President Donald Trump invited the Dodgers to the White House. Many of their fans feared that the team, by accepting, would humiliate themselves and betray the team’s large Latino, Asian and African-American fan base. Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter, along with co-owner Magic Johnson, have proposed a solution. Trump has promised that if he can keep the championship trophy, the Commissioner’s Trophy, he will end all seizures and deportations of immigrants.   read more

If the legislation passes, licensed professionals would have 30 days to report any convictions more severe than a traffic violation as well as professional misconduct violations. An investigation cited examples of nurses who retained their licenses even after being charged with or convicted of violent crimes. Currently, nurses are required to disclose convictions and misconduct only once every three years at license renewal.The new measure requires hearings on summary suspensions within 90 days.   read more

Sophisticated hackers linked to Russian intelligence services broke into the Democratic National Committee’s computer networks and gained access to confidential emails, chats and opposition research on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, people familiar with the breach said Tuesday. The newly revealed attacks join a host of high-profile digital breaches affecting current and past White House hopefuls.   read more

Federal law does not protect the right of two ministers of the Hawaii Cannabis Ministry to distribute large amounts of marijuana for their religious practices, the Ninth Circuit ruled (pdf) Tuesday. A three-judge panel upheld the ministers’ drug-related convictions, rejecting their argument that the convictions violate their rights to exercise their religion under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.   read more

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the city of Cleveland on Tuesday, saying that it was violating protesters’ free speech rights with undue restrictions on demonstrations during next month’s Republican National Convention. The lawsuit challenges a number of the restrictions, including limits on street marches to 50 minutes per group and to a single approved route over a bridge, and on three of the four convention days to the hours of 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.   read more

On Tuesday, the Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would for the first time require young women to register for the draft. The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. Under the Senate bill passed on Tuesday, women turning 18 on or after Jan. 1, 2018, would be forced to register for Selective Service, as men must do now.   read more

The Kansas State Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday to ignore a directive from President Obama’s administration that public schools allow transgender students to use restrooms matching their gender identity, and instead the board left decisions up to school districts. What remains unclear is whether the 10-0 vote will endanger over $479 million in federal aid, or about 10% of the state’s education budget.   read more

In an effort to appeal to picky young palates, food processors often make their products more tempting by putting color in the food. A recent study (pdf) has shown, though, that 43% of foods marketed to children contain artificial food colors (AFCs). The food most likely to contain artificial dyes is—no surprise—candy, with 96.3% of the brands sampled containing artificial dyes. Next on the list were fruit-flavored snacks (94.7%); drink mixes and powders (89.7%); and frozen breakfasts (85.7%).   read more

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the government’s “net neutrality” rules that require internet providers to treat all web traffic equally. The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a win for the Obama administration, consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix that want to prevent online content from being blocked or channeled into fast and slow lanes.   read more

More than a decade into his 18-year prison term, a man hammered by disproportionate crack cocaine penalties can try to benefit from recent drug sentencing reform efforts, the Ninth Circuit ruled Monday. The U.S. Sentencing Commission passed an amendment the following year that would allow more than 12,000 drug offenders to apply for retroactive relief. But prosecutors claimed that Davis waived his right to contest his sentence when he signed his plea agreement back in 2005.   read more

A defense contractor responsible for cleaning up pollution at a facility where most munitions manufacturing was done under contracts with the U.S. military can seek cost recovery from the government, the Ninth Circuit ruled Monday. In 2013, Whittaker filed its own lawsuit under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, seeking recovery from the United States for expenses Whittaker incurred since the 1980s investigating and cleaning the Bermite site.   read more

Washington firefighters asked Gov. Jay Inslee (D) to stop oil trains from running through the state until a “full investigation” is conducted into the June 3 derailment in Oregon. “The account given by firefighters of the Mosier response and by others who have responded to similar incidents across North America make it clear these fires are exceedingly difficult to extinguish, even under unusually ideal circumstances,” council president Dennis Lawson wrote.   read more

Gun homicides are a common cause of death in the United States, killing about as many people as car crashes. Some cases command our attention more than others, of course. Counting mass shootings that make headlines and the thousands of Americans murdered one or a few at a time, gunshot homicides totaled 8,124 in 2014. This level of violence makes the United States an extreme outlier when measured against the experience of other advanced countries.   read more

In what appears to be the first such ruling ever, an Oregon judge granted a transgender person’s petition to be legally considered “non-binary,” rather than male or female. Jamie Shupe of Portland filed a petition for change of sex in April. Shupe, who was born male, used the honorific “Mx” in court filings.   read more

Starting in 1932, North Dakota law barred nonfamily corporations from owning farmland or operating farms. But that changed in March of last year when the state legislature passed a bill that would relax the corporate farming ban and Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed it into law. Citizens protested the new law, with the state’s farmers union at the forefront, which led to a referendum that voters will face on Tuesday.   read more

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a group of American Samoans who say the United States should grant full citizenship to people born in the U.S. territory. The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that said the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship does not extend to the islands that have been a part of the country since 1900.   read more

The global number of nuclear warheads dropped last year, though none of the nine nuclear powers showed any signs of giving up their atomic weapons, an arms watchdog said Monday. In an annual report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, together had about 15,395 nuclear weapons on Jan. 1 this year, down from 15,850 a year earlier.   read more