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

Seven years into his presidency, Barack Obama continues to publicly back ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed late last year to “re-energize” efforts for congressional approval — a move that the head of the U.N. organization created to enforce a ban says would lead at least some of the other holdouts to do the same. But with Obama’s days in office numbered, that appears to be a forlorn hope.   read more

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), released a report today slamming an accreditor of for-profit colleges for its “appalling record of failure.” “Students and taxpayers have paid the price” for the failures of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), she wrote in an accompanying letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education. Warren urged the Department of Education to take “strong, aggressive action to hold ACICS accountable.”   read more

In the 21st century, the United States has reinstated a broad system of debtors’ prisons, in effect making it a crime to be poor. If you don’t believe me, come with me to the county jail in Tulsa. On the day I visited, 23 people were incarcerated for failure to pay government fines and fees, including one woman imprisoned because she couldn’t pay a fine for lacking a license plate.   read more

While corporate executives have been outspoken in defending their labor practices before Congress and the public, the American workers who lost jobs to global outsourcing companies have been largely silent. Until recently. Now some of the workers who were displaced are starting to speak out, despite severance agreements prohibiting them from criticizing their former employers.   read more

The last word about the quality of Dimock’s water came from assurances in a 2012 statement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency declared that the water coming out of Dimock’s taps did not require emergency action, such as a federal cleanup. The agency’s stance was widely interpreted to mean the water was safe. Now another agency has analyzed the same set of water samples, and determined that is not the case.   read more

Executives from a Panamanian securities dealer cannot make the Securities and Exchange Commission foot the bill for the “bacchanalian adventure” that accompanied their deposition in London. Exasperation dripped Thursday from the court’s refusal to make U.S. taxpayers underwrite the European jaunt of Verdmont Capital’s principals and counsel.   read more

On Oct. 14, 2014, an Arizona teen says, a Border Patrol agent accused her of carrying drugs, without cause. He arrested her, took her to a detention room, handcuffed her to a chair, had her sniffed by dogs, and strip-searched by women agents. She was never informed of her legal rights, nor was she allowed to call her mother. Nor did the agents or the dogs find any drugs. But that didn’t stop them from taking her to a hospital, in handcuffs, to be X-rayed and strip-searched more thoroughly.   read more

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s conviction on ethics charges automatically removes him from office and could mean years in prison for the powerful Republican. Friday night, a jury found the one-time GOP star guilty of 12 counts of public corruption for using the influence and prestige of his political stature to benefit his companies and clients. He faces up to 20 years in prison for each count.   read more

Demonstrators have formed a human chain near a U.S. air base in western Germany to protest against lethal drone strikes. Organizers estimated that about 5,000 people took part in the chain near the Ramstein Air Base on a rainy Saturday, while police put the number at some 2,000.   read more

House lawmakers Friday passed legislation to increase their office budgets for the first time in years but again deny themselves a pay raise of their own. The additional money for staff salaries and other office expenses is aimed in large part at retaining staff aides, who are often 20-somethings who struggle to make ends meet in Washington, where rents have skyrocketed and opportunities outside of Congress often pay more than Capitol Hill jobs.   read more

A Guantanamo detainee whom the U.S. says it “probably misidentified” 14 years ago finally got a hearing Thursday on his bid for a transfer. Abdul Zahir, 44, arrived at Guantanamo in October 2002 after the United States captured him during an Afghanistan raid. U.S. forces were actually targeting another individual named Abdul Bari, which happens to be an alias Zahir used. The U.S. says it believed Bari was involved in chemical and biological weapons production and distribution for al-Qaida.   read more

A Navy admiral on Thursday pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities investigating a $34 million fraud scheme involving a Malaysian contractor known as “Fat Leonard” — becoming the highest-ranking military official to be taken down in the wide-spanning scandal. Rear Adm. Robert Gilbeau, 55, is believed to be the first active-duty naval flag officer to be charged in federal court.   read more

House Republican leaders have blocked a Democratic congressman from Mississippi from offering legislation to ban Confederate imagery from the House side of the Capitol complex. Rep. Bennie Thompson had sought the opportunity to ban display of the Mississippi state flag and statues of Confederate icons such as President Jefferson Davis. Mississippi’s state flag incorporates the Confederate battle flag in its top inner corner.   read more

Federal recordkeeping measures to ensure porn stars are of legal age are unconstitutional because they allow impromptu warrantless searches, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled June 8. In its 65-page split ruling, the Third Circuit said the warrantless searches permitted by two federal statutes violate the First and Fourth amendments because the porn industry is not as heavily regulated as other industries that are subjected to such searches, such as firearms dealers or junkyards.   read more

Retired football players on Thursday fought to revive claims that National Football League teams pumped them with painkillers to get them back on the field, disregarding long-term effects on their health. The former players allege the clubs conspired since at least 1964 to have trainers dole out pills and inject players with painkillers, sometimes mixing them with other drugs in dangerous cocktails, to get them back on the field to drive profits for the league.   read more

MergerWatch surveyed health care statutes and regulations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It found that only 10 states require government review before hospital facilities and services can be shut down. Only eight states and the District of Columbia mandate regulatory review when hospitals enter into more informal partnerships rather than full-scale mergers, closing a loophole that exists in other states for deals to pass with minimal state oversight.   read more