By William Gjebre
BrowardBulldog.org
Hallandale Beach taxpayers quietly coughed up nearly $500,000 in 2009 to settle a complaint by a ranking city official that his bosses had failed to include him in a generous management retirement plan for top city leaders.

By Paul Kiel
ProPublica
The Obama administration launched its main program to prevent foreclosures in the spring of 2009 with $50 billion and abundant promises. What the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, lacked — and wouldn’t have for years — was effective oversight of the big banks that were crucial to the program’s success.

By Eric Barton
BrowardBulldog.org
Next month, a federal prosecutor and a defense attorney will stand before a judge in Miami and do something extraordinary. Both sides will present evidence and call witnesses to try to convince the judge to set a man free.

By Dan Christensen and Karla Bowsher
BrowardBulldog.org
Hollywood Police Chief Chadwick Wagner will retire in January after five years as the city’s top cop.Wagner, 52, is leaving amid reports of significant friction with his new bosses at City Hall – City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark and her top assistant Frank Fernandez, the new director of public safety.

By Michael Beckel, the Center for Public Integrity   and Russ Choma, the Center for Responsive Politics Super PACs and nonprofits unleashed by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision have spent more than $840 million on the 2012 election, with the overwhelming majority favoring Republicans, particularly GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

By Dan Christensen
BrowardBulldog.org
A state appeals court chief judge and three Broward Circuit Court judges lent their names to Bob Butterworth’s private push for a $44.8 million-a-year state mental health management contract, state records show.

By William Gjebre
BrowardBulldog.org
Two Hallandale Beach commissioners who backed generous retirement benefits for top city officials said they were never told that the program granted retroactive credit for years worked prior to the plan’s start in 2001.

By Dan Christensen
BrowardBulldog.org
Another political insider – this time a major contributor to Gov. Rick Scott – has cropped up in a $44.8 million-a-year government-business deal to manage mental health services in Broward County.

By Lois Beckett
ProPublica
If you’re a registered voter and surf the web, one of the sites you visit has almost certainly placed a tiny piece of data on your computer flagging your political preferences.