Here’s our weekly look at stories and developments that attracted our attention this week:
Daniel Gilbert of the Bristol Herald Courier produced a lengthy series about a myriad of problems with Virginia’s system for handling royalties from natural gas drilling operations in the state’s southwestern counties. The series, Underfoot, Out of Reach, was among the winners announced this week of the annual Investigative Reporter and Editors journalism contest. Among the other winners and finalists was the Gazette’s Eric Eyre, a finalist for his series of articles about fraud in the Workforce West Virginia agency.
In the wake of two recent fatal shootings by police officers, Portland’s City Council voted unanimously to adopt changes to the city’s independent police oversight division, the Oregonian reported. The reforms included authorizing the city auditor, rather than the chief of police, to nominate citizens to the police review board. The oversight division’s director now has to sign off on all internal affairs investigations, and the division has the authority to initiate investigations of police misconduct of its own accord.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering changing its policy and disclosing details of its investigations into alleged wrongdoing by individuals and firms even when cases settle before trial, according to this story in the Washington Post. Traditionally, when individuals and companies settle SEC lawsuits, few details become public. The prosposed changes might discourage wrongdoers from settling, warn critics, but supporters maintain that more transparency will help restore public confidence in the regulatory agency and its enforcement.
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