Mentally troubled students overwhelm schools

The Star Tribune reports that one boy's struggle with “Mr. Angry” highlights a growing dilemma: Thousands of kids with mental problems rely on schools for care. Gianni is one of thousands of students afflicted with serious mental health problems who are flooding into Minnesota schools because they have nowhere else to go. Their complex needs are bringing huge and at times dangerous challenges to special education classrooms that are already struggling to handle increasing numbers of students with other handicaps, including multiple disabilities.

Unjustified | Newsday
“Report reveals how cop shot unarmed man - and kept his job.”

Secret files reveal how pay-to-play works in N.J. | The Star-Ledger
“A special report by The Star-Ledger exposes how one politically connected engineering firm parlayed campaign donations into millions of dollars in public contracts, all the while keeping the scheme hidden from the public. An analysis of the records, meticulously kept and numbering 137 pages, found Birdsall made more than 1,000 secret campaign contributions worth in excess of $1 million to politicians of all stripes and in all corners of New Jersey. At the same time, the company cashed in on more than $84 million in public contracts.”

Female workers face rape, harassment in US agriculture industry | The Center for Investigative Reporting
“Hundreds of female agricultural workers have complained to the federal government about being raped and assaulted, verbally and physically harassed on the job, while law enforcement has done almost nothing to prosecute potential crimes.”

Under the Curse of Cartels | The Oregonian
“In a nine-month investigation, The Oregonian has learned that Mexican cartels, including the powerful Sinaloa and the brutal Los Zetas, have infiltrated almost every corner of Oregon. At last count, authorities were aware of no fewer than 69 drug trafficking organizations selling drugs in the state, nearly all supplied by cartels.”

Computer Industry, Unions Big Donors to Immigration Bill Supporters | OpenSecrets.org
“The 27 senators who voted against the amendment, which strengthens border security but is also a step towards passing the overall immigration package, on average received very little money from those three types of groups, but did receive heavy support from donors in the agribusiness industry.”

Top Medicare prescribers rake in spending fees from drug makers | ProPublica
“Data obtained and analyzed by ProPublica suggest another factor in the drug Bystolic's rapid success: Many of the drug's top prescribers have financial ties to Forest Laboratories, its maker.”

Sodomy Hazing Leaves 13-Year-Old Victim Outcast in Colorado Town | Bloomberg News
“High-school hazing and bullying used to involve name-calling, towel-snapping and stuffing boys into lockers. Now, boys sexually abusing other boys is part of the ritual. More than 40 high school boys were sodomized with foreign objects by their teammates in over a dozen alleged incidents reported in the past year, compared with about three incidents a decade ago, according to a Bloomberg review of court documents and news accounts.”

In Debate Over Military Sexual Assault, Men Are Overlooked Victims | The New York Times
“In a debate that has focused largely on women, this fact is often overlooked: the majority of service members who are sexually assaulted each year are men.”

A New York Times article states that in a debate that has focused largely on women, this fact is often overlooked: The majority of service members who are sexually assaulted each year are men.

An Oregon program designed to help those with mental health histories restore gun ownership rights currently operates with a $576,000 budget and has restored those rights to just three people, according to an investigation by The Oregonian. The program comes from federal money -- the result of lobbying efforts by the National Rifle Association -- but funds are expected to dry up and the state legislature has a pending bill that would shift the cost to the state's taxpayers.

The Texas Observer reports that the s tate health department left approximately $2.3 million of its family planning funds unspent while clinics across the state closed because of lack of money. As a result, tens of thousands of women lost access to reproductive care. The unspent funds happened at a time when, according to previous Observer reporting, "146 family-planning clinics lost funds, and more than 60 clinics closed as a result following budget cuts instituted by the Texas Legislature in 2011."

Faltering Courts, Mired in Delays | The New York Times
“The Bronx courts are failing. With criminal cases languishing for years, a plague of delays in the Bronx criminal courts is undermining one of the central ideals of the justice system, the promise of a speedy trial.”

The Curse of Fertilizer | National Geographic Magazine
"Runaway nitrogen is suffocating wildlife in lakes and estuaries, contaminating groundwater, and even warming the globe’s climate. As a hungry world looks ahead to billions more mouths needing nitrogen-rich protein, how much clean water and air will survive our demand for fertile fields?"

Nuclear byproduct levels on Treasure Island higher than Navy disclosed | CIR
Land slated for development on Treasure Island contains elevated concentrations of cesium-137, a byproduct of nuclear fission associated with an increased risk of cancer, according to an independent analysis commissioned by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Nevada buses hundreds of mentally ill patients to cities around country | The Sacramento Bee
“Over the past five years, Nevada's primary state psychiatric hospital has put hundreds of mentally ill patients on Greyhound buses and sent them to cities and towns across America.”

A backlash against Minnesota's growing ranks of Level Three sex offenders | The Star Tribune
“Nearly 300 of Minnesota’s most dangerous sex offenders now live outside confinement, and more than half of them are residing in only a few neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul, a Star Tribune analysis of state records shows. That saturation is occurring despite a state law that requires authorities who supervise newly released sex offenders to avoid concentrating them in any community. Sidestepping the law, however, brings no penalties.”

The making of ‘K2’ | Lawrence Journal-World
“A trio of men, indicted last week for their role in selling and manufacturing the synthetic marijuana product, were warned about the murky legal territory of their multimillion-dollar K2 operation, as well as the potential health dangers of the substance. But the millions of dollars the sale of K2 raked in were too just too much to resist, according to federal court documents released last week.”

Granting of some bonds comes through backdoor practice, with no prosecutor input | Austin American-Statesman
In many instances, the decision is in direct contradiction to the recommendations of court workers who assess the defendant’s risk of fleeing or harming the public, an American-Statesman review has found.

Painkillers not always the solution for gymnasts | Salt Lake Tribune
“Young gymnasts battling physical discomfort to perform a sport they love is a common, almost clichéd storyline. However, more doctors and researchers now are not only paying attention to the high number of injuries gymnasts suffer but also to the increasing amounts of anti-inflammatory medication they take as a result.”

"The electronic ankle monitors California used for several years to monitor more than 4,000 high-risk sex offenders and gang members were so inaccurate and unreliable that corrections officials said that the public was 'in imminent danger,'" according to the Los Angeles Times' investigation.

Over the last decade, federal prosecutors pursued only eight domestic gun-trafficking cases in Minnesota, according to court records examined by the Star Tribune. Federal law enforcement officials say their limited presence in the state and significant constraints in federal law present serious obstacles to cracking down on illegal gun trafficking. Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones, whom President Obama has nominated to lead the ATF, said the agency has gone “a long time without the resources it needs to really be healthier.” The ATF’s Minnesota office has among the fewest inspectors in the nation to watch over the state’s 2,600 licensed gun dealers — about one inspector for every 330 dealers —even though its records show that illegal trafficking among licensed dealers is a top source of weapons found in crimes.

The New York Times
Ruled a Threat to Family, but Allowed to Keep Guns
“Advocates for domestic violence victims have long called for stricter laws governing firearms and protective orders. Their argument is rooted in a grim statistic: when women die at the hand of an intimate partner, that hand is more often than not holding a gun.”

Bloomberg
OECD Enables Companies to Avoid $100 Billion in Taxes
“With little outside attention, it also plays a pivotal role enabling global corporations such as Google Inc. (GOOG), Hewlett- Packard Co. and Amazon.com Inc. to dodge taxes by shifting profits into offshore subsidiaries, costing the U.S. and Europe more than $100 billion a year.”

The Bay Citizen
Catch shares leave fishermen reeling
“Sweeping the globe is a system that steadily hands over a $400 billion ocean fishing industry to corporations.”

The Denver Post
Colorado system for investigating ski accidents raises concerns
“Despite having only informal accident-investigation training, as well as potential conflicts of interest, ski patrollers and their reports are often relied on by local law enforcement agencies when they respond to calls on the mountains, The Denver Post found after reviewing Colorado accidents and lawsuits.”

The Austin American Statesman
Texas all over the map when it comes to drones
“Even as both Texas senators in Washington were joining a filibuster that raised questions this month about the Obama administration’s policy on drone strikes on U.S. soil, the prevalence of the small unmanned aircraft in their own state was growing — and similarly fraught with political and privacy implications.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Botched signature on paratransit bid takes taxpayers for $8.6 million ride
“Taxpayers will shell out nearly $8.6 million more than they should on rides for Milwaukee County residents with disabilities over the next three years. The reason: a botched signature on a bid.”

The Salt Lake Tribune
Utah lawyers: Historic ruling’s legacy at risk
“On Monday, Gideon v. Wainwright — often heralded as one of the most important legal rulings in the history of the United States — turns 50. But its anniversary, experts say, is no cause for celebration. Gideon’s legacy has been battered and bruised nationwide, and certainly in Utah.”

The Oregonian
Medical marijuana: Pot-infused products gaining lucrative niche, but Oregon doesn't track businesses
“Pot-infused products are a growing, lucrative market in places where medical marijuana is legal, currently 18 states and Washington, D.C. Yet states often overlook cannabis-infused products in their medical marijuana programs, industry experts say. Oregon does not regulate or even track businesses that make or sell such products.”

The Star Tribune
A gun at 14, then a senseless killing
Two young lives are swept away in Minneapolis by a relentless flow of illegal firearms.

Reuters
A rural housing program city slickers just love
Reuters finds that from Ewa Beach, a comfy resort community just outside Honolulu, to Silicon Valley to Washington, D.C., homebuyers are enjoying a strange perk: no-money-down home loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  A USDA program was set up decades ago to ensure that low-income rural folk could get access to financing for a new home, but as Reuters found, tens of thousands of the loans have gone to homebuyers in areas deemed urban by the Census Bureau, and many more to people in “mixed” areas. Further, many of the loans have gone to borrowers who don’t meet eligibility requirements in terms of income and credit-worthiness. The upshot: This tiny program has ballooned in recent years as a sweet deal for homebuyers, homebuilders and lenders alike – and delinquencies are rising.

According to a report from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a sharp rise in students diagnosed with major disabilities is forcing many Minnesota schools to take difficult and at times divisive new steps to tailor classrooms to the disabled students’ needs, no matter how expensive that gets. Even as overall school enrollment declined over the past decade, the number of disabled students rose 14 percent. Many of the state’s most psychologically troubled students also are being sent to school settings for the first time as mental health programs that once served them have been cut back or eliminated. By law, state and federal budgets are supposed to cover about 90 percent of the cost of educating students with special needs. But they are falling short, shifting much of the cost to local school districts. Spending on special education is soaring — it has risen 70 percent in Minnesota over the past decade to $1.8 billion this school year.