President Donald Trump gleefully announced that, under his direction, U.S. military troops had swooped down on the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento and kidnapped California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re charging Newscum with fraud.” When a reporter asked for specifics about the fraud charges, Trump pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, clearly taken by surprise, said, “We’re looking into it and will let you know the details as soon as we’ve created them.”   read more

A pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the Gulf Coast ruptured on March 29, spilling thousands of barrels of oil into a residential area of the small town of Mayflower (population: 2,234). Plaintiffs Kathryn Jane Roachell Chunn and Kimla Green sued ExxonMobil and three pipeline subsidiaries, seeking at least $5 million in property damages on behalf of themselves and others who live within 3,000 feet of the broken pipeline.   read more

A majority of respondents stated their belief that it is illegal to sell guns to people on the terrorist watch list. In fact, there is no law in place banning such sales. (The General Accountability Office reported that 247 people on that list purchased weapons after passing a background check in 2010.) One-third of those polled incorrectly thought that federal law requires merchants to inform authorities when someone purchases large amounts of ammunition in a short period of time.   read more

Williams and his colleagues determined that if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles within 40 years, turbulence could become 10%-40% more forceful at altitudes used by jetliners. “Turbulence strong enough to make walking difficult and to dislodge unsecured objects is likely to become twice as common in transatlantic airspace by the middle of this century,” Williams added.   read more

Muhammad, a Pashtun tribesman, was an ally of the Taliban who had been labeled an enemy of the state after leading a tribal rebellion. Pakistani officials wanted him eliminated, so the CIA came up with a proposition: Let us kill him for you, and in exchange, grant CIA drones access to Pakistan’s airspace so the U.S. could hunt down its own enemies, like al-Qaeda. In June 2004, the deal was sealed when Muhammad and several others were killed in South Waziristan during a missile attack.   read more

As for Harris, she received a personal apology from Obama. But the damage was already done, some analysts say. Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, told the San Francisco Chronicle that drawing attention to Harris’ looks was particularly unwelcome given that she holds “a traditionally-male position like attorney general, the top law enforcement officer in the state.”   read more

The move has followed the downsizing of police budgets and forces, which have left many residents feeling unsafe. The cutbacks have added to the growing gulf between the rich and poor in the United States. Wealthier communities are able to hire private security companies, while lower-income communities are left on their own.   read more

Ohio’s habit of jailing the poor flies in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 30 years ago that it is unconstitutional to imprison debtors because they cannot pay court fines or fees. “Nonetheless, many courts throughout the state are simply ignoring the law and routinely incarcerating people multiple times for failing to pay their fines,” Mike Brickner of the ACLU’s Ohio chapter wrote.   read more

FEC officials, supported by the Department of Justice, turned over 835 pages to CREW, but refused to specify what documents were still in its possession, and said it would keep the matter open indefinitely, which they claimed prevented CREW from filing an appeal with an administrative body that handles FOIA matters.   read more

Perez has served in the Department of Justice as assistant attorney general for Civil Rights, the nation’s top civil rights enforcer, since 2009. In January 2007, he entered Maryland state government, when he was appointed acting secretary of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, a position that became permanent in March 2007, and which he held until his appointment to the Justice Department in 2009.   read more

More than 448,000 men and women from ten European countries age 35-70 were included in the study, which tracked the participants long enough to note that 26,344 had died by 2009. The researchers concluded that their “analysis support a moderate positive association between processed meat consumption and mortality, in particular due to cardiovascular diseases, but also to cancer.”   read more

Under pressure from large health insurance companies, the Obama administration last week announced it would delay implementation of a key aspect of its signature health reform law. Although the federal and some state governments must still set up Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges to allow small business employees access to lower rates, the mandate will be pushed back by one year.   read more

Appointed by President Reagan in 1985, Korman squarely rejected the rationale behind the administration veto. Sharpening his critique to a razor's edge, Korman accused the administration of acting in “bad faith” and stated that “the F.D.A. has engaged in intolerable delays in processing” the request for OTC access, which “could accurately be described as an administrative agency filibuster.”   read more

Although school voucher opponents, including the teachers’ union and parents, argued that the program was unconstitutional because nearly all the voucher money has gone to religious schools, the court held that that was irrelevant as long as the money makes a brief stop in the hands of parents before arriving at the religious school or madrasa of their choice.   read more

General John F. Kelly, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, requested $150 million to $170 million for renovations to the prison complex, including $99 million for two barracks facilities, $12 million for a new mess hall, and millions more for consolidating scattered legal, medical and communications facilities. Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flanders, a Southcom spokesman, admitted that Southcom also needed an additional $49 million to build a new building at Guantánamo for so-called “high-value” detainees   read more

Even more insidious than outright corruption, argue such critics, is the fact that the continually revolving door between Wall Street and its regulators creates a financial industry culture shared by both bankers and their regulators, who come to see themselves as part of the financial system—and hope eventually to be rewarded by the profit-making companies they are supposed to regulate and prosecute.   read more

Literally caught with its pants down in last year's prostitution scandal—in which 13 Secret Service employees brought women, including prostitutes, back to their hotel in Cartagena, Colombia—the U.S. Secret Service for the first time has a woman as its leader, tasked with restoring the agency's tarnished reputation. A career law enforcement executive with more than 30 years of experience with the Secret Service, Julia A. Pierson was sworn in as its 23rd Director on March 27, 2013.   read more