Today's accountability news:

• A lawmaker in Montana directed state stimulus money to a company he was in the process of creating, reports the Associated Press. 
• Labor recruitment companies often take advantage of immigrants who come to the U.S. on temporary work visas, according to Mother Jones magazine, charging them thousands of dollars and treating them like "modern-day indentured servants."
• The highest-ranking American official in the Vatican, Cardinal William Levada, has a mixed record handling sexual abuse cases in the U.S., and often gave accused priests the "benefit of the doubt," reports The New York Times.
• The CIA has been allowed to use drones to attack a broader range of targets, reports the Los Angeles Times. Previously, drones were only able to fire on enemies on an approved list a few dozen times a year, but now they are able to attack several times a week.
• A report published in 2003 warned that blowout preventers, the device that failed in the current Gulf of Mexico oil spill, were not being fixed properly by the industry, according to a story published by McClatchy.

These stories are part of our ongoing roundup of investigations from other news outlets. For more, visit our Investigations Elsewhere page.