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

President Barack Obama has managed to keep his numbers from falling further, according to CNN/ORC. His approval/disapproval ratings are at 44%/53%, which is virtually the same as they were in the last poll (45%/52%). Americans also disapprove of the Democratic and Republican parties. The Dems’ approval rating stands at 43%, while the GOP’s is 32%. The Tea Party is also not well liked, with only a 31% approval rating.   read more

At one time the NSA only created profiles of foreigners it was watching. But officials decided to include Americans as part of their “discover and track” operations to find connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the United States. This policy shift occurred even though there were internal concerns that Americans’ privacy rights might be violated in the process.   read more

The Justice Department is challenging four provisions of North Carolina’s voting law, including the requirement that residents show a photo ID at polling places before casting their ballots. The administration also objects to the elimination of the first seven days of early voting; the elimination of same-day voter registration during the early-voting period; and the prohibition on counting provisional ballots cast by voters in their home county but outside their home voting precinct.   read more

Denied tougher gun-control measures in the wake of last year’s Newtown school shooting, the Obama administration is taking a different approach to making classrooms safer: Fund more school security. The U.S. Department of Justice announced late last week that it would distribute $44 million in grants to help schools in 141 cities and counties hire more than 350 security personnel, known as school resource officers.   read more

VA prescriptions for these four medications have skyrocketed since 2001 by 270%, contributing to fatal overdoses among VA patients, who have nearly double the national average. Dispensing of painkillers has become so prevalent, in fact, that the agency issued more than one opiate prescription per patient, on average, for the past two years, CIR found.   read more

The study found that the number of women age 65 and older living in extreme poverty increased by 18% from 2011 to 2012. The statistical jump translated into 135,000 more elderly women living on less than $5,500 annually, with the total in this group reaching 733,000.   read more

If the FBI maintains its pace for the remainder of 2013, the bureau’s total will be down nearly 7% from the previous year, TRAC concluded. More importantly, the rate that the FBI pursues white-collar crimes could be down as much as 45% compared to totals from 2003—and nearly 59% from 1993.   read more

Butcher refused to subject himself to the scans, insisting the technology clashed with the New Testament’s Book of Revelation, which says to beware of marks on the forehead or right hand that symbolize allegiance to the antichrist. the vendor noted Chapter 13, Verse 16 of the Book of Revelation, and suggested it was okay to scan a person’s left hand, palm facing up, to avoid any religious conflict. But Butcher rejected this compromise.   read more

But was it more than just opening doors? The report criticizes the Navy for evading competition in awarding the contract to Eid Passport. For example, the RAPIDGate kiosks that visitors use were priced at $2,499 each—exactly $1.00 less than the amount that Navy rules required “open market” competition. In response to complaints, the subscriptions were renewed and expanded at a cost of millions of dollars, under unusual subcontracts that also circumvented federal rules.   read more

By several measures the decisions, which has been cited in more than 1,200 federal and state cases, has reshaped the legal landscape to favor employers over employees. Judges have overturned jury verdicts, tossed out settlements, and rejected or decertified class actions to the benefit of corporations like Family Dollar, Lockheed Martin, Cintas, and Hearst. The size of worker discrimination settlements has fallen as well.   read more

Byrne also found that 20% of the portfolio was sold to business partners or clients of CBRE, while it took up to a 6% commission in 34 of the 52 transactions. CBRE appeared to act as an agent for both the Postal Service and buyers in many of the transactions, contrary to customary property sales, according to Byrne.   read more

The bank countered that the case should be dismissed because the three-year statute of limitations in the False Claim Act began ticking when the HUD inspector general learned about the alleged fraud in 2004. Justice Department attorneys retorted that the clock started when the attorney general discovered the misconduct in 2011, and that the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act (WSLA) extended the clock to 10 years anyway.   read more

A lifelong Democrat, Sherman has donated more than $80,000 to Democratic candidates and organizations, including $27,000 to the Democratic National Committee. He was a member of Obama for America and served on its national finance committee, raising at least $500,000 for Obama. In January 2013, President Obama appointed Sherman to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.   read more

In the case filed in federal court in San Jose, a group of named plaintiffs have sued Google for violating the federal Wiretap Act by scanning emails sent or received via its Gmail service for words and content, and intentionally intercepting messages between non-Gmail subscribers and subscribers. “The ruling means federal and state wiretap laws apply to the internet. It’s a tremendous victory for online privacy."   read more

SEC Chair Mary Jo White had to recuse herself from the case because she had previously worked for Debevoise & Plimpton LLC, which had performed services for JPMorgan. Likewise, Republican Commissioner Daniel Gallagher had to beg off from being involved in the settlement because his former employer, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, had done work for the bank.   read more

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in 2006. the agency didn’t bother to develop privacy guidelines before utilizing the unmanned aircraft. The FBI told the IG’s office that it didn’t see the need to create drone-specific policies because officials felt UAS’s weren’t really different from manned aircraft, for which policies already exist.   read more