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Blackwater leaves dirty trail
PBS’ Bill Moyers Journal features Jeremy Scahill, author of a book about Blackwater, a private U.S.-based company that is one of the largest private security contractors in Iraq, where its assignments have included protecting individuals and guarding the U.S. embassy. Scahill’s interview comes in the wake of Congressional hearings after the company’s employees were implicated…
Read MoreAmerican Imports, Chinese Deaths
Over a 12-month period, investigative reporter Loretta Tofani traveled to China, examining worker conditions and “observed first-hand how Chinese workers routinely risk their health and sometimes their lives making products for export to the United States and other countries.” Her series, printed in the Salt Lake Tribune, tells of workers using dangerous, outdated machines, sometimes…
Read MoreThe Bundling Boom
The Wall Street Journal‘s Brody Mullins surveys the widespread influence of “bundling,” collecting individual donations and rolling them together into high-dollar, high-impact political fundraising. Although the term gained notoriety after the arrest of Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, bundling is a longstanding and legal campaign tactic. Brody writes that “bundling has become the chief source of…
Read MoreIllinois lags in tracking teachers’ misconduct
Scott Reeder, writing for Quad-CitiesOnline.com, found that Illinois ranked 49th in a nationwide analysis of disciplinary actions against teachers. The state has no system in place to investigate or flag teachers accused of misconduct. To determine how Illinois compares to other states, Small Newspaper Group obtained information on 20,000 cases of teacher licensure discipline from…
Read MoreFEMA aid distribution uneven to victims of NY storms
Patrick Lakamp, Mary Pasciak and Susan Schulman of the Buffalo News report on FEMA’s uneven aid to areas hit by a surprise storm last October. “Almost one-half the nearly 18,000 residents in Western New York who applied for FEMA money got some help. But in Buffalo, one-third of the applicants received aid.” In North Buffalo,…
Read MoreSubprime crunch felt on Jersey Shore
The Asbury Park(N.J.) Press analyzed federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to report that in Monmouth and Ocean counties subprime lending accounted for one out of five mortgages in 2006, a total of $3.1 billion. Reporter Jason Method found “the income of subprime borrowers was 5 percent lower than those taking out traditional mortgages, yet…
Read MoreDiscipline system for teachers, staff flawed in Ohio schools
The Columbus Dispatch delves into Ohio’s flawed system of disciplining and tracking teachers, coaches, aides, counselors and administrators. The Web site for The ABCs of Betrayal includes asearchable database of Ohio educators disciplined since 2000. The 10-month investigation found educators remained in the classroom despite misconduct such as theft, assault and abuse of children.
Read MoreMore questionable deaths uncovered at Wisconsin psychiatric hospital
Using police and coroner records, Mary Zahn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found three more deaths at a state psychiatric hospital involving questionable medical decisions. One woman complained she was paralyzed after a fall, but doctors and nurses at Winnebago Mental Health Institute didn’t believe her. They waited six days to take her to a…
Read MoreSouth Florida feels crunch of exotic loans
Jack Dolan and Matt Haggman of The Miami Herald reported that home buyers in South Florida have been signing so-called toxic mortgages at rates far higher than buyers in other areas of the country. Unlike the well-publicized problems with sub-prime loans, these toxic mortgages are concentrated in some of the nation’s most affluent and desirable…
Read MoreBad loans spread problems across U.S.
Rich Brooks and Constance Mitchell Ford of the Wall Street Journal examine the sad state of the country’s mortgage markets, finding evidence to dispel the conventional wisdom that subprime loans mainly were given out to low-income borrowers who can’t afford the payments. Instead, the newspaper reports that “. Although the concentration of high-rate loans is…
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