The Scoop

The Center for Public Integrity, Northwestern University’s Medill News Service and American Public Media analyzed thousands of congressional forms covering privately-financed travel between 2000 and 2005, finding that “members of Congress and their aides took at least 23,000 trips – valued at almost $50 million – financed by private sponsors, many of them corporations, trade [...]

Stella M. Hopkins and Mitch Weiss of the Charlotte Observer sampled payroll records from North Carolina road contractors, finding that “illegal immigrants, using Social Security numbers that are fake, stolen or belong to dead people, have been paid tax dollars to build N.C. roads.” One third of 85 employees checked by the paper had Social [...]

Michael J. Berens, Julia Sommerfeld and Carol M. Ostrom of the Seattle Times have a three-part series on sexual offenses committed by Washington state health care professionals: “State Health Department files, many opened for the first time after legal challenges by The Times, reveal women stalked to their homes, fragile teenagers groomed for sex, destitute [...]

Matt Reed and John McCarthy of Florida Today obtained records showing outside work disclosures by Florida university professors, along with research payments made to state colleges. Among its findings in a three-day series: Moneymaking opportunities have grown rapidly in fields such as education, law, business and agriculture, records show. At UCF, for example, faculty in [...]

Diane Rado and Ana Beatriz Cholo of the Chicago Tribune surveyed Illinois school districts, finding that “nearly 80 percent of districts surveyed are using textbooks in a main academic area that are out-of-date–at least 8 years old. About 22 percent of districts have books at least 15 years old.” State funding for purchasing school books [...]