DMN INVESTIGATES

Assistance for business owners in obtaining federal stimulus grants. Moonlighting opportunities as a mystery shopper. Free trials of products endorsed by trustworthy celebrities.

The Better Business Bureau has identified these and others as the top 10 scams of 2009. These targeted consumers and small businesses with the hope of deceiving them into disclosing private financial data or conducting transactions that lock them into a never-ending cycle of charges, the BBB said.

"While many of the scams on the list are perennial problems, some scams were distinct in 2009 because of the economic climate and scammers' penchant for taking advantage of the top headlines," said Jeannette Kopko, BBB spokesperson in Dallas.

Any readers out there have stories to share about these rip-offs?

There's an astonishingly long list of crimes, errors and other things that went wrong before last year's bush crash near Sherman killed 17 people, Dallas Morning News reporter Todd Gillman details today.

Here's a partial list of National Transportation Safety Board findings, in chronological order:

* Federal authorities ordered the bus company off the road because of safety violations.
* Owner Angel de la Torre re-registered it under a new name, ignored the order, and was operating without a permit or insurance.
* A Houston garage that inspected the bus about a week before the crash didn't notice an illegal retread tire on the front axle and wasn't equipped to inspect heavy vehicles.
* Bus driver Barrett Broussard drank alcohol and used cocaine shortly before departing Houston. He had previously been fired from another bus company after testing positive for cocaine.
* The tire suffered a puncture and operated -- underinflated and undetected -- for many miles. Pressure gauges aren't required for pre-trip inspections, and older buses such as this one don't have pressure warning systems like those in newer cars.
* The bus lacked seat belts, and some passengers were ejected in the crash.

Do you have a tip about transportation safety? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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I'm starting to sound repetitive. Because once again, stories over the weekend remind me of my colleagues' State of Neglect series, which exposed how Texas' network of government agencies and regulators often operate with industry insiders first in mind.

1. Back in 2002, The News' Doug J. Swanson told you how Texas lets doctors keep licenses despite criminal behavior and other misconduct. The state pledged reforms after the stories, et cetera et cetera. Fast forward seven years. Enter another News reporter, Brooks Egerton. And you can guess where I'm headed. My question this morning: Is anyone in a position of power dialing the Texas Medical Board to ask why it let these doctors remain active?

2. A Boston firm seeking a billion-dollar contract from the Texas State Board of Education has given gifts to two key members who then failed to disclose them, News freelance writer Jeff Horwitz writes. Explanation from one of the two: He thought he had received the gifts out of friendship, not because he served on the board. The other member declined comment, which was probably a smarter move.

Do you have tips to share? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

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You can buy them at the grocery, at the garden store, at some farmers markets and -- of course -- online. And your kids, armed with a little Internet knowledge, can turn them into something deadly:

1. Cory Young (right), an 18-year-old in Keller, recently died from drinking poppy tea, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports. Boiling seeds or seed pods essentially creates cheap, homemade morphine, of God-only-knows how strong a concentration. "The kids are all after it," Cory's dad is quoted as saying. "It's supposed to be a pleasant high, a euphoria effect that you get out of it."

2. Cory is not the first area resident to die this way, according to another grieving family's Web site. They've documented several deaths around the country, including another one in Tarrant County early this year.

Do you have a tip about drugs? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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President Obama has vowed to eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud as part of a proposed overhaul of the nation's health care system. A federal report released on Wednesday identified yet another area where investigators should start digging.

The report from the federal Government Accountability Office identified possibly widespread fraud in Texas and other states involving purchases of controlled substances under Medicaid, the federal-state medical program for the poor. Among the interesting Texas tidbits was a case of "doctor shopping" by a Medicaid beneficiary who used prescriptions from more than 70 doctors to obtain 4,700 pills of Vicodin from 40 pharmacies.

In our recent "Cost of Care" series on why health care is so expensive in North Texas, I touched on fraud in the home health industry. Medicare and Medicaid are lucrative targets for fraudsters. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General recently reported that state Medicaid fraud control units across the country recovered $1.3 billion in fiscal 2008.

That's one takeaway, among many, that you should have from the Dallas City Hall bribery trial. Let's explore:

1. Co-defendant Allen McGill (shown at right) testified Monday that his sham Black State Employees Association of Texas opposed a housing developer's project to force the hiring of minority contractors who'd give it kickbacks later, The News' Jason Trahan reports. Once the developer played ball, the opposition lifted. McGill and his cohort, Darren Reagan, realized that they were ones worked over months later: The developer was an FBI informant.

2. The Hearst network of newspapers, which includes Houston and San Antonio, is wrapping up a series that finds about 98,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors. That echoes The News' State of Neglect investigative series, which earlier this year found that Texas lets hospitals hide their mistakes from the public.

Do you have thoughts or tips to share? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

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That's probably a trio of topics you wouldn't have expected to see in a headline. Let's read on:

1. Good news, bad news at the Dallas City Hall bribery trial, The News' Jason Trahan tells us. If you're Don Hill: You probably look more favorable to jurors after you were heard doubting the ethics of your co-defendant, D'Angelo Lee, on phone conversations secretly taped by the FBI. If you're Lee: Your co-defendant is heard doubting your ethics on phone conversations secretly taped by the FBI.

2. Supporters of the federal stimulus package said it was a chance to make $65 billion in repairs to crumbling, aging bridges. Want to guess where I'm headed next after that set-up? The Associated Press found that nearly half of the ones slated for funding are in good shape and wouldn't have qualified for money in normal circumstances. Best use of the stimulus?

3. This isn't our typical watchdog story to highlight: Lewisville High School cheerleaders had illegal drugs, such as Ecstasy, at a weekend clinic, KXAS (NBC-5) reports. As school district officials investigate, they should ask this of themselves: When was the last time they tested cheerleaders for drug use? District policy allows it, and athletes have been subjected to it after reports of steroid abuse.

Do you have thoughts or tips to share? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

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Turmoil in the suburbs. A drug war near the Texas border. What's a politician to do?

1. Irving's power structure is under siege. The local icon, Texas Stadium, is turning into an eyesore. The Dallas Cowboys will soon be playing in Arlington, leaving behind controversy over their practice facility's collapse and the city's dubious role in inspecting it. Now comes a federal judge's ruling that the city's at-large system for electing the City Council is illegal, as reported today by Jeff Mosier and Katherine Leal Unmuth of The Dallas Morning News. Members of the all-white council said they thought things were working just fine. Hispanics are about 40 percent of the population -- the largest group in town.

2. The Los Angeles Times has a fascinating look today at possible ties between drug lords and elected officials in Mexico. Seems a recently elected member of Congress there, Julio Cesar Godoy, is now a fugitive. He has been linked to a narco gang that has killed at least 16 police officers in recent days. He is also a half-brother of Michoacan state's governor.

Do you have a tip about Irving? The Dallas Cowboys? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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There are flies in the ointment of some Texas crime-catching innovations, as today's Hot Links show.

1. We all know canines can help track escaped prisoners. But can they correctly ID crime suspects? There are growing questions about the only dog handler in Texas who does scent-identification lineups, the Victoria Advocate reports. A faulty dog ID recently sent a South Texas man to jail for a rape he didn't commit. Some judges have now barred the handler -- Fort Bend County Deputy Sheriff Keith Pikett -- from testifying.

2. Gov. Rick Perry gave sheriffs $2 million to install Webcams on the Mexican border. But few arrests and drug busts have resulted, an El Paso Times investigation shows.

Do you have a tip about dogs or dog handlers? Drugs? Another subject? Send me an e-mail and let me know. Or join the conversation by commenting below.

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Crime, damned crime and statistics: That's our theme for today's roundup of public-interest stories in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. We're No. 2!!! Dallas is celebrating the loss of its standing as the big city with the worst crime rate in America, The Dallas Morning News' Tanya Eiserer reports. But keep reading her report to find the caveats.

2. We're No. 1!!! Dallas County is cementing its standing as the nation's leader in exonerations. Jerry Lee Evans is the latest man to go free for a heinous crime he didn't commit, The Dallas Morning News' Jennifer Emily reports.

3. We're not as bad as Mexico!!! The Los Angeles Times offers a new measure today of how far narco-corruption has spread into local governments in our neighbor to the south.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.

State lawmakers moved one step closer today toward slashing funding for the state's high school steroids testing program.

The action comes months after 29,000 tests found 11 violators. Critics called the program, budgeted for $6 million in its first two years, expensive and wasteful. Gov. Rick Perry suggested it should be scaled back.

Sen. Florence Shapiro of Plano told The Associated Press that lawmakers didn't want to stop testing all together: "I think it's such an issue nationally. To say we tried it for just two years and then trash it would not have sent a good message."

Texas is one of three states nationally with such a program. It came to fruition after a Dallas Morning News series by Gregg Jones and Gary Jacobson, The Secret Edge, found steroid use had trickled down to high schools.

As parents or athletes, do you think this is a good move?

Here are a few public-interest stories catching our eye in The Dallas Morning News and around the Web-o-sphere:

1. You surely recall the horrific bus crashes that killed 17 Vietnamese-Americans church members in Sherman last fall and 23 evacuees of Hurricane Katrina outside Dallas in 2006. Additional fatalities like those across the country have Congress again talking about tightening oversight of the motor-coach industry, The Washington Post reports today.

2. Dallas-Fort Worth ranked high on Forbes' just-released list of top U.S. metro areas for job growth. But The News' Jason Trahan tells us about a more illicit type of business expansion in North Texas: Mexican drug traffickers using their base here to move shipments to Italian mafia.

3. U.S. Rep Joe Barton of Arlington is one of few lawmakers to spend his campaign dollars on the stock market and lost about $100,000 in the first quarter, the Star-Telegram reports. The practice is legal, and Barton says he has generally come out ahead. One Congressional watchdog questions Barton's use of the funds.

Did I miss a good story? Or do you have a tip? Send me an e-mail and let me know.