Medicare Drug Program Fails to Monitor Prescribers, Putting Seniors and Disabled at Risk | ProPublica and The Washington Post
"Prescription data obtained by ProPublica shows widespread use of antipsychotics, narcotics and other drugs dangerous for older adults, but Medicare officials say it's not their job to look for unsafe prescribing or weed out doctors with troubled backgrounds." Also published this weekend is a database of Medicare's prescription drug program.

Beyond Payday Loans | Marketplace and ProPublica
"A near billion dollar company, World Finance is the largest of an often-overlooked breed of high-cost lender: installment lenders. Ranging from a few hundred ...

"Lax federal oversight dating back years allowed lenders to repeatedly make bad loans to small businesses under a government program that has cost taxpayers $1.3 billion since 2000 on defaulted loans, a Dayton Daily News investigation found." Read the Daily News's investigation here.

Time
Bitter Pill: Why medical bills are killing us
“Breaking these trillions down into real bills going to real patients cuts through the ideological debate over health care policy. By dissecting the bills that people like Sean Recchi face, we can see exactly how and why we are overspending, where the money is going and how to get it back. We just have to follow the money.”

New York Times Magazine
The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
“Inside the hyperengineered, savagely marketed, addiction-creating battle for American ‘stomach share.’”

Columbia Journalism Review
Immigration reform and private prison cash
“Key lawmakers ...

“Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent.”

Yahoo! Inc. has taken advantage of Dutch laws to quietly funnel millions of dollars to island subsidiaries, Bloomberg News reports, which has cut its worldwide tax bill. The computer maker Dell has used the law to avoid roughly $4 billion in income taxes since 2004. Bloomberg reports that the arrangements demonstrate how the Netherlands have become one of the most important tax havens for multinational companies, and that Dutch parliament is debating the fairness of the country's tax system.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune
Murderous 'monster' acquires an arsenal
A Minnesota man who killed his mother with a firearm in 1995 and was later committed to a state mental hospital was still able to obtain a permit to purchase firearms last May, the Star Tribune’s Paul McEnroe and Glenn Howatt reported.  Dozens of other Minnesotans judged by a court to be mentally ill have also found that designation no barrier to obtaining deadly weapons. A review of state court records found case after case in which individuals deemed mentally ill in judicial proceedings later wound up in possession of ...

“Sauk Village represents yet another cautionary tale of how Illinois' loose borrowing rules can sting taxpayers and leave a town mired in debt — even in places where residents might have expected traditional safeguards to protect them.”

"The biggest lenders are doing better than ever while those with the least, many of them black borrowers, are struggling the most. One dividing line for this widening gap is the dotted one where millions of home buyers signed their names to loans they couldn’t repay. With the dream of home ownership snatched away, they and their communities may never be the same."

The Indianapolis Star
Star Watch Investigation: Vectren's costly coal deal is a profit for company, pain for ratepayers
“At a time when coal prices were at record highs, Vectren locked into expensive, multiyear agreements to buy almost all of its coal supply from its own wholly-owned mining subsidiary, Vectren Fuels. And ratepayers paid the price. Experts say Vectren disregarded the common industry practice of staggering its coal purchases through shorter-term contracts to hedge against unusually high prices.”

The Salt Lake Tribune
Utah Highway Patrol discipline problems go beyond Lisa Steed
“While the case of Cpl. Lisa Steed, the one-time ...

"Lenders have taken over hundreds of thousands of north Georgia homes because the owners couldn't pay, but a Channel 2 Action News investigation exposed some of those same banks have skipped out on millions of tax dollars owed to local counties."