The majority of voters did not vote for Donald Trump for president; the majority of voters did not vote for Republican candidates for the Senate; and fewer than 51% of voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The Republican Party now controls the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, no matter how that came to be. I believe it is worth bearing in mind that a majority of U.S. citizens did not support the Republican winners.   read more

What’s your life worth? According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), if you fly in a private plane, you’re worth only $1 million. Other agencies have different, mostly higher, valuations on human lives. The Environmental Protection Agency values lives at $3.3 million and the Department of Transportation says a human is worth $9.1 million.   read more

A new study published in the Journal of Sports Economics says crime shoots up when NFL games take place. Total crime increases about 3% when a city hosts a pro football game. With certain crimes, such as larceny and auto theft, the jumps are even higher: 4% and 7%, respectively, according to researchers David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee.   read more

Amazon has already invested in a fleet of small drones to develop a new way of delivering consumer goods to customers. That’s why the online giant hired lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump and paid the firm at least $120,000 to sway the FAA decision. The new rules will impose many restrictions on drones, requiring operators to have a pilot’s license and limit flights to daylight hours, below 400 feet and within sight of the person at the controls.   read more

In 2003, Folmsbee published a novel, Flight of the Feathered Serpent, about two Icelanders who are shipwrecked in 12th century Mexico. Folmsbee was sent to Pakistan in 2006 as director of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, working on counter-terrorism issues. The following year, he was embedded with the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq as a Provincial Reconstruction Team team leader.   read more

Phee served as a desk officer for United Nations (UN) political affairs in the International Organizations Bureau but took a break to do a tour in al-Amarah, Iraq, as “governate coordinator” (a.k.a. senior civilian representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority) of Maysan Province for several months beginning in November 2003. This position was considered so dangerous that she was supplied with twenty bodyguards.   read more

“I was raised with this idea that ultimately you have to do the right thing. It was just simple things like—you can’t take money from people. We are talking about pension plans and retirement funds, things people are relying on at a time when they don’t have another income. I just grew up with a value that a lot of people have—and that is, it’s OK to do well, but you can’t do that at other people’s expense.”   read more

The Parliament on Thursday adopted a nonbinding resolution calling for the dissolution of Google. The vote was merely symbolic because the legislative body lacks the legal authority to force Google to divest portions of its empire. But it demonstrated just how fed up Europeans are with the growing might and invasive capabilities of American technology.   read more

Insys Therapeutics, maker of the drug Subsys, paid millions of dollars to physicians to prescribe the product, which is approved only for cancer patients who are already taking opioid drugs constantly for pain. However, only 1% of Subsys prescriptions have been written by oncologists, according to The New York Times.   read more

In July 1998, Hernandez took over as director of the Colorado Community Business Center for Fannie Mae, facilitating housing and community development. He remained in that post for more than nine years. Hernandez was chosen to be director of Colorado’s Division of Local Government in 2007, a position he held for more than five and a half years. He managed development programs for rural communities in the state, serving until taking over at the Rural Housing Service.   read more

Mulina worked his way quickly through the ranks of the Papua New Guinea government. Mulina was named to head the government-owned Papua New Guinea Banking Corporation in 1997. In 2003 he became the chairman of the Rural Development Bank. He took over as the ambassador from Papua New Guinea to the United States in March 2014, about a year and a half after his appointment was announced. Mulina is also accredited to Canada and Mexico.   read more

Cyberwarriors are at it again, this time with a malicious program called Regin that has infected computers in Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries and is so complex that security experts say it probably came from the United States, Britain or another Western government.   read more

Drones can now be purchased for about $500, well within the budget of many. Consequently, the global civilian drone market has skyrocketed by 45% since last year. Part of those sales are going to those who are using the craft for pranks and even criminal acts. Drones have flown flags over soccer games and have been used to case buildings for burglars.   read more

Residents of Irving, Texas, near Dallas, have been rocked by several earthquakes in the past week. The first, and so far the biggest, was a 3.3 magnitude temblor last Saturday. There was a 2.5 on Sunday, followed by a 2.2 and a 2.3 on Monday and a 2.7 on Tuesday. Some have blamed the quakes on the fracking wells situated around the area.   read more

A report by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed that 1 in 8 Americans give up essentials such as food or burn through savings because they’re trapped in High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs). Twenty-three percent of those with HDHPs skipped a medical test or treatment recommended by their doctor, and 29% didn’t see a doctor when they became ill or injured.   read more

The Clean Air Act was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970 and gave the newly created Environmental Protection Agency and states the power they needed to clean up the atmosphere. George H.W. Bush followed in 1990 by strengthening the Act to allow more regulations to be issued. Now, since Congress has been unable to pass a bill to combat global warming, President Barack Obama is using the Clean Air Act’s provisions to attempt to mitigate climate change,   read more

It perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that Officer Darren Wilson will not stand trial for killing Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Of 6,700 on-duty incidents of police being charged with a crime, only 41 officers were indicted over seven years for murder. The FBI reported 2,718 justified homicides by police from 2004 to 2011. The lack of police prosecutions is “one factor that enters into the perception of African Americans that the police are not on their side,” said Prof. Samuel Walker.   read more