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

Bedridden and on oxygen, Lona Varner of El Reno, Oklahoma, was zapped by police using Taser guns after she acted in an “aggressive” manner in her bed. Officers showed up at Varner’s residence after her grandson, Lonnie Tinsley, called 911 seeking ...   read more

Being born in one’s state is not a requirement to serve as governor, which is a good thing for California, Arizona and Idaho because of their history of electing outsiders. In fact, fewer than half of all states have elected the majority of their ...   read more

In an attempt to keep the world’s largest hot desert from getting any larger, African leaders want to build a wall of trees across the continent to stop the Sahara from encroaching into Central Africa. The “Great Green Wall” would be nine miles wi...   read more

This week was one of the toughest yet for the eight-year war in Afghanistan. On the same day the White House announced the removal of General Stanley McChrystal as the top American commander, news filtered out that June was already the worst month...   read more

BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico prompted the federal government to call for a moratorium on all offshore drilling—and yet the company is still moving ahead, with regulators’ blessings, to tap a potentially huge undersea petroleum reserve o...   read more

Maywood, a small working-class town in Los Angeles County that’s been no stranger to controversy, has outdone its stormy past. Facing a significant budget gap and loss of insurance, Maywood’s city council has decided to lay off all 100 of its empl...   read more

The housing market outdid even pessimists’ worst predictions for May, when only 300,000 homes were sold nationwide. The drop was attributed to the federal tax credit for home buyers, which had helped boost sales, expiring in April. Without it, pot...   read more

To help make their graduates more attractive in a highly-competitive job market, and protect their own reputations, law schools across the country are inflating their grading systems. Schools taking this approach include Loyola Law School in Los A...   read more

Unhappy that a blogger got a hold of an iPhone prototype, Apple convinced a special police unit to raid the home of a journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area.   Officers from California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) in San Ma...   read more

In throwing out the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore oil drilling, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman of Louisiana said halting production would negatively impact the industry and local economy. The ban also might have impacted Feldma...   read more

With millions of gallons of oil polluting the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration is attempting to leverage the current disaster to revive the “Superfund” tax on oil and chemical companies to help clean up toxic sites around the country.   ...   read more

Alhurra, the U.S. government’s answer to the popular Middle East network Al Jazeera, has cost American taxpayers $700 million since its inception during the Bush administration. But Alhurra has failed to grab enough viewers in the region to make i...   read more

American efforts to curb the drug trade in Afghanistan appear to be failing, based on a new United Nations report on addiction levels in the country.   According to a study by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 8% of Afghan adults are addicted to...   read more

So much for the TLC approach of handling criminals with drug problems. Scotland, which has adopted the United States’ idea of drug courts, has found the specialized system does not reduce recidivism.   A study conducted by the Scottish governmen...   read more

During the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Americans have heard from or about the U.S. Coast Guard, the Minerals Management Service, and even President Barack Obama. But the one agency that has not made an appearance—the one whose mission is ...   read more

Known as the “blind shear ram,” this piece of equipment at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico was supposed to prevent the oil well that exploded from spewing out of control millions of gallons of oil. But the blind shear ram, which is meant to cut t...   read more