The majority of voters did not vote for Donald Trump for president; the majority of voters did not vote for Republican candidates for the Senate; and fewer than 51% of voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates for the House of Representatives. The Republican Party now controls the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, no matter how that came to be. I believe it is worth bearing in mind that a majority of U.S. citizens did not support the Republican winners.   read more

The controversy over legalized discrimination against homosexuals is over in Arizona, but the debate is still alive in Washington D.C., where the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a similar case. The court will decide whether the owner of a photography business in New Mexico was within her constitutional right to refuse to take photos of a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony.   read more

General Motors has recalled more than 1.6 million Chevy Cobalts due to faulty ignition switches, prompting the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration to launch an investigation. But this is not the first time that federal regulators learned about problems with the Cobalt, raising the question of why it took the NHTSA so long to act. Last decade, GM conducted another recall involving the Cobalt, which in total has caused 31 accidents and 13 deaths from the same problem.   read more

A total of 1,558 soldiers endured major limb amputations as a result of battlefield injuries. Major limb amputations include the loss of one or more limbs, the loss of one or more partial limbs, or the loss of one or more full or partial hand or foot, according to the CRS. Considerably more military personnel suffered “severe or penetrating brain injuries”— 7,224. Another 23,319 men and women were diagnosed with “moderate” brain injuries.   read more

President Obama has nominated a higher percentage of campaign bundlers to ambassadorships than any recent president. Since January 2013, 48 of his 85 ambassadorial nominees have been political appointments rather than career Foreign Service employees. Twenty-four of those nominees have been prominent fundraisers for Obama’s presidential campaigns, according to the Center for Public Integrity.   read more

ERM, it turned out, utilized some staff members on the review who had previously worked for TransCanada, the Calgary-based builder of the pipeline, raising a possible conflict of interest. “ERM only disclosed its relationship with TransCanada after they were awarded the contract; even though conflicts of interest were supposed to be one of the criteria. This is not reassuring,” Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica said in a press release.   read more

The technology was used in China’s “Golden Shield” program, which censored and tracked Internet use. The system was used to find the named plaintiff in the suit, Du Daobin, who was prosecuted for writing articles critical of the Chinese Communist Party and urging fair treatment for farmers. The Cisco ruling could signal a tightening of the use of the Alien Tort Statute. Similar suits against foreign companies have been dismissed in recent months.   read more

After his arrest, Lee’s phone was confiscated and detectives read his messages without his permission. Among the messages were two from Shawn Hinton and Jonathan Roden. Detectives returned the messages, posing as Lee, and set up meetings to sell them drugs. Hinton and Roden were subsequently arrested and charged with attempted possession of heroin. Both were convicted.   read more

Fresh, frozen and canned vegetables, yogurt, whole grains and even tofu have been added to the list of foods allowed to be purchased under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), according to a Reuters report. WIC serves 53% of infants born in the United States. Some of the changes had been made on an interim basis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2007.   read more

The report questioned the Border Patrol policy of allowing the use of deadly force against individuals who throw rocks or other objects at agents. Border Patrol officials sat on the report, which was completed in February 2013. When members of Congress requested copies of the investigation last fall, the CBP turned over a censored summary that left out discussion of vehicle-related and rock-throwing shootings.   read more

Garcia’s legal case, though, wasn’t about the video’s backlash. Instead, she argued that the overdubbing of her part represented a violation of her artistic copyright, even though she had no creative role in developing or editing the video. The first judge to hear her case rejected Garcia’s arguments. But after she petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to review the decision, a panel of judges voted 2-1 to overrule the lower court.   read more

SawStop’s technology sends a weak electric current through a saw blade. When the blade touches skin, a sensor detects the change in current and jams an aluminum wedge into the blade, stopping it in about three milliseconds, much quicker than a user can react. SawStops’ action contends industry companies conspired to boycott the technology and force Underwriters’ Laboratories to change its saw safety guard standards to the detriment of SawStop.   read more

Steven Spriggs had appealed his conviction for using the map function on his phone while stuck in traffic on a Fresno highway. In hearings in traffic court and Superior Court, Spriggs claimed the law prohibits only talking and listening on a phone. The appeals court pointed out that when the law under which Spriggs was charged was written in 2006, smartphones with map functions weren’t common.   read more

Many of the images contained nudity (somewhere between 3% and 11%), which not only proved irrelevant to GCHQ’s mission, but also distracting as far as keeping employees focused on more serious work. “Unfortunately…it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person,” one document states.   read more

The legal fight over these six states’ law is far from over. In addition to Texas appealing its case, officials in the other states have petitioned their rulings to other appellate courts (the Fourth, Sixth and Tenth circuits). The turnaround from outlawing gay marriage to allowing it has been dramatic within a short time. Only three years ago there were just five states that allowed same-sex marriage. Now, homosexual couples in 17 states can tie the knot.   read more

Clients were brought to meetings in a remote-controlled elevator without buttons. One client told the subcommittee that a Credit Suisse employee delivered the customer’s bank statements hidden in a copy of Sports Illustrated magazine. The bank also opened a branch at Zurich airport to make it easy for U.S. clients to open and use accounts.   read more

The reversal has been greeted with enthusiasm. “In the four years since we began using social media we haven't seen any post generate such an overwhelmingly positive reaction,” Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. David Nevers told The Wall Street Journal. The ruling doesn’t apply to all circumstances, however. Marines must keep their sleeves rolled down in combat zones, in winter and during training.   read more