Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

State attorneys general said ACICS had “ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable students whom it was charged to protect.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed Gray for propping up Corinthian Colleges amid allegations of fraud. “How many federal and state agencies need to file lawsuits against one of your colleges before your organization takes a second look at whether that school should be eligible for accreditation, and most importantly, federal money?” she demanded.   read more

Cornucopia, which takes its name from the city in Wisconsin where it is based, accuses the defendants of "appointing unqualified individuals to the National Organic Standards Board," a 15-member committee that advises the USDA on how to implement the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act. "The American people have a right to trust that food certified as organic is free of inappropriate or inadequately reviewed synthetic substances that do not comport with the OFPA," the complaint states.   read more

Not since 1929 has American currency undergone such a far-reaching change. The remaking of the nation’s paper currency may well have captured a historical moment for a multicultural, multiethnic and multiracial nation moving contentiously through the early years of a new century. Tubman, an African-American and a Union spy during the Civil War, would bump Jackson — a white man known as much for his persecution of Native Americans as for his war heroics — to the back of the $20.   read more

The CIA has secured funds to begin paying out death benefits of up to $400,000 each to families like the Dohertys who are survivors of federal employees or contractors killed in acts of terrorism overseas. The benefits will be available to families of victims dating back as far as 1983, when suicide bombers killed dozens of people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The agency has not released the specific number of families who qualify, but it's believed to be several dozen.   read more

Hours before New Yorkers handed Democratic president hopeful Hillary Clinton and her likely Republican challenger Donald Trump highly coveted wins in their quest for the White House on Tuesday, a voting scandal erupted in the state's largest city. New York City's comptroller announced his office will audit the Board of Elections after it confirmed more than 125,000 Brooklyn voters were removed from the rolls, miscategorized by party and shut out of the Democratic process.   read more

This largely liberal region is struggling with the devastating impact of opiate abuse, which is disrupting families and taking lives. Many lawmakers balk at the idea of legalizing a banned substance, citing potential social costs. “[People] ask themselves, ‘Are we sending the right message...?'” said Vermont House speaker Shap Smith. The opiate crisis, which has killed more than 1,000 people in New England last year, is a substantial stumbling block and figuring into anti-legalization alliances.   read more

Fueled by Trump fascination, the Republican race in general has gotten more coverage. Fox no doubt believes that its audience, dominated by Republicans, is more interested in the GOP campaign. For example, Sean Hannity's show had no Democratic candidates or surrogates on during the month-long period. A 2012 Pew Research Center study found that 78% of Hannity's audience identified themselves as conservative, and 5% as liberal.   read more

Hogan’s ruling is notable because some lawmakers want to require government agencies to get a warrant before searching the raw repository of emails for an American’s name or email address. Bipartisan majorities in the House have twice passed such a proposal in the last two years. The ruling was also the first time that the intelligence court has reviewed the surveillance program with contributions from an outside “friend of the court,” rather than hearing arguments from the government alone.   read more

District security director Richard Payne said he decided to spend more than $12,000 on the Bushmaster brand rifles for the district's eight armed officers. Payne said he made the decision to buy assault rifles himself and the school board has not discussed it. The superintendent approved the purchase after lengthy discussion. The move raised new questions about how far school officials should go in arming employees.   read more

“The increase in death in this segment of the population was great enough to affect life expectancy at birth for the whole group,” said Elizabeth Arias, the statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics who analyzed the data, referring to whites from their mid-20s to their mid-50s. “That is very unusual." Arias said drug overdoses, liver disease and suicide were the main drivers of the trends among whites in recent years, a pattern also found by other researchers.   read more

Thousands of New Yorkers discovered they couldn’t vote in the primaries Tuesday. The reason: Under a New York law dating to the late 1800s, independent voters would have had to register last October in order to cast a vote in the primary. Some Bernie Sanders supporters suggested such rules were a way for party leaders to hamstring insurgents like the Vermont senator. But in fact the rules were originally intended as a strike against the manipulations of party bosses and political machines.   read more

The FBI's Amy Hess defended the agency's hiring of a third party to break into a gunman's iPhone, telling some skeptical lawmakers Tuesday that it needed to join with partners in the rarefied world of for-profit hackers as technology companies increasingly resist their demands for consumer information. There is a growing discomfort by some in Congress and in the tech industry with the use of “gray hat” hackers, who may push the boundaries of the law.   read more

The biggest European economies announced a plan to share information about owners of shell companies. But there is one major player that is coming up short, and that is the U.S., which in 2015 ranked third in a financial secrecy index. U.S. failure to respond to the worldwide clamor for financial accountability looks hypocritical from afar, considering the U.S.’s aggressive extraterritorial pursuit of foreign companies that breaks its laws and its demands that foreign banks provide information   read more

Nothing in the records supports the Pentagon's casting of top military brass as hard-nosed crime fighters who insisted on taking the cases to trial after civilian law enforcement said no. No evidence showed any case was prosecuted at a commander's insistence. "Someone at the Pentagon should be held accountable," said retired USAF prosecutor Col. Don Christensen. "...Every senator — especially those who repeated the claim or based their vote on the claim — should be outraged."   read more

With New York bracing for a primary Tuesday, both Democratic candidates came out in favor of Schumer's bill, though Bernie Sanders hit the issue harder and sooner than Hillary Clinton. While both backed the legislation, the Vermont senator went farther in calling for more sunlight to shine on the Saudi section of the 9/11 commission's report. "The families of those lost on that terrible day have the right to review any evidence that connects the hijackers to foreign supporters..." he said.   read more

This police tactic raises troubling questions about the fairness and effectiveness of how the NYPD uses undercover officers. They neither arrested nor pursued the dealers who sold the drugs to the addicts. Instead, they waited for the addict to return with the drugs before swooping in. Jurors have questioned why police and prosecutors so aggressively pursue troubled addicts. The tactic would seem at odds with public positions of some of the city’s top politicians and law enforcement figures.   read more