Thursday reading: the best investigative reporting on the Web

By Margaux Stack-Babich and Bill Dedman

Today's reading from the world of investigative reporting.

Story of the day: Today marks the debut of Rossen Reports, a new unit led by NBC national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen. First out of the gate: A hidden-camera investigation exposing how easy it is for anyone – even criminals – to buy dangerous weapons.

Notes: Links open in a new window. More reading: previous daily collections.

Today's links:

• ProPublica: With spotlight on super PAC dollars, nonprofits escape scrutiny
• The New York Times: Mortgage tornado warning, unheeded: years before the housing bust — before all those home loans turned sour and millions of Americans faced foreclosure — a wealthy businessman in Florida set out to blow the whistle on the mortgage game.
• The Star Tribune: Doctor discipline: State fails to offer full disclosure - Minnesota's medical board doesn't provide access to malpractice awards and other records that are readily available in other states.
• Center for Public Integrity: Another Bain exec revealed as man behind corporate donor to pro-Romney super PAC, 'Restore Our Future'
• ProPublica with NPR News: Freddie Mac placed multibillion-dollar bets that pay off if American homeowners stay trapped in expensive mortgages with interest rates well above current rates.
• ProPublica: Meet the obscure federal regulator who's not helping homeowners
• New England Center for Investigative Reporting with the Center for Public Integrity: The latest from the NECIR's investigation into current juvenile justice policies finds racial disparity in school discipline in Massachusetts
• The Los Angeles Times: Governor Jerry Brown ordered firing of regulator who took hard line on oil firms;
  The dispute centered on a risky method of extraction. California's governor has sued oil companies throughout his career, but he now talks of tossing cumbersome regulations to revive the economy.
• The Washington Post: The FDA secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.
• CorpWatch: Grey market drugs: profiting from poorly managed U.S. health care
• Center for Public Integrity: Gingrich's health center was power player in a host of Washington policy debates
• The Wall Street Journal: The CEO Bankruptcy Bonus: firms sidestep rule limiting rewards for executives
• Center for Investigative Reporting, CaliforniaWatch: Calif. drugmaker's HIV prevention pill draws concern
• The Chicago Tribune: Most older residential towers fail to meet tougher fire standards; woman's death draws attention to 2004 city fire ordinance, lapses in system
• The Chicago Sun-Times: Two say they got paid to protest, back closing Chicago schools
• Bloomberg Businessweek: Safe gas fracking touted by Obama disputed by environmentalists
• ABC News, The Blotter: The casino company run by the principal financial backer of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, Sheldon Adelson, has been under criminal investigation for the last year by the Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission for alleged bribery of foreign officials, according to corporate documents.
• The New York Times: In China, human costs are built into an iPad
• Chicago News Cooperative: Former Chicago city colleges chief's sick pay windfall
• CNET News, Privacy Inc. blog: Hawaii's legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.
• The Columbus Dispatch: A Dispatch investigation of domestic violence in 2009 found flaws in Ohio laws and policies that created a culture of tolerance. Two years later, more agencies are reporting more abuse and deaths, yet reform legislation remains stalled. The latest updates from the series "Domestic Silence" can be read here, spotlighting the question of adequate shelter for those who have left abusive homes, reluctance to help gay victims, and follow-ups with those who endured the violence.
• The Statesman: Texas hate crime law has little effect
• Idaho Statesman: Zombie debt creeps onward in Idaho courts; A thriving debt industry sues Idahoans to get paid, and only a few fight back
• Center for Investigative Reporting, CaliforniaWatch: Counterterror, disaster response centers not sharing information
• The Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting for The Atlantic: The super-resistant bacteria that has India 'hell scared'; can India's already troubled health system -- much less its political system -- handle the NDM-1?
• Center for Public Integrity: Georgia considers reforms for youth prisons rife with problems; director says workers admit sex with wards, low-paid guards often quit
• ProPublica: A reading guide to Mitt Romney's tax returns
• New York Times: In NYPD training, a dark film on U.S. Muslims
• FRONTLINE: Marine to serve no time in Haditha war-crimes case. Read more about FRONTLINE's documentary on the 2005 massacre in Haditha here.
• FactCheck.org: FACT CHECK: the state of Obama's facts
• The Indianapolis Star: Could deaths of Indiana children have been prevented? Investigation raises questions about whether Department of Child Services could have done more to protect kids
• Forbes: Gingrich used payroll tax ploy often attacked by IRS
• GlobalPost: The devastating crackdown on Egypt's revolution: since Mubarak was deposed, over 12,000 civilians have been tried by shadowy military tribunals

Keep up on the latest investigative reporting with the Twitter feed of the same name.

Let us know if your group or organization should be listed there.

Margaux Stack-Babich writes about investigative reporting for msnbc.com. Bill Dedman is an investigative reporter for msnbc.com.