In a rural Illinois county, an IT forensic audit of government computers allegedly turns up porn, theft of services, bid rigging, campaigning, running personal businesses, political fundraising, surfing sports websites, and thousands of Facebook posts, dating and shopping website hits.

The decline toward lawlessness begins when a community tolerates minor violations of public order – vandalism of abandoned structures, turnstile jumpers, and the like. Left unchecked, small offenses turn into more serious crimes. This is the Broken Windows theory of criminology.

Thanks to the courageous leadership of a county chairman, Rod Copas, in rural Iroquois County (100 miles south of Chicago in mid-central Illinois) a recent IT forensic audit of government computers released yesterday provides alleged evidence backing this theory.

The health insurance marketplace opened for business on Saturday and performed much better than last year, but some consumers reported long, frustrating delays in trying to buy insurance and gain access to their own accounts at HealthCare.gov.

Thousands of people attended hundreds of enrollment events around the country at public libraries, churches, shopping malls, community colleges, clinics, hospitals and other sites. Insurance counselors and federal, state and local officials said they were trying to juggle two tasks — enrolling more of the uninsured and renewing coverage for those who already had it.

Some of the problems became evident on Saturday just as Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, was visiting a community health center in Manassas, Va.

Dozens of local governments — from Downers Grove to Frankfort — face investment losses totaling more than $50 million of taxpayer money in a fraud scheme the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago are unraveling.

The tax dollars were placed with the Illinois Metropolitan Investment Fund, also known as IMET, which manages about $1.5 billion on behalf of nearly 300 municipalities and other public entities in the state.

In early October, the fund stunned members by announcing that one of its investment pools faced a loss of $50.4 million. The loss involved obscure investments known as repurchase agreements, repos for short, that IMET began buying in 2013.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its annual report on “The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes” analyzing data through 2011 on American household’s: a) “market income” (a comprehensive measure that includes labor income, business income, and income from capital gains), b) household transfer payments (payments and benefits from federal, state and local governments including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance), and c) federal taxes paid by households (including income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes). Some of the key findings of the CBO analysis are displayed in the table above, with the data organized by household income quintiles. The data in the first five rows above appear in the CBO report (from Tables 1 and 4), and rows 6-8 above have been calculated separately based on data from the first four rows in the table.

A voice called out to Andrea Roth, 20, as she swung through the foot traffic of changing classes in the Advanced Technology and Learning Center at Cincinnati State University.

“Young lady by the elevator! Do you have health insurance?”

Roth stopped and turned to find a man at a folding table smiling at her. She replied, “No, I don’t.” The man said, “Come on over here, let’s talk about that.” Roth approached the Rev. Jackie Jackson for counseling about the Affordable Care Act.

spite dissent from a fellow Democrat, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Friday won easy approval for her $4 billion 2015 budget proposal that includes no new taxes, fines or fees.

Commissioner Larry Suffredin, D-Evanston, voted against the spending plan, saying that the county was not doing enough to fund future increased pension payments, plan for public health care system funding uncertainties and make reductions in the daily jail population.

“Postponing bad news does not eliminate it,” Suffredin said. “There is no planning for next year built into this election-year budget. Transparency requires that I warn people of the coming budget storm.”

Many Chicagoans are better off than three and a half years ago, when Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor.

The city’s unemployment rate has fallen this year more than it has in any other major city, while median household incomes are near their pre-recession peak, according to a special report by Crain’s that takes a wide-ranging, numbers-driven look at how the city has fared during Mr. Emanuel’s tenure. The downtown economy is buzzing with building and startups, while tourism is rising, thanks in part to his relentless promotion.

Despite these accomplishments, Chicago still suffers from deep divisions, which the Nov. 10 report also highlights. The city’s poverty rate is higher than before he took office. While Mr. Emanuel rightly touts soaring citywide high school graduation rates, the gap between black and white students actually has grown.