News & Opinion

A 73-year-old attorney pleaded guilty in Houston federal district court Tuesday to conspiring with his wife to steal $2.3 million from 49 disabled veterans and then hiding the thefts by creating fake reports, imaginary bank accounts and filing a bogus income tax return. Read more »

As Congress remains at a loggerheads over how to reform the nation's signature jobs training program, a new opportunity being offered only to unemployed veterans seems to have confirmed one thing: there is a desperate hunger for job training during one of the worst periods of extended unemployment since the Great Depression Read more »

Department of Veterans Affairs investigators Tuesday interviewed the family of a brain-damaged veteran whose room was monitored by James A. Haley VA Medical Center officials using a camera disguised as a smoke detector. Read more »

Demands for a full accounting of federal conference costs are being rebuffed by agencies that can't or won't produce spending records sought by Congress. Read more »

Johnny and George Saxton are sitting in the hot sun on a parking lot retaining wall outside of the Washington, D.C. Veteran's Medical Center. Their discomfort and difficulties have come after hospital administrators removed several benches in front of the building where these brothers and veterans used to sit. Read more »

The Veterans Affairs Department held 948 conferences attended by 50 or more employees between January 2009 and June 2012, according to a contract notice posted Friday on the Federal Business Opportunities website seeking outside help analyzing the department’s conference planning and spending practices after VA Secretary Eric Shinseki ordered a comprehensive review. Read more »

Representative Jeff Miller paid a visit to the Jobs Plus One-Stop Center in Fort Walton Beach on Thursday. The Congressman asked for the the tour, as part of an effort to improve services for job seekers. Read more »

Did the Department of Veterans Affairs overspend – and waste taxpayer dollars -- last summer when it paid $5 million for two training conferences in Orlando? Read more »

The Veterans Affairs Department paid $52,000 to produce a video parodying the war movie “Patton” that was shown at two training conferences last year. The spending and contracting associated with the two conferences — which had a combined price tag of $5 million — are now subject of an inspector general’s investigation. Read more »

Ever since news broke earlier this year about the General Services Administration spending $823,000 on a conference in Las Vegas, we have wondered whether this was just a GSA thing, or were there other examples of large amounts of travel spending elsewhere in the federal government. Read more »