Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

NHTSA failed to include at least 101 vehicle deaths in 2013 related to police chases. The agency’s total was 322, which was off by 31%. The undercount may go back to 1979, meaning the total of police chase-related deaths is not 11,506, as reported by NHTSA, but more than 15,000. “The findings expose potentially major flaws in how the federal government tracks motor-vehicle fatalities and...how police document high-speed chases, which often result in innocent people being killed," said Frank.   read more

The Atlantic’s Gillian White explained this “means that no matter how rich or poor the district in question, funding gaps existed solely based on the racial composition of the school. Just the increased presence of minority students actually deflated a district’s funding level.” Mosenkis’ research showed districts that “have a few more students of color get lower funding than the ones that are 100 percent or 95 percent white.”   read more

The jails, which are largely empty, cost the federal government $70 million to build, but should have cost less than $40 million The prisons are not only bigger than what’s needed, they’re also too big to operate. The Bureau of Indian Affairs can afford only 40% of the staffing for prisons that size. It can pay for just 25 of the 63 full-time correction officers needed to staff the Tuba City jail, which is 82% vacant for want of funding to pay corrections officers.   read more

The World Trade Center Health Program, serving more than 70,000 first responders to the 9/11 attacks, was allowed to expire on Oct. 1. Funding will continue for about a year, with services being gradually phased out. Eventually, these heroes, sickened by the work they did, will be turned away.   read more

The Department of Environmental Quality in North Carolina handed Duke Energy a sweet deal in recently reducing a $25 million fine over the company’s coal ash pollution to $7 million. Part of the deal granted Duke amnesty for coal ash dumps at its 14 plants. Environmentalists were outraged at the deal.   read more

U.S. Border Patrol destroyed videotapes sought in a suit that charges immigrants are kept in cold, dirty and inhumane cells for extended lengths of time. The Border Patrol was ordered to allow inspections of their Tucson Sector facilities and retain videotapes made there. But some tapes were destroyed despite the order. The judge sanctioned the agency.   read more

Statistically, there is a mass shooting in the United States every week. Since November 2012, there have been 993 mass shooting events in the country. The tragedy at Umpqua Community College on Oct. 1 was No. 994. In 2015 alone, there have been 294 mass shootings, which is defined as four or more people killed or injured by gunfire.   read more

Timothy Korb, an attorney with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which helps protect federal whistleblowers, told of the board’s own backlog of cases and foot dragging. Korb was ordered suspended 21 days without pay and stripped of some duties. A judge sided with Korb and the MSPB backed down before the suspension took effect.   read more

Alabama enacted a voter identification law in 2011 and allowed it to take effect after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. Now it is closing eight of 10 driver license bureaus in counties with the highest percentages of African-American citizens.   read more

Somalia has finalized its ratification of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The U.S. is now the world’s only country that has not done ratified this human rights treaty, which promotes and respects the human rights of children. Barack Obama backs the treaty but has not sent it to the U.S. Senate because conservatives oppose it.   read more

At the recent state dinner held in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping many diners paid $1 million to be on the guest list. The dinner was packed with big-money donors to political campaigns and organizations. The total contributions made since 2007 by that evening’s dinner guests amounted to nearly $19 million.   read more

The percentage of those working or looking for work is at 62.4%, the lowest since October 1977. The index peaked in 1997 at 67.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Participation is even lower among those in their prime earning years, from 25 to 34. That number is now at 80.6%, down from 84% in early 2008.   read more

Eric Seth Rubin was nominated Sept. 15, 2015, to be U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria. He joined the Foreign Service in 1985 and showed expertise on Eastern Europe. In 2008 he became deputy chief of the Moscow mission. In 2011, he came back to the U.S. to serve at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where he was at the time of his nomination.   read more

Victims of domestic violence are often reluctant to call police for help, and a new survey indicates why: most are afraid police won’t believe them or that calling them will make things worse. The survey, involving more than 600 respondents and published by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, found more than half agreed with a statement that reaching out to law enforcement “would make things worse.”   read more

Rise for Youth, which consists of civil rights, religious and fiscal-reform activists, wants Virginia schools to stop using the justice system to handle minor misbehavior, and hopes to reduce the number of kids being sent to youth prisons in the state, which is the nation's leader in juvenile arrests and incarceration.   read more

Families of 9/11 victims trying to sue Saudi Arabia for its involvement in the 2001 terror attacks have lost their case again in federal court. For the second time, a federal judge rejected the plaintiffs’ longstanding claim that the Saudi government and a Saudi charity, the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina, should be able to face civil charges that they supported the terrorists who carried out the attacks.   read more