Trump ordered that the term Homo sapiens be changed to Hetero sapiens. In history books and on websites, the airplane from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima will no longer be identified as the Enola Gay, but rather the Enola Straight. Trump also ordered billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, to change his name to Mark American. If he does not do so, he will be charged with terrorism.   read more

“There’s no reason why NSA needed to have its own database containing the phone records of millions of innocent Americans in order to get the information related to Moalin,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colorado), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has been critical of the spying. “It could have just as easily gone directly to the phone companies with an individualized court order.”   read more

A group of legal and medical professionals reviewed 451 GRAS notifications that were submitted to the FDA between 1997 and 2012. Out of these 451, 22.4% were made by an employee of an additive manufacturer and 13.3% by an employee of a consulting firm selected by the manufacturer—meaning 35% were determined by individuals who may have had a conflict of interest.   read more

Until last week, Lavabit, which was used by NSA whistleblower Edward J. Snowden, and Silent Circle, a fast-growing startup, provided encrypted email services for those who wanted extra privacy. Based on the carefully worded statements of company owner Ladar Levison, Lavabit likely received a secret search order relating to Snowden and is choosing to shut down to avoid being “complicit in crimes against the American people.”   read more

A combination of economic, educational and cultural factors were cited by the Pew Research Center to explain the rising trend of young adults not living on their own. For one thing, young people are having a tougher time finding jobs. In 2012, 63% of 18- to 31-year-olds were employed, down from the 70% in 2007. Forty-five percent of unemployed Millennials were living with parents, versus 29% of those with jobs.   read more

Dr. Katherine O’Regan is an associate professor of Public Policy and director of the Public and Nonprofit Management and Analysis Program at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. O’Regan’s primary research interests are to study the intersection of poverty and space—the conditions and fortunes of poor neighborhoods and those who live in them.   read more

Paul Fronczak told the Chicago Tribune. “I think that the perfect ending would be to find the real Paul, see that he's doing well and then on the same day find my real family. It would also be nice to have an actual birth date that I could believe in.”   read more

David Johnson, 32, is running as a Republican. He was nominated at the Waterville Republican City Committee caucus, where only six voters showed up. Jennifer Johnson, 36, says she decided only at the last minute to run for the same seat, but as a Democrat, after no one else at the Democratic caucus volunteered to do it. “It’s kind of a pride thing between the two of us, for bragging rights for the rest of our lives,” Jennifer Johnson told the Maine Today.   read more

Joining USDA circa 1977, Garcia eventually worked his way up to be the manager of agricultural programs for Texas and assistant state executive director for FSA. In June 2009 he was named Texas state executive director, having served as acting director since January of that year.   read more

Members of the U.S. House introduced an amendment that would have dismantled the NSA’s bulk phone records collection program—a plan that the Obama White House condemned. But five years ago, Senator Obama cosponsored a bill that would have limited bulk records collection by the NSA. That bill died in committee, as did a similar measure introduced in 2005, which Senator Obama also backed.   read more

Civil forfeitures were first set up to deny convicted drug dealers, embezzlers, racketeers and other offenders from keeping property obtained with tainted money. While this is still the case in many instances, other people not accused of committing a crime are also having their homes and other possessions taken away by law enforcement. In 2000, officials seized $500 million in forfeitures. By 2012, that amount rose to $4.2 billion, an eightfold increase.   read more

In order to extract oil from tar sands, oil companies use super-heated water to carry out this separation process. Two years ago, these operations sucked about 370 million cubic meters of water (or 2.3 billion barrels) from the Athabasca River, which is more that the amount of water that the city of Toronto, with a population 2.8 million people, uses annually. Tar sands companies get this water for free, needing only a license from the province of Alberta.   read more

The San Mateo Union High School District is now suing ETS and the College Board on behalf of 286 students at Mills High School whose exam scores were thrown out. ETS and College Board take the position that because students were facing each other, they had the opportunity to cheat, even if there was no evidence that they had actually done so.   read more

On August 3, 2012, a wooded area around Bayou Corne, south of Baton Rouge, dissolved into liquefied muck from oil and natural gas that was 422 feet deep and 372 feet wide. Now, the sinkhole has grown to 24 acres. The state of Louisiana and local residents are suing Texas Brine Company LLC for the environmental damage caused by the massive sinkhole, which materialized after a salt dome cavern operated by the company collapsed.   read more

Seeking to evade even the weak limits placed on its spying by U.S. law, the National Security Agency (NSA) has paid at least £100 million ($155 million) to the British spy agency known as GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) over the last three years to conduct operations NSA legally cannot. In light of ongoing revelations regarding NSA domestic spying on Americans, the arrangement suggests that NSA is using GCHQ to break U.S. law.   read more

The civil complaint claims Bank of America (BofA) defrauded investors who purchased more than $850 million in residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) contained in a particular bond (BOAMS 2008-A). The fraud occurred when BofA failed to tell investors that more than 70% of the mortgages backing the bond were bad, and that they came from mortgage brokers that weren't affiliated with the bank.   read more

The case began three years ago after two students at Easton Area Middle School, Brianna Hawk and Kayla Martinez, were suspended from the school and banned from a school dance for wearing the bracelets on campus to honor family members who had died of breast cancer. The Keep a Breast Foundation, a non-profit group based in Carlsbad, California, distributes the bracelets as part of its national campaign to make young people aware of the disease.   read more