Earlier this week, Todd Feathers introduced us to Equitable Sharing, and how police work with the DOJ to get around some state’s restrictions on civil forfeiture funds. But what about states where those restrictions aren’t so strict? Houston PD provided a detailed look at police property seizures in Texas, and it isn’t pretty.

The Department of Justice makes billions of dollars each year through deals with state and local police forces that can act as loopholes in more stringent state laws governing how much money police get to keep when they take a person’s property without pressing charges.

The city of Philadelphia has paid out more than $40 million in damages and settlements as a result of nearly 600 misconduct lawsuits brought against the police department since 2009, according to data provided by the cities under public records requests.

A week ago, we tweeted about a request Todd Feathers filed for civil lawsuits filed against the BPD. Several days later, Todd received a response from the Mayor’s PR office, asking that all press-related records request go through them. Todd set out to find why.

Following a Pulitzer-prize winning investigation in the shipbreaking industry came a series of inquiries and reforms - among the changes, the Department of Defense promised to tighten its bidding process to weed out unsavory companies. But a decade and a half later, at least one company that scraps old Navy ships still falls short of bare-bones safety requirements, and faces light penalties when caught.