Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama got a discount on the $1.32 million loan for his Chicago mansion, obtaining an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. Washington Post investigative reporter Joe Stephens found that, compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama’s rate could have saved him more than $300 per month.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Heather Vogell and computer-assisted reporting specialist John Perry found that Georgia schools routinely promote students who state law says should stay back because they’re falling behind. The law, aimed at stopping so-called “social promotion,” requires schools to retain students in grades 3, 5 and 8 who can’t pass certain standardized tests.But the vast majority are moved up anyway, the AJC found , even when they repeatedly fail or blow off a retest altogether. Vogell and Perry examined nearly 800,000 records showing student test performance and promotion status.

New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh reports that Congress agreed late last year to President Bush’s request to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. Quoting current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources, Hersh said the funding is designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. He also quotes fired Admiral William Fallon, former head of U.S. Central Command, as saying, “Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians. Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”

The U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo., has asked the Justice Department to appoint a special attorney to review convictions in the firefighters explosion case. The move was prompted by an investigation published in The Kansas City Star on Sunday in which witnesses said a federal investigator pressured them to lie and a new witness said a security guard implicated herself in the explosions that killed six Kansas City firefighters in 1988.

Fifteen witnesses in a trial that led to the conviction of five people in the deaths of six Kansas City firefighters told The Kansas City Star that a federal investigator in the firefighters’ explosion case had pressured them to lie. Star projects reporter Mike McGraw conducted hundreds of interviews and reviewed 30,000 pages of court and investigative files and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to assemble the third in a series of reports on the 20-year-old firefighter’s case.

Troy Anderson of the Los Angeles Daily News investigates widespread problems in California’s system of testing pregnant women for drug use. The drug screenings used in California’s hospitals are likely to return false positives. The poor implementation of the testing, originally designed to help crack babies and drug-dependent mothers, has resulted in families being torn apart when hospital workers call DCFS because of false positives.

Adam Liptak of The New York Times reports that the “millionaire’s amendment” was struck down by the Supreme Court in a 5-to-4 decision on Thursday. “The law at issue in Thursday’s decision imposed special rules in races with candidates who finance their own campaigns. Those candidates are required to disclose more information, and their opponents are allowed to raise more money.“

In a joint effort by NPR and the Center for Investigative Reporting, Peter Overby and Will Evans report on the efforts of nonprofits to influence the 2008 elections. “One network of liberal activist groups, Progress Now and its eight affiliates, is trying to shape the debate with a streamlined operation of small staff, low budgets and the Internet.”

Through Freedom of Information legislation, The Vancouver Sun obtained inspection data for more than 3,000 daycares, long-term care facilities and group homes for the disabled.

Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post continues his coverage of the propaganda campaigns at the heart of the war on terrorism. Al-Queda has turned to the internet to spread their message.