HomeVestors of America has developed a system for snapping up problem properties, but while part of the company mission is a promise not to take advantage of anyone who doesn’t understand the true value of their home, franchisees use deception to pursue rock-bottom prices. Read more»

Billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow paid the tuition at a private boarding school for the teenage grandnephew of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - payments Thomas did not report on his annual financial disclosures. Read more»

For more than two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted lavish vacations, virtually every year - including on a private jet and a superyacht - without disclosing them, a failure that appears to violate a disclosure law passed after Watergate. Read more»

Leonard Leo, the longtime Federalist Society leader who helped create a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, has moved on to the Teneo Network, a little-known group he called “networks of conservatives that can roll back” liberal influence. Read more»

For decades, lawyers at the Thomas More Society have backed provocateurs and long shot causes in hopes of winning severe restrictions on abortion in the U.S. - now, the organization has embraced relentlessly questioning the integrity of elections. Read more»

A federal consumer watchdog group has fined TitleMax $15 million for predatory lending practices and intentionally evading laws meant to protect military families from predatory lenders and, separately, charged illegal insurance fees to more than 17,000 customers. Read more»

Almost half of products cleared so far under the new federal biofuels program are not in fact biofuels — and the EPA acknowledges that the plastic-based ones may present an “unreasonable risk” to human health or the environment. Read more»

More than a year has passed since Congress adopted reforms that promised to overhaul the U.S. military justice system - however, the reforms, which will not go into effect until the end of this year, may have created additional challenges. Read more»

After both Intuit and H&R Block left the Free File program, the future of the program is unclear, and it’s still difficult to find truly free tax filing options. The IRS created a tool to help you find this year’s Free File options as it looks into creating a public filing system. Read more»

True the Vote, a group that spread discredited election conspiracy theories, “abandoned” The Freedom Hospital in April 2022, according to its lawyers - yet board member Gregg Phillips continued to seek donations for the project for months afterward. Read more»

Some sites selling abortion pills use technology that shares information with third parties like Google - and law enforcement can potentially use this data to prosecute people who end their pregnancies with medication. Read more»

Many institutions continue to hold Indigenous remains, funerary objects and cultural items — and in some cases resist their return despite the 1990 passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Read more»

The recently signed $1.7 trillion spending bill could accomplish what six years of IRS audits and DOJ prosecutions could not: shutting down “syndicated conservation easements” that exploit a charitable tax break meant to preserve open land. Read more»

Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs is taking the state’s child protective services agency in a radically different direction in the wake of an investigation into the racial disparities that have plagued the child welfare system here. Read more»

Medicare’s COVID-19 testing costs reached over $2 billion in 2022 - and the growing costs concern some experts, who say financial incentives and a lack of regulation early in the pandemic led to fraud and overspending. Read more»