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 "federal matching funds" ...
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Slow track of progress
The Fresno Bee looks at dangerous crossings in California, which need improvements. The story depicts fatalities, which could have been avoided, were there gates and lights at the spots. The reporter reveals that railroad crossings in California have been neglected "due to chronic funding shortfalls and bureaucratic inertia." Some major findings are that Fresno city lacks funding to match grants for improving the hazardous crossings, and that the neighboring city of Selma has missed multiple opportunities to go after state and federal funding. Even though numbers of accidents, injuries and fatalities have dropped sharply since the 1970s, the decline is attributed mostly to industry consolidation and track abandonment, the Bee reports. The article includes a map of a four-county area with locations of accidents recorded on railroad crossings from 1996 to 2000.
Tags: Federal Railroad Administration; Fresno County; trains; vehicles; safety; local government; tracks; traffic; urban development; public utilities
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Ralph Nader Is Not Sorry
Rolling Stone portrays in depth Ralph Nader as a person and a politician, who is "too busy saving the world." The analysis looks at the role he played in the 2001 presidential elections, and reports on how Nader did "precisely what Democrats had feared," since he snared enough votes to give the Oval Office to George W. Bush. The story also sheds light on Nader's relation to his right-hand man, George Farah, and reveals that the latter may be the person to whom Nader will "pass the torch of activism."
Tags: Green Party; Al Gore; Bill Clinton; White House; elections; federal matching funds; presidential campaign; pollution; environment; auto and highway safety; consumer protection
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Dividing Lines
The Columbus Dispatch investigated the "uneven educational opportunities in the Columbus Public Schools." The series revealed that "the Columbus elementary schools again are divided by race and income - and by student achievement, teacher experience and resources." The reporters identified problems with "poor test scores, a high dropout rate, financial and policy mismanagement, aging buildings" as common in the schools with prevailing minority enrollments. Some of the key findings were that "the assignment boundaries for some neighborhood schools closely match those ones singled out by the courts as racially gerrymandered", "spending by building bears little relation to the number of poor children" and "private donations...exacerbate inequities among schools". The newspaper also investigated how teachers' absenteeism and salaries correlate with the inequity issue. The reporters came to the conclusion that "veteran educators generally work at schools in middle-class neighborhoods, while beginning teachers get assigned to the poorest schools."
Tags: diskette; education; academics; race; income; poverty; segregation; FOIA; Ohio Department of Education; teachers; absenteeism; minority students; federal funds; database mapping project
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Roads To Nowhere: Squandering Highway Money in West Virginia
The series investigated "questionable and wasteful expenditures by the state Division of Highways." The reporter found out that "Since 1997, Gov. Cecil Underwood and the Legislature have approved the sale of $ 440 million in state road bonds. This year [2001] they hope to sell another $ 110 million. These bond sales will create a long term debt of more than $ 1 billion....The bond sales brought few additional federal matching funds to West Virginia...Much of the state road bond cash, moreover, was spent for routine resurfacing and maintenance, which has a short life span. Voters will still be paying off road bonds for years after these improvements are worn out." In some of the stories the reporter exposed "the failure of weak state laws to control overweight coal and lumber trucks that pose major threat to public safety."
Tags: diskette; FOIA; Virginia state Division on Highways; state issued bonds; wasteful expenditures; road construction; overweigth trucks; public safety; taxpayers; election
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A System Out of Control; The Epidemic of False Allegations of Child Abuse
Penthouse Magazine reports that "Before 1973, child abuse - particularly sexual abuse - was rarely reported to authorities and frequently covered up. But that year, then senator Walter Mondale sponsored legislation that took a new approach. Federal matching funds became available to states that set up child-abuse detection, prosecution, and prevention programs. The results were startling. From 1976 to 1993, the total yearly number of child-abuse reports grew from 669,000 to more than 2.9 million.... there have been some disturbing side effects... by 1993, the percentage of unsubstantiated reports had reached 66 percent. And in divorce cases, many experts estimate that between 75 and 80 percent of allegations of child abuse are completely false..."
Tags: custody; battles; the Mondale Act; suspicions; violence; investigations; therapists; Child Protective Services; CPS; child abuse
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FBI Files: Fulani's Party 'armed and dangerous'
Delaware County (Pa.) Daily Times reveals that the FBI conducted a four-month investigation of the New Alliance Party, a leftist group that ran Dr. Lenora Fulani for U.S. president in 1988 and again in 1992. "... the FBI had snooped on the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and other American activists working in Central America. At the same time the FBI was vigorously defending its CISPES investigation, it was quietly opening an inquiry of another left-of-center group, the New Alliance Party.... The inquiry has also attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union."