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

Similar to the ethically squishy subprime home loan mess, financial institutions are offering loans to people who put up their cars as collateral at rates ranging from 80% to 500% per year. More than 1.1 million American households used car title loans last year.   read more

The Obama administration sought to expand protections provided under the 1974 Fair Labor Standards Act (pdf) (FLSA), which included an exemption for home care workers who provide “care and fellowship” to their clients. Congress was unwilling to amend the FLSA to provide minimum wages to those workers, so the Labor Department attempted to do it by way of a regulation.   read more

Investigators from the state prosecutor’s office in Azerbaijan raided the Baku offices of Radio Free Europe (RFE), confiscating computers and other items and ordering the office closed. Staff members were held incommunicado during the December 26 raid. Three weeks ago, Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and contributor to U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, was jailed in Baku.   read more

Maj. Jason Brezler alerted his superior officers to the presence of an Afghan police chief, Sarwar Jan, with ties to the Taliban at Forward Operating Base Delhi. Jan kept an entourage of young male sex slaves, one of whom in August 2012 opened fire on Marines at the base, killing three and wounding one. Brezler and another Marine, Captain Andrew Terrell, had previously expelled Jan from an Afghan village for keeping the sex slaves.   read more

Dinan has worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., since July 1989, most recently as chief of the criminal division. He specialized in gangs, organized crime and drug trafficking.   read more

Crime data for Denver, the hub of legal pot sales in the state, shows murders, assaults, rapes, burglaries and other violent crimes declined during the first three months of the year, compared with the same period for 2013. Homicides went down from 17 to 8 (a 53% drop), automobile break-ins from 2,317 to 1,477 (down 36%) and sexual assaults from 110 to 95 (down 14%). Overall, violent and property crimes dropped more than 10% from last year to this year during the first quarter.   read more

Jeff Fox wrote in his State of the Net blog that companies routinely reveal passwords in plain text while emailing customers. This can happen when a user forgets a password and asks for it to be sent to him or her. Among those who Fox has caught doing this are AT&T, The New York Times, Macy’s and Princess Cruises. Users often use the same password for more than one account, so exposure on an online shopping service could lead to a hacker accessing a bank account.   read more

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced the number of people killed in passenger vehicles dropped by 3% to 21,132. That total, according to the NHTSA, was the lowest on record going back to 1975. The data for last year also showed a 3.1% decline in overall highway deaths from 2012 and nearly a 25% drop since 2004.   read more

Raji’s appointment to Stockholm initially stirred excitement in India and among the Indian-American community. Because her last name connotes royalty in Sanskrit-related languages, it was thought that she was of Indian heritage. But when it was announced that she’d been born in Tehran, Indian publications had to backtrack. Although Raji has supported Iranian-American cultural projects, she has never corrected media accounts referring to her as Indian-American.   read more

The U.S., which sells more military hardware by far than any other nation, signed the treaty in 2013, but it hasn’t been ratified by the Senate. Other arms producing nations that haven’t agreed to the treaty are China, Russia, India and Pakistan. The treaty regulates cross-border transfer of conventional weapons from small arms to tanks.   read more

The FDA’s decision ends a rule in effect since 1983, when AIDS was just beginning to enter the American consciousness. Gay rights advocates complained that the new rule still discriminates against gay men, who must remain celibate for 12 months to give blood, while heterosexual men are only subject to the same year-long restriction if they have sex with prostitutes or with those who use injectable drugs.   read more

John Roth, the inspector general (IG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Secret Service, recently said the agency refused to provide data on its computer security systems. Roth’s request came as part of an audit (pdf) into DHS’ computer networks. Roth said he was told that the Secret Service wouldn’t release data on its unclassified security systems “due to concerns for operational safety.”   read more

The Marshall Project, a nonpartisan news organization, says appellate courts have reversed at least 10 convictions in just the last two years because district attorneys’ offices went too far in using PowerPoint slides to unfairly influence jurors. In some instances, the slides have featured animation and sound effects, including using bull’s-eye images to zero in on a defendant’s photo and declare them “GUILTY” in bright red letters.   read more

Carter returned to the Executive Branch in 2009 as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. Because he had received consulting fees from defense contractor Textron (not to mention Raytheon and Goldman Sachs), he had to be issued an ethics waver to avoid Obama administration restrictions on revolving door conflicts.   read more

Before Brinsley killed NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wen Jian Liu and committed suicide, he shot his former girlfriend, Shaneka Thompson. He reportedly entered Thompson’s Baltimore apartment, shot her in the stomach and then left for New York City. Thompson cried out for help, according to The Nation. “I can’t die like this. Please, please help me,” she said while knocking on a neighbor’s door. She is expected to survive her attack.   read more

In January 2013, Murthy co-authored a letter (pdf) from Doctors for America to members of Congress urging action to institute gun-safety measures in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. When his nomination for surgeon general was announced on November 13 of that year, the NRA and its allies swung into action. The organization declared that it would “score” the vote for Murthy’s confirmation and take action against those senators who supported him.   read more