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

The NRC report found the huge increase in the number of prisoners held across the U.S. is doing more harm than good for society, making it imperative for policymakers to reconsider the tough-on-crime laws that led to this development. With 2.2 million adults behind bars, the U.S. not only has the world’s largest prison population, but it also accounts for 25% of all people incarcerated on the planet—even though it has only 5% of its population.   read more

Nearly 60% of the campaign ads aired this year by independent expenditure groups have been funded by secret donors, according to an independent analysis of campaign spending. Of group-sponsored commercials related to Senate races, 59% were paid for with “dark money”—the term used for funds spent by groups that aren’t required to disclose the identities of their contributors. The rate was nearly the same for ads for House races: 57%.   read more

Military expenses dropped worldwide last year, mostly because the U.S. spent less on the armed forces. But countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East ramped up their warfare spending. Worldwide, military spending consumed $1.75 trillion. Western nations cut back, particularly the U.S. due to its scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan, the end of the Iraq war, and budget cuts. America’s dip equaled 7.8%. But outside the U.S., military spending internationally increased by 1.8%.   read more

The U.S. military has been required since the early 1940s to provide new recruits with American-made clothing and food. But for many years now, the armed forces have had to give out foreign-made athletic shoes because these kinds were the only ones available in the U.S. But now the Department of Defense says it will make sure military recruits use their one-time stipend for athletic shoes during basic training on brands made in the USA. That is just as soon as some become available.   read more

In a major victory for the Obama administration’s environmental policies, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate cross-state air pollution. The case focused on EPA rules issued in 2011 that were designed to reduce the amount of air pollution, primarily from coal-fired power plants, that drifts from 28 Midwestern and Appalachian states to the East Coast.   read more

Attempts to ban the drug outright within state boundaries are being made elsewhere, such as Ohio, where lawmakers have introduced legislation on the subject. Members of Congress from Kentucky and West Virginia as well as from Massachusetts have introduced bills to ban Zohydro. In addition, 29 state attorneys general have asked the FDA to reconsider its approval of the drug.   read more

To the delight of education leaders, the U.S. high school graduation rate has reached its highest level on record. The U.S. Department of Education reported Monday that 80% of seniors received their diplomas in 2012, the most recent year with available statistics. For comparison, the non-governmental Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, which publishes the national magazine Education Week, reported that the high school graduation rate in 2007 was only 69%.   read more

The nation’s largest federal appellate court has a full complement of judges for the first time in 22 years. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is supposed to have 29 judges, but has had at least one vacancy since 1992. Friedland, a San Francisco attorney with Munger Tolles & Olson, was approved by the Senate on a mostly party-line vote, 51-40, with only one Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, supporting her.   read more

Russia became the first nation to drill for oil in the Arctic after Gazprom, the nation’s leading energy company, set up the Prirazlomnaya platform, which was designed to withstand extreme weather conditions, including sea ice. Upon the ship’s arrival in Rotterdam Thursday morning, Greenpeace International activists attempted to interfere with its docking and 31 people were arrested by Dutch authorities.   read more

These days the Department of Homeland Security is tackling a whole lot more than terrorist plots. Agents are investigating movie piracy, counterfeit merchandise, and small-time pickpockets. They’re even spending time at schools and senior centers telling kids and the elderly to beware of crooks and perverts on the Internet. This has government watchdogs and civil libertarians questioning DHS’s direction. “They’ve kind of lost their way,” said former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge.   read more

A move to force the Obama administration into reporting the number of casualties caused by drone attacks has been scuttled in the U.S. Senate. The plan was quashed after intelligence director James Clapper warned the Senate it could compromise the effectiveness of the drone program. “How many people have to die for Congress to take even a small step toward transparency? It's stunning...we still don't know how many...[have been] killed with [our] drones,” said Amnesty International.   read more

A liberal protestant church is suing to overturn North Carolina’s anti-gay marriage law, claiming it infringes on the church’s right to bless such unions. The million-member United Church of Christ is the first national church to sue in order to throw out a same-sex marriage ban. “We didn’t bring this lawsuit to make others conform to our beliefs, but to vindicate the right of all faiths to freely exercise their religious practices,” said the church's Donald Clark Jr.   read more

An American citizen held prisoner in Iraq for 10 years has disappeared following the closure, on April 15, of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Shawki Omar was first captured by the U.S. military in 2004, along with his wife, Sandra, for alleged terrorism ties. Both claimed they were tortured during their imprisonment. Sandra was released and returned to the U.S.. No one knows if Omar is alive or dead, and his family has been unable to get any information from Iraqi or U.S. officials.   read more

A remote stretch of the Grand Canyon has been declared a historic landmark to commemorate a fatal plane crash that proved instrumental in the development of U.S. aviation. But Americans won’t be able to visit because the National Park Service wants to keep the location secret to preserve the area. Efforts were made to retrieve human remains after the accident, but no bodies were found intact.. To this day the area reportedly still contains some remnants of aircraft wreckage.   read more

About 3.6 million jobs were lost in higher-wage industries during the downturn. Since then, however, the recovery has seen only 2.6 million of these positions return. Meanwhile, lower-wage sectors lost 2 million jobs, but have gained back nearly twice as many, 3.8 million. As for mid-wage industries, they accounted for 37% of job losses, but only 26% of recent employment growth. This has resulted in 958,000 fewer jobs in mid-wage industries than at the start of the recession.   read more

This controversy involves a pipeline that has long delivered oil from Portland, Maine, to Montréal, Canada. With Canada looking for multiple ways to export its bounty of tar sands oil, officials want to use the Portland-Montréal Pipeline as another avenue for getting its crude to market. This would mean reversing the pipeline’s flow (Canada to the U.S., instead of U.S. to Canada) and carrying the higher polluting tar sands oil instead of the lighter crude currently moving through it.   read more