Extra Extra
Extra Extra Monday: Student housing deaths, phantom workers, treatment of the terminally ill
Shadow Campus: A house jammed with students, a life of promise lost | The Boston Globe Boston, defined in large measure by the students who flock to it, allows these eager newcomers to be put at risk in overcrowded houses that serve as shoddy substitutes for modern dorms. Such illegal overcrowding is rampant in student…
Read MoreCollege sports revenue goes up despite recession
Despite the economic downturn, which saw a 1.3 percent decrease in the median salary of American households, sports revenue at public colleges and universities increased by 32 percent between 2008 and 2013. Spending on coaches salaries increased by 45 percent. ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” took a look at the numbers and broke them down in a…
Read MoreWhites getting more spots at top Chicago public high schools
More white students are walking the halls at Chicago’s top four public high schools. At Walter Payton College Prep on the Near North Side, more than 41 percent of freshmen admitted the past four years have been white, compared to 29 percent in 2009, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Chicago Public Schools data has found.…
Read MoreVirginia paroling violent, mentally ill patients
But what happened in Apartment 433 was more than just another murder. It was a window into today’s mental health care: a system as dysfunctional as the clients it serves. So gutted it has little power to put away even the most dangerous for any real length of time – and almost nowhere to keep…
Read MoreFulton commissioners use on-duty police for rides to meetings, appearances
On-duty police officers routinely chauffeur Fulton County commissioners around town in apparent violation of the board’s own policy prohibiting the practice. Commissioners have asked officers to drive them to the airport, to concerts and to scores of other public events in recent years, even though county rules forbid using police officers to transport elected officials,…
Read MoreObamacare work in progress for Appalachian residents in Floyd County, KY
Four months after the Affordable Care Act took effect, a team of journalists from USA Today and The Courier-Journal has found that in Floyd County, Obamacare is a neither a train wreck nor a cure-all. It’s a work in progress; widely misrepresented and misunderstood, it’s helped some people and hurt others, while a handful seem…
Read MoreIllinois Department of Transportation increased the number of patronage positions
The Illinois Department of Transportation increased the number of patronage positions — jobs that can be filled based on politics or loyalty — by 57 percent in the last decade, documents released Friday show.
Read MorePhysical therapy has become Medicare gold mine
A few miles from the Coney Island boardwalk in Brooklyn stands an outpost of what, on paper, is a giant of American medicine. Nothing about the place hints at the money that is said to flow there. But in 2012, according to federal data, $4.1 million from Medicare coursed through the office in a modest…
Read MoreMilwaukee County Board pays labor law firm for secretive counsel
Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic gets a number of perks as the chairwoman of the Milwaukee County Board, ranging from better pay than her colleagues to the power to appoint committee leaders. And, it now appears, the Bay View Democrat also gets her own private law firm.
Read MoreFBI examines lobbying by Brownback loyalists
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is exploring whether confidantes of Gov. Sam Brownback operated influence-peddling operations in Kansas pivoting on personal access to the Republican governor and top administration officials. The Topeka Capital-Journal learned the months-long inquiry involves Parallel Strategies, a rapidly expanding Topeka consulting and lobbying firm created in 2013 by a trio of…
Read More