Aggregator

The pharmacy chain said the location’s closure is the result of “unsustainable business performance.”

The Mega Millions jackpot has reached an astounding $977 million for Friday night’s drawing after no tickets matched all six numbers drawn on Tuesday night.

by T. Christian Miller

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The United Nations has delivered more than $2.9 billion in cash to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control, resulting in the flow of U.S. funds to the extremist group, according to a recent government report.

The U.N. deposits the cash into a private Afghan bank and disburses funds to the agency’s aid organizations and nonprofit humanitarian groups. But the money does not stop there, the report found. Some winds up at the central bank of Afghanistan, which is under the control of the Taliban. The group took over the country after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in August 2021.

The report, from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, provides the first detailed account of how U.S. cash falls under the control of the Taliban and adds to a growing body of evidence that contributions to the U.N. are not always reaching Afghans in need. It did not specify how much U.S. funding has been channeled to the central bank.

“Most of the money that’s going in cash through the U.N. is ultimately coming from U.S. taxpayers,” John Sopko, the inspector general, said in an interview. “It’s going to a terrorist group. The Taliban are a bunch of terrorists.”

U.N. officials do not deny that the cash delivered to Afghanistan makes its way to the central bank. But they say there is no avoiding it since the Taliban control the country.

A tweet from the Afghan central bank claims to show photos of humanitarian funds being unloaded at Kabul airport. (Via X)

In a briefing to the U.N. Security Council on March 6, Roza Otunbayeva, the U.N.’s special representative for Afghanistan, did not mention the Afghan central bank. The cash shipments, she said, have helped stabilize the economy and deliver desperately needed medical care and food to Afghans. The shipments have “injected liquidity to the local economy that has in large part allowed the private sector to continue to function and averted a fiscal crisis,” Otunbayeva told council members.

In a letter provided in response to the inspector general’s report, the State Department said the U.N. was responsible for managing the cash transfer program.

“We remain committed to providing critical, life-saving humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people. We will continue to monitor assistance programs and seek to mitigate the risk that U.S. assistance could indirectly benefit the Taliban or could be diverted to unintended recipients,” the letter said.

Lawmakers say the U.S. must do more to prevent the flow of money to the group.

“This is unacceptable,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, in a statement. “The U.S. government must work harder to prevent the Taliban from benefiting from humanitarian aid.”

A spokesperson for the Afghan central bank did not return requests for comment.

Since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan has suffered numerous humanitarian crises, with half its 40 million people in need of food, water and other basic necessities. Earthquakes last year killed more than 1,200 people and left thousands displaced. Women’s rights have been severely curtailed.

The U.S. remains the largest donor of aid to Afghanistan, providing a total of about $2.6 billion since the collapse of the previous Afghan government. But fears over money ending up in the wrong hands have complicated aid delivery. For instance, U.S. officials have blocked the central bank from receiving money from a trust fund holding Afghan funds that could be used to benefit the country.

“We could not be more clear on this: The United States does not provide funding to the Taliban,” said Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, at a briefing last year.

The inspector general report calls that assertion into question. The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have continued to provide money to the U.N. to assist ongoing humanitarian efforts. The U.N., in turn, has said it must send cash to Afghanistan because of the lack of an infrastructure to wire money.

After getting the money from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.N. flies shrink-wrapped $100 bills to the Kabul International Airport. The money arrives on a regular basis, as much as $40 million at a time, according to posts from the Afghan central bank on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Once aid organizations receive the U.S. dollars, they must convert the money into afghanis, the country’s currency, to pay for workers and other expenses. They often use private money exchanges, which use the dollars to purchase afghanis from the central bank, known as the Da Afghanistan Bank.

Senior leaders of the Taliban control the central bank, which has no systems in place to prevent terrorism financing or money laundering, according to the inspector general’s report, which cites an analysis paid for by USAID. Officials at the development agency declined to release the study, describing it as a “confidential internal document.”

When money leaves the central bank, there’s yet another concern. Humanitarian organizations are sometimes forced to pay cash directly to the Taliban. Local Taliban leaders have demanded that the U.N. and aid groups hire its members and their relatives or prioritize treatment of widows and wounded militants, according to the inspector general.

“Aid diversion does happen, and when it does, humanitarian work has to halt and solutions need to be found,” said one U.N. official who was not authorized to make public comment. “There are cases where the Taliban seek to take control of distribution according to their priorities, or other cases where aid work is stopped altogether. In other areas we see very positive support and openness.”

The risk of the diversion of foreign aid in wartorn countries has long bedeviled the U.S. and other countries. The only way to stop it would be to halt the flow of money — which humanitarian groups have said could lead to disastrous consequences such as starvation or the collapse of local economies.

In many ways, the U.S. is responsible for the problems it now faces. The distribution of funds to help the vulnerable was a repeated issue during two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. American officials flew more than $12 billion in cash — that’s 363 tons — to Iraq in the early days of the war, according to congressional investigators, making it nearly impossible to determine the final beneficiaries.

But the U.S. and its international allies failed to ever fully implement systems to improve transparency, such as wire transfers or electronic payments, in Afghanistan, despite repeated pleas for such technology by watchdog organizations.

Sopko, the inspector general, said the U.S., the U.N. and multilateral agencies could install better controls over the delivery of cash in Afghanistan, but he acknowledged the inherent difficulty of the task.

“If nobody’s paying attention, then you’re going to have waste, fraud and abuse, big time,” he said.

Mohammad Jawad Alizada, the managing editor for Alive in Afghanistan, a former ProPublica partner, assisted with translation.

The Beach Boys’ Mike Love is ready to introduce a new line of premium rum through his company Club Kokomo Spirits, which until now has been known for its canned…

Source

How the media misses the story of companies seeking profit by keeping traumatized veterans armed and enraged

by Jake Pearson

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Three decades ago, New York’s guardianship system was in desperate need of an overhaul.

Investigators had found that the legal arrangements, which were supposed to protect people who could not care for themselves, had actually deprived individuals of their rights and were poorly monitored, enabling guardians to abuse, neglect and defraud those under their care. In response, state lawmakers passed progressive legislation to codify wards’ civil liberties and safeguard their welfare.

But just five years into the new statute, known as Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law, the judges overseeing the system noticed it was insufficient to protect the “unbefriended,” those who have nobody else to help them and little or no money to their name. For them, the state relied on a patchwork system of loosely regulated nonprofits and private attorneys who take the cases pro bono. The setup, judges found, was straining to meet the crushing demand for services.

Charles Devlin, at the time a judge overseeing guardianship cases in Westchester County, traveled to the state capital to lobby for the members of this largely invisible constituency, who are often tucked away in nursing homes and other facilities, far from public view. Specifically, he advocated for the creation of a role of public guardian, a state-funded entity to care for New York’s most vulnerable.

The meetings didn’t go well. “New York state was not interested,” Devlin recalled in an interview. “They said, ‘Nope, sorry, goodbye.’”

In the years since, others have made similar trips, sounding alarms about New York’s overtaxed guardianship system, which now covers 28,600 people statewide — 60% of whom live in New York City. But state lawmakers have done little in response.

Today the system is in shambles, a ProPublica investigation published earlier this month found. There are not enough guardians to serve the needs of the “unbefriended,” nor are there enough overseers to check guardians’ work. And the quality of the care provided by the groups that do cater to this vulnerable population can be shockingly poor.

For example, the organization featured in the ProPublica report, New York Guardianship Services, placed one of its wards in a dilapidated, rat-infested Queens home for years, often without heat, taking $450 a month from her meager income as compensation while ignoring her complaints, according to interviews and internal records. She was one of about 400 wards who relied on the company to manage their financial and personal affairs. A company executive said he couldn’t answer questions about any specific ward, adding in a statement that NYGS is “accountable to the Court and our annual accounts and reports are scrutinized by Court appointed examiners and any issues would be addressed.” He also said our story was inaccurate but provided no details.

Experts say there are fixes policymakers can and should make to close the gap between Article 81’s promise and its practice. Here are six.

Public Financing for Guardians

As Arthur Diamond, then the supervising guardianship judge in Nassau County, bluntly put it to lawmakers in 2018: “It’s very, very sad that the state of New York has not been able to find a way to take care of this population.”

Following the roundtable where Diamond spoke, the state Legislature awarded Nassau and Suffolk counties $250,000 each to run pilot programs to find guardians for those without the means to pay for them. But the funding wasn’t renewed, and the state has not established a dedicated financing stream to cover the costs of guardianships for thousands of poor New Yorkers. Meanwhile, two of the organizations in the small nonprofit network that serves as the backbone of the system abruptly shuttered due to financial hardship.

Guardianship Access New York, a coalition of nonprofits that’s seeking to improve guardianships, has proposed that the Legislature secure $15 million annually “in sustained funding that would comprehensively support guardianship services statewide.” Advocates say those guardians don’t have to be lawyers, as traditionally has been the case, and should include social workers and other specialists familiar with the needs of the elderly and infirm.

Others have argued for the creation and funding of a separate public entity tasked with serving wards who have little or no money and nobody else to look after them. Some states, including Illinois and Delaware, have such an office, though experts warn they’re no panacea and without proper support and oversight can fail wards as easily as any other guardian can.

Bolstering the Regulatory Ranks

Prior to a small bump in 2019, examiner pay hadn’t been increased in 14 years, resulting in thin ranks of reviewers to ensure proper oversight of guardians. Lawyers make just a few hundred dollars per case annually — a feeble payday that they say isn’t worth the effort.

A recent judicial guardianship task force report has recommended a pay raise for examiners so that the courts can recruit an adequate bench. Today New York City has only 157 examiners to monitor the care and finances of more than 17,000 wards.

Experts say the system needs more court clerks too. These workers play a key role in the oversight process, reviewing examiners’ reports before passing them up to judges, who ultimately sign off on the paperwork. But Diamond and others have said that deep budget cuts to the courts from more than a decade ago drastically reduced the ranks of these employees. More than 400 people — including clerks — were laid off following state budget cuts in 2011. This funding, they said, should be restored.

Finally, Diamond said, judges could be more proactive about monitoring case activity, scheduling regular compliance conferences so that guardians and examiners are forced to explain to the court what accounts for delays in completing their reports.

Strengthening the Examination Process

Though Article 81 requires guardians to file wards’ annual financial accounts by May of the following year, there is no such deadline for examiners. In practice, that means that accounts of wards can — and do — go years without any kind of examination. In the case we featured in our investigation, we found the ward’s file was missing reviews for four whole years, during which time she faced horrendous living conditions and the threat of eviction. The examiner did not respond to questions about the missing reports for that period.

Our review also found that examiners tend to focus almost exclusively on financial paperwork when determining the care and condition of wards. They rarely, if ever, see wards in person.

Experts say that requiring face-to-face check-ins can prevent guardians from hiding horrific situations and that judicial leaders tasked with appointing and overseeing examiners should require such visits. That’s what happens in Davidson County, Tennessee, which includes Nashville: Social services workers there visit wards, review their medical records and interview guardians and their doctors.

Mandating More Training for Guardians

Only ten states nationwide require professional guardians to be certified by the Center for Guardianship Certification, the only national group of its kind. A handful of other states require guardians to be licensed by state agencies, in the same way as plumbers, barbers and other skilled professions.

New York requires neither. Under Article 81, prospective guardians need only take a daylong course to get certified.

Advocates say the state should mandate more stringent training. Guardians should also be required to take regular refresher courses, just as lawyers are, experts say.

Vetting Nonprofit Providers

Once certified, private guardians are required to attest that they haven’t been found to have violated any criminal, civil or professional rules. Nonprofits, however, undergo no such vetting. In fact, they are not even required to provide proof of their charitable status.

That’s a critical gap in oversight given the outsized role nonprofit organizations currently play in caring for the unbefriended.

In our investigation, we found that NYGS repeatedly represented itself as a nonprofit in its court filings and promotional material as it took on more and more cases. Yet authorities told us that the organization is not registered as a charity with the state attorney general’s office nor does it have tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service.

Sam Blau, NYGS’ chief financial officer, declined to answer questions about the company’s tax status, but said in a statement that “a large percentage of our cases are done completely Pro Bono,” which “is certainly in line with our mission to help people of minimal financial means.”

Policing the nonprofit sector is critical, experts say, especially since charitable organizations are exempt from court rules that cap the number of cases and the amount of compensation guardians can receive annually.

Issuing Guidance for Proper Staffing

One of the key indicators of a failing guardianship system involves caseloads that are higher than a 20:1 ratio of wards to staffers, according to a recent report by the country’s premier guardianship researchers. Some states, like Colorado and Virginia, recommend such a cap. But New York offers no guidance.

At New York Guardianship Services, the group ProPublica featured in its report this month, the ward-to-staff ratio has topped 83:1. One worker who was responsible for dozens of wards every day said she quit after six months because she couldn’t keep up with the unrelenting needs of the company’s clients. NYGS did not respond to questions about its caseloads.

Caseload caps, experts say, would improve services and help states more easily identify potential guardianship abuse.

Fire and collapse of the Goodwill Industries building killed Joseph W. Morgan.

Trackers placed in 93 bundles of Amazon packaging marked for "store drop-off" recycling showed many of them were buried or burned.

A Michigan high school shows how style and sustainability can mix at prom.

Keith Hattemar of Union, MO joined the Real Rock Army today

Source

Return to a time when steamboats ruled the river. The one-hour narrated riverfront cruise aboard the Riverboats at the Gateway Arch explores the history of downtown St. Louis, including the […]

The post St. Louis Riverfront Cruise appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

In Mexico City, I discovered the charm of painted wood floors, plastered walls, and that nature makes everything that much more beautiful.

The National Association of Immigration Judges, whose union was decertified under Trump, is now being silenced by ‘overzealous’ officials in Biden’s Justice Department.

Ill. - As votes are getting close to concluding for the Illinois primary election Tuesday, incumbent Mike Bost is deemed the winner of the Republican seat in the race for Illinois U.S. House District 12. "We have been very hardworking in the eastern and northern part of the district...but what we need to know is [...]

The National Association of Realtors agreed to settle a series of lawsuits by paying $418 million in damages and by eliminating its rules on commissions Friday.

People across the St. Louis metro area are still sharing photos and videos of damage from last week’s storm that battered cars, homes, and businesses. It was a storm that was especially significant in terms of hail damage.

Officers who handle drug dogs like to claim they’re so highly skilled at animal handling they can recognize otherwise imperceptible moves by their animals as the dog “alerting,” giving them (and, more literally) their animals free rein to perform warrantless searches of vehicles. But when these arguments fail, and it’s apparent a K-9 cop just […]

Legislation to fund a program that would allow St. Louis County senior citizens a tax break on their homes was defeated in a meeting Tuesday night.