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

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

The NSA also can legally vacuum up information from so-called “upstream sources, such as by tapping undersea cables,” the PCLOB stated in its report, according to Wired. These activities have pushed “close to the line of constitutional reasonableness,” the board’s members agreed, which did little to assuage privacy advocates hoping for a tougher response. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the report “legally flawed and factually incomplete.”   read more

An unauthorized charge might appear on a customer’s bill as: “8888906150BrnStorm23918.” The numeric jargon would leave a consumer with no understanding of what the item was, making it more difficult for them to contest the expense. In fact it was for trivia text alerts.   read more

Scientists say the level of CO2 has averaged 400 parts per million (ppm) for the past three months at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. That last happened, climatologists say, between 800,000 and 15 million years ago, long before modern humans roamed the earth. The 400 ppm level contrasts with a level of about 280 ppm before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution less than two centuries ago.   read more

Nationwide, one in four U.S. residents lived in “poverty areas.” That’s up from about 18% in 2000. The bureau refers to any census tract with a poverty rate of 20% or more as a poverty area. Mississippi, consistently one of the nation’s poorest states, had by far the largest share of Americans living in poor areas at 48.5%. New Mexico was next at 43%. The state with the fewest residents in poverty areas was New Hampshire at 6.8%.   read more

An investigation by Kulick revealed that on the night of Kumra’s death, Anderson had been treated by paramedics after passing out from drinking too much. During his treatment, Anderson had an oxygen-monitoring probe placed on his finger. That same piece of equipment was used later that evening on Kumra when first responders showed up at his home.   read more

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the dissenting opinion, warned that the ruling was a “decision of startling breadth” which could lead to employees losing out on other rights, such as vaccinations and certain medications if their employers object. “Suppose an employer’s sincerely held religious belief is offended by health coverage of…paying the minimum wage or according women equal pay for substantially similar work?” she asked.   read more

Writing in the Iowa Law Review, Yung discovered that nearly 70% of all police departments in 2012 relied on dispatchers—many of whom lack proper training—“to do the initial coding of sexual assault crimes.” He also determined that police officers sometimes fail to write reports after interviewing rape victims. Yung estimates that from 1995 to 2012, between 796,213 and 1,145,309 sexual assaults were wrongly categorized by local police.   read more

As of July 1, every broadcast TV station in the U.S. must post copies of contracts for commercial time purchased to air campaign spots, both positive and negative ones. More than 2,000 stations will be impacted by the FCC order, which follows a pilot project that was launched by the agency two years ago which involved only 230 TV outlets.   read more

Opponents of hydraulic fracturing have won a key legal ruling (pdf) in New York State, where the state’s highest court has said local governments can ban the controversial drilling practice regardless of state law. The decision comes in the wake of several ordinances adopted by towns seeking to prevent fracking operators from drilling within their jurisdictions.   read more