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

State police treated the media like an enemy and made no distinction between journalists and environmental protesters they were removing and arresting at a highway construction site, a news photographer testified Friday. Photojournalist Stephen Eberhard said officers subjected him to a pattern of intimidation, threats and harassment to deter him from covering one of the state's largest highway projects in decades. "I was not expecting any officer of the law to attack me like that," he said.   read more

A sweeping sage grouse conservation effort that the government announced last September is riddled with loopholes and will not be enough to protect the bird from extinction, according to a new lawsuit. There are too many exceptions favorable to industry at the expense of the bird, it claims. It follows legal challenges against the same rules from mining companies, ranchers and state officials, who argue that the administration's actions will impede economic development.   read more

Problems related to cars’ rapidly advancing technology are now at the top of the list of consumer complaints. The biggest issues are balky voice recognition systems and problems with Bluetooth pairing, accounting for 20% of all customer complaints. Overall, the discontent drove a 3% decline in vehicle dependability in the study. Complaints about technology have gone from being fifth most troublesome in the 2014 study to now being first.   read more

It takes about 22 hours to reach Florida by car for a person traveling from Wisconsin. But if you're a cat, the 1,484-mile journey likely takes closer to two months. At least that's how long it took Nadia, the Russian blue, to trek from her home on a snowy December day to sunny Naples this week where animal officials helped find her owners.   read more

Some faculty members say sensitive subjects may become taboo in their classrooms because of a law allowing Texas public university students to bring guns to class. "Academics know the intrusion of gun culture into campus inevitably harms academic culture," Snow told the Board of Regents. A faculty senate slideshow shown at a recent meeting featured a message that said instructors "may want to be careful discussing sensitive topics" or may choose to drop "certain topics" from their curriculum.   read more

The change would relax longstanding restrictions on access to the contents of the phone calls and email the NSA vacuums up around the world, including bulk collection of satellite transmissions, communications between foreigners, and overseas messages. The idea is to let more experts across U.S. intelligence gain direct access to unprocessed information. Civil liberties advocates criticized the change, arguing it will weaken privacy protections.   read more

In his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump has stoked his crowds by promising to bring back jobs that have been snatched by illegal immigrants or outsourced by corporations, and voters worried about immigration have been his strongest backers. But he has also pursued more than 500 visas for foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago since 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, while hundreds of domestic applicants failed to get the same jobs.   read more

Gracida grew sicker and sicker and vomited after nearly every meal over four months while in custody, but never received proper care for his condition. He eventually died at a Tucson hospital. "Remarkably, the Office of Detention Oversight inspection claimed that Mr. Gracida's death was the first death 'to ever occur' at Eloy when, in fact, it was the 10th death at the facility," Chan said. "Today, Eloy is known as the deadliest immigration detention center in America," the report states.   read more

Judge Kearney ruled that citizens don't have an unfettered right to record police activity. He said police are free to stop such recordings unless the person shooting the video announces he or she is recording as a challenge or protest to officers' actions. ACLU attorney Mary Catherine Roper says the ruling reduces "the ability of the public to monitor police activity."   read more

SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby vowed Thursday to end the practice, but the company refused to say who had authorized the infiltration, how long it had been going on, or how many workers were used to infiltrate animal rights groups or other opponents. A SeaWorld spokeswoman cited the confidential nature of its security practices. PETA said a SeaWorld employee attempted to incite protesters and had posted incendiary comments on social media while masquerading as an animal-rights activist since 2012.   read more

The procurement network stretches to 20 countries, with some parts originating as far away as the United States, Brazil, China and Japan. The IS group has a considerable amount of military-grade weapons and supplies taken from captured army bases in Syria and Iraq, including machine guns, mortars and U.S.-made armored Humvees. It also likely acquires weapons and ammunition on the black market. The most commonly used explosive was made with ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer.   read more

Until now, U.S. customs law banning imports of items produced by forced or child labor had gone largely unenforced because of two words: "consumptive demand" — if there was not sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced. "It's embarrassing that for 85 years, the United States let products made with forced labor into this country, and closing this loophole gives the U.S. an important tool to fight global slavery," said Sen. Sherrod Brown.   read more

"There's no question that [rate of rising sea levels in] the 20th century is the fastest," said professor Bob Kopp, lead author of the study. "It's because of the temperature increase in the 20th century which has been driven by fossil fuel use." Sea level rise in the 20th century is mostly man-made, the study authors said. If greenhouse gas pollution continues at the current pace, both studies project increases of about 22 to 52 inches.   read more

Under the rule, restaurant owners must now post distinct triangle icons with salt-shaker images inside on menus next to items that top the recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium, about a teaspoon's worth. It is but the latest in a series of healthy eating measures pioneered by New York City public health officials that have been challenged in the courts, including an upheld requirement that chains post calorie counts on menus.   read more

Phillip-Browne is now aligned with the ruling Team Unity Party and took criticism from the opposition Labour Party for being appointed as ambassador with no experience in foreign service. “I suspect when the Labour government got in, people got rewards,” Phillip-Browne said in response. “. . . Everywhere that happens, and that’s why you find quite often, people in senior positions...they usually change when the government changes.”   read more

A federal judge advanced a lawsuit seeking records on how U.S. Customs and Border Protection mines various personal data to form "risk assessments" on travelers. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected the department's rationale for stonewalling the documents. Khaliah Barnes, the lead attorney for EPIC, celebrated the ruling. "It represents another step towards greater public understanding of a secret government database," she said.   read more