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Since deploying in June 2011 – days after a city auditor’s report recommended that he be fired – Public Works Director Jason Cosby has become vested in the city’s pension plan and still collects more than $35,000 a year in benefits, although his salary is on hold. Cosby’s mandatory service ended in 2012, but he took assignments around the world that kept him on active duty, according to military records and interviews with commanders.
According to the Associated Press, "A newly-released email shows that 11 days after the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military's top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder's corpse or turn them over to the CIA."
When the AP initially asked for emails to and from Adm. William McRaven, the document ordering the removal or destruction of the bin Laden photos was not included. The conservative legal group Judicial Watch recently received the email under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Read the full story here.
The Associated Press originally sought the records for U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan after attacks against Japanese women raised political tensions there. They might now give weight to members of Congress who want to strip senior officers of their authority to decide whether serious crimes, including sexual assault cases, go to trial.
The AP analysis found the handling of allegations verged on the chaotic, with seemingly strong cases often reduced to lesser charges. In two rape cases, commanders overruled recommendations to court-martial and dropped the charges instead.
Wis. freeing more sex offenders from mental lockup | WisconsinWatch.org
Wisconsin officials have nearly quadrupled the number of offenders released from state custody after they were committed as sexually violent persons. The risks to residents are reasonable, officials say, because the state’s treatment programs are working and new data suggest these offenders are less likely to reoffend than previously thought.
The story is the first part of “Rethinking Sex Offenders,” a three-day series by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and Wisconsin Public Radio.
Mass. children under state protection die from abuse with alarming frequency | The New England Center for Investigative Reporting
Kadyn Hancock’s aunt said she repeatedly tried to warn state officials that the 13-month-old’s mother might hurt him. But no one heeded her pleas and Kadyn’s mother killed her baby in 2010. Last summer, child advocates questioned why social workers didn’t remove three-month-old Chase Gideika from his troubled home before he was brutally killed, allegedly by his mother’s boyfriend.
W. Va. environmental officials never saw Freedom's pollution control plans | The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection officials never reviewed two key pollution-prevention plans for the Freedom Industries tank farm before the Jan. 9 chemical leak that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 residents, according to interviews and documents obtained under the state's public-records law.
Law on police accountability in custody deaths goes unused | The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Of the 18 deaths in law enforcement custody from 2008 through 2012 in Milwaukee County, 12 were classified as suicide or natural. Officials at every level have used those rulings to absolve themselves of responsibility for prisoners' deaths, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. In many cases, officials did not evaluate all of the circumstances surrounding the fatalities.
Fla. teens in trouble have decision to make: agree to time in a juvenile facility or roll the dice as an adult | The Florida-Times Union
The 4th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, dramatically leads the state in the number of juveniles incarcerated through a method called direct commitment. That’s usually a plea deal reached between a juvenile’s lawyer and the prosecutor. When juveniles agree to plea deals, they are often incarcerated without the chance to hear the evidence against them, examine police work or interview witnesses.
Law Doesn’t End Revolving Door on Capitol Hill | The New York Times
The experiences of the three Capitol Hill aides-turned-lobbyists — traced through interviews with political operatives and a review of public records — illustrate in new detail the gaping holes in rules governing Washington’s revolving door.
Federal ethics rules are intended to limit lobbying by former senior officials within one year after they leave the government. Yet even after the ethics rules were revised in 2007 following a lobbying scandal, more than 1,650 congressional aides have registered to lobby within a year of leaving Capitol Hill, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from LegiStorm, an online database that tracks congressional staff members and lobbying. At least half of those departing aides, the analysis shows, faced no restrictions at all.
Two Navy divers, out of reach | The Virginian-Pilot
A Navy jury last month found that a master diver failed to make sure proper safety procedures were followed during a training exercise that left two men dead. The Pilot pieced together an account of the dive using court testimony, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with unit members, witnesses and lawyers.
A Navy jury last month found that a master diver failed to make sure proper safety procedures were followed during a training exercise that left two men dead. The Pilot pieced together an account of the dive using court testimony, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with unit members, witnesses and lawyers.
The latest entry in Reuters' "Breakout" series focused on China's military buildup reveals that the US government has more than 350 active military-technology smuggling cases linked to China, up by more than 50 percent since 2010. The report details how China is recruiting amateurs to buy weapons and significantly complicates U.S. efforts to stop the flow of American armaments to China. The report includes an unprecedented interview with one convicted arms trafficker and details of the secret FBI recordings in his case.
"The program to build a total of 52 ships in two versions made by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd. has faced an expanding list of questions about their manning, mission, firepower, defenses and survivability."
"Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA’s drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The Washington Post."
“Thousands of returning veterans and civilians are now attributing myriad symptoms — respiratory problems, neurological disorders, cancers and ALS — to exposure to the burn pits, which were located at dozens of bases throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.”
After U.S. Navy SEAL snipers conducted a dramatic rescue in 2009 that freed a cargo ship captain being held by pirates, $30,000 disappeared from a lifeboat, triggering an investigation that questioned the integrity of the commandos.
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