Rigged: How Trucking Companies Forced Drivers Into Debt
USA Today
Samuel Talavera Jr. worked exhausting hours as a port trucker in Los Angeles, but brought home as little as 67 cents a week. He is one of thousands of short-haul drivers working in quasi-indentured servitude for southern California trucking companies, a yearlong investigation has found. The culprit: an exploitive lease-to-own model forced on drivers by the firms after calls to replace diesel-spewing rigs with cleaner ones. Nuclear Negligence at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Center for Public Integrity
A narrowly averted nuclear chain reaction at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico prompted an exodus of safety engineers frustrated by lax controls, and exposed what critics call a climate of impunity for mistakes in the Energy Department. At stake is the nation's refurbishment of its nuclear arsenal -- and its ability to head off disaster. The Scarface of Sex
Daily Beast
Michael Thevis made his fortune selling porn to millions in the 1970s. Then a campaign of bombings and killings and a prison break brought down his peep-show empire. His newly disclosed personal diaries and letters tell the inside story of America's most dangerous startup and the lawless birth of the modern sex industry. It's also a parable of greed. Netherlands: New Solutions to Deal With Rising Seas
New York Times
Rotterdam's flashiest line of defense against flood waters is a massive sea gate, the Maeslantkering, with its two Eiffel Tower-sized arms that can block the flow of the North Sea to the city. But throughout Rotterdam and the rest of the low-lying nation, changes in urban development reflect the Netherlands' larger approach to dealing with climate change: learning to live with the water. Utah: Prosecutors Rarely Punished for Misconduct
Salt Lake Tribune
What happens when prosecutors wield their power unethically or illegally? Not much in Utah, a Salt Lake Tribune analysis found. Wayward government enforcers there are rarely disciplined, even when complaints of misconduct are aired in open court or during the appeals process. It's not a small issue: An estimated 43 percent of wrongful convictions nationwide are laid to prosecutorial misconduct. Revenge of the Super Lice
Scientific American
The newest superbug isn't a virus, but the bane of childhood summer camps: head lice. Overuse of DDT and other chemicals last century means that today's lice are increasingly resistant to over-the-counter anti-lice shampoos. Unless American doctors start rotating treatments, or the Food and Drug Administration accepts synthetic oil treatments popular in Europe, pretty soon the only thing that will work is picking lice off scalps, one by one. This Week's Investigative Classic: Merchants of Misery, 1970
Chicago Tribune
A middle-aged man gasps from an apparent heart attack. Ambulance drivers demand $40 to take him to the hospital. They are told he has only $2. They take the $2 -- but leave the man. That's just one of the scenes reporter William Jones witnessed during the two months he worked undercover as a Chicago ambulance attendant. His series of articles led to several reforms and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1971. | 
