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

Of the 3.6 million Americans who illegitimately got the credits, more than 2 million did so without filing the necessary supporting paperwork, a Form 1098-T. This group got more than $3.2 billion in education credits. Another $2.5 billion was paid to 1.6 million filers for students attending ineligible institutions.   read more

As far as Texas legislator Matt Rinaldi is concerned, his state needs to stop “Californianizing” by trying to ban plastic grocery bags. The Republican state representative has introduced legislation that would override local ordinances governing single-use plastic bags. The city of Austin prohibited the bags within its limits two years ago, while Dallas in January enacted a five-cent charge for them.   read more

The findings showed that 32% of reports of sexual assault were submitted by civilian women, who were undercounted by the Pentagon. The report also says that 21% of reports were submitted by civilian military spouses, who also weren’t sufficiently counted. Gillibrand had trouble getting even those numbers from the Defense Department. She sought four years’ worth of data from the bases, the largest in each service. After nearly a year of stonewalling, the military provided redacted data from 2013.   read more

Formaldehyde and its effects first gained national attention after Hurricane Katrina, when trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to house the storm’s survivors caused a variety of health problems. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that can cause respiratory ailments such as asthma and possibly cancers like myeloid leukemia.   read more

Republicans are perfectly satisfied with the way the commission is working. “Congress set this place up to gridlock,” Goodman said. “This agency is functioning as Congress intended. The democracy isn’t collapsing around us.” Those who see Charles and David Koch preparing to open their wallets to the tune of $1 billion, with others giving nearly as much in the coming election, as not being a positive sign for democracy might disagree.   read more

A study of the court’s opinions, going back to 1791, included a ranking of 107 justices based on their choice of words used in opinions. It turns out five of the top 10 grumpiest justices are currently on the court. Justices Samuel Alito, Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia and were found to have used some of the most unfriendly language in their opinions in court history.   read more

Urged on by socially conservative lawmakers, Congress has again poured more money into abstinence programs that operate under the belief that teenagers won’t have sex if you just tell them it’s a bad idea. Another $25 million was appropriated last month for Title V, a federal program started in the 1990s after Republicans won control of Congress.   read more

Many of the most U.S. powerful corporations and foundations contributed $1 million or more to the Clinton Foundation while also lobbying the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The foundation also set up a charity that may have helped some of its donors hide their contributions to the Clinton Foundation.   read more

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the looting and attacks were the product of unidentified hoodlums, not the residents of Baltimore. But the only individuals who participated in the violence—and who are known to live outside the city, if not the state of Maryland—were Baltimore police officers. As of 2012, more than 70% of Baltimore police officers lived outside the city with about 10% living out of state, some in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.   read more

Human Rights Watch said in a new report that it uncovered video, photographs and other evidence of the Saudi air force employing cluster bombs near villages in Yemen’s northern Saada Province on two separate occasions. The group, however, did not directly link any civilian casualties to the use of the controversial ordinance, which has been banned by more than 100 countries under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.   read more

As it awaits an administration decision this month on the release of photos showing torture of terror suspects, the American Civil Liberties Union has published what it knows about the contents of the still-secret photos. As a result of its Freedom of Information Act request, the ACLU says more than a hundred documents it did receive from the government “either referenced photos related to cases of abuse or actually contained the photos, which were redacted before they got to us.”   read more

The House of Representatives approved a resolution 228-192 to undo a D.C. law prohibiting employers from discriminating against workers, their spouses or dependents for using family planning services or birth control. It also keeps employers from firing an employee for having an abortion.   read more

The bill doesn’t address data collection under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the collection of the actual content of some communications, including that of Americans, and the collection of information from overseas calls. “If this bill passes, the NSA will continue unaddressed surveillance programs and will secretly torture the English language to devise novel justifications for spying on Americans,” said David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress.   read more

The American Psychological Association (APA), the leading professional group for psychologists in the U.S., met secretly with members of the George W. Bush administration to help officials justify the use of torture against detainees. The Bush administration went to the APA for help because the national organization for psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association, wasn’t willing to help the CIA rationalize its methods for extracting information during interrogations of detainees.   read more

The National Park Service (NPS) has gotten a waiver allowing it to enter into a marketing agreement with Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer and maker of Budweiser. It’s a two-year, $2.5 million campaign to engage in “co-branding with a goal of attracting a younger population to the NPS and the corporate brand,” according to the memo. Part of the justification for the waiver was a previous Park Service partnership with a small winery.   read more

Sopko was told by the State Department that he must remove 40% of his staff from Afghanistan within the year. The reduction will mean the number of SIGAR staff members will fall from 42 to 25. “Any assertion that the Embassy Kabul unilaterally ordered SIGAR to make staffing cuts in 2016 is false,” a State Department official said.   read more