Trump said he would send the National Guard to Toronto and impose 50% tariffs on all Los Angeles products. AllGov reporter Sidney Finster suggested that perhaps Trump had confused the two cities. Because Toronto is in Canada, not the United States, Trump can’t send the National Guard there. And because Los Angeles is in the United States, Trump can’t impose tariffs on a U.S. city. Trump defended his position by saying, “I’m always right.”   read more

Earthquakes associated with injection wells have “skyrocketed from a handful per year in the 1970s to more than 650 in 2014,” the university reported. Researchers found that “high-rate” injection wells were most often associated with quakes. These high-rate wells pump in excess of 300,000 barrels of wastewater into the ground per month. "We think the evidence is convincing that the earthquakes we are seeing near injection sites are induced by oil and gas activity," said researcher Weingarten.   read more

The staff was allegedly made to transfer the chemicals into non-descript bottles that bore no warning labels. The complaint says Marriott not only required housekeepers to use the hazardous chemicals, but also denied they were dangerous and threatened to fire anyone who complained about them. Housekeepers who did not speak English were forced to sign documents they didn’t understand, including liability waivers, which the housekeepers were told they had to sign under threat of termination.   read more

Science instructors shouldn't worry that the artificial rats would not measure up to the real deal. NecropSynth says its 3-D animals would have “layers so that they feel like real tissue,” and simulate bones and muscles. Hollow conduits with colored gel would represent the vascular and nervous systems. More importantly, NecropSynth believes that its process could potentially save the lives of the 6 million to 12 million animals that are killed annually for use in biology classes.   read more

Some say it’s because police fear for their jobs if they’re caught abusing a suspect, but some police have displayed a more defiant attitude about the slowdown. Those who complain about police “are going to get the police force they want, and God help them,” Lt. Victor Gearhart told the Sun.   read more

Agents interviewed Y.F. and wrote on the appropriate form that he said he was looking for work. "The impossibility of the interview, in spite of the DHS officers’ affirmations of veracity and the rule of government regularity is plain on the face of the writings themselves: Y-F- was three years old at the time he was interrogated,” the brief said.   read more

A report from Americans for Tax Fairness said Walmart had at least 78 offshore subsidiaries and branches to stash the assets where they’re not subject to U.S. corporate tax rates. The study, which used information provided by the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, said 90% of the havens were based in Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Bloomberg reported “overseas operations have helped the company cut more than $3.5 billion off its income tax bills in the past six years.”   read more

The FCC accused AT&T of misleading its customers about the company’s “unlimited” data plans. In fact, “AT&T severely slowed down the data speeds for customers with unlimited data plans and that the company failed to adequately notify its customers that they could receive speeds slower than the normal network speeds AT&T advertised,” the FCC said in a statement.   read more

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will be operated by the Department of Homeland Security on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan. It’s replacing a facility located on Plum Island, off New York’s Long Island. It was put there in 1954 because it’s far from agricultural facilities and the prevailing winds blow out to sea, and would take any outbreaks away from land. NBAF sits in the path of Tornado Alley, a large stretch of the Midwest vulnerable to violent storms.   read more

The 2002 case accuses Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III of ordering authorities to detain hundreds of people, mostly Muslim men, who were rounded up for immigration violations and questioned. The Department of Justice’s inspector general said the government didn’t distinguish for the most part between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations. The reports also documented widespread abuse at the detention center.   read more

Nine years ago, a white boa constrictor named Lucy or Diamond Princess was smuggled from Brazil’s Niterói Zoo by Jeremy Stone, a collector, breeder and seller of reptiles. Lucy wound up in Utah, where she had eight offspring while kept by Stone. Stone was able to sell Lucy’s offspring for tens of thousands of dollars. The Federal Bureau of Investigation eventually seized eight snakes, while federal prosecutors charged Stone with unlawfully transporting wildlife in the U.S.   read more

“We decided this week it was no longer an effective use of our resources to continue in a process where companies wouldn’t even agree to the most modest measures to protect privacy,” wrote EFF’s Jennifer Lynch. Facebook recently released its Moments mobile photo app, which will tag the faces of those in the photos. In Britain, all the attendees at the Download music festival last weekend were subject to being captured by facial recognition technology.   read more

“This action is expected to reduce coronary heart disease and prevent thousands of fatal heart attacks every year,” said FDA's Stephen Ostroff. The change could result in 20,000 fewer heart attacks and 7,000 fewer deaths each year from heart disease. “This is the final nail in the coffin of trans fats,” said Michael F. Jacobson. “In terms of lives saved, I think eliminating trans fats is the single most important change to our food supply.”   read more

“Clinical experience is something that should be considered as additional information, but absolutely never take the place of scientific data,” said NCHR's Zuckerman. “By urging FDA to get away from randomized clinical trials, drug makers may have more power to urge the FDA to consider data that is favorable to their product.” Scientist Moore said: “They are pushing the FDA to consider types of evidence that’s not been previously regarded as reliable enough.”   read more

Even worse is this from The Washington Post: “VA officials had prepared to tell Congress that the records had been destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, according to previously undisclosed records, until a senior adviser in [then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s] office pointed out that the timing was wrong and the excuse wouldn’t hold up.” The VA's Jan Frye, who uncovered the purchases, accused the Veterans Health Administration of operating a culture of “lawlessness and chaos.”   read more

The Nordic island nation was designated the most peaceful nation on earth, according to the Institute for Economics & Peace’s latest Global Peace Index. The United States was way down on the Global Peace Index, placing at No. 94, but a definite improvement from last year’s 101. Part of the improvement came from the partial withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and U.S. efforts to secure a nuclear deal with Iran.   read more

The 424 immigrants included convicted rapists, child molesters, and kidnappers. ICE failed to track the criminals after releasing them, or to ensure that they registered as sex offenders. Some re-offend and are jailed, including at least one man who tortured his children. Others get into homeless shelters. “The public ought to be outraged,” said Homeless Trust's Ronald Book. “I don’t know that ICE intentionally set us up, but it left us vulnerable, which is what we want to try to avoid.”   read more