President Donald Trump gleefully announced that, under his direction, U.S. military troops had swooped down on the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento and kidnapped California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re charging Newscum with fraud.” When a reporter asked for specifics about the fraud charges, Trump pointed to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi, clearly taken by surprise, said, “We’re looking into it and will let you know the details as soon as we’ve created them.”   read more

One biotech company offers cash to mothers to donate their extra breast milk to its lab. The company sells the human milk--which some call "white plasma"--at $180 an ounce, which means one premature baby can easily consume $10,000 worth over several weeks. But the lure of cash for milk may begin to drain the resources of milk banks, which don’t pay mothers for their contributions. Opponents say “breast milk farming” could lead greedy moms to do unscrupulous things in order to increase profits.   read more

The regulations apply only on public lands and Indian reservations under the administration of the Interior Department. Fracking on private land, where about 75% of it is done, is not affected. • Drillers will be required to encase wells in cement when groundwater supplies could be affected. • Wells must undergo pressure tests to ensure they’ll stand up to fracking without blowing out. • The use of open waste pits to contain fracking fluids will be prohibited in most circumstances.   read more

The provision of the USA Patriot Act (pdf) that allows the data collection, Section 215, is set to expire on June 1, and so far, lawmakers haven’t adopted legislation extending this authority. However, the Obama administration could continue the NSA program by drafting a legal memo authorizing the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to in turn approve the bulk collection effort until Congress does act.   read more

SPOT, whose techniques were first used in 2003 and formalized in 2007, uses “highly questionable” screening techniques, according to the ACLU complaint, while being “discriminatory, ineffective, pseudo-scientific, and wasteful of taxpayer money.” TSA has spent at least $1 billion on SPOT.   read more

Clinton used a commercial spam filtering service, MxLogic, now owned by McAfee, to monitor emails coming into her account. To be able to filter out spam, MxLogic had to be able to read the emails. Thus, anyone with access to MxLogic’s system, which could include someone from outside the company, could read emails meant for Clinton. Those emails would include communications coming from the White House and foreign governments.   read more

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) cites the failure to specifically address asbestos, deadlines for chemical review pushed far into the future, not allowing states to set tougher standards for chemical safety, and several other issues. All 17 senators who sponsored or co-sponsored the Vitter-Udall bill were among the current members of the Senate who received more than $1 million in donations from the nation’s top 10 chemical companies.   read more

Sub-critical coal-fired power stations (SCPS) emit 75% more pollutants than more technologically advanced ultra-supercritical type plants. The United States has 75% SCPS in its coal-fired portfolio. The United States has 10 companies—the most of any nation—among the top 25 in SCPS generation.   read more

• “Garner raised both his arms in the air” was changed to “Garner flailed his arms about as he spoke.” • “Use of the chokehold has been prohibited” was changed to “Use of the chokehold is legal, but has been prohibited.” • Instances of the word “chokehold” were replaced twice, once to “chokehold or headlock,” and once to “respiratory distress.”   read more

Bibler turned in a meeting summary that mentioned climate change, which is an undeniable threat to the low-lying state, and he inadvertently left the word “agenda” in the memo header, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Bibler was ordered to remove mentions of climate change and the word agenda. He sent the note back, minus “agenda” but with climate change mentions intact and with a logo that urged a stop to the Keystone XL pipeline.   read more

Despite its status as home base for the Mormon Church, Utah has passed legislation with the support of the church prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment and housing. The area may also attract LGBT people from other, less welcoming, locations in the West. The metropolitan area with the fewest who identify as LGBT is Birmingham, Alabama, at 2.6%.   read more

CD revenues fell 12% to $1.85 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, streaming services accounted for $1.87 billion in revenue, up 29% from the year before. Digital downloads from services such as iTunes were the biggest money-maker at $2.6 billion, but even that figure was down 8.5% from 2013.   read more

The U.S. system of oil pipelines has grown in size by nearly 25% over the past decade. This expansion has resulted in more than 11,600 miles of pipeline being laid, much in the western half of the country. Compare that to Keystone, which would stretch only 1,179 miles. Keystone’s oil carrying capacity would be dramatically less than what’s now flowing through many states via the new pipelines. As they expand, regulators have been almost powerless to ensure that existing pipelines are safe.   read more

Judge William Garnett said the Legal Aid Society and others did not provide sufficient reason under the law to release the transcripts. A Garner family attorney blasted Garnett’s ruling. “I think it’s unfortunate given the great deal of public interest in this case that he’s refused to provide the public access to any of the materials in the grand jury,” he said. “Secret grand juries are an anachronism. The judge has essentially sanctioned the use of a secret trial for a very public matter."   read more

The mission proved costly for the police force, which lost 44 men during the botched raid. Thirty-five members of the elite unit were picked off in a cornfield one by one by Moro Islamic Liberation Front snipers. The surviving commandoes weren’t even able to bring back Marwan’s body as a result of getting attacked by the Moro fighters. They had to settle for cutting off Marwan’s finger to prove to the FBI that the bomb maker, who was on the bureau’s list of most wanted terrorists, was dead.   read more

“The managers told me to put mustard on it, but I ended up having to get rushed to the hospital in an ambulance,” Berry said. The selection of condiment as a balm appears to be a matter of personal preference among McDonald’s managers. Martisse Campbell, who works at a Philadelphia McDonald’s, said that a co-worker who was badly burned was told by a manager to “put mayo on it, and he’d be good.”   read more

Katherine Simonds Dhanani was nominated February 24, 2015, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Somalia. If she’s confirmed, the career Foreign Service officer would be the first ambassador to Somalia since the embassy was closed in 1991. If Dhanani is confirmed, she’ll initially be stationed in Nairobi, Kenya, until a suitable secure facility in constructed in Somalia.   read more