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

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did its part, approving the new standards in 1996. It was then up to the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to review them. Instead, the two agencies “did nothing,” according to Nina Bell, NWEA’s executive director.   read more

U.S. power plants in the past year have actually increased their use of coal while decreasing their use of natural gas, reversing a recent trend from gas to coal. The reason for the shift, according to EIA, is simply that the price of gas rose while that of coal dropped. Many utility companies have technology allowing them to switch between coal and natural gas, and do so depending on which option is cheaper.   read more

The primary reason for the good budget news is the slowly recovering economy. June’s unemployment rate of 7.6% was down from 8.2% last year, net corporate income taxes were up by $29 billion, payments to the Treasury from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are on the rise, and American employers added 195,000 workers in June.   read more

For 35 years, the FISC has acted in complete secrecy: government requests for surveillance are sealed, only the government is allowed to participate in hearings, and the court’s opinions—which have the force of law—are kept from the public as well. As a result, the FISC has created a corpus of secret law pertaining to vital constitutional issues like the Fourth Amendment and the right to privacy.   read more

A PPD, while neither a law nor a regulation, is a statement by the President directed to the Executive Branch of the federal government that implements or interprets a federal statute, a constitutional provision, or a treaty. As such, a PPD becomes part of the particular legal framework that grows up around any statute or program. Keeping it secret means that the public is prevented from fully understanding the laws that govern them.   read more

The companies violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the FTC Act by using various tactics prohibited by the Act, such as calling debtors multiple times per day, calling after being asked to stop, calling at early and late hours, calling workplaces despite knowing that the employers prohibited such calls, disclosing a debtor’s name and the existence of the debt to third parties, and failing to cease collection efforts without verifying the debt after consumers challenged it.   read more

There was an average of 21 earthquakes a year of magnitude 3.0 or higher in the central United States between 1967 and 2000. Between 2010 and 2012, that number grew to 200 a year, according to a study published in Science. The study said there was a direct connection between a 9.0 earthquake in Japan in 2011 and a swarm of smaller quakes in a West Texas oil field that used fracking. A 4.1 quake near fracking wells in Prague, Oklahoma, was linked to an 8.8 quake in Chile in 2010.   read more

Baltimore state’s attorney’s office released 14 inmates it says do not pose a threat to public safety—13 murderers and one man convicted of attempted murder. The men all served more than 30 years in prison and are mostly elderly and in poor health. In fact, one of the men who was released, 72-year-old Yusuf Rasheed (aka Joseoh Westry), died of a heart attack the day after he left prison, having spent more than 37 years behind bars for killing his estranged wife and her lover.   read more

The homicide rate for people aged 10 to 24 was 7.5 per 100,000 in 2010, compared to 15.9 in 1993. In terms of actual numbers, about 4,800 young people under age 25 were murdered in 2010. Teenagers and young adults are more likely to be killed than older adults, the CDC says, with homicide still being a leading cause of death for the young, behind automobile accidents.   read more

An Alaska National Guard crew flying a training mission with a Black Hawk helicopter out of Anchorage spotted the wreckage in a receding glacier known as Colony Glacier. Officials then notified the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), which collected some of the remains. Members of JPAC returned this summer to gather more remains, including some human.   read more

From August 2007 to July 2010, he served as deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Bogotá, Colombia. Starting in August 2010, Nichols served in the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), first as INL’s deputy assistant secretary and then, beginning May 25, 2011, as principal deputy assistant secretary.   read more

Located at al-Watah, about 125 miles west-southwest of the capital of Riyadh, some of the base’s truck-based DF-3 missiles appear to be pointed towards the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, and others in the direction of Iran’s capital, Tehran. The DF-3s were first developed in the 1970s and sold to the Saudi royal family in 1987. They are not remotely-guided, which means they must be positioned in the direction of their intended target.   read more

Local politicians see many opportunities with Cuba. The local airport could expand direct flights to Havana, while the city’s port wants cruise ships to base their Cuban voyages out of Tampa. The port could also serve as major commercial shipping center for expanded trade with Cuba. If the plan works, Tampa’s gain could be Miami’s loss.   read more

Others have said that the women, estimated to be upwards of 200,000, worked in Japanese brothels because it was steady employment, their pimps back home compelled them, their families thought they would be safer during the war or their families sold them to the enemy. Those are not reasons heard from the Korean, Filipino and Chinese women who are still alive to tell the story.   read more

According to Transparency International (TI), a nongovernmental organization, nurses in at least one local hospital made women pay $5 every time they screamed while giving birth. The penalty was allegedly intended to discourage women from raising false alarms. Women who didn’t pay the fee or simply couldn’t afford it were forced against their will to remain at the hospital until they paid their debt (which sometimes included accruing interest).   read more

McCulley received his first ambassadorship when President George W. Bush nominated him to be ambassador to Mali in May 2005; confirmed by the Senate in June, McCulley served three years in Bamako. After serving as deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 2008 to 2010, McCulley served as ambassador to Nigeria starting in August 2010.   read more