Marian Wang
Marian Wang was a reporter for ProPublica, covering education and college debt.
Marian Wang was a reporter for ProPublica, covering education and college debt. She joined ProPublica in 2010, first blogging about a variety of accountability issues. Her later stories focused on how rising college costs and the complexity of the student loan system affect students and their families. Prior to coming to ProPublica, she worked at Mother Jones magazine in San Francisco and freelanced for a number of Chicago-based publications, including The Chicago Reporter, an investigative magazine focused on issues of race and poverty.
A Crib Sheet on Wall Street's Self-Dealing Money Machine
Here's a primer on our story on how banks ginned up the CDO business, taking riskier assets and, to hide how risky they were, putting them into new, riskier assets, and then buying those themselves.
by Marian Wang,
Take It With a Grain of (Sea) Salt: Gulf Microbe Study Was Funded by BP
Scientists at Berkeley this week announced that microbes had eaten oil so quickly the Gulf's oil plumes are now undetectable. They disclosed that BP funded their research. The media didn't.
by Marian Wang,
SEC's New Ruling Cheers Investors, Irks Business Groups
Despite not making it into the financial reform bill, a contentious rule giving shareholders more clout over company leadership has been approved by regulators. It makes it easier for large shareholders to nominate board members.
by Marian Wang,
Faced With Backlog, Feds Dismiss Deportation Cases Against Non-Criminal Immigrants
Homeland Security is reviewing and moving to dismiss deportation cases against suspected illegal immigrants without serious criminal records. While deportations overall are much higher under Obama, so are backlogs of immigration cases.
by Marian Wang,
California City's Officials Earned Thousands for One-Minute Meetings (or None at All)
The Los Angeles suburb of Bell has been roiled by the disclosure of extravagant pay for some of its top officials. Members of the city council have agreed to a 90 percent pay cut, and prosecutors are investigating.
by Marian Wang,
Congress Slow to Act on Food Safety, Despite Outbreaks and Frequent Warnings
Calls to overhaul a broken food safety system haven't yet resulted in broad reform. Will half a billion recalled eggs do the trick?
by Marian Wang,
Local Officials: Lack of Oxygen Likely Killing Thousands of Fish in the Gulf
A fish kill at the mouth of the Mississippi River raises questions about whether oil played a role. Areas of depleted oxygen occur in the Gulf of Mexico annually, but some scientists have predicted a bigger "dead zone" this year.
by Marian Wang,
Company Owned By Cancer Research Donor Lobbied Against Designation of Formaldehyde as Carcinogen
A New Yorker profile of David Koch, a promiment donor to cancer research, raises questions about conflicts between his business and philanthropic interests.
by Marian Wang,
For Mosques, 'Anywhere But There' Echoes Far Beyond Ground Zero
Opponents of the Islamic center planned near ground zero argue that it would be appropriate elsewhere. But proposed mosques have run into stiff opposition across the country, not just Lower Manhattan.
by Marian Wang,
Federal Agency, Under Questioning, Clarifies Its Rosy Gulf Report
Just how much of the oil spilled in the Gulf is still there? Depends on what the meaning of "is" is. NOAA is hedging some of its estimates, and not in a good way.
by Marian Wang,