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

Advocates of community radio won an important victory this week when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it would dismiss a backlog of more than 6,000 pending applications for what are known as translators and open the applicatio...   read more

With its ice sheet slowly receding because of global warming, Greenland has become popular with mining companies seeking new stores of valuable minerals.   Beneath the thinning glaciers are lodes of uranium, zinc, iron ore, copper and gold, as w...   read more

Following the time-honored tradition of lawmakers (“do unto others as you would not do unto yourself”), the Florida legislature adopted the first-in-the-nation law that allows state workers to be tested for drug use.   Legislators are exempt.  ...   read more

Rather than focus on helping smaller businesses, Republicans and Democrats in Washington have come together on legislation that would assist large corporations and allow them to skirt financial disclosure rules.   The Jump-Start Our Business Sta...   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court this week heard two cases that will decide whether juveniles as young as 14 years of age should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. They are among about 2,200 Americans serving life sentences wi...   read more

It might seem like the title of biggest employer in the world would go to the ubiquitous Walmart or McDonald’s. But, in fact, the honor belongs not with a company but a government agency: the U.S. Department of Defense.   With 3.2 million on its...   read more

It’s safe to say the one word not to say around Disney executives right now is “Mars.”   For the second year in a row, the biggest film flop could be about the “red planet.” Disney has a candidate for 2012’s largest financial mistake in John Car...   read more

In the first State Integrity Investigation conducted by multiple watchdog groups, the state of Georgia came in dead last, although it was not the only government to receive a failing grade.   After assessing transparency, accountability and anti...   read more

Chevron and another American company are under attack from the government of Brazil after allowing an oil leak from an offshore well.   Seventeen executives from Chevron and oil platform operator Transocean face criminal charges for an oil disch...   read more

Congressional Democrats, the media and civil libertarians are continuing their fight with President Barack Obama over his administration’s secret interpretations of the Patriot Act.   Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, who ...   read more

Support from a leading scientific publishing company for a controversial piece of legislation produced a backlash from more than 8,000 academic researchers.   Four years ago, as part of the 2008 Appropriations Act, Congress approved guidelines e...   read more

Five years ago, Joseph Insinga blew the whistle on his employer, telling the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that it was helping numerous companies avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes.   Insinga figured he deserved a reward for his actions,...   read more

With all the accusations of voter fraud Republicans have made against Democrats in recent years, it is easy to forget that it is actually the Republican Party that has been under court-ordered monitoring for potential race-based voter fraud for th...   read more

Airports fed up with the work of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can now opt out of using government screeners in favor of private contractors, under a new law passed by Congress last month.   Officially, airports have had the a...   read more

Officially called the Utah Data Center, the enormous facility under construction will eventually house one million square feet of computers. Its mission will be to intercept, decipher, analyze and store large volumes of communications collected by...   read more

The answer to the question in the headline, of course, is money, and quite a lot of it. Although exact amounts are unknown, the Iranian dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) (People’s Mujahedin of Iran)–which the State Department has designated ...   read more