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

It’s probably no surprise that Vanuatu hasn’t come up in any of the speeches. Even some of our North American neighbors have been snubbed: the Bahamas, Belize and Guatemala are still waiting for their big moment. And there are a few countries of strategic importance that have escaped mention. The United Arab Emirates, a huge oil producer; Belgium, home of the European Union; and banking capital Switzerland all have been shut out. But Norway got a shout-out from George W. Bush.   read more

The 11 unsolved murders required considerable work on the part of sculptors to recreate what the people might have looked like before their deaths. All of the cases “had all met ugly deaths and were found as skeletons in desolate places across New York City — train tracks, wooded areas, in a basement,” wrote The New York Times. In some cases, the bodies were dismembered and the skulls crushed. This work is a last resort for investigators.   read more

The research has produced results that sickened veterinarians working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the complex. Pigs wind up having offspring that are born frail, and wind up being crushed accidentally by their mother. Surgery and breeding techniques have forced cows to bear twins and triplets, instead of just one calf. The calves “often emerge weakened or deformed, dying in such numbers that even meat producers have been repulsed,” said the Times.   read more

State prison policy forbade the growing of a beard for security reasons, claiming the facial hair could be used to smuggle contraband. Only neatly trimmed mustaches are allowed under departmental rules governing inmates. Holt challenged the prohibition, arguing it violated his religious rights. The Supreme Court agreed unanimously. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the prison’s “interest in eliminating contraband cannot sustain its refusal to allow petitioner to grow a half-inch beard.”   read more

Same-sex marriage has gone from being a hard-won right to a requirement for many gay couples. With many states now authorizing (or at least not banning) gay marriage, some employers are phasing out domestic partnerships and telling couples they have to get married in order to keep their benefits. The way companies see it, there’s no point in keeping domestic partnership rules if marriage is legal. However, this could have implications for heterosexual couples' domestic arrangements.   read more

The ITC Maurya hotel, where Obama will be staying, has been taken over by Secret Service personnel and a multi-frequency control room manned by the U.S. officials has been set up. 15,000 CCTVs have also been installed across the capital, and American security personnel will be part of the teams manning the control rooms set up to monitor this footage.   read more

Pope Francis says climate change is a serious problem and that mankind is responsible for causing and fixing the problem. But at least a dozen GOP Catholic lawmakers reject the idea that humans are responsible for global warming. One of them, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, said she believes it is ridiculous to think humans are the cause of climate change because God created the climate.   read more

The NSA documents did not indicate if any journalists were intentionally targeted. However, other documents revealed that the British spy agency considered “investigative journalists” a threat, putting them in “a hierarchy alongside terrorists or hackers,” said The Guardian. A classified document directed to army intelligence stated “journalists and reporters representing all types of news media represent a potential threat to security. Of specific concern are investigative journalists..."   read more

A mere 80 individuals control nearly $2 trillion, reported Oxfam. That amount is nearly the same as what’s owned by 3.5 billion people at the bottom of the scale. Oxfam also reported that the poorest 80% of people have only 5.5% of all wealth on the planet. “Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?” said Oxfam director Winnie Byanyima. “The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering.”   read more

The “Friendship Nine” challenged racial segregation in Rock Hill, South Carolina on January 31, 1961 by refusing to leave the lunch counter at McCrory’s, a five-and-dime store. They went into the store with a strategy called “jail, no bail,” intending to force local law enforcement to incarcerate them, which they believed would draw more attention to their cause. The men refused to post bail and were sentenced to 30 days of hard labor at a county prison farm.   read more

The Miss Universe pageant got a little political when Miss Israel, Doron Matalon, posted a selfie on Instagram with several other contestants, including Miss Lebanon, Saly Greige. Having Miss Israel next to Miss Lebanon was a big deal because the two countries have no diplomatic relations, going back to 1948 when Israel was created. Some in Lebanon were so upset by the photo that they demanded Greige lose her title for being publicly seen “with the citizen of an enemy state,”   read more

Millennials continue to grow in number, even though the generation was born from 1981 to 1997, thanks to the continuing flow of immigrants, particularly younger foreign residents, into the country. The generation’s numbers will reach more than 75 million this year, surpassing the 74.9 million of Boomers, whose totals will continue to shrink as more die off in the coming years. The Millennial population won’t peak for another 21 years, when it will reach 81.1 million by 2036.   read more

The requested documents contained sensitive trade secrets. Last week, after waiting out the three-month appeal period, the Times sued to get them. The system’s three-stage rocket intercepts the target warhead in space head on in a “bullet-to-bullet” collision. Except when it doesn’t. So far, the missile is eight for 17 at shooting down its target, despite the Pentagon staging “carefully choreographed tests that are more predictable and less challenging than an actual attack would be.”   read more

Police back the halt in deportations because it makes undocumented immigrants more likely to report crimes and cooperate with police. “When criminals know that their victims are afraid or are unwilling to cooperate with the police, then they enjoy that. And, in fact, crime thrives,” Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank told the Salt Lake Tribune. The National Immigration Law Center praised the chiefs and sheriffs for their move, which they say supports public safety.   read more

The Solar Foundation, which supports solar power, claims in a new report that more than 173,000 people had solar-related jobs as of last year. The coal industry had only about 93,000 workers. Job growth in solar has been phenomenal, expanding by 20% or more in each of the last two years. In 2014, it added 31,000 new jobs and solar businesses plan to add another 36,000 employees this year. One out of 78 jobs created in the U.S.over the past year were created by the solar industry,   read more

It took Slahi six years to get his book published after the U.S. tried to keep it classified and contains 2,500 redactions ordered by the federal government. Guantánamo Diary is being published in the U.S. and 19 other countries. Like other accounts from detainees, Slahi’s is filled with stories of being tortured, including sleep deprivation, death threats, sexual humiliation, threats against his mother, forced to drink salt water, and beaten for hours at a time while immersed in ice.   read more