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

U.S. physicians write 82.5 prescriptions for opiate analgesics for every 100 persons in the country. Expressed another way, there are 40,000 daily doses of OPRs consumed here for each million inhabitants per day. The second leading consumer of OPRs, according to a United Nations report, is Canada with 20,000 daily doses per million. By comparison, Mexico consumes only 85 daily doses per million inhabitants.   read more

A law taking effect this month forces foreign financial institutions to let the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examine its records to ensure that U.S. citizens abroad are not hiding taxable income from the federal government. Before FATCA went into effect, the IRS depended on citizens to self-report their foreign income.   read more

EQT Corporation, which operates a fracking well near Finleyville in Washington County, has offered $50,000 to those willing to sign a comprehensive no-liability waiver that prevents them from ever suing the company for any problem stemming from the drilling. EQT initially tried to get at least 30 Finleyville residents to sign the agreements, with the understanding that the money would only be paid out if all the local landowners came onboard.   read more

Only 25% of active-duty service members in the older age group reported feeling stress during the previous day, the lowest number in the survey. On the other end of the scale, 46% of civilians and discharged veterans in the younger age group reported feeling stress on the previous day.   read more

Project members will meet with NASA officials this week to get final permission to bring the craft into its new orbit. The group will have to prove that the craft is functional and that it has a valid scientific purpose. And just as a teen’s first stop in his new car is often a fast-food joint, the reactivated satellite will be controlled from—where else?—an abandoned McDonald’s restaurant on the site of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.   read more

Ramirez was born in San Clemente, California, to parents who were immigrants from Mexico. She went on to attend Harvard Law School, where she worked with Obama on the Harvard Law Review. Since joining the FTC, Ramirez has focused on children’s privacy issues and other electronic privacy issues.   read more

The small town of Jones has experienced more than 2,500 earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater since 2008 that researchers say were triggered by a significant increase in wastewater injection volumes. The four well sites have disposed of approximately four million barrels of water a month deep below the earth’s surface. Geologists say the injection of so much water could increase subterranean pressure near underground faults, helping push them past their tipping point.   read more

Seven states experienced a drop in their median age during the same span. Some of this decline was attributed to the oil and gas rush that’s been taking place in the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma since hydraulic fracturing opened up previously untapped reserves. Demand for drillers and other industry workers has prompted many younger Americans, mostly men, to relocate to these states for employment.   read more

Officials in charge of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) recently announced that the rate of assistance going to ineligible households (or to eligible households in excessive amounts) dropped to 2.61% last year, the lowest level on record. SNAP’s achievements have come despite significant increases in the number of Americans relying on this government assistance during and following the Great Recession.   read more

Chelaifa was sent to Australia in 2010 to become his country’s first ambassador to that country. He was there only a short time before returning to Madrid as ambassador to Spain in 2011, a position he held until coming to Washington. Chelaifa will probably serve only a short time in the United States as he was just more than a year from retirement age upon assuming the post in Washington.   read more

As international oil companies began to show interest in drilling in São Tomé and Principe’s territorial waters, Neves served as president of the assembly’s increasingly important oil and gas commission from 2004 to 2006. He served as advisor to the assembly from 2008 to 2009. Subsequent to that, Neves was director of the national petroleum agency’s administrative and public department until being named ambassador to the UN in 2012.   read more

The Chamber was victorious in 11 out of 16 cases in which it supported one side, according to the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), which has been keeping tabs on the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush. Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas all voted the Chamber’s position more than 70% of the time.   read more

While the U.S. Supreme Court was deciding its ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (pdf), Mother Jones reported in April that the chain of craft stores had sunk more than $73 million from its employee retirement plan into drug companies that produced emergency contraception pills—the same kind of birth control it refused to provide to its workers under Obamacare. The investments were in effect as of December 2012, which was three months after Hobby Lobby sued the federal government.   read more

The scheming by BNP Paribas—which occurred over an eight-year period—assisted interests in Iran, Sudan and Cuba in conducting business subject to sanctions imposed by Washington. The bank continued to violate the law even after being warned by its own lawyers that its conduct was illegal. Legal experts hailed the agreement, noting its size for punishing such a large financial institution.   read more

Since December 2012, CAR has been wracked by civil war and sectarian massacres. Moussa-Kembe was first appointed as ambassador to the U.S. by President François Bozizé, who fled his country in March 2013. Since that time, Moussa-Kembe has remained in North America and kept a relatively low profile.   read more

Al Khalifa is a member of Bahrain’s royal family and is seen as a hardliner in the ruling Sunnis’ dealings with the restive Shiite majority in the country. There were anti-government protests in 2011 in the capital of Manama and sporadic ones since, causing some officials in Washington to reconsider the status of the U.S. Navy base there, something Al Khalifa would like to avoid.   read more