Michelle Breidenbach of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) mined state financial documents to show the abuse of New York State’s Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund. It’s not “dedicated” at all. Years of raiding and borrowing have left just 22 percent of the fund to fix the state roads.
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Few touch sanctions imposed in New England campus sexual assault cases
February 26th, 2010 
Mark Horvit Officials at the University of Massachusetts Amherst acknowledge that they allowed a student who confessed to raping a friend on campus last fall, a felony, to remain enrolled and avoid significant discipline, according to a report by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University. Newly obtained Justice Department data show that reports [...]
Education Deparment’s enforcement of campus sexual assault cases is lacking
February 26th, 2010 Mark Horvit The Education Department is charged with enforcing laws on how schools deal with sexual assault, but its Office of Civil Rights rarely investigates student allegations of botched proceedings. When cases do go forward, the civil rights office rarely rules against the schools, and virtually never issues any sanctions against institutions, according to an investigation [...]
Misuse of funds compromised tribal welfare program
January 21st, 2010 Beth An investigation by The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.) uncovered problems with the taxpayer-funded Torres-Martinez tribal welfare program.”Beneath the surface of rampant poverty and joblessness on one of California’s poorest American Indian reservations is nearly a decade of mismanagement and misuse of millions in taxpayer dollars meant for those needing the money most, federal and [...]
Head of D.C. Metro system resigned
January 19th, 2010 Beth On January 14, the general manager of Washington D.C.’s Metro system announced he is resigning, bringing to five the number of top executives who are leaving or have been reassigned in response to a Washington Post series on safety lapses in the nation’s second-busiest subway system.
Regulation lax on Illinois legislative scholarships
December 9th, 2009 Beth A three-day series by students from Columbia College Chicago, in collaboration with Illinois Statehouse News, examines Illinois’ century-old legislative scholarship program. The program doled out $12.5 million during the 2007-2008 academic year. The investigation found there is “virtually no regulation of the scholarship program.” The only requirement is that applicants must [...]
Probation system profits on the poor at unfair price
November 17th, 2009 Beth A report by Sandy Hodson of The Augusta Chronicle shows that private probation companies profit while unfairly punishing those who cannot pay their court debts.
Housing association under scrutiny after newpaper exposes problems
September 28th, 2009 Beth Lewis Kamb of The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash) writes that Washington state commerce officials have launched an investigation of the Martin Luther King Housing Development Association.
Subcontractor unpaid after Army contract job
September 22nd, 2009 Beth Reporter Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported than MLDC Inc., an Idaho company, landed a multiyear, six-figure contract for work at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin last summer, but failed to pay the Oconomowoc company it hired to do the job. The Army’s lead contact on the contract was a felon on probation. [...]
Water tainted with mercury ignored by government
September 21st, 2009 Beth Abandoned mercury mines in California are contaminating many of the state’s waterways, reports Jason Dearen. An investigation by the Associated Press found that “the federal government has tried to clean up fewer than a dozen of the hundreds of mines – and most cleanups have failed to stem the contamination.”
