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

Given this year's record-warm months, it’s not surprising that 2014 will likely go down as the hottest year ever recorded. “This is one of many indicators that climate change...continues to be one of the most important issues facing humanity,” said climate scientist Donald Wuebbles. "Next year could well bring Earth's hottest year on record, accompanied by unprecedented regional heat waves and droughts,” warned meteorology director Jeff Masters.   read more

More U.S. police departments are using electronic surveillance on cell phones and laptop computers belonging not just to criminal suspects but also law abiding citizens. It's not clear which departments are doing this because the federal government has helped to shield police from disclosing their spy hardware. However, now that Washington, D.C. police are using this spy gear, members of the government might also be among those spied upon.   read more

With the help of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), the U.S. House has increased the number of investigations into ethics violations. But the Senate has yet to establish its own effort independent of the committee process to probe wrongdoing by members. Since the creation of the OCE in 2009, the House Ethics Committee has handed down 20 disciplinary actions against lawmakers. The Senate doesn’t have an independent ethics board, and it shows.   read more

The Facebook request comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed against the DEA by a woman claiming agents used her name and photographs to create a phony profile on the site, which the DEA did for an investigation. Sondra Arquiett was arrested on drug charges four years ago, during which her cell phone was confiscated. She claims the DEA lifted her images from her phone and put them up on Facebook to create a fake profile using her pseudonym, Sondra Prince.   read more

In 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota. His parents, Jerry and Patty Wetterling have dedicated themselves to not only finding their lost child, but also helping other parents see their children come home safely. While Patty Wetterling has “helped change the landscape of missing children, from sex offender registries to police training,” the rate of missing children found has increased significantly—from 62% in 1990 to 97% today   read more

Karen Holloway of Lenoir City had been cited by the city for the heinous crime of not pruning her bushes or mowing her lawn. When the yard wasn’t cleaned up, she had to appear in court with no lawyer. She asked the judge, Terry Vann, if she could perform five days of community service to avoid spending time “with child molesters, and people who’ve done real crimes.” Vann insisted she spend time in jail, but did reduce the sentence to six hours.   read more

To say that Patrick Dowd has competing loyalties is putting it mildly. The chief technical officer for the National Security Agency (NSA) has taken a second job working for his old boss at a company engaged in the same kind of work as the spy agency. Dowd did get permission from his NSA supervisors to work up to 20 hours a week for IronNet.   read more

“GAO’s analysis suggests that the turnout decreases in Kansas and Tennessee beyond decreases in the comparison states were attributable to changes in those two states’ voter ID requirements,” the report said. The drop was even sharper in Kansas and Tennessee among young voters (18 to 23) and black voters.   read more

While the average income is growing, the median income, that is, the point at which half the families make more money and half the families make less money, is falling. Between 2010 and 2013, the average family income rose 4%, but the median family income fell 5% during that period. That means the income gains have been concentrated among the wealthy, with the poor and middle class still struggling to see a real recovery.   read more

Since 2000, automakers have been required to file quarterly Early Warning Reports (EWRs) with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to give the agency a heads-up on trends of deaths and injuries. According to a letter CAS Executive Director Clarence M. Ditlow sent to NHTSA acting administrator David Friedman, Honda has not reported all the incidents of death and injury caused by exploding air bags in its cars.   read more

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Deputy Administrator David J. Friedman became the agency’s acting director on December 12, 2013. Friedman is a curious choice to work for the NHTSA. His background is alternative fuels and clean vehicles, with only a little experience working with automotive safety issues.   read more

Florida GOP Governor Rick Scott made headlines urging drug testing for state employees and welfare recipients, a program which, it turned out, benefited his drug testing company, according to the report. Scott also privatized state health care services for prison inmates, which reportedly resulted in a substantial increase in inmate deaths. Corizon Health—a prisoner health care provider that had been sued 660 times for malpractice.   read more

Research into weather records by the University of Alaska Fairbanks shows that the average temperature in Barrow rose by 2.7 degrees Celsius (about 5 degrees F) from 1979 to 2012. October average temperatures increased by an amazing 7.2 degrees Celsius (about 13 degrees F) over the same period. November’s averages climbed by nearly as much.   read more

The Moose Lake Sex Offender Treatment Program (MSOP) is for sex offenders who have completed their criminal sentences, but are deemed too dangerous to live without supervision. So they’re confined to the Moose Lake facility and are restrained by handcuffs and leg irons during any trips to the outside world, such as to a doctor. The program’s residents would like to change the conditions under which they’re held. So they’re registering to vote.   read more

After serving as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, Spratlen was sworn in as U.S. ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic on April 15, 2011. In June 2014, she helped coordinate the handover of Manas Air Base, which had been an important transit base for troops and supplies going into Afghanistan, to the Kyrgyz government.   read more

Roebuck was sent to Libya in January 2013 in the wake of the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi to serve as chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Tripoli, staying there for six months. During his confirmation hearing for the Bahrain job, Roebuck told committee members that he wouldn’t abide by Bahrain’s law that a government representative be present for meetings between embassy personnel and members of that country’s opposition party.   read more