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Welcome to IRE's roundup of the weekend’s many enterprise stories from around the country. We’ll highlight the document digging, field work and data
analysis that made their way into centerpieces in print, broadcast and online from coast to coast.
Did we miss some? Let us know. Send us an email at web@ire.org or tweet to @IRE_NICAR. We’ll add it to the list and spread the word.
Uncounted Casualties
The Austin American-Statesman
Scores of recent Texas war veterans have died of overdoses, suicide and vehicle crashes, a six-month Statesman investigation finds.
Majority of third-strike inmates are addicts, records show
Center for Investigative Reporting
Convicts imprisoned under California’s three strikes law are no more inclined to high-risk "criminal thinking” than other inmates, but are far more likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol, according to data from the state prisons department.
A Betryal of Trust
The Arizona Republic
In more than 400 instances, victims of sexual assault turned to the Maricopa County Sherriff's Office, trusting detectives with wrenching details in pursuit of protection and justice. In some cases, the Sherriff's Office did little or nothing. Only now is the full impact of that inaction coming to light, as The Republic reveals what victims characterize as a betrayal of trust.
Port Authority: What's a port authority, anyway?
Investigative Newsource
Developers have drooled for years over the Port of San Diego’s Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal. But each new idea — most with a football stadium attached — has been beaten back by those who believe a rare, deep water port should remain — just that.Today, Port Authority, the latest I-Newsource/KPBS investigation, tackles the question: Are we getting the biggest bang for our considerable bucks at that terminal?
Lax controls leave Michigan's ex-cons free to kill
The Detroit Free Press
As the Michigan Department of Corrections searches for ways to manage its nearly $2-billion budget, it is releasing ex-cons into the community who are
committing a growing number of violent crimes, a Free Press investigation found.
Joseph Merlino: The mobster next door
The Miami Herald
A Mafia icon from Philadelphia has settled in Boca Raton, fresh out of prison. Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown examines what he might be up to now.
High-stakes tests, low-level security
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The latest installment of the paper’s coverage of school’s reveals that more cheating scandals are most likely inevitable, because states cannot ensure the integrity of their tests.
How clout keeps court cases secret
The Chicago Tribune
Cook County judges routinely have hidden hundreds of cases from public view since 2000, sealing lawsuits involving a famous chef, millionaire businessmen and even other judges
Blue Line protects off-duty cops behind the wheel
Buffalo News
Police also call it ‘professional courtesy’ - forgiving the infractions committed by one of their own. It typically involves speeding, but officers can get a pass for erratic or impaired driving as well. Professional courtesy can extend to the close relatives of police officers, and to the prosecutors, judges and politicians who are part of the system.
Agent Orange’s Lasting Effects
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Chemical still damaging lives of those exposed, their families
Home, Foreclosed Home
Salem Statesman Journal
The ripple effect in our community from the housing market collapse affects local residents in traditional and unexpected ways that will linger for years. The Statesman Journal examines those effects in a five-part series.
Elusive Evergreen State Professor Found In Chile
KUOW Puget Sound
A former Evergreen State College professor in Washington State has evaded efforts to collect the $120,000 fine against him. KUOW found the man, Jorge Gilbert, working for Universidad ARCIS in Santiago, Chile.
In a joint investigation, The Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer of Raleigh found that large nonprofit hospitals in North Carolina are dramatically inflating prices on chemotherapy drugs at a time when they are cornering more of the market on cancer care.
The newspapers found hospitals are routinely marking up prices on cancer drugs by two to 10 times over cost. Some markups are far higher.
It’s happening as hospitals increasingly buy the practices of independent oncologists, then charge more – sometimes much more – for the same chemotherapy in the same office.
Here is the Observer's story. And here is the N&O's.
Lisa Song, an InsideClimate News reporter, has analyzed a decade worth of federal data that shows that the general public has detected far more oil pipeline spills than leak detection technology."
"The Lansing (Mich.) State Journal spent more than two months gathering and reviewing public records to determine how city leaders in East Lansing handled construction of a downtown mixed-use building, not far from Michigan State University, after a portion of the unfinished building collapsed and it was discovered that the developer had started construction without a building permit and added an unauthorized fifth story."
After a report was released by Spokane’s regional health district, the newspaper mapped life expectancy for each neighborhood in Spokane – showing the differences in well-being among its many neighborhoods: People in the county’s wealthy neighborhoods can expect to live longer than those in the poorer ones, by years and years.
"Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press higher education reporter Brian McVicar used a decade’s worth of electronic grade reports to examine what classes at Grand Valley State University students struggle with the most, what academic areas students perform well in, and how grading at the university has changed over time."
"McVicar, an IRE CAR boot camp alum, used Microsoft Access to mine the grade data, finding which professors had a habit of handing out lots of A’s and which instructors are the toughest."
There are more than 1 million acres in Wisconsin open to the public through a forestry tax break program. Good news for hunters and hikers ... if only they could find it. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Raquel Rutledge found while taxpayers pick up the tab, it can be nearly impossible for anyone other than the landowner to enjoy the promised benefits. The DNR doesn't provide any statewide maps showing the location of managed forest properties in the program. Instead, it supplies only a legal description that doesn't include roads, borders of the property or access points . County plat books don't have key details, either. Even with a hand-held GPS, hunters can't pinpoint the managed forest property using the DNR's available information. And, some of the locations are landlocked, meaning - once found - visitors would have to trespass to reach them. State officials don't track the total value of the property or how much the managed forest program costs Wisconsinites, but an analysis by the Journal Sentinel found that the more than 31,500 parcels enrolled - and meant for public recreation - are worth nearly $2 billion. And it translates into annual tax subsidy of as much as $29 million.
An internal study obtained by the Los Angeles Times shows that Los Angeles Fire Department dispatchers waste valuable time getting 911 callers to start CPR on cardiac arrest victims, possibly leading to preventable deaths. In March, the Times reported that a Los Angeles mayoral candidate unwittingly exposed inaccurate reporting of response times by the fire department. Reporters have been tracking the story ever since, and reports have included an analysis of more than a million 911 dispatches that showed the fire department fell short of timeliness standards for alerting response units.
Click here for all stories in the series.
Many city and county governments in Ohio pay employees more for mileage reimbursements than the state government does, and they could save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually if they switched to pay what the state does, according to a Dayton Daily News report published Wednesday.
How they did it, from the Dayton Daily News website:
"To get this story, the Dayton Daily News over several weeks assembled two years of financial data from more than a dozen local and state governments, then compared mileage reimbursement benefits. A reporter then asked decision-makers why they were more or less generous than other area leaders and what impact they thought their decisions would have on public funds."
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