Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

The Postal Service came under fire last year for releasing a series of stamps featuring the characters from the “Harry Potter” movies. In that instance the USPS went around the committee to release the series. Some members of the panel were upset, not in the least because the character isn’t even American.   read more

Audrey Rowe became the administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service on April 1, 2011, after serving as deputy administrator for the department’s Special Nutrition Program since the start of President Barack Obama’s administration. Since taking over the Food and Nutrition Service, Rowe has helped institute menu changes in school lunches that emphasize healthier foods, including more fruits and vegetables and less whole milk.   read more

In 1997, the responsibilities for the Census of Agriculture were transferred to the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Reilly moved with them as deputy administrator for field operations with responsibility for 46 NASS field offices. Reilly was named associate administrator in 2005. In 2008, while Reilly was serving as acting administrator, NASS cut its regular reporting on pesticide use. Reilly said the move came for budgetary reasons.   read more

Pennsylvania residents living less than two-thirds of a mile from natural-gas wells were much more likely to report skin and upper-respiratory problems than people living farther away. In Colorado, 30% more congenital heart defects were found in babies born to mothers in areas with natural gas wells. And the state of West Virginia reported benzene levels above what’s considered safe near four of seven gas well sites where air samples were recorded.   read more

The fight for control of the U.S. Senate has resulted in more than 900,000 commercials airing in battleground states, with experts projecting the final tally to break a million by the time all the races have concluded. Consider this: all the Senate races combined to flood the airwaves with 83,000 ads just last week. In North Carolina, two candidates managed to dump 11,000 commercials on TV stations from October 21 to October 27. The deluge averaged out to about an ad a minute.   read more

Rick Berman told attendees at the Western Energy Alliance conference “you can either win ugly or lose pretty,” that the struggle against environmentalists is “an endless war” and to prepare to “budget for it.” Berman claimed to have received six-figure checks from some attendees. Anonymity is something Berman promises his clients. “We run all of this stuff through nonprofit[s]," he assured them. "People don’t know who supports us.”   read more

Dolcini returned to his old job as state executive director of CFSA in 2009, when he was appointed by President Barack Obama. He remained there until 2014, taking time in 2011 to serve as acting administrator of the national FSA. When Dolcini was appointed to the FSA post in 2014, he drove to Washington from California, stopping at state FSA offices along the way and chronicling the trip on his Facebook page.   read more

Jacobs-Young returned to the USDA in 2010 as director of the Office of Chief Scientist. During this period, she also served for a time as acting director of the department’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Jacobs-Young joined the Agricultural Research Service in 2012 to serve as associate administrator for national programs, where she managed the research objectives of the agency.   read more

The king of shadowy campaign spending this election is the nation’s leading big business lobby, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “When large corporations decide they want to get their own candidates into office but they don’t want to be seen doing it, they call the U.S. Chamber,” said Lisa Gilbert. “These politicians then push for anti-environmental, anti-consumer, and anti-health policies.” As of October 25, the Chamber has spent $31.8 million.   read more

The World Economic Forum lists the U.S. at No. 20 in its 2014 Global Gender Gap Report. In some categories, the U.S. ranking was even lower, like 47th for equal labor force participation and 65th on equal pay for similar work. Then there’s the matter of paid family leave, something offered in most nations. There’s still no requirement for this benefit in the United States.   read more

Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp has not processed registrations for at least 40,000 new voters who were signed up under a program to register minorities. A lawsuit forcing him to do so hit a wall in the form of Fulton Judge Christopher Brasher, who denied the plaintiffs’ petition. “All in all – a Republican appointed judge has backed the Republican Secretary of State to deny the right to vote to a largely African American and Latino population,” said NAACP's Dr. Francys Johnson.   read more

“We are extremely concerned and find it unacceptable that the FBI misappropriated the name of The Associated Press and published a false story attributed to AP,” said AP's Paul Colford. “This ploy violated AP’s name and undermined AP’s credibility.” ACLU's Christopher Soghoian said the FBI’s actions demonstrate that the “ends do not justify the means. It’s a dangerous road impersonating the media. If people do not trust the news media, then our democracy cannot function properly.”   read more

“We see from Denmark that it’s possible to run a profitable fast-food business while paying workers these kinds of wages,” said U.S. economist John Schmitt. “We Danes accept that a burger is expensive, but we also know that working conditions and wages are decent when we eat that burger,” noted Soren Kaj Andersen of Copenhagen. “We can still make money out of it — and McDonald’s does, too," added Martin Drescher. "Otherwise, it wouldn’t be in Denmark.”   read more

Last year alone, USPS approved nearly 50,000 “mail cover” requests from police and agency inspectors to secretly monitor individuals’ mail for criminal and national security investigations. Law enforcement agencies have stepped up use of mail covers as part of counterterrorism and criminal cases since 9/11. But the scope of the surveillance was not previously known to be so widespread, nor was the absence of oversight from potential abuses.   read more

One of the nation’s leading universities has come forward with its own numbers on the disturbing problem of sexual assaults, which could spur fact-finding by other institutions. Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported that one in six female undergraduates had been sexually assaulted while attending the prestigious school. University President L. Rafael Reif said he was “disturbed by the extent and nature of the problem” at MIT. “Sexual assault violates our core MIT values."   read more

Farm chemicals banned by European and Asian countries are still being used, often in large measure, across the U.S. At least five pesticides being applied to American farms have been outlawed overseas. Some of the most popular are neonicotinoids, which farmers use widely on corn and soybean crops. Another chemical banned in Europe as well as China is paraquat, which kills weeds and was famously used in marijuana eradication efforts in Mexico. It may also cause Parkinson’s disease.   read more