IHSA tournament profits tumble as employee salaries rise

"Even as pack-the-house players like Derrick Rose, Jabari Parker and Marcus Jordan led their teams to state titles in recent years, the Illinois High School Association has seen revenues and profits from its marquee state boys basketball tournament plummet," the Chicago-Sun Times reported.

"Between 2006 and last year, profits from the tournament fell by 29 percent, government records filed by the IHSA show. Revenues — mostly from ticket sales — decreased by 17 percent between 2009 and last year."

Read the full story here.

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 graphic, ranking schools by total revenue, expenses and amount of surplus.

The investigation focused on data from public schools obtained through open records requests. It is unclear whether there is a practice among athletic departments of padding expenses to obscure their bottom line. But at least some departments do give back to their schools, contributing a portion of their surplus back to the university's general fund.

The 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 alleged victim, a member of the swim team, committed suicide in 2011.

Mizzou did not pursue alleged assault | ESPN
The 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 alleged victim, a member of the swim team, committed suicide in 2011.

Mass. spent millions on secret settlements | The Boston Globe
For years, the state has used confidential settlement and severance deals to make embarrassing problems go away, often requiring workers to promise to keep the payments secret and avoid saying anything critical about the agencies. When the Globe first asked for copies of all the pacts worth at least $10,000 statewide, it took a four-year legal fight to obtain the names of workers who received the money.

Free game tickets, hot concert seats: The politics of higher education in Missouri | The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Missouri’s public universities have spent almost a million dollars since 2011 on contracts with professional lobbyists to represent their interests in Jefferson City — while plying state legislators with tens of thousands of dollars more in free meals, sports outings, concert tickets and other perks.

Consumers With Canceled Insurance Plans Shifted to New Ones Without Their Permission | ProPublica
The California Department of Insurance said it is exploring whether any laws were broken when insurance companies withdrew money from consumers’ accounts for plans they didn’t select.

Data breach likely will happen to you | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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.

Patients' deadly surgery wait as toll soars | The Herald Sun, Melbourne, Australia
More than 840 people - 16 a week - died waiting for surgery in Victoria in the past year. The revelation comes as the length of time patients spend on elective surgery waiting lists continues to grow

Charity Checker | The Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting
The Tampa Bay Times, in partnership with The Center for Investigative Reporting, has built an online tool to make charity research a little easier. Our “Charity Checker” website, for the first time, aggregates the ratings and reviews already offered by several of the nation’s most prominent watchdog organizations. With a simple search, you can see their results, all in one place, then click through to dig deeper into a charity through GuideStar, Charity Navigator, GreatNonprofits and the Better Business Bureau. The idea for Charity Checker grew out of our reporting on America’s Worst Charities, a yearlong investigation into charities that have chronically steered most of their donations to for-profit telemarketers. The full series can be found here: www.cironline.org/americasworstcharities or tampabay.com/charity.

The latest installment in USA TODAY’s ongoing “Supplement Shell Game” investigation published today finds that the key author of a safety study of the controversial sports supplement Craze is a doctor who has been disciplined in two states for issues relating to fraudulent billing practices and other misrepresentations. Now the editor of the peer reviewed journal that published the study says he has “serious concerns” about the research after being contacted by scientists and USA TODAY.

"The 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 alleged victim, a member of the swim team, committed suicide in 2011," ESPN reports. Read the full story here.

Mixed martial arts, or simply MMA, is cage fighting that mixes punching, kicking and grappling. Likened to human cockfighting and blood sport by detractors, its intoxicating mix of athleticism, intensity and violence delivers something people have been lining up to see since Rome built the Colosseum.

Still in its infancy, MMA already has entrenched itself in popular culture. It is a success on pay-per-view and cable, and it has started to gain a foothold on network TV.

But hidden from the excitement of fight night is a jarring world few outsiders see. The training, preparation and sparring required before even stepping into the chain-link-enclosed cage is unlike anything in sports, including boxing, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports.

“As a grand exhibit opens to honor the “World’s Biggest Autographed Baseball Collection,” a WTSP investigation reveals not only do many of the autographs appear to be forged – but the museum exhibiting the collection ignored numerous warnings about the balls’ authenticity.”

“Questions center on an expedited jail process and an invitation to the sheriff’s shooting range while the 49ers' star linebacker was under investigation for owning illegal assault weapons”

Dozens of Nepalese migrant laborers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labor abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar's preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.