Weekend 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: This week, a hearing in the Senate Commerce subcommittee marked a climactic moment in the three-year investigation of contaminated drywall, imported largely from China, and now found in nearly 7,000 American homes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, the body leading the federal investigation, came under intense scrutiny by lawmakers for its lack of concrete results. The CPSC argues that China's "lack of cooperation" has slowed the proceedings. Read ProPublica's long-term investigation into the drywall scandal.

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

Today's links:

• Poynter Institute: Center for Public Integrity reduces staff to compensate for $2 million budget hole
• The Associated Press: AP Exclusive: Inside Romania's secret CIA prison
• The Baltimore Sun: Audit shows Maryland may have spent up to $2.5 million in Medicaid payments for dead people
• The Independent: Wikipedia founder attacks UK lobbying firm for 'ethical blindness'
• ProPublica: Feds link water contamination to fracking for the first time
• Mother Jones: On the heels of climate talks in Durban, a reporter witnesses US dollars underwriting massive South African coal plant
• Colombia Reports: Colombian government set up fake nonprofit organizations to discredit real ones: Caracol Radio
• The Washington Post: New watchdog report details theft, fraud committed by postal workers
• The Guardian: Goldman Sachs whistleblower threatened with dismissal
• The Center for Public Integrity: A fact check on Newt's erroneous ethics alibi
• Mother Jones: Monsanto (still) denies super-insect problem, despite evidence
• Popular Mechanics: Two years after Air France 447 went down in the Atlantic, the recovered flight-data recorders complete the mystery
• PBS NewsHour: Who really owns Montana's rivers? The Supreme Court hears the arguments between a power company and the state
• Center for Investigative Reporting, CaliforniaWatch: Audit: Sloppy oversight increases risk of unsafe school buildings in California
• Kaiser Health News: A look inside our critical access hospitals finds some are not so critical
• The Montreal Gazette: Traditional cloak of secrecy around academic misconduct in Canada shed for name-and-shame tactics after pressure on research councils

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

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