Imagine that China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, sends one million Chinese troops to invade the United States. Fighting breaks out all over the U.S. as U.S. troops and civilians battle against the Chinese invaders. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are killed. Meanwhile, China has taken over Florida and declared it an overseas province of China, with Chinese nationals taking over control of the Florida government.   read more

After a failed attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day 2010 with a bomb hidden in underwear, Chertoff appeared on the major TV news shows and wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post advocating the use of full-body scanning systems at airports without disclosing that Rapiscan Systems—the leading maker of the machines—was a client of his firm. The Transportation Security Administration ordered 300 Rapiscan machines and Rapiscan made $118 million from the government between 2009 and 2010.   read more

Vermont has sought to prevent the Vermont Yankee reactor, whose original 40-year license expired in March 2012, from being re-licensed, but the court ruled that federal regulation of nuclear power safety preempts state authority over safety completely. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already re-licensed the plant for another 20 years.   read more

Although it took her grandmother’s motivational talk to get Hessler-Radelet to join the Peace Corps, her family’s multi-generational involvement with the Corps make her career seem almost inevitable. Her aunt, Ginny Kirkwood, served in Turkey from 1964 to 1966 and was the country director in Thailand from 1990 to 1993; her grandparents, Howard and Ruth Pearsall, joined the Peace Corps after retiring as university professors and served in Malaysia from 1972 to 1973.   read more

The Obama administration has decided to install five wind turbines at Pantex, so that 60% of the plant’s power needs are provided through this form of renewable energy. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which oversees Pantex, says the use of wind power will reduce carbon emissions by more than 35,000 metric tons per year. That’s equal to removing 7,200 cars from the road, the DOE boasts.   read more

Judge Merrick B. Garland, who is Chief of the D.C. Circuit, dissented, quoting a leading case from 1936 ruling that “courts will not issue the writ to do a useless thing, even though technically to uphold a legal right.” Garland added that, “Unfortunately, granting the writ in this case will indeed direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do ‘a useless thing,’” because there is not enough money left to complete the safety review.   read more

An architecture graduate student at Qazvin’s Azad University, where she also studies calligraphy and martial arts, Moradi ran a visually striking campaign with the slogan “Young Ideas for a Young Future,” attracting strong support from younger voters—and disdain from conservative older male candidates who complained that her campaign was “not observing the Islamic norms.”   read more

While in the House, Sutton was recognized as a “key House architect” of the American Clean Energy and Security Act that passed the House in June 2009, primarily for her role in offering an amendment that established the popular “Cash for Clunkers” program that helped the U.S. auto industry weather the worst months of the Great Recession.   read more

It’s not hard to imagine how Raytheon could market its more lethal products to countries struggling to deal with instabilities exacerbated or brought on by global warming. Pretty much any government with an army, navy or air force could become a customer for the arms manufacturer’s large and varied missile inventory that includes the Maverick, the Advanced Cruise Missile, the Sparrow, the Sidewinder, the AMRAAM, the TOW, the Tomahawk, the Javelin, the Stinger, and others.   read more

75% of panelists who propose changes in disease definitions and diagnostic criteria had been paid by drug companies either as consultants, advisers or speakers. Among those serving as chairs of these panels, 12 out of 14 were financially connected to the drug industry.   read more

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that two rich men from Latin America, Edgar René Córdoba and Antonio Medina-González, can seek asylum because they had been targeted for extortion and kidnapping by a drug cartel and anti-government rebels.   read more

The next top diplomat for arms control will be a foreign policy and defense expert with longstanding ties to Secretary of State John Kerry. Frank A. Rose, who worked in Kerry’s Senate office after graduating college, joined the State Department in June 2009 as deputy assistant secretary for space and defense policy.   read more

Until its 2012 guilty plea, BP continued to do business with the U.S. government since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers, and dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. As one of the U.S. government’s largest suppliers of fuel, BP currently has $1.34 billion in existing federal contracts. However, its profits have nonetheless taken a hit.   read more

“Unbeknown to millions of people, on a daily basis and for years, Google has systematically and intentionally crossed the ‘creepy line’ to read private email messages containing information you don’t want anyone to know, and to acquire, collect, or mine valuable information from that mail,” the complaint says. Google has defended its actions by claiming the plaintiffs are trying to criminalize “ordinary business practices” that have been part of Gmail since the beginning.   read more

CACI convinced a judge last month to throw out the lawsuit by four Iraqis after it was determined that the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, lacked jurisdiction because the alleged abuse occurred overseas. The contractor now wants the plaintiffs to pay for $15,580 of its legal expenses, which largely relate to depositions CACI took.   read more

“If they aren’t placed in a juvenile detention facility, the child could run back to the prostitution scenario.” What often happens is police will charge the children with prostitution, just so they can be detained until some kind of social welfare housing becomes available.   read more

One of the large corporations that the DOE contracts for work, Lockheed Martin, earned $2.6 billion for DOE-contracted projects last year. That is twice as much as all of DOE’s small business contracts combined ($1.3 billion).   read more