by Sasha Chavkin ProPublica

Just over a week ago, when Kenneth Feinberg took over the process for handling damage claims from the Gulf oil spill, he promised to cut through the delays and confusion that applicants faced under the much-maligned BP system.

NEW ORLEANS, PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the fifth anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita arrives, Gulf Coast residents are still trying to rebuild their lives after years of broken promises and government neglect.

by Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica,

Over the last two years of the housing bubble, Wall Street bankers perpetrated one of the greatest episodes of self-dealing in financial history.

by Joaquin Sapien and Christian Salewski, ProPublica, and Aaron Kessler, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Knauf Gips, a family-owned German company with operations throughout the world, has argued for almost two years that it is not legally responsible for the millions of pounds of defective drywall that one of its subsidiaries in China has admitted exporting to the United States.

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

Last week, we noted that the Islamic community center planned near ground zero is safe on legal grounds. Political outcry, nonetheless, has not subsided. (Note to our readers: The Park51 plan is indeed for a community center, which will house, among many other things, a mosque.)

by Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica, and Aaron Kessler, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Lowe's Companies Inc., the nation2019s No. 2 home improvement chain, has set off a legal firestorm by agreeing to a national settlement over tainted drywall in a class-action suit being decided in a Georgia state court.

by Nicola Moore, Assistant Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports on the fiscal condition of the programs, and the situation for these programs is still dire.

by Paul Kiel ProPublica,

New York regulators have crafted new laws to give the state authority to punish mortgage servicers -- something the Treasury Department, in administering its struggling mortgage modification program, has so far failed to do. The new rules set clear standards for how servicers must handle homeowners seeking a modification.

by Marian Wang ProPublica,

In recent weeks, top officials from the Federal Communications Commission have held closed-door meetings to negotiate with the country's biggest communications companies and online service providers on how the Internet should be regulated.

The U.S. Senate approved legislation yesterday that provides $26.1 billion for education jobs funding and Federal Medicaid assistance to the states.