. They also uncovered that Sweden has secretly been part of the "extraordinary rendition" operation, which tortures and interrogates "suspects" even though some are eventually freed and cleared of all charges.
Tags: FOIA; The Government of Sweden; Swedish Security Police; Ahmed Agiza; Muhammed Al Zery; United States Department of Defense
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Misery for Rent
This three part series investigates landlords who abuse loopholes in the rental system, how abandoned rentals lower the value of neighborhoods, how some rental properties in Iowa have fire safety problems, and how sometimes, it's tenants behaving badly that causes rental problems. There are also specific investigations, such as problems at a landmark Iowa City complex, and a tenant dispute in Cedar Rapids regarding a broken stove.
Tags: rental properties; landlords; tenants; Cedar Rapids; Iowa City
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Broken Trust
In this six part series, the Sedalia Democrat examines the workings of Sedalia county's public administrator and finds evidence of "widespread mismanagement, questionable payments to cronies and other problems concerning the care of the city wards". The investigation also reveals how public administrator Marilyn Schmidt "fattened the pockets of her close friends" by using her wards' estates that should have been used to take care of the disabled and frail. Furthermore, "the county judge, who was mandated to oversee Schmidt's work, routinely approved expense after expense, even after his clerk's pointed out Schmidt's questionable spending".
Tags: Joyce Burke; Pettis County; Judge Robert Koffman; Kimberly Cornine; Mildred Williams
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Broken Promises: 25 Years After We Unlocked the Mentally Ill
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does a four-part series on the mental health care system in Wisconsin since it was revamped 25 years ago. A six-month investigation of the care of the mentally ill in Milwaukee "found hundreds of former mental patients living in squalor, imprisoned in vast numbers, homeless and assigned to nursing homes where they get substandard treatment."
Tags: mental illness; mental health; mental patients; state mental health care system
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Overwhelmed and Broken Down: Caring for the Elderly and Disabled
The Journal Sentinel reports on deaths and injuries occurring in assisted living facilities. The three-part finds that elderly and disabled people are put at risk by "poorly trained or stretched too thin" caregivers. The findings are based on analysis of a database of state inspection reports. Other findings include that about 10,000 of the state residents who need long-term care have been pressed to wait for months or years for assistance from the state. The investigation examines the nursing homes industry in light of the aging baby-boom generation and the increasing number of people needing long-term care nationwide. The investigative team concludes that nursing homes are "crumbling under the financial burdens caused by inadequate Medicaid payments."
Tags: CAR; group homes; disabilities; health care; doctors; nurses
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Broken Trust
This Charlotte Observer multifaceted investigation examines the shortcomings of the North Carolina mental health care system. The reporter has found that "from 1994 to mid-1999 at least 34 people under the care of NC mental-care facilities have died suddenly or in circumstances that could raise questions about their care." Among the major findings are the facts that North Carolina "allows individuals with little or no training to open mental health facilities" and that "the state offers little oversight." The reporter details examples of felony patient abuse and neglect, resulting from the loose hiring and training standards set by the state. The series also explores "the lack of children's mental health care and how patients who can't afford care often seek devastating loophole in the law: giving up custody for their children." "The four state-run psychiatric hospitals provide only vague reports listing patient deaths ... N.C. law doesn't require private facilities to report deaths at all." Another part of the investigation focuses on the problems of the rest homes and reveals that they "too often fail to provide appropriate care to patients with mental disabilities." The investigation has found also that "the state's effort to build independent housing [for mentally ill people] is a frustrating series of stops and stalls." The investigation reports on the efforts of the state lawmakers to overcome the problems, but concludes that "political wrangling and funding constraints have stifled a years-long campaign to improve the system."
Tags: hospitals; children; custody; housing; poverty; Division of Mental Health; Medicaid; federal government; funding; rest homes; drugs; abuse; neglect; caregivers