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

When Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), gave a speech to express the NRA’s official position on the tragedy, he received extensive national media coverage. However, little attention was given to the fact that the six teachers who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School were members of the Newtown Federation of Teachers Local 1727. The NRA has about 4 million members, while 14.4 million Americans belong to labor unions.   read more

While the nation’s unemployment rate is still high, joblessness in the technology sector is much lower (less than 4%) due to the high demand for skilled labor. According to Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, “The American economy creates 120,000 new computer-related jobs annually that require a bachelor’s degree, but we are currently producing about 51,000 graduates with a degree in computer science each year.”   read more

The DPLA will function more as a portal to other libraries with digitized collections than as a single repository. Because many libraries are not linked up, the DPLA hopes to act as a hub that can improve Internet users’ ability to find and access materials available online.   read more

The federal government's various efforts to encourage the development of renewable energy are fragmented. In Fiscal Year 2010, 23 agencies with 130 sub-agencies implemented 679 renewable energy initiatives, with four cabinet-level departments—Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and Interior—implementing nearly 60% of the initiatives, and the other 40% run by a wide array of agencies. In Fiscal Year 2011, 82 different programs dealt with wind energy alone.   read more

Even if the Supreme Court strikes down Myriad's patents, however, critics point out that the company will still own the largest database of genetic mutations and what they mean—and Myriad stopped sharing the information in the database eight years ago.   read more

An earlier IRS document from 2009 showed the agency’s disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against illegal searches. But the Criminal Tax Division at the IRS claimed in an internal handbook that in general “the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server.”   read more

In 2011, Tulsa World found that nearly half ($506 million out of $1.2 billion) of all food stamp expenditures between July 2009 and March 2011 went to Walmart Stores, according to data supplied by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services.   read more

Quietly and after many members had left for the weekend, the Senate voted Thursday night to approve a new bill, S. 716, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), that no one had read, and that was not publicly available on the Library of Congress website until after the vote. The purpose of the bill was to gut key provisions in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.   read more

The federal Department of Education is making big money from student loan payments. Its direct loan program yielded a $27.5 billion profit on loans made in 2011, $24 billion on loans made in 2012, and is expected to earn $33.5 billion on loans made in 2013. If a doubling of the student loan interest rate scheduled for July 1, 2013, goes into effect, the rate will go from 3.4% to 6.8%   read more

Among those who were invited to testify were representatives of the American Association of Airport Executives; the Express Association of America, which lobbies for DHL, FedEx, UPS and TNT; and Airlines for America, whose mission is to “foster a business and regulatory environment that ensures safe and secure air transportation and enables U.S. airlines to flourish.”   read more

Nineteen horses died suddenly of no apparent cause during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, according to the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB). Another 17 have similarly died in the months since. Only six such deaths occurred in 2010-2011 and four the year before that. Several trainers told The New York Times they have never lost a horse to a heart attack or under these kinds of mysterious circumstances.   read more

A 25-year veteran of federal law enforcement, Shawn A. Bray acts on behalf of the Attorney General as the official U.S. representative to Interpol. He joined USNCB Interpol in February 2010, serving as deputy director in Washington through October 2012. Bray speaks fluent Spanish and is an enthusiastic owner of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.   read more

A few years ago dark pools made up only a small percentage of all trading. But, recently, there have been days when these shadowy transactions comprised nearly 40% of all deals, up from 16% in 2008. In January, daily dark pool trading actually surpassed the New York Stock Exchange with 920 million trades to 900 million for the NYSE.   read more

The parental effort was “assisted” by Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group whose largest benefactor is the conservative Walton Family Foundation, according to journalist Gary Cohn. Cohn says that the foundation has contributed $6.3 million since 2009. The Parent Revolution’s next largest contributor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($1.6 million), the Laura and John Arnold Foundation ($1.5 million) and the Wasserman Foundation ($1.5 million).   read more

The research was compiled from samples collected from countries in Asia and Europe, including the Czech Republic, Bhutan, Italy, China, Taiwan, India and Thailand. The highest levels were found in samples from Taiwan and China. Concerns over lead add to another health risk involving rice—the presence of arsenic.   read more

"Designed to be a gun, never redesigned to be something else, not so dilapidated as to be beyond repair, the gun fits the statutory definition and the judgment must therefore be…AFFIRMED.”   read more