A South Dakota father and son have pleaded not guilty to charges of defrauding the government to the tune of $3 million, the Capital Journal reports. They are accused of cheating a Covid-19 small-business relief program and the federal crop insurance program. Investigators began looking into their operation in 2019, after receiving a tip that the duo was collecting crop insurance payments for hail damage on acres that had never been planted. It’s unclear how often people defraud the crop insurance program, but prosecutions are relatively rare; some advocates and politicians have argued for a more robust monitoring process. A 2018 watchdog report found that the Department of Agriculture reported an “improper payment” estimate (read: overpayment) of about 8.5 percent for one of its disaster insurance programs. As for our alleged fraud friends in South Dakota … that was one very expensive hailstorm. —Claire Brown
Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…
Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…
One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…
Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…
Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…
Last fall, first-year law student Karissa Kang arrived at Yale University and quickly set out…