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Investigation reveals role of amateurs in China’s military buildup
The latest entry in Reuters’ “Breakout” series focused on China’s military buildup reveals that the US government has more than 350 active military-technology smuggling cases linked to China, up by more than 50 percent since 2010. The report details how China is recruiting amateurs to buy weapons and significantly complicates U.S. efforts to stop the…
Read MoreRecords: DHHS downplayed food stamp issues
A WRAL News review of thousands of pages of emails and other public records shows that for more than a month starting July 15, counties across the state of North Carolina struggled with a buggy, sluggish system that frequently froze up and prevented workers from keying in cases. By the time the NC FAST team…
Read MoreForgotten Soldiers
The U.S. government lobotomized roughly 2,000 mentally ill veterans—and likely hundreds more—during and after World War II, according to a cache of forgotten memos, letters and government reports unearthed by The Wall Street Journal. Besieged by psychologically damaged troops returning from the battlefields of North Africa, Europe and the Pacific, the Veterans Administration performed the…
Read MoreTechnical problems, discord plagued health care site
Although state officials have provided the public scant detail about the troubled launch of Maryland’s version of Obamacare, emails and documents show that the project was beset behind the scenes for months by an array of technical issues, warring contractors and other problems. Since Maryland’s online health exchange opened Oct. 1 for people to buy insurance…
Read MoreAn effective eye drug is available for $50. But many doctors choose a $2,000 alternative.
Doctors choose the more expensive drug more than half a million times every year, a choice that costs the Medicare program, the largest single customer, an extra $1 billion or more annually, the Washington Post reports. Spending that much may make little sense for a country burdened by ever-rising health bills, but as is often…
Read MoreInvisible Child
Dasani, a young homeless girl in New York City, belongs to a vast and invisible tribe of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York, the highest number since the Great Depression, the New York Times reports. In the short span of Dasani’s life, her city has been reborn. The skyline soars with luxury towers,…
Read MoreIn Harm’s Way
“An Arizona Republic analysis found that despite warnings from fire and forestry experts, and nature itself, the state’s wildlands are dangerously overgrown. Arizonans, meanwhile, have since 1990 built more than 230,000 homes and other structures in wildfire-prone areas, creating risks for themselves and the firefighters called upon to protect them.”
Read MoreBaltimore using taxpayer dollars to send youths to a Christian school.
“The Balitmore Sun reports that over the past year and a half, the Baltimore City Department of Social Services paid $40,000 of taxpayer money to send youths in foster care to a private Christian school in Philadelphia where they have obtained a high school diploma in one day.”
Read MoreHow a recalled medical device killed a vet
“Despite the “urgent medical correction letter” posted at FDA.gov a trainer for B. Braun, the German manufacturer that produced the recalled morphine drip machine, came to the Seattle VA to teach nurses how to use the machine. According to the nurses, the trainer told them that a correction was coming soon for the device’s breakable…
Read MoreMass killing data records not being kept up to date
“USA TODAY examined FBI data — which defines a mass killing as four or more victims — as well as local police records and media reports to understand mass killings in America. They happen far more often than the government reports, and the circumstances of those killings — the people who commit them, the weapons…
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