Trump ordered that the term Homo sapiens be changed to Hetero sapiens. In history books and on websites, the airplane from which the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima will no longer be identified as the Enola Gay, but rather the Enola Straight. Trump also ordered billionaire Mark Cuban, who supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, to change his name to Mark American. If he does not do so, he will be charged with terrorism.   read more

Containing americium-241/beryllium (Am-241), the rod disappeared while company three employees were transporting it between sites near Odessa and Pecos. The rods are lowered into wells to identify the best spots to break apart rock in the process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking. A lock on the container holding the rod is also missing.   read more

Only 42% of company employees age 25-64 participate in a pension plan in their current job, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. This is a fall from 50% in 1979. The implication that 58% of private sector workers don’t have pension plans is that this mass of people must rely entirely on Social Security once they retire.   read more

Forrest refused to consider the motion last Friday, and said she would review the matter on September 19, following the conclusion of the Jewish New Year. Unwilling to wait, the Justice Department asked another judge, Raymond Lohier, to stay Forrest’s decision. Lohier, who, like Forrest, was appointed by President Barack Obama, sided with the administration and blocked the ruling. Administration lawyers contended that Forrest’s ban on the new law could imperil the country’s security.   read more

As a result of import tariffs and agricultural loans authorized by Congress, inflated sugar prices have forced Americans to spend $2.4 billion more each year on food containing the sweet ingredient, with sugar producers gaining $1.4 billion in benefits. The sugar industry gets its way through substantial donations to lawmakers. This election cycle alone, sugar farmers have contributed $3.6 million to campaigns, which is more than what Big Tobacco has donated ($2.8 million).   read more

The switch to ocean routes began after President George W. Bush signed the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which called for beefing up physical barriers in the Southwest near the border. Federal agents say apprehensions along the Pacific Ocean have tripled since 2008, with boat captures occurring from San Diego to San Luis Obispo. A few immigrants have even tried to swim from Baja to the California coastline.   read more

It’s been a hard year for Montana’s longstanding election laws. In June the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, struck down the state’s 100-year-old law prohibiting corporations from contributing to political candidates and committees. Now the Montana Republican Party has successfully challenged a 77-year-old state law that prevented partisan endorsements of judges running for election.   read more

A top Department of Justice official publicly defended the increasing use of deferred-prosecution agreements for white-collar criminals. These agreements allow corporations and their executives who have committed fraud to avoid criminal charges in exchange for admitting wrongdoing and paying fines. Critics of deferred prosecution claim that in practice it is just an easy for corporate executives to avoid personal responsibility for the actions of the companies they run.   read more

One nongovernmental assessment, from the nonpartisan Stimson Center, projected that Washington might need to allocate $352 billion over 10 years to keep the nuclear arsenal of 5,113 warheads working effectively in the coming decades. This includes an estimated $66 billion just to modernize the buildings and laboratories where the upgrades would take place.   read more

The biggest culprit in the problem, accounting for $6.6 billion, is a practice known as “upcoding.” In upcoding, the doctors and hospitals bill for a visit or procedure that is higher than the one they performed, a violation that is difficult to monitor considering that Medicare deals with an average of one million billings a day.   read more

The Obama administration warned last week that the government could lose funding to protect diplomats come January. The money, $129 million a year, would be slashed from the State Department budget as a result of automatic reductions set to take effect next year if Republicans and Democrats in Congress don’t agree on a deficit reduction plan.   read more

On Monday the Board of Pardons rejected Williams’ plea for clemency. The five-member board voted 3-2 in favor of clemency, but a state law required a unanimous vote. Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley voted against clemency, as did corrections expert Harris Gubernick. The three votes in favor were cast by Attorney General Linda L. Kelly; victim representative Louise B. Williams; and psychologist Russell A. Walsh.   read more

Specifically, BARK claims that private companies charge an $8 parking fee at Rose Canyon Lake in the Coronado National Forest in Arizona; that in Oregon, a private company charged for use of the Mt. Hood National Forest, “including the ‘Big Eddy’ day-use area, where visitors have traditionally parked to swim in the Clackamas River free of charge;” and that “the concessionaire now charges $5 per person to soak in Bagby Hot Springs, regardless of how they arrive.”   read more

“To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State's interest is ‘compelling’–permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, ‘to become a law unto himself,’ contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense." The opinion was written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.   read more

A three-member panel of the 9th Circuit appeals court sharply chastised the office of the U.S. attorney in San Diego on Friday for deporting a witness whose testimony could have weakened its alien-smuggling case against Jonathan Leal-Del Carmen. A jury in San Diego convicted him of three counts of alien-smuggling but acquitted him of doing so for profit.   read more

Five new detention facilities were opened during the five years under study, but the 7% increase in capacity wasn’t enough to accommodate the 9.5% rise in the federal prison population. Overcrowding was worst in high security prisons. By the end of 2011, federal prisons held 177,934 inmates, 165,595 of whom were men. Of the total, 48% of inmates were serving sentences for drug-related offenses.   read more

Because of the archaic voting system used in the United States, voters do not actually vote for a candidate, but for a slate of state electors who are pledged to vote for that candidate if he or she wins the state. In most states, these electors are not legally required to vote for the candidate who won the state. In fact, there have been 87 instances in which an elector refused to vote for the presidential or vice-presidential candidate he or she was supposed to.   read more