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

A 2012 initiative, backed by Bill Gates, Walmart heiress Alice Walton and a few other wealthy individuals, allowed for the formation of charter schools to be funded as though they were public schools. But the 6-3 court ruling (pdf), released late Friday, noted that they’re not considered “common schools,” since their ruling boards are appointed, not elected. Therefore, “money that is dedicated to common schools is unconstitutionally diverted to charter schools.”.   read more

The U.S. Department of Justice does not recommend shooting into moving cars because experts say it is widely viewed as ineffective for stopping oncoming vehicles, and doing so poses risks to innocent parties. An investigation by The Guardian found at least 30 incidents in 2015 of police firing their weapons into moving cars or trucks, killing at least one person each time.   read more

The cleanup of the Hanford nuclear facility, which has been in progress for more than 25 years already, is unlikely to be completed any time soon, according to a leaked evaluation. The bottom line is that according to its 2016 budget, the Department of Energy (DOE) has a 50% to 80% confidence level that the mess will be cleaned up—by 2070.   read more

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System (SCL), which runs hospitals and clinics in Kansas, Colorado and Montana, has used a logo including a cross since 1976. It tweaked its logo to add a bit of blue to it. Insurance behemoth Blue Cross then warned the Sisters of Charity to stop using the logo, threatening litigation and to stop its agreements with the nuns’ facilities, causing SCL patients to pay out of pocket or go elsewhere for healthcare.   read more

Officials knew they had a problem on their hands three years ago when an 82-year-old nun, Sister Megan Rice, and two other anti-nuclear activists cut through Y-12’s fences and walked through a field of motion detectors to deface the exterior of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. They were able to do so because security guards ignored the warnings coming from the sensors—because they’re easily set off by wildlife and the guards assumed it was a false alarm.   read more

Edin Carey Avendano-Hernandez, who was born male in Oaxaca, came to the United States in 2000 and began taking hormones and living as a woman in 2005. In 2006, she was convicted twice of driving while intoxicated and was deported to Mexico in 2007 after serving a year in jail. While in Mexico, Avendano-Hernandez said, she was beaten and raped by police officers. She returned to the United States the following year.   read more

Research by Harvard’s Maya Sen shows that black judges’ decisions are overturned 10% more often than white judges’ decisions, even when accounting for differences in education, political views, experience and competence. "The difference appears not to be driven by black judges voting differently on certain cases."   read more

The reference to “managed retreat” has to do with 31 communities that are threatened by the warming climate. Over the next three years, the commission will decide if the residents of these communities will be “protected in place” or moved away from deteriorating coastal areas. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) will evidently oversee the project.   read more

Bolivian President Evo Morales kicked the DEA out of his country in 2008. Bolivia’s coca cultivation fell 11% in 2014 over the previous year. The amount of land being used for coca production in Bolivia is now at 20,400 hectares (about 79 square miles), the lowest number since the UN began its surveys in 2003.   read more

The contractor fell almost a year behind schedule, and by then, the building was no longer needed. Six months later, the military canceled the project, which had already used up $2.2 million in taxpayer money. The building now sits half completed, with no stairs to the second floor, electrical wiring or plumbing. U.S. taxpayers may even be on the hook for the balance of the $5 million contract. Before SIGAR found this waste, it uncovered $40 million worth of other unused buildings.   read more

Idaho’s “dry cells,” basically four concrete walls, a ceiling and a floor with a drain, have been called inhumane by human rights advocates.“Research is showing us that in many cases segregation doesn’t work and is causing more harm than good,” said Idaho prison official Kevin Kempf. “Knowing that 97 percent of all inmates will one day walk out of prisons and into our neighborhoods tells me we shouldn’t be adding to their risk of committing more crimes...”   read more

Last month, North Dakota lawmakers made their state the first to allow police to employ drones using so-called non-lethal weapons. The police department in Fargo, the state’s largest city, has no intention of using drones that carry weapons, or to conduct surveillance. Fargo police Lt. Michael Mitchell said his department is “perplexed, because we don’t see many reasons why we would use such technology. It may be something for the long range, but for now we aren’t even looking at it."   read more

On January 16, 2015, Arjun Kumar Karki, a longtime activist in his country, was appointed to be Nepal’s ambassador to the United States. As a student in Nepal, Karki was arrested and tortured for his activism, according to a biography on his Facebook page. In his professional career, Karki has been involved with many non-governmental organizations in Nepal, often several at the same time.   read more

In 2011, Gilmour returned to Washington as the director of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the State Department’s Africa Bureau. In August 2013, he was moved up to be deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of African Affairs, the position he holds as he awaits confirmation for the Togo post.   read more

Stock value of the top 10 U.S. publicly held coal companies fell by 58% between 2010 and 2014. During this period, cash compensation of executives of these companies went up 8%. The biggest winner was ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who made $33 million last year. Given this setup, it is no wonder Big Oil and Big Coal don’t want to change their ways. It also helps to explain why none of the 30 companies studied have programs that reward investment in renewable energy sources.   read more

More than half of the forest loss occurred in tropical countries, which chopped down or burned 24.5 million acres. Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Uruguay and Paraguay have accelerating rates of deforestation. Cambodia in 2014 had four times as much tree loss as it did in 2001. An increase in the price of rubber has caused more forests to be cleared for its production.   read more