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

Under the MEDEA program, about 60 scientists had security clearances to receive classified climate data gathered by Navy submarines and spy satellites. Scientist Marc Levy says the CIA’s closing of MEDEA is a step in the wrong direction. “The climate problems are getting worse in a way that our data systems are not equipped to handle,” he said. “There's a growing gap between what we can currently get our hands on, and what we need to respond better." The CIA didn’t state why it shuttered MEDEA.   read more

From Columbine to Sandy Hook, the many high-profile incidents of violence in U.S. public schools have changed the face of many of these educational institutions. More than ever, schools have become places watched by surveillance cameras, and where children practice what to do in the event a gunman appears on campus. However, some "active shooter" simulations have been so realistic that they have produced severe emotional trauma in the participants.   read more

The legislation would also ensure that these companies can mine and drill asteroids “without harmful interference,” and requires the White House “to facilitate commercial development." Should the bill become law, it could ensure a potential goldmine for corporations with the means to extract minerals from those giant flying boulders. Platinum-group metals, for example, are so highly concentrated on asteroids that some may contain more of them “than have ever been mined in human history.”   read more

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on May 18 signed a bill that would preempt municipalities’ right to regulate fracking within their borders. Other states’ Republican-controlled legislatures have seemed just as eager to comply with the wishes of their corporate donors: Missouri’s legislature passed a law banning local ordinances that outlaw plastic grocery bags. Forty-five states have, at the behest of the National Rifle Association, preempted local ordinances governing gun safety.   read more

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to allow Veterans Administration doctors to recommend marijuana as a therapy for their patients in states that allow medical use of the drug. The House of Representatives voted down a similar amendment last month so it’s questionable whether the Senate amendment will make it to the final bill presented to President Barack Obama for his signature.   read more

Myrna Arias of Bakersfield, California, sued her employer, claiming she was fired two weeks after turning off a company-required GPS app that tracked her movements during off-hours. According to the lawsuit, Arias’ boss, John Stubits, “admitted that employees would be monitored while off duty and bragged that he knew how fast she was driving at specific moments ever since she installed the app on her phone.”   read more

The Department of Defense never asked for the provision involving the sage grouse. Dealing with the sage grouse has not “resulted in unacceptable limits on our military readiness activities,” Mark E. Wright, a Defense Department spokesman, told The New York Times. The real reason why Republicans want to deny the bird federal protections is because the listing could prevent oil and gas drilling on large tracts of land where the grouse lives.   read more

In 2011 Pisan was named ambassador to India, serving there for two years. He then took over the Thai embassy in Canada. Since taking over in Washington, Pisan has spent much of his time attempting to improve relations between his country and the United States in the wake of a May 2014 coup, after which the Thai government tightened restrictions of freedom of expression in their country.   read more

Out of 40 names given to the 6,902 university students in 37 countries who participated of the study, Bush ranked 37th, ahead of only Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler. Josef Stalin, who was responsible for up to 50 million deaths, was ranked 36th. The most popular people on the list were an interesting mix of those of reason and faith. Leading the list was Albert Einstein, followed by Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Isaac Newton.   read more

The Air Force has two X-37Bs that, like the Space Shuttle, take off like a rocket and land like a plane. They’re unmanned, about a quarter of the size of the now-retired Space Shuttle. When asked by 60 Minutes’ David Martin if the X-37B will become a weapons system, Gen. Hyten replied, “I cannot answer that question. I’m not going to say what it’s going to become ‘cause we’re experimenting.”   read more

Online scammers know their target audience. And when they’re making a pitch based on romance, women older than 50 are their most frequent victims, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In 2014, 2,163 women 50 and over reported losing about $51 million to online romance crooks, an average of more than $23,500 each.   read more

Beginning in 2007, he served as chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Rosenberg left again for the private sector in 2008, defending white-collar criminals as a partner at Hogan Lovells. Rosenberg returned in 2013 to work for James Comey again, this time as chief of staff and counselor to the FBI director. Unlike his predecessor, as leader of the DEA, Rosenberg is expected to focus more on heroin and harder drugs and less on enforcement of marijuana laws.   read more

Castillo joined the Commerce Department in 2008 as special advisor to Christopher Padilla, the under secretary for the U. S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. In 2010, Castillo was named national deputy director of Minority Business Development Agency, and was moved up to the directorship in 2014.   read more

The prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, had previously opposed rehabilitation over prison for another Somali-American, Abdullahi Yusuf, who also wanted to join IS. Luger appears to have had a change of heart however, and hopes to fight the recruitment of young people by IS with programs such as mentoring and job counseling. The federal government estimates that between 150 and 180 Americans have tried to leave the country and join up with groups fighting in Syria.   read more

If researchers are correct and older, larger trees die off as a result of climate change, the trees’ demise will cause there to be even more carbon in the atmosphere. “It’s the big trees that store the most carbon,” McDowell said, noting that the tall trees are also those that do the most photosynthesis, pulling more carbon out of the atmosphere than small trees. In addition, the loss of bigger trees could affect animal species that rely on them for their habitats.   read more

In March, a child found a gun belonging to a member of House Speaker John Boehner’s police detail in a bathroom at the Capitol. Another gun, this one belonging to a member of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s detail, was discovered by a worker in a bathroom at the Congressional Visitors’ Center. So now, officers will be required to take an online class in the proper protocol for handling weapons in situations such as when nature calls.   read more