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

Those who are eligible will work 20 hours a week and receive half their pay and half their retirement annuity. But at least 20% of their work time has to be devoted to mentoring other employees so someone is in a position to take over once they fully retire. “The idea is to keep talented employees with valuable institutional knowledge on the job a little longer so they can train other workers, while they also enjoy a partial retirement,” Kellie Lunney wrote at Government Executive.   read more

Judge Soble found Gerawan had given preferential treatment to workers, allowing them to pass out literature during the workday but preventing the union from distributing its own materials. UFW claimed Lopez “received a $20,000 donation from the Fresno-based California Fresh Fruit Association to assist with ‘travel expenses.’ Sobel cited Gerawan’s complicity: ‘There is powerful circumstantial evidence to suggest that the company knew about this donation beforehand."   read more

The number of banged-up players was quite high even before the Week 2 games. There were 234 players hurt before teams played their second games of the season. This total included 40 knee injuries, 12 concussions and two neck injuries. Then, Week 2 was played and another 16 players went down. All were taken out of their games. A report released last week found that 87 of 91 deceased NFL players studied were found to have suffered from a brain disease linked to repetitive brain trauma.   read more

The IRS says it struggled to keep up with the call volume in light of the budget cuts imposed by the Republican-controlled Congress this decade. The agency has endured five consecutive years of budget reductions that have stripped $1.2 billion from its operations. The cuts have forced the IRS to eliminate more than 18,000 full-time and seasonal positions while it has had to deal with a growing number of taxpayers filing returns and new responsibilities created by the Affordable Care Act.   read more

The raping of boys bothered many soldiers. Those that took action to stop it have been punished by the military. Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain, was relieved of his command after he beat up an American-backed militia commander who kept a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people,” Quinn said “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did...”   read more

VW used a computer algorithm to fool emissions testing equipment on hundreds of thousands of cars since 2009. EPA's Cynthia Giles said the cars emit as much as 40 times the level of pollutants allowed under law, posing a public health threat. “The software was designed to conceal the cars’ emission of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that contributes to the creation of ozone and smog, which are linked to a range of health problems, including asthma attacks...and premature death,” said the Times.   read more

After acquiring Daraprim, Shkreli jacked up the drug’s price overnight from a per-tablet price of $13.50 to $750. The move could result in some patients paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the drug. Turing’s 5,000% price increase could potentially bring the company tens or hundreds of millions of dollars per year in sales. Some hospitals may now have difficulty keeping the drug in stock due to its cost, resulting in treatment delays for patients.   read more

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that the city can allow gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed, complete a firearms safety training course and pay specified fees. The ruling also requires rifles and shotguns be registered along with handguns. The court approved fingerprinting, along with the $35 fee charged by the city, because the judges said it can keep people from obtaining firearms by using a counterfeit driver’s license.   read more

The groups argue the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, established in 1929, should replace its Summary Reporting System (SRS) with the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) within the next five years. A gradual transition from SRS to NIBRS has already been in progress, but the coalition is urging the agency to set its sights on a complete changeover within that time frame. Currently, more than 6,500 law enforcement agencies, representing 34 states, regularly report to NIBRS.   read more

The Obama administration has once again allowed a big corporation to buy its way out of jail. This time, the corporation is General Motors, which was fined $900 million for covering up its faulty ignition switches that caused at least 124 deaths. Thousands of GM cars had the faulty ignition switch, which could cause the car’s engine to switch off without warning. GM engineers knew early on that the switch was problematic, but didn’t begin recalling affected vehicles until February 2014.   read more

In 1999, the median income of U.S. households was $57,843 in 2015 dollars. In 2014, that family was making only $53,657, down 7.2% from 1999. Americans still haven’t recovered the income they had before the recession that began at the end of the George W. Bush administration; the median income in 2007 was $57,357. But as usual, life’s good if you’re among the wealthy. The richest 5% increased from $196,000 to $206,600.   read more

The delays in confirmation mean that many courts are woefully understaffed. Some of the seats have been open for more than a year and a few for as many as three years. Republicans claim they are only doing with President Barack Obama’s nominees what the Democrats did to George W. Bush’s, but the numbers show that’s just not true. In the last two years of the Bush administration, with a Senate controlled by Democrats, 68 judges were confirmed.   read more

The program turned out to cost about $100 million per fighter, with only four or five still fighting ISIS, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, head of the United States Central Command, told a senate hearing on Wednesday. Launched in May, the program’s initial goal was to train 5,400 fighters in the first year. The effort fell far short of that promise, producing between 100 and 120 anti-ISIS warriors.   read more

In Missouri, the Republican-dominated legislature passed a so-called “right-to-work” law that would end requirements to join a union or pay fees to a labor organization to keep a job. Such laws are often a death-knell for unions, with non-members enjoying the benefits fought for by organized labor, but not paying their fair share for representation. The bill was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon and on Wednesday, the legislature failed to override Nixon’s veto.   read more

Trust in the judicial branch has fallen, with only 53% of respondents saying they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the courts. That’s down from 76% six years ago and the decline can be attributed to the numbers plummeting among Republicans. Only 42% of Republicans say they trust the third branch of government, falling 17 points in the past year.   read more

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has found conditions in facilities holding undocumented immigrants to be so bad that it has recommended the release of families being held in them. The report was passed by a 5-2 vote with three of the yes votes coming from commissioners appointed by President Barack Obama, whose administration policies they now criticize.   read more