The White House announced earlier this month that Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada, Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in California and Waco Mammoth National Monument in Texas would be protected as public lands. They join 16 other national monuments Obama has already created under the Antiquities Act. The president has set aside “more public lands and waters than any administration in history,” according to his administration.   read more

Called the geoduck, the clam features a long probing siphon that bulges out of its shell, according to BBC News. The geoduck is the largest burrowing clam in the world, weighing up to 16 pounds. Its siphon can grow as long as three feet, and the clam can live up to 160 years, but most commercial geoducks are harvested when they reach maturity after about six years.   read more

Haiti’s economy was hit hard by the damage done to its country’s rice farmers after Clinton called for an elimination of tariffs on imported, subsidized U.S. rice. In 2010, Clinton sat before a U.S. Senate committee and conceded “it was a mistake that I was a party to. I am not pointing the finger at anybody. I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else.”   read more

Symantec issued a report saying that for the first time since 2003, spam is under the 50% mark. Other online attacks, such as phishing attacks and email-based malware, have also dropped. hackers have other means of attack that are on the rise. There were 57.6 million new malware variants created in June. Another form of attack, ransomware, has also increased.   read more

NASA spent $723 million on the nine-year, 3 billion-mile voyage to Pluto. The Cowboys play in a football cathedral that cost $1.33 billion. But that’s not the most expensive NFL stadium. That distinction belongs to MetLife Stadium, home to the New York Jets and New York Giants, which cost $1.6 billion to construct. Another billion-dollar NFL venue is on the way in Minnesota: U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Minnesota Vikings will play.   read more

After receiving her citation, Cammelleri’s boyfriend noticed a missing comma in it. It read that “motor vehicle campers” were prohibited, when it should have read “motor vehicle, campers.” She argued in court that the ordinance applied to a type of vehicle she didn’t own, and Judge Robert Hendrickson of the 12th Ohio District Court of Appeals agreed. In his ruling, Hendrickson threw out the ticket and ordered the city to reimburse Cammelleri $1,500 for towing and legal fees.   read more

A new program to be tested by the Justice Dept. will expand the Freedom of Information Act process. The six-month pilot program that will see seven federal offices and agencies publish all responses to FOIA requests. “If successful, the pilot could be implemented more broadly across the executive branch and increase public access to important information about government activity...a promising shift from present practice,” said the Sunlight Foundation.   read more

The Sexuality Institute’s president, Rev. Ted McIlvenna, says that among the college’s holdings is a pornographic film library. He said he'd never want to get his school accredited through an affiliate of the Department of Education. “Accreditation is a bunch of crap,” he said. “They would never let me keep my library.” The Christ for the Nations Institute has received $310,000 to educate war vets. A museum operated by the school is based on the premise that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.   read more

The sentences are a relic of the “War on Drugs,” in which legislators wanting to appear to be tough on crime enacted sentencing laws that disproportionately affected black and Hispanic defendants. "The drug war has been a war on people of color,” said Michael Collins. One of the more prominent prisoners whose sentence was commuted was Katrina Smith, whose son, Demaryius Thomas, plays for the Denver Broncos. She has been locked up since he was 11.   read more

In the last four presidential elections 40 states plus D.C. have voted for the same party’s candidate in every one of those contests. Only four states have moved from solidly one party to the other. "The nation’s electoral maps are the most static they have been in history,” said Dr. Eric Ostermeier. In 2012, only two states switched their support from the previous presidential election: North Carolina and Indiana.   read more

Obama will travel Thursday to El Reno, a medium-security prison in Oklahoma. He’ll be accompanied by outgoing Bureau of Prisons chief Charles E. Samuels Jr. Obama will use the visit to draw attention to his plan for changing federal sentencing laws, particularly those that have resulted in black and Hispanic defendants being sentenced to decades behind bars for nonviolent offenses. There’s also talk that he might work to restore voting rights to felons who have served their time.   read more

The CDC reported that Americans have consistently not eaten enough fruits and vegetables based on data collected over a three-year period (2007-2010). During this span about half of the U.S. population consumed under one cup of fruit and under 1.5 cups of vegetables a day. CDC officials also found that 76% of Americans did not meet recommendations for fruit intake, and 87% did not meet them for vegetables. Californians lead the nation in eating enough fruits and vegetables.   read more

The church has not used marijuana in its services yet, but “there’s going to come a time, baby,” said Levin. The church has a long road before its members will be able to take part in the sacrament of smoking marijuana. Attorneys say it will have to prove it’s an actual religious belief that requires the use of marijuana, but anti-drug laws may still apply. It’s unclear whether the same scrutiny was to be applied to business owners claiming the right to discriminate against LGBT customers.   read more

In his dissenting opinion, Roberts wrote that allowing homosexuals to lawfully wed could result in polygamists making the same legal argument to sanction and legalize their definition of marriage as well. Collier married his first wife, Victoria, in 2000. He applied for a second marriage license with the clerk in Billings to marry his second wife, Christine, after hearing what Roberts wrote. “It’s about marriage equality,” Collier told AP. “You can't have this without polygamy.”   read more

Rosalba Vargas-Ortiz has lived legally in the United States for more than two decades. The immigration service says they have no record of her and that she should be deported. Vargas showed the court three documents with her photograph and fingerprints, issued by USCIS. The judge found it perplexing that the agency can’t explain the documents in Ortiz’s possession.   read more

Job-hopping generally doesn’t look good on a resume. But NBA player Luke Ridnour’s CV just got a lot longer in a short period of time. In the run-up to the June 25 NBA draft and its aftermath, Ridnour was traded four times, with three of those moves coming in one day. Fortunately, Ridnour didn’t have to leave his living room during all this maneuvering, but he might have appreciated the frequent-flier miles. The key to Ridnour’s virtual journey around North America is his contract.   read more