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After spending millions on a publicly funded power plant, company has little to show
In a two-part series, the Duluth News Tribune found that despite receiving $42 million in state and federal funding over 10 years, a proposed “clean coal” plant has yet to move a shovelful of dirt. And despite receiving all of its backing from the public trough, the company’s spending records, including its officers’ paychecks, were…
Read MoreFlorida housing market still struggles with foreclosures
As the real estate market began to crumble around 2007, the Florida housing market took a big hit. In 2009, nearly 6 percent of the state’s “entire housing stock” was in foreclosure. While the market has improved slightly in the past two years, there are still “almost 40,000 properties in foreclosure. “Almost 30,000 more are in…
Read MoreDeath penalty in Military polluted with racial disparities
Melissa Taylor, McClatchy, reports on the findings of a disturbing academic research study. “A group of law and statistics professors found that minorities in the military were twice as likely to be sentenced to death as their white counterparts, a statistic higher than is known to exist in most civilian court systems.” However, the authors of…
Read MoreU.S. Navy struggling to maintain ships
Michael Fabey, from Aviation Week, reports on the deteriorating health of some our Navy’s ships, mostly due to budget cut backs tied with our involvement overseas. “As conflicts were heating up in the latter years of the previous decade, the Navy shifted its funding focus from ship repair to buying items like helicopter components or…
Read MoreTowing Services Division continues to rack up high overtime payouts
Since 2007, the city of St. Louis has worked to cut overtime costs. Many departments have been successful, though one stands out as continuing to rack up high overtime payouts: the Towing Services Division. Reporter David Hunn of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, writes that the foremen “in the towing division serve as examples of how the…
Read MoreWilkes-Barre mayor used used summer jobs program to hire family, friends
Citizens Voice reporter, Andrew Staub, uses DocumentCloud to publish documents showing Mayor Tom Leighton has been hiring his kids and relatives for summer jobs. Over the past 8 years, Leighton hired his children for over a dozen different positions. However, it’s not just his children he’s hiring, but also affluent children from his neighborhood. “The hires have clouded…
Read MoreCharity’s director has felony past, including theft
Shaun Hittle, of the Lawrence Journal-World, investigates one charity in Lawrence, KS, and the man behind it. Andrew Gruber, The Purple Heart Veterans Foundation’s director who payed his brother’s fundraising business nearly a half million dollars in 2010 is now being investigated on past criminal charges. Among many other charges, Andrew spent time in a Kansas prison for…
Read MoreCMS reports over 600 pages of neglect at Dallas County public hospital
Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, which offers care to much of the poor community in the Dallas County area, have been targeted by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. They found countless incidents of deficiencies in the hospital, including “patients lost in hallways, buckled over in pain. Children discharged without medical screening or stabilizing…
Read MoreFungal infections post Joplin tornadoes spur disagreement between state and local health officials
In the aftermath of the devastating Joplin tornadoes, cases of a rare fungus that cause potentially deadly infections in humans began showing up in Southwestern Missouri.Local health officials in Green County contacted state health officials with the evidence and suggested sounding a statewide alert. However, Missouri officials declined citing the concern of causing public panic.…
Read MoreBailed-out banks that agreed to help struggling homeowners are caught praticing the opposite
Rob O’Dell, of the Arizona Daily Star, reports on the shameful acts of three of the largest banks in Arizona. “Banks that took bailout money were supposed to use part of the taxpayer-provided cash infusion to help customers avoid foreclosure, but instead, many of them are buying up struggling homeowners’ tax debt. The tax liens…
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