Posts by hdcoadmin
A gilded goodbye for many private college leaders
Many other college presidents across the country are negotiating huge exit packages when they step down, which critics say is emblematic of schools’ unrestrained spending on everything from administrative salaries to elaborate new buildings that drive up the cost of higher education. Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts, received $1.7 million in 2011 for “end…
Read MoreUS warship faces expanding list of problems
Tony Capaccio for Bloomberg reports that the “U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship lacks the robust communications systems needed to transmit critical data to support facilities ashore, according to an unreleased congressional audit, the latest in a succession of troubles for the $34 billion shipbuilding program.” “The program to build a total of 52 ships in…
Read MoreIn NC medical examiner system, heavy autopsy caseloads raise risk of mistakes
Accurate autopsies help ensure that murderers don’t go free, that suspects aren’t wrongfully prosecuted and that spouses receive the life insurance payments they deserve. But in North Carolina, heavy caseloads are raising the risk of errors, a Charlotte Observer analysis has found. Pathologists in North Carolina’s thinly staffed medical examiner system do as many as…
Read MoreUnaccountable: The high cost of the Pentagon’s bad bookkeeping
For two decades, the U.S. military has been unable to submit to an audit, flouting federal law and concealing waste and fraud totaling billions of dollars, a Reuters investigation found. At the DFAS offices that handle accounting for the Army, Navy, Air Force and other defense agencies, fudging the accounts with false entries is standard operating procedure,…
Read MoreAlways Right
Since at least 2006, Nassau County Police Department’s deadly force investigators have never ruled an officer’s actions unjustified, Newsday reports. A Nassau County police officer shot an unarmed man in the back. Another intentionally ran down an unarmed man with his squad car, costing him a leg. Still another shot an unarmed cabdriver after a…
Read MoreAddiction Treatment With a Dark Side
In demand in clinics and on the street, ‘Bupe’ can be a savior or a menace.
Read MoreHealth-care Web site’s lead contractor employs executives from troubled IT company
The lead contractor on the dysfunctional Web site for the Affordable Care Act is filled with executives from a company that mishandled at least 20 other government IT projects, including a flawed effort to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers, documents and interviews show.
Read MoreUtility district manager’s retirement party cost customers thousands of dollars
Water customers at two Greene County utility districts helped throw a more than $6,400 retirement bash for the woman who helped lead the districts for many years, WJHL reports. Who authorized the expenses? According to the itemized receipts, Collins’ daughter, acting manager Kandie Jennings approved the expenses. Jennings is among the family members on unpaid…
Read MoreBroken Bonds
When municipal officials want to build for the future, they have a powerful financial tool at their disposal: general obligation bonds that yield millions of borrowed dollars. The money is meant to let cities move forward on costly projects that will serve the community for decades. But in an unprecedented analysis of Chicago’s finances, a…
Read MoreA look at the extent of Chinese censorship
Every day, more than 100 million items are posted to Sina Weibo, the microblogging service sometimes called “China’s Twitter”. And every day, teams of censors comb through the posts in search of anything that changes what the government likes to call a “harmonious society.” For the past five months, ProPublica has been quietly watching the…
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