Consumer protection
Denver parking revenue, tickets on the rise, analysis finds
Denver is raking in significantly more money from parking tickets than it did just five years ago — largely because of added meters, overnight downtown parking hours, technology that speeds up ticketing and hiked street-sweeping fines. A Denver Post analysis of parking-citation data found that collections from tickets and penalties reached $30.5 million last year.…
Read MoreAudit shows Miss. rural water association plagued by financial problems
An audit of the North Lee County Water Association in Mississippi turned up widespread financial management problems, including violations of several state and federal laws, the Daily Journal (Tupelo, MS) reports. The audit, which is likely “the most rigorous examination ever” of the nonprofit cooperative’s financial records, comes on the heels of a $1.2 million loan from…
Read MoreGeneral Motors recalls Cobalts after series of fatal crashes
The death of 16-year-old Amber Marie, who died when her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt crashed the air bag failed to deploy, was an early warning in what would become a decade-long failure by G.M. and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to address a problem that engineers and regulators had been alerted to years ago. For…
Read MoreData breaches affect hundreds-of-millions of people
Most people and companies use anti-virus software, but it only guards against threats it recognizes, and the bad guys are constantly tweaking their weapons to circumvent such protections. Adding as little as a few lines of code will evade most anti-virus programs.
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Secret settlements, data breaches and university lobbyists
Mizzou did not pursue alleged assault | ESPNThe University of Missouri did not investigate or tell law enforcement officials about an alleged rape, possibly by one or more members of its football team, despite administrators finding out about the alleged 2010 incident more than a year ago, an “Outside the Lines” investigation has found. The…
Read MoreHow fraud flourishes in Medicare’s drug plan
Medicare’s massive drug program has a process so convoluted and poorly managed that fraud flourishes, giving rise to elaborate schemes that quickly siphon away millions of dollars. Among the findings of an ongoing investigation by ProPublica and NPR: ProPublica identified scores of doctors whose prescribing in Medicare’s drug program bore the hallmarks of fraud…
Read MoreMaker of Mexican dietary supplement used fake addresses and lied about ingredients
A USA Today investigation found that consumers who buy Reumofan, a Mexican dietary supplement considered a “100% natural” treatment for arthritis and joint pain, “are risking dangerous side effects and trusting their lives to a company that uses fake addresses, lies about the ingredients in its products and may not even exist.” USA Today set out…
Read MoreDismissal of caregiver abuse puts California patients at risk
Ryan Gabrielson of The Center for Investigative Reporting reports that “California regulators routinely have conducted cursory and indifferent investigations into suspected violence and misconduct committed by hundreds of nursing assistants and in-home health aides – putting the elderly, sick and disabled at risk over the past decade.” In two stories published yesterday, Gabrielson’s examines how…
Read MoreTexas doctor’s patients end up maimed, dead as medical board fails to stop him
Dr. Christopher Duntsch began his medical practice in 2010, The Texas Observer reports, and by the time the state revoked his license in 2013, a series of botched surgeries had left two of his patients dead and four paralyzed. The real tragedy of the story, according to the Texas Observer, is how preventable it was:…
Read MoreVictims’ Dilemma: 911 Calls Can Bring Eviction
“Aiming to save neighborhoods from blight and to ease burdens on the police, municipalities have adopted ordinances requiring landlords to weed out disruptive tenants,” The New York Times reports.
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