By Margaux Stack-Babich and Bill Dedman
Today's reading from the world of investigative reporting.
Story of the day:A Dayton Daily News investigation has found that "complaints of misconduct against nurses are taking more than a year for the Ohio Board of Nursing to investigate — allowing some of the nurses to continue to care for patients while under investigation…and the number of complaints against nurses is climbing, causing the backlog in investigations before the state nursing board's disciplinary system." A review of data found an inefficient system that worsened a problem it had not begun to solve: " The board received 6,880 complaints in fiscal year 2011, which ended June 30, putting it on pace for a double-digit increase in the state's two-year accounting period. In the previous two-year period, there were 11,645 complaints. That number was 34 percent higher than from 2007-2008. These complaints include allegations of substandard practice, drug theft, substance abuse, patient abuse and other criminal conduct."
Notes: Links open in a new window. More reading: previous collections.
Today's links:
- Salon: Columnist Glenn Greenwald describes a briefing by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey to an editorial board meeting at NBC News, with a copy of McCaffrey's PowerPoint presentation describing the likelihood of escalating tensions with Iran. Greenwald raises the question whether Pentagon surrogates are again beating war drums in the American news media, as described in the Pulitzer Prize-winnning series by The New York Times in 2008.
- WCVB TV Boston, A Team 5 Investigation: State workers got $127M in unused sick, vacation time: A Team 5 Investigation found Mass. taxpayers have written checks to employees totaling $127 million in the last three years for unused sick and vacation time. According to most state contracts, workers can bank unlimited sick days and redeem 20 percent of them when they retire. They can also cash out up to two years of unused vacation time, for a maximum of ten weeks.
- The Star Tribune: Vets fight for jobs they left behind: Battles and setbacks follow return to civilian posts, despite federal law.
- ABC News, The Blotter: Air force base quietly pauses F-22 fighter missions after more air problems
- The Jewish Daily Forward: 'Jewish Earmark' program faces big cuts: Homeland Security revamps program after Forward story
- The Global Post: In Peru, one of the world's worst polluters is set to reopen: despite concerns that Renco Group, the US company that runs the plant, has largely failed to install the new technology needed to prevent it from again emitting clouds of deadly smoke — the smelter may be set to reopen.
- Center for Public Integrity: Drug lobby gave $9.4 million to nonprofits that spent big on 2010 election; PhRMA gives largest chunk of $4.5 million to conservative group, American Action Network
- The Associated Press: More Americans are turning to the emergency room for routine dental problems — a choice that often costs 10 times as much as preventive care and offers far fewer treatment options than a dentist's office, according to an analysis of government data and dental research.
- Center for Responsive Politics, Open Secrets blog: Donors to GOP's nondisclosing nonprofits travel in familiar networks
- Center for Investigative Reporting, CaliforniaWatch: Mentally ill immigrants trapped in US detention without attorneys
- TPMMuckraker: Tennessee police training seminar taught by notorious anti-Muslim activist
- Inside Climate News: Secrecy loophole could still weaken Bureau of Land Management's tougher fracking regs: The gas industry wants to protect its trade secrets, but watchdogs want full disclosure of chemicals that can cause blindness, organ failure and cancer.
- ProPublica: How Citibank dumped lousy mortgages on the Government
- FactCheck.Org: FACT CHECK: Obama's trillion-dollar exaggeration
- The Los Angeles Times: Nonprofits fear money in center's care vanished: about 200 small California groups may have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in donated funds
- Guardian: How secret renditions shed light on MI6's license to kill and torture: little-known clause lets secretary of state authorize UK's spies to commit crimes abroad
- CenterforHealthReporting.com: 'Model' dental program proves painful for kids: Almost two decades ago, the state made Sacramento County the testing ground for a new model of delivering dental care to poor children. Officials envisioned a managed care system that would control costs and improve children's ability to see a dentist. Today that model persists – but state data show that the county has consistently produced one of California's worst records for care
- Center for Public Integrity: The military children left behind: while parents make sacrifices, sons and daughters endure overcrowding, disrepair and budgetary neglect at school
- The Associated Press: FACT CHECK: There are budget phantoms in the room – a look at three budget ghosts or 'gimmicks' in Obama's new spending plan
- The Seattle Times: A look at conservatives who are bankrolling Rick Santorum: Rick Santorum's brand of conservative Catholicism is not only helping rally a key part of the Republican base but also has proved an asset in drawing deep-pocketed Christian donors.
- The Dallas Morning News: Parkland Memorial Hospital safety report says life-threatening problems persist; monitors see little progress
- The Global Mail: Room for everyone at the Hague: at the International Criminal Court, cases begin dramatically. But 14 years and billions of dollars on, not a single case has concluded. Indeed there have been more judges than criminals indicted
- Bloomberg: Fed playing favorites with Wall Street in secretive bond deals: the Federal Reserve secretly selected a handful of banks to bid for debt securities acquired by taxpayers in the U.S. bailout of American International Group Inc., and the rest of Wall Street is wondering what happened to the transparency the central bank said it was committed to upholding.
- Society of Professional Journalists, Online Quill: Egyptian press struggles for its own revolution: a year after protests ousted a president, the country's media institutions try to find their place in a tumultuous environment.
- ProPublica: ProPublica's Recovery Tracker keeps an eye on the stimulus package and provides a refreshed breakdown, state by state, of where federal stimulus money has gone
- Mother Jones: Exclusive: Marines Nazi-flag whistleblower comes forward - an Iraq vet, now a Holocaust expert, explains why he exposed Marines' use of an "SS" flag.
- NPR: A two-part series investigates the corruption and brutality rampant in the law-keeping forces of Honduras, and its roots in the shocking, bloody political coup of 2009
Keep up on the latest investigative reporting with the Twitter feed of the same name.
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Margaux Stack-Babich writes about investigative reporting for msnbc.com. Bill Dedman is an investigative reporter for msnbc.com.
