Facilities in Louisiana are responsible for leaking an estimated 330,000 barrels of oil each year. That's about 20 percent of the total amount spilled in the nation. So who’s responsible for spotting the pollution? The Lens, a nonprofit news organization covering New Orleans, investigated. Often, they found, the task falls to volunteers. 

“No state or federal agency has cops regularly walking this beat. Instead, state and federal governments, which collect billions in royalties from the permit holders each year, rely on companies to turn themselves in for violating environmental law or the terms of their permits.”

The International Consortium of International Journalists found that “Close relatives of China’s top leaders have held secretive offshore companies in tax havens that helped shroud the Communist elite’s wealth, a leaked cache of documents reveals.”

ICIJ has been working since 2012 to analyze about 2.5 million leaked offshore records. The latest installment digs into documents from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Here’s more from the ICIJ story:

“The data illustrates the outsized dependency of the world’s second largest economy on tiny islands thousands of miles away.  As the country has moved from an insular communist ...

Many Washington insiders "hold investments that overlap with their responsibilities, according to a Wall Street Journal review of public records. It showed that about one in five lobbyists whose holdings could be identified had invested in their clients or companies in the industries they are concerned with."

"The Journal review found no suggestion of insider trading—investing on significant nonpublic information entrusted in confidence—by the lobbyists, who operate in a political milieu where information that might be held tight in a corporate environment can be served up freely by members of Congress."

San Diego Has Fallen Behind on Combating Police Racial Profiling | Voice of San Diego
The San Diego Police Department has often failed to follow its own rules regarding the collection of racial data at traffic stops, saying the community isn't concerned about racial profiling. A local black officers group, the NAACP and a city councilman disagree.

Hospice firms draining billions from Medicare | The Washington Post
But over the past decade, the number of “hospice survivors” in the United States has risen dramatically, in part because hospice companies earn more by recruiting patients who aren’t actually dying, a Washington ...

According to The Washington Post, "in the past four years, the amount of money administered by South Dakota trust companies has tripled to $121 billion, almost all of it from out of state."

"States such as South Dakota are “creating laws that are conducive to a massive exploitation of a federal tax loophole,” said Edward McCaffery, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “We have a tax haven in our midst.”

Tobacco companies are pushing back against a worldwide rise in antismoking laws, using a little-noticed legal strategy to delay or block regulation. The industry is warning countries that their tobacco laws violate an expanding web of trade and investment treaties, raising the prospect of costly, prolonged legal battles, health advocates and officials said.

Donor-advised funds: Where charity goes to wait | The Boston Globe
$45 billion of American philanthropic money has been given—but not received.

Utah town gave NSA a deal on water | The Salt Lake Tribune
Bluffdale agreed to sell water to the National Security Agency at a rate below its own guidelines and the Utah average in order to secure the contract and spur economic development in the town, according to records and interviews.

KCMO Homeland Security official under fire for awarding quarter-million dollar contract to neighbor | KSHB-Kansas City
A high-ranking federal law enforcement official with the Department of Homeland Security ...

Prosecutorial misconduct alleged in half of capital cases |  The Arizona Republic
In half of all capital cases in Arizona since 2002, prosecutorial misconduct was alleged by appellate attorneys. Those allegations ranged in seriousness from being over emotional to encouraging perjury. Nearly half those allegations were validated by the Arizona Supreme Court.

Hollywood Sting | Al Jazeera America
FBI investigation of a California political dynasty uncovers alleged bribery and corruption in the shadows of Tinseltown

Special report: Addicted nurses keep licenses | The Star Tribune
Some nurses continue to steal narcotics or practice while impaired under state monitoring that’s supposed to stop ...

Secret memos reveal explicit nature of U.S., Pakistan agreement on drones | The Washington Post
"Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA’s drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post."

St. Louis wrongful arrests mount as fingerprint mismatches are ignored | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The Post-Dispatch has identified 100 people arrested in error over the past seven years. Collectively, they spent more than 2,000 days in jail — an average of ...

Bloomberg News has found that "four times in the past five years, the Pentagon’s inspector general has found that Boeing Co. (BA) collected excessive or unjustified payments on U.S. defense contracts."

"In the latest of four audits since 2008, the watchdog office said the Chicago-based company charged the U.S. Army for new helicopter parts while installing used ones, according to a report, labeled “For Official Use Only” and obtained by Bloomberg News."