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 "hotels" ...
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A story of hope, and a lopsided deal
A six-month Boston Globe investigation revealed that a contractor from California was repeatedly employing impoverished, drug-addicted men from an evangelical church to renovate hotels across the country. The story started in Boston, where reporter Casey Ross discovered that the contractor, Installations Plus, was paying illegally low wages to workers trucked up from Victory Outreach Church in Philadelphia. He also traced the illegal behavior to other Massachusetts communities and then to California, where he spent several days tracking down Victory Outreach members who recalled working for the contractor in that state. The result of his reporting was a richly detailed narrative that took readers into a little-known corner of America’s underground economy. After the story’s publication, the state of Massachusetts announced an effort to strengthen labor enforcement against companies that fund and manage projects where significant violations are found. In addition, California labor officials initiated an investigation into the employment practices of Installations Plus.
Tags: Economy; low wages; contractor; workers
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WSJ China's Troubled Transition
During his years in China, British businessman Neil Heywood cut a rather eccentric figure, cruising around Beijing in a silver Jaguar with “007” license plates and boasting implausibly about his connections to senior Communist Party officials. When he was found dead in a second-rate provincial hotel room in November 2011—of “excessive alcohol consumption,” according to local authorities—he was immediately cremated and seemingly just as quickly forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until Wall Street Journal reporter Jeremy Page began digging into the case. Using his wide network of local and foreign contacts, the Beijing correspondent discovered that this was much more than a sad case of expat overindulgence. It turned out that Mr. Heywood was in fact very close to the wife of Bo Xilai, a Communist Party rising star—and that he had told friends he feared she might do him harm. The investigation lifted the lid on the extravagant, and often lawless, private lives of the country's elite—a forbidden topic for Chinese media, and one rarely touched on by the foreign press. Mr. Page’s reports, devoured by China’s vast population of Internet users, sparked massive public debate and may even have altered the course of China’s once-a-decade leadership transition.
Tags: Bo Xilai; China; Communist Party; death
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The Secret Service Scandal
As President Obama was dressing to attend a formal gala of 430 world leaders in Cartagena, Colombia, last April, a story broke over a U.S. Secret Service agent not paying an agreed upon $800 fee for sex with a prostitute, leading to the dismissal of 11 secret service agents for their debauchery at Colombia’s Hotel Caribe. It was the largest scandal in the 147-year-old history of the Secret Service, exposing a pervasive macho culture of hard-working, hard-partying agents in an agency whose common image is one of stoned-faced, buttoned-down agents focused solely on protecting the President.
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E-470 Expenses
After a public records request, KUSA-TV found that toll money covered massages, expensive trips, and stays at luxury hotels for some E-470 staff members and board members.
Tags: E-470; Public Records
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WESD's Web of Deals
A 16-month investigation of a regional education service agency showed that employees were charging the district for luxury rental cars, expensive hotels, Starbucks trips, and more as the district was struggling to stay afloat. It also found that numerous red flags raised over the past 10 years had been ignored.
Tags: education; tax abuse; corruption; county government; oversight
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Treasury Luxury Travel
The Oregonian's investigation spotlighted an obscure corner of state government where Wall Street practices became business as usual, where a set of high-paid employees were granted special exemptions to operate outside the scope of state gift and ethics laws, and functioned with little internal or public oversight. The newspaper revealed that state investment officers charged with monitoring more than $50 billion in state pension investments routinely travel in luxury, paid for by taxpayers and the Wall Street investment managers they are supposed to be overseeing. They stay at high-end resorts and five-star hotels, eat at celebrated restaurants and fly first class. The tab is often picked up by investment firms managing Oregon's investments, who are competing for hundreds of millions of dollars in fees that the pension fund pays annually. The state treasury didn't monitor that travel. It kept no record of the expenses or gratuities provided its employees. And it ignored the potential conflicts of interest.
Tags: State Government; Corruption; Finance; Wall Street; Exemption; Business; Gift and Ethics Law; Travel; State Treasury; State Employees
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Dirty Hotel Room Glasses
The investigation found that hotel chains "do not properly wash dirty hotel room glasses violating health codes." This can expose hotel guest to a variety of diseases.
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Blowing the Whistle on a Casino Giant
The Review-Journal found that remodeling at one hotel in Las Vegas was registered as cosmetic work, thus exempting it from permits or inspections. However, the work was far from cosmetic and the continued renovations threatened public and employee safety.
Tags: construction; renovations; public safety; cosmetic remodeling; hotels
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Money, Truth and Spin
Former Canada Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and middleman Karlheinz Schreiber had a secret that lasted more than a decade. The pair had met in North American hotels three times, with Schreiber handing Mulroney envelopes totaling $300,000 in cash, money from a secret Swiss bank account. The scandal centered around "the steering of an Air Canada aircraft order to a firm for which Schreiber acted as promoter." Mulroney denied accepting a bribe.
Tags: Brian Mulroney; Karlheinz Schreiber; bribery; Air Canada
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Failure In the Sky
20/20 and ABC News report on the "fatally flawed" air marshal system, even getting an air marshal to speak, undisguised and on the record. The marshals are intended to be anonymous, but the marshal, Spencer Pickard, notes the rules for the air marshals include staying in the same hotels, a dress code that prohibits jeans and sneakers, and "airport boarding procedures that force air marshals to identify themselves as passengers watch." These rules can compromise their anonymity, and render them targets for terrorists rather than the hidden lawmen they are intended to be. The story resulted in a review of policy by the Federal Air Marshal Service, and an eventual relaxing of the dress code and hotel policy. But a solution regarding the boarding procedures is still pending.
Tags: Federal Air Marshal Service; terrorism; plane hijacks; air marshals; security; airport and airline security