Da Biz: YouTube In Talks to Launch Investigative Programming

YouTube is getting into investigative journalism? Yes, you heard right. The world's third most popular website - and second most used search engine - is in discussions with the Berkeley, Calif.-based Center for Investigative Reporting to launch YouTube Investigative, this report says. With 800 million monthly visitors - each spending half an hour on the site on average - that's a pretty nice audience.

YouTube is following the path of a growing number of newsrooms, which are reportedly contracting out their investigative stories to outfits like the CIR.

Investigations: Inside Quebec Construction's Organized Crime and Political Ties

Here's a fascinating look inside Quebec's notoriously corrupt construction industry, including its links with organized crime and political fundraisers. Radio-Canada has made public this 72-page report from Quebec's anti-corruption investigative squad, based on a year-and-a-half-long inquiry.

The report speaks of a "deeply rooted and clandestine universe of an unsuspected scope that is harmful to our society - in terms of security, the economy, justice and democracy."

Investigations: F-35 Wings to Last Just Five Years

Yet another setback for the massively expensive F-35 warplane - the most costly military program in history (full operating cost: an estimated $1 trillion). Already beset by delays, cost overruns and performance questions, two of the three models of the $100-million-plus planes have been found to have a major structural defect. The result is their wings have an operational life of only five years, according to this Wired report. That's a lot less than the expected 25 years.

Earlier reports had questioned the F-35's key attribute - its supposed stealthiness. This Wired story cites a study that found the jet is "demonstrably not a true stealth aircraft" and can't operate against Russia's latest air defence systems. An aviation expert said the F-35's stealthiness is undermined by its "very conventional-airplane-shaped lumps and bumps around its underside, not to mention the hideous wart that covers the gun on the F-35A."