Lee Zurik
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As the city of New Orleans's most honored investigative reporter, Lee has been uncovering and reporting impactful stories on WVUE since 2009. Following up his tenacious inquiries with detailed analysis and powerful storytelling, Lee delivers unprecedented accountability of government officials, private citizens and corporations. Lee has been honored with journalism’s top honors including two George Foster Peabody Awards, three Alfred I. duPont Silver Batons, twelve National Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal. In addition to his work at WVUE, Lee is Gray Television’s Vice President of Investigations. In that role for WVUE’s parent company, he oversees Gray Television’s National Investigative Team – InvestigateTV. Lee is a New Orleans native and a graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.
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Permission to Practice: Doctors, patients say insurance prior-authorizations put profits over people
Insurance companies say these reviews lower costs and protect patients, but what requires advance permission varies plan to plan, and critics argue the policies get between a patient and their doctor.
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The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to an attorney, but there’s a public defender shortage. The problem means delayed justice for victims and prolonged jail time for the accused not convicted of crimes. In some areas, vacancies are at an all-time high. It’s leaving both defendants and victims waiting for months, sometimes even years, for justice.
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In a pair of investigations Andy Pierrotti looks at flawed forensics and wrongful convictions.
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More than two decades ago, the death of a toddler in a recalled portable crib prompted Congress to pass a new consumer protection law. Yet today, children still are dying in unsafe products, recalls remain largely ineffective at ridding homes of dangerous products, and the CPSC website that was supposed to help creates a false sense of security, an InvestigateTV analysis of federal records shows.
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For decades, service members and their families were essentially barred from suing the military for medical malpractice.
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New details of a divorce petition obtained by Fox 8 imply New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was involved in an extramarital affair with Officer Jeffrey Vappie.
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Joce Sterman exposes how the system meant to keep doctors in check is letting physicians keep their licenses even when they come to work impaired. Plus, non-profit hospitals claim they charge privately insured patients more to make up for losses on Medicare reimbursements, but a new report says some hospitals are making money off Medicare
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Clothing purchases on the mayor's behalf dating to 2017 are being scrutinized by the FBI, according to Fox 8 sources.
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Sources say the Inspector General is looking into whether the mayor has been utilizing the apartment for personal use, which would be a violation of a city policy
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When a company learns a product it sells could be defective and dangerous, it has 24 hours to let the federal government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission know about it. But it could take months or years for the public to find out about the company’s possible concerns, if they even come to light at all. InvestigateTV has been battling CPSC and companies to disclose information about the products companies have sounded the alarm on – an alarm that remains relatively silent.
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For many college coaches, it pays to get fired. Over a 17-year period beginning in 2005, public universities have shelled out more than $1.1 billion in buying out the contracts of college coaches, according to an InvestigateTV analysis of NCAA financial data collected by Syracuse University. Most of that money was spent on football coaches who play at the highest level of Division I athletics. As football coaches' annual compensation now stretches into seven digits, massive severance payments also grow bigger and bigger.
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After the deaths of 13 children over the last 12 years, this summer, Fisher-Price and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warned parents not to let their children sleep in certain rockers the company has made since the 1990s. Now, InvestigateTV has discovered that during a 2021 Congressional hearing, the company dodged questions about whether it currently had products on the market linked to children’s deaths.
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FOX 8 finds thousands of pieces of vital DNA evidence is sitting in storage at the State Crime Lab, waiting to be tested, preventing families from getting closure.
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Sometimes a surgeon is the salesman. Across the country, there are physician-owned distributorships where doctors own part of a medical device company and then buy (or have their hospital buy) that hardware to use in their own surgeries.
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A new federal law takes effect in July that aims to clean up thoroughbred horseracing, which for years has been plagued by scandals, drugs and equine fatalities. Racing insiders have pushed for decades for such a measure and they welcome the new oversight.
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Diabetes patients say they're being priced out of being able to afford live-saving insulin. Who's to blame is a matter of who you ask.
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The cost of tree removal in Kenner following Hurricane Ida raises questions about who was overseeing the invoices.
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It takes years for the Consumer Product Safety Commission to remove dangerous products from the market because of its cumbersome rule-making process and ineffective recalls that don’t incentivize consumers to return or destroy dangerous items.
The federal agency created to watchdog consumer products - from crock pots to xylophones - is muzzled by its governing law, which gives all the power to manufacturers, including those with dangerous toys, appliances and other items on the market. The Fisher-Price Rock N Play – an inclined sleep product that defied the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for safe infant sleeping – exposed all that is wrong with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
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A new Metropolitan Crime Commission report shows the numbers are much higher than previously thought.
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FOX 8 looks into a spike in the number of people who are released from their bond obligations or let out of jail when the District Attorney's office doesn't bring charges in the allotted time.
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Programs bridging public schools and homeschooling are growing fast, but critics worry about what that means for the future of education.
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Foreign entities have bought 13 million more U.S. farm acres in 10 years, but agriculture policy scholars say the total could be far more.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation into the New Orleans Police Department, sources say.
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The lack of access to dental care plagues many parts of rural America.
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While the Saints’ latest post-hurricane homecoming did not end with a win like they had envisioned, it was a homecoming game after Hurricane Katrina that likely sealed the Saints’ future in New Orleans for many years.
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Gayle Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans, says there is no way the basketball franchise will be sold as long as she is alive.
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It’s a topic that seems to come up at least once a decade -- what is the future of the New Orleans Saints and will they stay in New Orleans?
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15 of over 800 nursing home residents evacuated to a makeshift shelter ahead of Ida have died, according to LDH.
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Lawsuits are mounting against Bob Dean, the owner of seven nursing homes and the warehouse he used to shelter hundreds of residents during Hurricane Ida
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Officials have revoked the licenses of seven nursing homes involved in an evacuation that crammed elderly and vulnerable residents into a warehouse.
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As lawmakers debate including female drivers in more crash test standards, the agency in charge is staying quiet.
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Updated daily, this COVID-19 hotspot map illustrates where the largest number of new cases (relative to population) have been reported in the last seven days.
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The New Orleans Office of Inspector General has recommended charges be filed against two additional city inspectors who likely did not physically inspect the Hard Rock Hotel construction site before its collapse.
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Bridging the Great Health Divide explores issues in rural America through the lens of residents, doctors and other health care providers.
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Gray Television stations will air a documentary about disparities in rural health care and the people working to bridge the great health divide.
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The purpose of the food stamp program is to help low-income families access healthy foods, but in rural America, that can be difficult.
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Bills in both the U.S. House and Senate look to update crash test dummies and testing procedures to make sure drivers are equally protected.
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Before last year food insecurity impacted about 10% of all U.S. residents. Experts estimate that number has at least doubled since the pandemic.
Antes del año pasado, la inseguridad alimentaria afectó a aproximadamente el 10,5% de los residentes de EE. UU. Una vez que la pandemia cerró en gran medida la economía, los expertos estiman que el porcentaje de personas que sufren de inseguridad alimentaria al menos se duplicó.
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The federal government gives out subsidies to help farms through tough times, but much of the information about these taxpayer-funded payments is kept secret.
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Experts say one of the most advertised safety standards largely doesn't account for more than half of all licensed drivers.
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In nearly every Appalachian and Delta community, residents die on average before their 78th birthday, which is the average life expectancy in the United States. Health care providers are working on innovative ways to combat the unique disparities in the regions.
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A New Orleans City Councilmember says a major company is using a loophole to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes owed to the city and now she wants a state board to put a stop to it.
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A group of workers for a national airport services contractor say their employer forced them to work their full schedule but claim unemployment for a portion of their paycheck.
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One couple tested in late June at a Northshore test site are still waiting on their results 16 days after being tested.
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Initial reports had the death toll at the Lambeth House at 13 people, as of late March. FOX 8 reached out to the families of those who died and reviewed coroner’s documents to show that 23 residents of the Lambeth House died from COVID-19.
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Testing has been at the forefront of concerns of getting a handle on the coronavirus outbreak that has sickened thousands in Louisiana and killed more than 1,500 people. But one doctor’s drive-thru testing method and use of a controversial drug has one medical expert saying it is not good medicine.
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A federal district court judge has denied a group of attorneys’ efforts for an injunction to stop the St. Tammany Parish Jail’s crowded jail cells. The attorneys filed the request for a temporary injunction citing concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak in Louisiana.
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State leaders are very concerned with hospital capacity in the New Orleans area during the novel coronavirus outbreak that is being seen across the state.
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