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

At least one Mississippi jurisdiction, Scott County, routinely keeps prisoners for months and sometimes more than a year at time without indicting them or providing legal counsel. That’s why the American Civil Liberties Union and the MacArthur Justice Center are suing the county alleging inmates’ constitutional rights are being violated by being “indefinitely detained” and “indefinitely denied counsel.”   read more

The Washington D.C. city council voted last Tuesday to establish a permitting process for carrying concealed firearms. It came as a result of a federal judge declaring the District’s laws forbidding civilians to carry weapons unconstitutional because of a 2008 Supreme Court ruling on the subject.   read more

Women have left their mark already in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The extremist group executed Samira al-Nuaimy, a female civil rights lawyer. But Major Mariam al-Mansouri, the UAE’s first female fighter pilot, reportedly led her country’s missions as part of a U.S.-led coalition to destroy the ISIS threat in the Middle East.   read more

In 2005, Barks-Ruggles was named deputy assistant Secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. While in that post, she focused on Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel and Palestinian affairs, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. In 2008, Barks-Ruggles was asked by her superiors to tone down a report on human rights in North Korea, removing words such as “repressive” and “regime.”   read more

In 2010 he was made director for European Security and Political Affairs and in 2012 Hartley was named deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibility for Nordic, Baltic and Central European countries. Some of his duties there have entailed testifying to Congress on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Hungarian anti-Semitism and anti-Romani trends.   read more

Zumwalt went back to Tokyo in 2008 as deputy chief of mission, serving as chargé d’affaires for a time during 2009. While there, he wrote a blog for the embassy website focusing on Japanese culture and other issues. In 2012, Zumwalt was back in Washington as deputy assistant secretary of state for Japan and Korea, a post he held until his nomination to be ambassador.   read more

People around the world were surveyed on what they thought the gap between worker and CEO pay was, and what they thought the gap should be. Americans responded in 2012 that they thought bosses made 30 times what the average worker made, and that the ratio should ideally be 7 to 1. The actual ratio of CEO to worker pay was 354 to 1. Those of other nationalities had similar gaps between their ideal ratio and the ratio they thought existed.   read more

Emily Ruiz was 4 years old in 2011 when she went to Guatemala with her grandfather. Their flight home to New York was diverted to Washington. Emily cleared immigration, but officers found irregularities in her grandfather’s papers.Eventually the two were deported to Guatemala. In a suit Emily's father filed, the government is accused of claims of claims of false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence.   read more

Seattle’s city council unanimously passed an ordinance last week that mandates fines for those who throw food in the general garbage can instead of in a compost bin. Trash collectors will be empowered to inspect residential cans and if they contain more than 10% food or other compostable items, the owner will find a $1 fine on his or her next utility bill. Apartment owners will get two warnings for their dumpsters, but $50 fines for subsequent offenses.   read more

Judge Reggie B. Walton dismissed the complaint by FDA scientists who claimed the agency violated their constitutional rights by reading their emails questioning the safety of medical equipment. Walton decided the case couldn't proceed because the plaintiffs didn't first follow administrative remedies. But Walton conceded that "the plaintiffs have alleged no shortage of facts establishing that the defendants took...[prohibited] actions" against the whistleblowers.   read more

An MPR investigation found there were at least 18 incidents over three years in which BNSF Railway sent freight trains from Minneapolis with dangerous chemicals that weren’t on the train’s manifest. In some instances, the trains were hauling substances such as anhydrous ammonia, a toxic corrosive gas, while traveling through populated areas. “You’re sending fire and rescue in there...and they could literally walk into an extremely deadly situation,” a BNSF employee said.   read more

Most Americans living in the West don’t support a conservative idea that calls for transferring national parks and other federal lands to state control. Bipartisan polling found 59% of respondents disagree with the idea of states taking over public lands, fearing such a move would cause them to pay higher taxes and lose access to the lands themselves if they’re sold off to private interests.   read more

Miller went overseas again in 2000 as a regional security officer (RSO) at the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 2003 he took on a similar post in Jakarta, Indonesia. While there, he helped investigate an August 31, 2002, terrorist ambush in Papua province that killed two U.S. schoolteachers and wounded eight other U.S. citizens, an investigation that lasted almost four years and culminated in the arrest of 12 terrorists. In 2007, Miller was sent to Baghdad as RSO   read more

Heflin returned to Washington in 2004 as deputy director in the Office of African Regional and Security Affairs and in 2006 was deputy director in the Office of West African Affairs and served as acting director for a time. He returned to Mexico in 2009 as the principal officer and consul general in the border town of Nuevo Laredo. In 2012, Heflin was brought back to Washington as managing director of the Consular Affairs Visa Office.   read more

It is no secret that big business has long been an ally of the Republican Party. A computer mistake by the Republican Governors Association made it possible for a watchdog group to access its records and expose a corporate list of big-time donors. “This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,” said Democracy 21's Fred Wertheimer.   read more

Law enforcement plays no role in stopping the majority of “active shootings” in America, a new federal report shows. The FBI says that 60% of the time, active shootings end before officers arrive on the scene. In 23% of the incidents studied, the shooter committed suicide before police responded and in 13% of the incidents, unarmed bystanders subdued the shooter. Return fire accounted for few of the resolutions.   read more