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As the Michigan Department of Corrections searches for ways to manage its nearly $2-billion budget, it is releasing ex-cons into the community who arecommitting a growing number of violent crimes, a Free Press investigation found.

A Mafia icon from Philadelphia has settled in Boca Raton, fresh out of prison. Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown examines what he might be up to now.

The latest installment of the paper’s coverage of school’s reveals that more cheating scandals are most likely inevitable, because states cannot ensure the integrity of their tests.

Chemical still damaging lives of those exposed, their families

“Was Dallas County’s health commissioner slow to react to a key piece of advice from federal health officials as West Nile virus spread this summer? The NBC 5 Investigates team has learned that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested the county “strongly consider” aerial spraying for mosquitoes nearly a month before Dallas County launched the planes. In…

Six special-education directors — and three superintendents — have served since that 2007 report, discombobulating a growing department that now serves more than 7,000 students, one-seventh of the district’s overall enrollment. The upheaval has spawned a culture of low expectations in which district officials seem to put avoiding lawsuits above engaging families, training staffers or educating…

“California’s annual medical marijuana harvest is just about done, but this year brings a new revelation sweeping the nascent industry: The feel-good herb may not, in fact, be so good for the environment. From golden Sierra foothills to forested coastal mountains, an explosion of pseudo-legal medical marijuana farms has dramatically changed the state’s landscape over the…

The paper found the state regularly pays employees not to work, even as it faces gaping budget gaps and service cutbacks. Between 2007 and September of this year, the 2,033 employees put on paid leave have cost the state $23 million, according to a Tribune analysis of state data.

Buying sprees by billion-dollar hedge funds and real-estate investment firms have investors owning nearly 20 percent, or one out of every five, of the region’s single-family houses and condominiums, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of recent sales data. That’s double the number of rentals considered normal in metro Phoenix in 2000, according to housing-market analysts.

For decades, they have added an extra layer of eyes and ears on the streets, supplementing the sworn police force at no cost to taxpayers and protecting some of Baltimore’s most venerable institutions. But some of the officers have also faced lawsuits and resident complaints, leading city police to re-evaluate whether to continue the program. City…