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 "wood" ...
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Deadly sawmill explosions
Catastrophic explosions at two Northern British Columbia sawmills in 2012 killed four workers and injured dozens of others. Wood dust was identified as a possible fuel source, but safety agencies, companies and workers said the explosive risk of dust was not well known. The Vancouver Sun launched an investigation to find out how it was possible no one was aware of this wood-dust explosion risk.
Tags: Explosions; sawmills; wood dust
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Maywood Confidential
On the evening of Oct. 23, 2006, as a premature snow fell in parts of the Chicago area, Maywood (Illinois) Police Officer Tom Wood pulled his marked SUV to a dimly lit corner known for drug sales, rolled down his window part of the way and began talking to somebody, likely a person he knew. Within minutes gunfire exploded from the street, ripping through the car and hitting Officer Wood in the head and elsewhere, killing the 37-year-old father of five almost instantly. More than six years later, the murder is still unsolved, and an eerie pall has been cast over the official investigation, and Maywood itself. The nonprofit Better Government Association (BGA) and WFLD-TV/FOX Chicago set out to determine what happened – why Officer Wood was killed and why the official investigation into his death had failed to produce an arrest or criminal charges. In a figurative sense, our findings (which form the basis for our entry) indict not a person, but a culture of corruption and apathy in Maywood that may have contributed to Officer Wood’s death, and certainly played a role in the subsequently botched homicide probe.
Tags: Murder; police officer; corruption; homicide
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Libya: Dying for Security
CBS News was first to interview the key witness in the denied security requests leading up to the attack on the US Mission at Benghazi: the Commander of a Special Forces Unit Lt. Col. Andrew Wood. In a series of exclusive reports, Col. Wood told his compelling story: how those on the ground, including Amb. Christopher Stevens, documented a drastically deteriorating security situation in Libya and made repeated requests for continued or enhanced security only to have them all denied.
Tags: Benghazi; Libya; U.S. soldier; military
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The Prosecution of Governor Siegelman
Seven U.S. Attorneys were fired in December 2006 by the Bush Justice Department not because of poor performance, but because of the refusal to engage in politically-driven prosecutions. Former Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman was convicted of bribery and sentence to serve seven years in jail.
Tags: President George W. Bush; Circuit Court of Appeals; imprisonment; allegation; Grant Woods;
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The Mysterious Death of Janie Ward
This hour-long report is a result of a five-year investigation into the death of a 16-year-old girl 20 years ago in a small town in the Ozarks. It's about two daughters -- one wealthy and popular (a cheerleader and beauty queen); the other poor and self-conscious. It's about two fathers -- one a powerful judge who allegedly shielded his daughter from the law he's sworn to uphold; the other a bail bondsman who is trying to avenge his daughter's death. And it's about one family's fight for justice against what they believe is a corrupt judicial system that closed ranks around the powerful judge to cover-up a murder. When 16-year-old Jamie Ward fell off a 9-inch porch in the woods near Marshall, Ark., on September 9, 1989, her parents refused to blieve that the fall had killed their healthy teenager. Instead, they began to suspect to suspect she was murdered by the judge's daughter. After years of demanding an investigation into her death, an independent medical examiner associated with Parents for Murdered Children exhumed Janie's body a second time for an extremely rare third autopsy. Because the case was 20 years old, most of the files were not digital; rather, the investigation focused on old-fashioned reporting: finding and interviewing eyewitnesses (all of whom had not been reinterviewed since the original investigation); analyzing inconsistencies in the witness statements, double-checking the forensics with independent experts.
Tags: autopsy; unsolved death; forensic science; criminal justice system; reopened cases; Arkansas
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SLICC Deal for Pentagon Brass, Pimp My Ride -- Air Force Edition,
In June 2008, sources came to the Project on Government Oversight about the Air Force wasting taxpayer funds. They presented documents and e-mails that raised questions about two little-known programs to build "world-class" luxury aircraft accommodations for the military and senior civilian leadership. The accommodations -- called SLICC (Snior Leader In-transit Conference Capsule) and SLIP (Senior Leader In-transit Pallet) -- were justified as filling a "deficiency gap," but e-mails obtained by POGO showed that there was significant internal dissent within the Air Force over this extravagant waste of taxpayers' funds. Requirements documents obtained by POGO emphasize the need for "aesthetically pleasing" accommodations. E-mails obtained by POGO state that Air Force generals upgraded the leather, carpet, and wood choices, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the program cost. After the first FLIP was procured, General Robert McMahon expressed dissatisfaction with the color of the seat leather and type of wood used. He directed that the leather be reupholstered from brown to Air Force blue leather, and requested to replace the wood originally used with cherry. Internal Air Force e-mails make it clear that the Air Force leadership's overriding concern us SLICC's level of luxury. Contract documents obtained by POGO revealed that these accommodations do not provide any additional operational capabilities (e.g. communications advantages) beyond those currently existing.
Tags: government spending; Air Force; SLICC; SLIP; misconduct; overspending
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Toxic Town
"A six-week investigation into the environmental contamination and public-health effects in Somerville, Texas caused byt a 110-year-old- wood-treatment facility that for three decades was the nationa's largest manufacturer of railroad cross ties."
Tags: Cancer; carcinogen; air pollution; incinerator; creosote-treated wood; Dennis DAvis; James Dahlgren
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Unconventional Spending
After a six month investigation, Reporter C. S. Murphy reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the "Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau spends more than twice as much money as a tytpical city tourism agency but can't show the public what it's getting in return for its money." Murphy also finds "The bureau's regular annual audits have repeatedly called for tighter spending controls and more accountability."
Tags: Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau; FOIA; LIttle Rock Advertising and Promotion Commission; CLinton School of Public Service; no-bid contracts; Cranford Johnson Robinson & Woods; Arkansas Tourism Development Foundation; Arkansas Ethics Commission; retaliatory firings; Arkansas Host Committee; Greater Little Rock Chamber of Commerce; African American fraternities
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Mattress Man
Local mattress retailer Handy Dandy Woods sells old used mattresses, re-covering them and passing them off to customers as new. The WHEC team took a hidden camera to the store and purchased mattresses and box springs, later cutting them open to expose filthy old mattresses. They also tested the mattresses for allergens and spoke with people who had bought mattresses from the same store. They also tracked down the person who had "rebuilt" the bedding.
Tags: Mattress; allergens; asthma; consumer fraud
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Student Tells of Terror; Local high school student abused and left in the woods for four hours while other watched
The authors investigated an incident near a local high school, in which a girl was abused for hours by other students, and school officials did nothing.
Tags: education; school; child abuse; security; teenagers; high school; rape