President Donald Trump invited the Dodgers to the White House. Many of their fans feared that the team, by accepting, would humiliate themselves and betray the team’s large Latino, Asian and African-American fan base. Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter, along with co-owner Magic Johnson, have proposed a solution. Trump has promised that if he can keep the championship trophy, the Commissioner’s Trophy, he will end all seizures and deportations of immigrants.   read more

Ospina led an Army brigade in 1997 that allowed a pro-government militia to sack a village in northern Colombia. The assault left several dead, including children. “One shopkeeper was tied to a tree, had his eyes gouged out, and his tongue removed," according to witness reports. The allegations didn’t stop Ospina from joining the teaching staff at NDU’s Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, where he taught from 2006 to 2014. There, he lectured “elite” U.S. and foreign military officers.   read more

“The point of my legislation is to take the state out of the process and leave marriage in the hands of the clergy,” said Republican state Rep. Todd Russ, the bill’s author and an Assemblies of God minister. But Troy Stevenson said the bill "puts all couples who plan to marry in Oklahoma at risk of being denied hundreds of federal legal rights and protections... The federal government and other states will not be required to acknowledge these proposed ‘marriage certificates.’"   read more

“Time is running out for people who didn’t file a 2011 federal income tax return to claim their refund,”said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “People could be missing out on a substantial refund,.. Some people may not have filed because they didn’t make much money, but they may still be entitled to a refund.” The IRS estimates that about a million taxpayers may rightfully lay claim to a portion of that billion dollars.   read more

Thousands of Americans impacted by the storm subsequently complained that FEMA wrongly rejected or “low-balled” their claims. Those complaints led New Jersey’s U.S. senators, Democrats Robert Menendez and Cory Booker, to contact FEMA officials. Following a meeting between the senators and FEMA chief Craig Fugate, the agency announced it would review the claims belonging to 141,800 homeowners with federal flood insurance.   read more

When the woman became violent, Johnson unsuccessfully employed his stun gun twice to subdue her. An Inyo County deputy arrived and assisted Johnson, but called for police back-up when the two officers became outnumbered by the woman and her hostile family. She was ultimately cited, but not arrested at the request of her ex-husband. The district attorney later charged Johnson with falsely representing himself to be a public officer, assault with a stun gun, false imprisonment, and battery.   read more

The letter, drafted by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, was intended to undermine negotiations between the Obama administration and Iran about its nuclear program, with the GOP senators warning Tehran that any deal it signs with President Obama might not last beyond his remaining term in office. "It appears from the letter that the Senators do not understand our constitutional system or the power to make binding agreements,” wrote legal authority Jack Goldsmith.   read more

The groups hope to have the federal courts end the NSA’s mass collection of Internet communications, which the agency claims is legal under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act. “We’re filing suit today on behalf of our readers and editors everywhere,” said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. “Surveillance erodes the original promise of the internet: an open space for collaboration and experimentation, and a place free from fear.”   read more

Bart catches a 3-eyed fish in the river near the power plant owned by the greedy Mr. Burns. He worries that he’ll have to pay millions of dollars to clean up the river— until Homer suggests if he ran for governor, Burns “could decide what’s safe and what isn’t” and not worry about the polluting. The joke was not that far off from today’s reality. In North Carolina, a longtime former employee of Duke Energy is now governor, Pat McCrory. Like Burns’ plant, Duke contaminated his state's water.   read more

A federally funded study shows the percentage of individuals who either own a gun or live with someone who does has declined from about 50% in late 1970s and early 1980s to only 32% by last year. The popularity of hunting has declined as well, going from 32% in 1977 to less than half that rate now. But records maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation show “an increase in the number of background checks being run, suggesting the total number of firearms being purchased is going up.”   read more

The liberal arts school was founded in 1996 as an institute and also operated as an Islamic seminary before transforming into a four-year college in 2009. It offers a B.A. in Islamic Law and Theology as well as courses in politics, astronomy, and American history, among others. "Religiously-affiliated colleges are plentiful in the United States, but the vast majority are Christian," said Jack Jenkins. "There are a few Jewish higher education institutions...and even some Buddhist schools.”   read more

Obama’s announcement targeted seven Venezuelan officials who are now subject to U.S. sanctions. The action provoked a fiery response from President Nicolas Maduro, who accused the U.S. of trying to meddle in his country’s internal affairs and undermine his government. The sanctions will not change the economic relationship between the two countries. The U.S. is Venezuela’s top trading partner, and the U.S. imports an average of 733,000 barrels of oil per day from the South American nation.   read more

One former FBI agent, Jane Turner, reported on colleagues who stole items from Ground Zero in New York in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. She was subsequently retaliated against by the bureau. “After making this whistleblower disclosure, she was given a ‘does not meet expectations’ rating, placed on leave, and given a notice of proposed removal,” the GAO reported. Turner won her case but couldn’t get her job back. “It cost me my career," she said   read more

The agricultural industry has long relied on immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, to pick crops, and Smith’s legislation would force farmers to end this practice.The AWC warned that “the economic impacts of this will spread far beyond the farm gate as Americans working in industry sectors both upstream and downstream of the farm will see their jobs threatened. Each of the 2 million hired farm employees supports two to three fulltime American jobs" in multiple sectors.   read more

The order affected several companies, including Chevron, drilling for oil in Kern County using injection wells. Officials said they had not discovered any contamination of aquifers in the drilling areas, but were merely taking precautions. “The protection of California’s groundwater resources — as well as public health — is paramount, particularly in this time of extreme drought,” said Steven Bohlen of the California Department of Conservation.   read more

“In light of the unsettled science, I am concerned that insurers could be denying claims based on the unsupported belief that these earthquakes were the result of fracking or injection well activity," said State Insurance Commissioner John Doak. Such policies include exceptions that allow insurers to deny claims for damage caused by man-made earthquakes. Those caused by fracking could fall into that category. With the increase in quakes in Oklahoma, sales of earthquake insurance have gone up.   read more

Documents show the ban had been in place since Governor Rick Scott took office in 2011. Investigators spoke with former DEP employees who confirmed that use of the terms were forbidden in any official emails, documents, or communications. "We were... no longer allowed to use [those] terms...or even ‘sea-level rise'...which was to be referred to as ‘nuisance flooding,” said Kristina Trotta. When her staff protested, they were told the order came “from the governor’s office.”   read more