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

In response to orders from the White House, the DOE has established a Web portal through which anyone can read research produced with public funds. The new site, known as PAGES (Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science), is expected to feature 20,000 to 30,000 additions annually on a wide range of scientific subjects. Papers will become available one year after their publication in a journal.   read more

The Public Integrity Unit at the time was focused on one of Perry’s pet projects, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. One of its executives, Jerry Cobbs, was indicted last December after an $11 million grant went through the agency without proper review, according to The Dallas Morning News. The money went to Peloton Therapeutics, one of whose investors had given $440,000 to the campaigns of Perry and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst.   read more

Using information compiled by industry, the Environmental Integrity Project discovered that 33 drillers had used diesel fuels in at least 351 wells, and in the process, violated the Safe Drinking Water Act over a four-year period from 2010 to 2014. Furthermore, about 30% of the companies tried to hide their use of the fuel by changing their filings, which went into an industry-run database, FracFocus.   read more

The change in energy policy means Pemex, the state-run oil company, will cease to have complete control over oil and gas production for the first time since 1938. Foreign oil companies will now be able to bid on oil projects, particularly those in the Gulf of Mexico, where there has been almost no exploration south of the border.   read more

With as few as 8% of registered voters showing up to vote in some recent elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission has urged the City Council to consider improving turnout with a lottery pilot program. No actual vote would be required, but those participating would have to show up at the polls to participate. There was no decision on what the grand prize for participating in the democratic process.   read more

O’Malley, an attorney in St. Louis, is a longtime supporter of President Barack Obama. O’Malley has strong Irish roots; all four of his grandparents were born in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland. Until being nominated for the Dublin post, O’Malley held dual Irish and American citizenship, but gave up his Irish citizenship to accept the ambassadorial position.   read more

For the past 65 years presidents of both parties have continued a tradition started by Harry Truman—appointing a woman as U.S. Treasurer. No, not the Secretary of the Treasury; white men appear to have a lock on that job. The treasurer is responsible for “oversight” of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and of the U.S. gold reserves in Fort Knox. And her signature appears on the paper currency printed during her term.   read more

A suit (pdf) was filed last week by two men, at least one of whom has ties to the No Berkeley Beverage Tax campaign, which receives funding from the American Beverage Association. It claims that the city substituted the phrase “high-calorie, sugary drinks” for “sugar-sweetened beverage” in the ballot language. The plaintiffs, Anthony Johnson and Leon Cain, would prefer the phrase “sugar-sweetened beverage products” to be used.   read more

In July 2015, Dr. David J. Skorton, who is currently president of Cornell University, will become the 13th secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He has said he hopes to keep his medical license current when he becomes secretary of the Smithsonian.   read more

Most of Robinson’s career has been spent in Latin America. In 2009, Robinson was sent to Guatemala as deputy chief of mission, serving there until 2011. He then returned to Washington as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, beginning in June 2011.   read more

The ABA’s National Task Force on Stand Your Ground laws found that when a white shooter kills a black victim, the shooting is 350% more likely to be ruled justified than when a white shooter kills a white victim. A Texas A&M study cited by the ABA reported that states with stand-your-ground laws saw an 8% increase in homicides.   read more

Neither Moskowitz nor Brothman testified in their own defense because they didn’t want their affair to become known. Nevertheless, she was convicted in 1950 and served two years in prison. Moskowitz also had to pay a $10,000 fine (equal to nearly $100,000 today), and, after being released, she struggled to put her life back together with such a black mark against her during the Cold War.   read more

ISIS controls or has a presence in much of northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq, with its footprint there nearly matching that of al-Qaeda in Iraq during its zenith in 2006. ISIS has received financial backing from the Sunni-led governments in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Cockburn and others have written.   read more

Arab Bank “knowingly and willfully” financially helped Hamas and other “terrorists who have killed, injured and maimed civilians” and “aided and abetted and conspired to commit said acts of international terrorism,” according to the lawsuit filed by 297 Americans.   read more

On September 25, 2012, President Barack Obama made Dr. Rodney C. Ewing chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a panel on which Ewing has sat since July 2011. Obama reaffirmed Ewing’s position on June 13, 2014. The Review Board conducts scientific and technical assessments of the Department of Energy’s activities to dispose of the nation’s commercial spent nuclear fuel and defense high-level radioactive waste.   read more

It would be the first ambassadorial posting for Mustard and one of the few for diplomats from the USDA. In his testimony, he noted that U.S. relations with Turkmenistan have been “constrained by significant human-rights concerns because the government seeks to exert control over the lives of its citizens,” but he also pointed out that this hasn’t stopped Boeing and GE from experiencing “great success in the Turkmen market.”   read more