Trump announced that from now on the NFL will be known as the NTL: The National Trump League. The Super Bowl will be renamed the Trump Bowl, and professional players must be called Trumpball Players. Anyone, on any level, who refuses to comply with Trump’s orders will be arrested and charged with being a threat to national security.   read more

For 17 years, Jerry Givens was Virginia’s chief executioner. He was personally responsible for executing 62 people, and felt no remorse for his work during that time. But these days Givens has a whole new take on the death penalty. Since leaving his job 13 years ago, Givens has become one of the state’s biggest opponents of capital punishment.   read more

Despite Urrutia’s lack of diplomatic experience, Santos has insisted that his childhood friend is a man “who has all the qualities to represent our country at this special moment” in its relations with the U.S. A wealthy man, Urrutia showed his support for Santos’ 2010 presidential run even before the campaign began. In February 2010 Urrutia organized a fundraiser at the elite Bogotá Club San Andrés, to which the price of admission was between 600,000 and 1,200,000 pesos per person ($310-$620).   read more

According to the United States State Department’s Human Rights Report, “Three core human rights issues continue to be of concern: citizens’ inability to change their government; limitations on citizens’ civil liberties (including the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association); and lack of judicial independence…. political parties are not permitted. The government continued to interfere with privacy and to restrict civil liberties, including usage of the Internet.”   read more

Although the 541 people who serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate (including non-voting delegates in the House) are hardly representative of the United States citizenry as a whole, they are a varied group. Here is a sampling of what some of them used to do before they were elected to serve in Congress.   read more

The report revealed that many young people behind bars in 2010 were not there for violent crimes or robbery. In fact, only 25% were. The largest group of offenders (40%) consisted of drug and probation violators and those committing “status” offenses, such as truancy or illegal possession of alcohol.   read more

Eric Williams was conducting a nightly headcount alone in a unit housing 130 prisoners at the high security federal prison in Canaan, Wayne County, when a prisoner beat him and stabbed him repeatedly using a homemade knife. Williams was the first federal prison guard to be killed in the line of duty since 2008. Two dozen federal prison employees have died on the job since 1901.   read more

In supporting an industry-backed bill in Illinois, a Sierra Club official, Jack Darin, said there was no way to avoid fracking from taking place, so the organization might as well compromise and get regulations in place. Complaints about the Illinois plan include its provisions to allow drilling on state land and permit fracking as long as rules are in place to regulate it.   read more

Siding with the Obama administration, the court’s conservative wing said the plaintiffs—a group that included the ACLU, Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, Global Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, The Nation magazine, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union and others—could not demonstrate that they or their clients would be harmed by the law.   read more

American Electric Power (AEP) will stop using coal by 2015 at power plants in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. It intends to replace the energy produced by the plants with new wind and solar investments in Indiana and Michigan. The company also will spend $5 billion to install pollution controls on other plants located throughout the East and reduce its annual sulfur dioxide emissions over the next 12 years from 828,000 tons to 174,000 tons.   read more

Several of the charges dealt with the gifting of personal firearms to King Abdullah of Jordan and his entourage while the company was trying to win a security contract. Others related to the seizure automatic weapons that exceeded Blackwater’s legal limit. Blackwater officials claimed they were just storing the weapons for the Camden County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina.   read more

The 7% statistic first appeared on January 22 on the website of the American-led coalition, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). It subsequently was used in the Pentagon’s semi-annual report to Congress on Afghanistan security progress. The figure then abruptly vanished from the website without explanation. A coalition spokesman later said the error was caught during a “quality control check.”   read more

Coming in dead last was British food giant Associated British Foods, owner of Ovaltine and other brands with 13 points on a scale of 70. Next to last were Kellogg's and General Mills, with both scoring 16 points. Nestlé made the top of the list with 36 points, with Unilever close behind at 34.   read more

The newly discovered problem only adds to the soil contamination at Hanford, which was used for five decades to produce plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. There are nearly 150 tanks, similar in size and design, to the six spilling radioactive liquid and sludge at the site. Four of the six tanks have leaked in the past. The news led the state’s governor, Jay Inslee, to wonder about the “integrity” of the other tanks.   read more

When President Obama was asked if drone strikes could be used against U.S. citizens within the U.S., his reply was as evasive as Brennan’s: There “has never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil.”   read more

Afghan officials later said that Afghans supporting American commandos were the main suspects, and that U.S. soldiers had more likely enabled the wrongdoings instead of perpetrated them. The accusations centered on the actions of local militia armed and trained by the Americans, the creation of which has been opposed by Afghanistan’s national government.   read more

One example is Lake Murray State Park Airport in Oklahoma, recipient of $150,000 annually from Washington. The airport consists of a field with no landing lights, no electricity, no control tower, and no people to operate it. There is, on average, one landing and takeoff a week, and often is used by passing private planes whose pilots need to use the bathroom.   read more