Steve McGonigle of the Dallas Morning News found stock-market investments aren’t the only reason many pensions funds remain underfunded. Some, including the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, are investing in “alternatives that offer higher returns but present larger risks,” he writes. He leads his story with a $100 million investment the teacher’s pension fund made [...]
Here’s something you insomniacs can do at night: Check PACER for court cases. That’s what led student journalist Karla Bowsher to check the backgrounds of Florida Atlantic University’s trustees who were considering budget cuts and tuition hikes. Karla begins her University Press story, Who’s in charge here? Court documents show that half the members of [...]
Facebook’s initial public offering made lots of news last week. But one story that stood out to me was a Planet Money segment by Zoe Chace and Steve Henn of NPR. They focus on Facebook’s advertising and how it converts Facebook fans to buyers. But they do it with a twist.
Charles Piller and Robert Lewis are among this year’s finalists for the Gerald Loeb awards for their Sacramento Bee stories exploring hard money lending. The first of their two stories starts with a district attorney who borrowed from a hard money broker, which the story defines as the equivalent of a “legal loan shark who [...]
David Olinger of the Denver Post questions investment bankers’ involvement in school bond campaigns, noting that their help to pass tax increases may be a violation of Colorado law.
Spencer Soper of the Allentown Morning Call exposed the working conditions at an Amazon.com warehouse last year, noting the intense heat and ambulances parked outside to treat employees who were unable to endure the heat. He writes: “An emergency room doctor in June called federal regulators to report an ‘unsafe environment’ after he treated several [...]
Jill Riepenhoff and Mike Wagner of the Columbus Dispatch analyzed about 30,000 consumer complaints from people who’ve been unable to correct errors on their credit reports for a four-part series called Credit Scars. The complaints, filed with the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in 24 states, accuse credit-reporting agencies Equifax, Experian and TransUnion of [...]
Alejandro Lazo of the Los Angeles Times reports that mortgage foreclosures have led to a boom for apartment rentals across the country. He writes: “The foreclosure mess has pushed millions of former homeowners with tarnished credit into a competitive apartment market across the U.S. Add fresh demand from young workers, few new units and tight [...]
A recent piece by Shan Li for the Los Angeles Times details the premiums fertility clinics pay for egg donations. She writes: “It’s technically called an egg ‘donation.’ But if you’re a young Asian woman, donating your eggs to an infertile couple can fetch enough cash to buy a used car or perhaps a semester [...]
