Officer Darren Wilson will face no criminal charges for killing Mike Brown, an unarmed black teenager. Authorities announced Monday that a grand jury had declined to criminally indict Wilson. However, as Simone Weichselbaum reports for the Marshall Project, Brown’s family might still be able to sue Wilson for damages in civil court. 

The Daily News reveals that contractors recruited by New York City to build affordable housing owe their own workers millions of dollars in unpaid wages:

Some members of the team helping Mayor de Blasio reach his dream of increasing the supply of affordable apartments in New York have a dirty little secret — an $11.8 million one. That’s how much an elite group of 10 contractors and one developer now building affordable units across the city owed this year to workers cheated out of wages they were supposed to get, a Daily News investigation has found.

The group is building or renovating nearly 2,800 affordable apartments in 37 developments across the city, records obtained under the Freedom of Information Law show. These projects are receiving $41 million in city grants or low-interest loans plus $206 million worth of tax credits. When finished, the apartments they’re building will count toward de Blasio’s oft-stated goal of building or preserving 200,000 affordable units in 10 years — a cornerstone of his administration. [NYDN]

Hat tip to reader Elizabeth, who sent us this story.

Wage violations are rampant in the construction industry, and employers find other ways to cheat employees out of benefits, too. Last month’s Sidney-winners exposed the rampant misclassification of construction workers as independent contractors, a practice that denies them benefits and dodges taxes.

[Photo credit: vpickering, Creative Commons.]

This is a powerful recent op/ed from the New York Times about how the civil liberties of pregnant women are being eroded by anti-choice legislation. The authors, Lynn Paltrow and Jeanne Flavin of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, have exhaustively researched cases in which pregnant women have been jailed for suspected suicide attempts, forced to remain in hospital against their will, and even forced to have unwanted c-sections because the state’s interest in the fetus was deemed more important than the woman’s civil rights. 

[Photo credit: JerryLai08, Creative Commons.]

The Best of the Week’s News 

• Dozens of injuries went unreported at the World Trade Center construction site.

• Paul Krugman on the uses of ridicule.

• Is philanthropy bad for democracy?

• If you’re not listening to This American Life’s weekly true crime podcast, Serial, you should be.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]