Former Arkansas State Senator Johnathan Woods has been sentenced to 220 months in prison for a fraud scheme that involved another Republican legislator and the president of a conservative Christian college. Beginning in January of 2013, Woods and State Rep. Micah Neal gave $600,000 in taxpayer money to two non-profits in the state in exchange for bribes. One of those groups was Ecclesia College in the northwest part of the state. The small Bible school received the bulk of that money… but only because they agreed to give the politicians a healthy kickback.

Rather than actually fixing potentially serious F-35 design flaws, documents show, program officials are simply altering paperwork to make it appear as though the development process has been completed. By Dan Grazier.

A lightning strike to the F-35B Lightning II could fry the onboard systems — or, assuming some of the concerns over non-inert fuel tanks have yet to be addressed, start a fire or cause the aircraft to explode. By Ryan Pickrell.

The kinds of antics Manafort and Cohen have been prosecuted for went unnoticed when Donald Trump was a donor to the Democratic and Republican parties, and if he had stayed in his Tower doling out campaign contributions, they still would be. By Jim Kavanagh.

The buzz is that “we” have to “take back” the House and Senate in the November midterm elections. By Roger Harris.

A pair of high-profile convictions implicate Donald Trump—but also serve as a reminder that only some people pay the consequences for systemic corruption in America. By Adam Serwer.

Ten years after the American economy nearly pitched itself into the abyss, financial elites are again banking on ignorance and incompetence. By Chris Lehmann.

There were at least two things Americans should have banned outright in the 1970s when they had the chance: asbestos and Donald Trump. By Zachary Small.

A new lawsuit challenges the legality of a secret Mar-a-Lago troika after ProPublica revealed its influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs. By Isaac Arnsdorf.

It’s not just about the $32,000 couch. By Mark Joseph Stern.

A new documentary looks at Montana's fight against dark money in politics. By Bob Garfield with director Kimberly Reed.

Fatal accidents, off-the-books workers, a union once run by a mobster. The rogue world of one of New York’s major trash haulers. By Kiera Feldman.

How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies. By Isaac Arnsdorf.

Federal authorities halted work on the massive Mountain Valley Pipeline this month after an appeals court ruled that federal agencies neglected to follow environmental protections. By Kate Mishkin, Beena Raghavendran, Ken Ward Jr.

White collar criminologist Bill Black analyzes the significance of Rep. Chris Collins arrest for insider trading along with his son and son’s fiance’s father on 13 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and making false statements to the FBI. Collins was first Congressman to endorse Trump and is one of his closest confidants.

Do “financial services” include banking? Not according to the Trump administration… By David Sirota.

There may yet be justice for DC hotel owners as suit on emoluments clause moves forward.

If you want to beat Trump, start by fighting the Democrats. By Michael Kinnucan.

Ten years after Wall Street’s doomsday, how the financial meltdown broke the modern world and left us living in this one.

A former minister who served under Zimbabwe's ex president Robert Mugabe was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to four years in jail on Friday, his lawyer said, the first conviction of a Mugabe-era official since he stepped down.