In an attempt to end the war caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump has offered to return Alaska to Russia in exchange for Russia pulling its troops from Eastern Ukraine. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin said he would agree to the proposal if Trump also returned Fort Ross and the Russian River in California, Russia sold Fort Ross to Mexican citizen John Sutter in 1841.   read more

Legal battles over taxpayer support for religious schools are taking place in both red and blue states. The ACLU is suing Hawaii over the Preschool Open Doors program, where it says tax dollars are being used to send kids to private parochial schools, with no oversight. A similar fight is underway in Georgia, where a state tax credit program results in public money going into scholarships so children can attend religious schools.   read more

Of the 64 teams that qualified for the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) tournament, UConn had the worst graduation rate. The NCAA reported last fall that only 8% of the UConn men’s team completed their programs and received their degrees within a six-year window. If Connecticut’s poor academic record had you rooting for Kentucky in the NCAA final, keep in mind that since 2006, Kentucky has fielded 13 different players who spent only one year at the school.   read more

At least nine states (Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas) have recently adopted secrecy laws that prevent the public or inmates from knowing the source of execution drugs. Their justification is that opponents of capital punishment might harass drug makers if their identities were revealed. Delaware, Nevada and Virginia have revealed that they buy their execution drugs from Cardinal Health, based in Dublin, Ohio.   read more

States in which 70% or more of the populations expressed a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in state governments include North Dakota (77%), Wyoming (76%), Utah (75%), South Dakota (74%), Nebraska (73%), Texas (72%) and Alaska (71%). Contrast these numbers with more densely populated states: Illinois (28%), Rhode Island (40%), Pennsylvania (46%), California (49%) and Maryland (49%).   read more

The report said mistakes included unauthorized access to systems, the use of the wrong parts and components, and a failure to maintain records. One big concern, DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman’s office found, is that the NNSA and the nuclear facilities it oversees haven’t made the maintenance of nuclear weapons control information, known as “configuration management,” a priority for many years.   read more

In September 2013, another federal judge, Katherine Forrest, decided the majority interest held by Assa Corp. and the Alavi Foundation was a front for Iran’s Bank Melli, making it a front for the Iranian government. Forrest also ruled that the U.S. government could take control of the building. The plaintiffs include numerous individuals who claim they were victimized by various terrorism acts supported by Iran, including 1983 bombings in Beirut, Lebanon.   read more

Currently, the federally mandated minimum wage, set in 2009, is $7.25 an hour. The federal minimum wage was first created in 1938. If the level that existed in 1968 was merely adjusted for inflation, it would be higher today than the amount President Obama has proposed: $10.10 an hour.   read more

Thirteen states have some kind of restrictions on aggregate donations to candidates. Massachusetts was the first of these to strike its rule limiting donations to specific candidates to $12,500. Other states with aggregate limits are Maryland, Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.   read more

The data center in Bluffdale, which has yet to open, will require huge amounts of water once it is operational. Estimates show the vast collection of buildings that house fields of computer servers will consume about one million gallons of water a day. But that figure is really an estimate, since official information about water usage hasn’t been disclosed by the center.   read more

As part of the interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. government is allowing Boeing and General Electric (GE), which manufactures jet engines, to export spare parts to that nation. The accord allowing the sales calls for Iran to stop production of enriched uranium. In exchange, Western nations are allowing $6 billion to $7 billion in trade with the country.   read more

NASA selected Sullivan to become an astronaut in January 1978. Her first space flight came in October 1984 as a mission specialist aboard the Challenger. On that flight, she became the first U.S. woman to walk in space. In April 1990, Sullivan again went into space, this time aboard Discovery. On that mission, she helped launch the Hubble Space Telescope. Sullivan flew the shuttle once more, in 1992 on Atlantis, as payload commander. During her three flights she logged 532 hours in space.   read more

The U.S. military is involved in airstrikes targeting suspected militants, night raids aimed at kidnapping terror suspects, airlifts of French and African troops onto the battlefields of proxy wars, and evacuation operations in destabilized countries. Much of what the U.S. military does in Africa is train, advise, equip and fund local armies.   read more

Obama announced the U.S. government would impose sanctions on 27 close friends and associates of Putin. The list included billionaires Gennady Timchenko and brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. The three men jointly own a concert venue, Hartwall Areena, in Helsinki, Finland, which is supposed to host several concerts featuring Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Peter Gabriel, Aerosmith, Elton John and Nine Inch Nails.   read more

In 2003, a teacher refused to let third-grader Jonathan Morgan pass out the pens attached to cards describing “The Legend of the Candy Cane.” Some Christians believe that the “J” shape of candy canes stands for Jesus and that the red stripes symbolize Jesus’ blood. Jonathan’s parents and three other couples sued the school district in December 2004. Most of the claims were killed by a Fifth Circuit ruling in 2011.   read more

President Barack Obama nominated mergers and acquisition specialist Stefan M. Selig to be his under secretary of Commerce for International Trade and head the International Trade Administration. President Obama was forced to renominate Selig on January 6, 2014, because his nomination had not been acted upon by the U.S. Senate by the end of the year. In that post, Selig will be promoting U.S. trade interests, including ensuring access to foreign markets and enforcing fair-trade legislation.   read more

Wu then served as vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, an organization that promotes health care, reproductive rights, workplace fairness and workplace policies such as paid sick days and paid family leave, until 2011, when she moved to the White House. In 2012, Wu was named special assistant to the president for Labor and Workforce Policy.   read more