Can teachers in your state pin your child down at school? Probably
Federal law restricts the forcible restraint or isolation of people in hospitals, nursing homes and psychiatric centers. But the practice is perfectly legal in public schools, where children were pinned down, locked up or otherwise forcibly restrained more than 267,000 times in the 2012 school year alone. — ProPublica (by @hvogell)
A missile defense system that's performing ‘less well than people had hoped’
The United States has spent $40 billion on a Ground-based Midcourse Defense System that is supposed to protect Americans from “limited nuclear attack.” But an Los Angeles Times investigation found the system to be an unreliable “prototype system” that has failed eight out of 16 performance tests since 1999. — Los Angeles Times (submitted by @laura_nelson)
'If the client speaks English, the going rate is higher'
Fusion TV's multi-part investigation traces a prostitution ring from Tenancingo, Mexico, where women are "kidnapped, trapped and seduced," to Queens, New York where a pimp "can make half a million dollars a year with three women working for him, each seeing an average of 20 clients a day, each for 15 minutes." — Fusion (submitted by @alicitabrennan)
The real reason so many people die in small plane crashes
Noncommercial crashes have claimed almost nine times more lives than commercial airline crashes over the last 50 years. But a USA Today investigation finds that while 86 percent of noncommercial crashes are attributed to pilot errors, design flaws and defective parts are often actually to blame. — USA Today (submitted by @johnhillkirk)
Blame it on the drop-down menu
The for-profit Corinthian Colleges Inc. has come under fire for its aggressive lobbying tactics, particularly a letter-writing campaign and website aimed at lobbying the Department of Education against new financial aid regulations. At least nine letters purporting to be from business executives were actually sent by Corinthian employees. A spokesman called the letters “merely an accident” due to employees choosing the wrong item in a drop-down menu. — Orange County Register (submitted by @margotroosevelt)
Police infighting is costing you millions, New Jersey
Taxpayers paid more than $49 million in legal fees for lawsuits or settlements against New Jersey police between 2009 and 2012, but as WNYC reports, 60 percent of that money went toward cases brought against law enforcement by fellow police officers. "There is no financial pressure on those departments to take proactive measure to reduce the numbers of settlements and judgments,” said one scholar, because most departments don’t pay settlement costs from their own budgets. — WNYC (submitted by @sherships)
Miscalculated prison terms set dozens of Nebraska inmates free early
The Omaha-World Herald flagged the miscalculated sentences to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, which confirmed the early release of dozens. "All told, state officials had carved at least 750 years off the collective sentences of more than 200 of the state’s worst criminals," the newspaper reported. — World-Herald (submitted by @john_diedrich)
