President Donald Trump gleefully announced that, under his direction, U.S. military troops had swooped down on the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento and kidnapped California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re charging Newscum with fraud.” When a reporter asked for specifics about the fraud charges, Trump pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, clearly taken by surprise, said, “We’re looking into it and will let you know the details as soon as we’ve created them.”   read more

In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds, a California town is besieged by thousands of attacking seagulls, crows and other feathery foes, whose murderous ire toward humanity goes unexplained. If not an avian protest against DDT use (chronicled i...   read more

Florida Governor Rick Scott’s mandatory drug-testing program for state workers, created by executive order, has been thrown out by a federal judge.   District Judge Ursula Ungaro found no compelling justification for the plan, which amounted to ...   read more

The partisan battle over Michigan’s year-old law that empowers the Governor to appoint emergency “czars” with sweeping authority to overrule elected officials in financially troubled cities or school districts, including the ability to overturn lo...   read more

Just eight days after the leak of a government report detailing waste and other problems at the Department of Energy (DOE)’s nuclear weapons labs, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces approved legislation that would actually w...   read more

Corn farmers are battling other farmers, as well as environmentalists, over a new strain of genetically modified corn that’s resistant to a powerful herbicide suspected of causing cancer.   At the center of the controversy is 2,4-D, a chemical u...   read more

Insurance company executives are aware of the future risks posed by climate change. And yet they have been slow to prepare for the coming wave of weather-related accidents and litigation spawned by global warming changes.   In a survey conducted...   read more

Local leaders in Scotland and the state of Oregon are genuinely excited about the pairing of Dull and Boring.   Dull refers to the small village (population: 84) in the Highland part of Scotland’s Perth and Kinross county, while Boring is an uni...   read more

In the middle of one of its largest ever projects–the rollout of a new air traffic control system, dubbed “NextGen”–the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lost Administrator Randy Babbitt, who resigned on December 6, 2011, days after he was arr...   read more

Legislation intended to combat cyber threats may itself become a threat to civil liberties. On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) by a vote of 248 to 168.   The act would allow...   read more

Lacking what critics said was common sense and compassion, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at the Wichita, Kansas, airport treated a 4-year-old child like a terrorist.   Isabella Brademeyer and her 6-year-old brother, Olive...   read more

One of the most oppressive post-Soviet dictatorships, the central Asian nation of Tajikistan has won the friendship of the U.S. government through its cooperation with Washington’s wars in the region. President Barack Obama on April 16 nominated c...   read more

On April 11, President Obama announced his intent to nominate Jay Nicholas Anania to be the next Ambassador to Suriname, which is the smallest independent nation in South America and the only independent Dutch-speaking nation in the Western Hemisp...   read more

Restricted from gouging many of its middle-class customers because of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, banks have focused on hitting low-income Americans with new, exorbitant fees.   Financial institutions are taking advantage of customers w...   read more

Lamar Advertising Co. in Florida is being sued and faces criminal prosecution for illegally killing thousands of trees for the sake of making roadside billboards more visible.   The controversy came to light after a company employee, Robert Barn...   read more

Inability to land properly was enough for the U.S. Navy to ground its most important unmanned helicopters. But the “mishaps” weren’t enough to stop Navy commanders from ordering a new-and-improved version of the aircraft.   About two weeks ago, ...   read more

In his memoir coming out this month, the Central Intelligence Agency officer who ordered the destruction of the CIA’s torture tapes defends his actions, saying he was erasing “some ugly visuals.”   Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former director of t...   read more