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Byline: Peter Hermann;Aaron C. Davis Poor communication among several District agencies led to tragic mistakes in the case of Relisha Rudd, with officials failing to act because they wrongly assumed [...]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development report on the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight finds the agency divided on its regulation of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and the Federal National Mortgage Association.

The United States Internal Revenue Service and the United States Department of Justice have been chastised by a group of criminal tax lawyers for prosecuting individuals who came forth to confess their tax evasions. The group says that this goes against the established policy of encouragement of tax evaders to come forth.

As the investigations into the BP PLC explosion and oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico continues, criticism is being leveled at the Minerals Management Service, the government agency that regulates offshore drilling. Now, Darrell Issa, the Republican legislator, says that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is going to investigate the agency.

As the House Committee on Financial Services looks into the reasons for the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., it chastized the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for its lack of oversight of the bank prior to its September 2008 failure. It also charged that executives at the company deceived investors about it financial state. Former chief executive Richard S. Fuld Jr. admits culpability but claims that regulators were aware all along of the company's difficulties.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ex-chief executive and chairman Richard S. Fuld Jr. claims that the United States Federal Reserve Board and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission were aware of all the goings-on inside Lehman and he plans to testify to this effect before the House Committee on Financial Services. An earlier report by an examiner in Lehman's bankruptcy claimed that company executives, Fuld included, deceived investors in order to conceal huge losses.

The Federal Aviation Administration, in investigating Northwest Airlines Flight 188, which did not communicate with air traffic controllers for more than an hour and overshot its destination by more than 100 miles, was in itself too slow in informing the military, violating its own rules in taking more than 40 minutes to alert them. Concern has arisen because of this, and because such delays were supposed to have been eliminated after 9/11.

The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, the commission set up to discourage crime on New York Harbor's waterfront district is the subject of an investigation by New York's Inspector General, who discovered that the Commission's two ex-commissioners failed in their duties to oversee waterfront operations diligently.

As the investigation continues into the alleged Ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff which resulted in the loss to investors of $50 million, the U.S. Congress is holding a hearing to look into the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators in their oversight. Madoff's company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, was the subject of at least eight examinations over sixteen years.

Legislators have put the blame for tainted heparin supplies imported from China on the Food and Drug Administration, saying it was not rigorous enough in investigating drug imports and drug factories, and on Baxter International Inc., the marketer of the heparin. Baxter claims the heparin was deliberately contaminated. 81 deaths have been attributed to the contaminated blood thinner.