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

Now, it’s down to Representatives Bill Foster (D-Illinois) and Jerry McNerney (D-California). Members of the scientific community are concerned about the nation’s leading legislative body making decisions affecting science with so few voices of authority in physics, biology and chemistry. “What we are sorely missing in the Congress today are those who are science-minded,” said Mary Woolley, president of Research! America. “We are skating on thin ice.”   read more

The lawsuit says the juror objects to how prosecutor Bob McCulloch has been able to speak out about the case and his characterization of the grand jury’s decision. The documents McCulloch released “do not fully portray the proceedings before the grand jury.” St. Louis Public Radio said “the Wilson case was handled in a very different manner than other grand juries...presenting thousands of pages worth of evidence and testimony...[and] characteriz[ing] the grand jury as co-investigators.”   read more

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 15.76% of Rhode Islanders used illicit drugs in 2012-2013. Right behind Rhode Island was the District of Columbia, with 15.17, and Colorado at 14.90. Rhode Island also was first for using marijuana at 20.22%, followed by Alaska (19.69), Vermont (19.10) and Oregon (19.03). As for alcohol consumption, no state was less sober than New Hampshire, where 65.19% of residents used alcohol in the past month.   read more

It’s not the first time this has happened. In fact, it’s becoming a regular occurrence in American politics. Republicans now hold 54 Senate seats, compared to 46 for Democrats. But the GOP candidates only received 46.6% of the vote over the last three elections. Republicans winning a majority of Senate seats while not winning a majority of votes is nothing new. This trend has been happening every 10 years: 2004, 1994 and 1984. It also occurred following the midterm elections of 1980 and 1982.   read more

For policymakers looking to rectify this situation and improve economic growth, the focus should be on lifting up the bottom 40% of society, which includes much of the struggling middle class, says Cingano. “Many social policies are aimed at poverty alleviation. [However,] it is not just poverty...that inhibits growth. Policymakers need to be concerned about...the vulnerable lower middle classes at risk of failing to benefit from the recovery and future growth."   read more

A few years ago, Detroit was a poster child for the problem of unprocessed kits, with more than 11,000 of them as of 2009. To date, the struggling Michigan city has managed to process 2,000 kits, thanks to funding from the National Institute of Justice. Those 2,000 turned up 750 DNA matches, leading to nearly two dozen warrants and 14 convictions for Wayne County. Detroit’s efforts also found 188 serial rapists responsible for crimes in 27 other states.   read more

This drop in the number of professionals who migrate to the U.S. may, to some degree, be the result of many immigrants choosing an Asian country as their new home. One bright spot in the research, they said, was “a recent rebound in the percentage of international students who choose the United States as their destination.” Additionally, the study “confirms that the United States is, in absolute terms, the top destination for international migrants.”   read more

Navy investigators began investigating O’Neill after he told Fox News in November that he was the commando who fired the fatal shot at the al Qaeda leader. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is not saying whether the alleged disclosure of government secrets is related to the 2011 mission. If the NCIS determines there is sufficient evidence against O’Neill, he could be recalled back into the service for the purpose of facing a court-martial trial.   read more

During the week of December 22, arrests were down 66% and traffic and parking tickets and summons for minor offenses were down more than 90% from the same week in 2013. Instead of concern, many are grateful for the diminished police presence. Tickets and summons have been issued disproportionally to those in the working class, forcing them to bear much of the city’s revenue burden.   read more

Officials in the Department of Commerce have quietly changed the rules for companies seeking to export U.S. oil, which has been banned since 1975. The new regulations, adopted by the agency’s Bureau of Industry and Security, apply only to condensate, a form of light crude oil. Citigroup wrote that the rules could “open the floodgates to substantial increases in exports.”   read more

Although the number of immigrants picked up by U.S. Border Patrol agents has increased, the number of assaults against the officers has dropped, according to figures from the agency. There were 373 assaults of Border Patrol officers in the fiscal year ending September 30. That figure is down 20% from the previous year and is the sixth year in a row that the number of assaults has fallen. All but seven of those assaults occurred along the southwest border of the United States with Mexico.   read more

A Freedom of Information Act request was filed with DHS for documents on Operation Aurora, which was a cyberattack on Google. The department responded with 800 pages of documents. However the documents weren’t about Operation Aurora, but were instead on the Aurora Project, which in 2007 demonstrated how easy it would be to disable the nation’s electric and water supply grids.   read more

In January 2014, Githae was defeated in his bid to be elected governor of Kirinyaga County, losing in the TNA party’s primary to eventual winner Joseph Ndathi. Since taking up the Washington post, Githae has defended a controversial security law that was enacted in December, but some sections of which were suspended by Kenya’s High Court on January 2, 2015.   read more

Cars carrying U.S. diplomats investigating whether Israeli settlers on the West Bank had destroyed a Palestinian olive grove were hit with rocks by the settlers on Friday. Israeli officials acknowledged the attack on the U.S. officials. “Rocks were thrown at them by residents of Adei Ad. We are investigating. Arrests have yet to be made,” a spokeswoman said, according to Haaretz. She also said the U.S. visit was made without coordinating with Israeli authorities.   read more

Bloomberg’s annual listing of the 400 richest people in the world found that they’ve increased their wealth by $92 billion to $4.4 trillion. Others aren’t as lucky. The Global Wealth Report (pdf) put out by Credit Suisse bank shows that 3.3 billion people, more than 70% of the world’s population, have a net worth of less than $10,000 each.   read more

A century ago, American soldiers attacked nothing more than sacks tied to a string before fighting in World War I. During the Cold War, U.S. troops took aim at human-shaped targets dressed in green, but wearing a red star on their helmets to represent Soviet soldiers. Now that the Red Menace has been replaced by a Middle-Eastern one, American military training uses targets dressed in “eastern-looking clothing” and sporting dark skin.   read more