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

Environmentalists, who have been particularly nervous over the closed-door negotiations, had their fears confirmed by WikiLeaks, which obtained draft documents from TPP meetings. The leaked materials indicate the U.S. has demanded stronger environmental rules, including calls for sanctions against participating countries that pollute. But those positions are opposed by most or all of the other Pacific Rim nations working on the deal.   read more

The super PAC claims that only 39% of its budget during the 2010 election went towards political spending—which is okay under federal law that places the ceiling at 50%. But in reviewing the super PAC’s financial records, the FEC concluded that Crossroads’ political spending reached 53% four years ago because Crossroads did not include “issue ads” that criticize a candidate without mentioning that there is an imminent election.   read more

Alta Ski Area, located in the mountains southeast of Salt Lake City, has barred snowboarders since the mid-1980s. The Forest Service got caught up in the litigation because most of the ski resort (85%) sits on public lands managed by the agency. Alta is one of only three ski resorts in the United States that prohibit snowboarding. But it is the only one that operates on public lands.   read more

An Internet security provider, Proofpoint, Inc., says it found the first example of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based hacking scheme that included at least one fridge, as well as thousands of computers, TVs, home-networking routers and multimedia centers. The consumer goods were responsible for sending out more than a quarter of the 750,000 malicious emails delivered between December 23, 2013, and January 6, 2014, by unidentified cyber criminals.   read more

The list of health problems caused by smoking now includes diabetes, colorectal and liver cancers, erectile dysfunction, ectopic pregnancies (those occurring outside the womb), vision loss, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune function and cleft palates. The report concludes that “The tobacco epidemic was initiated and has been sustained by the aggressive strategies of the tobacco industry, which has deliberately misled the public on the risks of smoking cigarettes.”   read more

Text message collecting is done under a powerful program labeled Dishfire, which vacuums up “pretty much everything it can,” according to documents produced by GCHQ, the UK’s spy agency. Dishfire collected an average of 194 million text messages a day in April 2011. During a typical day, the NSA could extract from text messages 800,000 financial transactions, 113,000 electronic business cards and thousands of travel and meeting details.   read more

The country’s poppy fields are responsible for more than $150 million a year in revenue for Islamic militants, according to James L. Capra, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief of operations, who provided written testimony to the caucus. “The Taliban is involved in taxing opium poppy farmers; operating processing laboratories; moving narcotics; taxing narcotics transporters...[and] providing security to poppy fields, drug labs, and opium bazaars,” Capra said.   read more

Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan filed a petition seeking a court order to bar members of the Crips and the Bloods gangs from entering or breaking the law in the community known as the East Aldine Safety Zone. The East Aldine Safety Zone consists of 217 acres of north Harris County. It covers two schools, businesses, and commercial and residential housing.   read more

The State Department was criticized for not improving security at its diplomatic mission despite warnings of growing violence in the city. The CIA was faulted for not sharing information about the existence of its outpost with the U.S. military. Both offices were admonished for not working out of the same building, which often is the case at U.S. diplomatic missions in other countries.   read more

34 officers—also known as missileers—were involved in cheating on monthly proficiency exams that test their knowledge of firing the missiles during a crisis. One officer was charged with sending correct answers by text message to 16 of the test-takers. The other 17 were charged with having knowledge of the cheating and not reporting it, which is a violation of Air Force ethics rules.   read more

In 1979, a federal court ordered the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to not release data on how much physicians earned under the healthcare program. The information firewall began to crumble a few years later when The Wall Street Journal sued the department to have the injunction overturned. This legal challenge was successful, resulting in the injunction being lifted last year by a federal court.   read more

Delta and the Air Line Pilots Association contend that Ex-Im’s actions are giving overseas carriers an unfair advantage in the airline industry, and making it harder for domestic companies to compete. The plaintiffs, who include Hawaiian Airlines, are upset over Ex-Im’s approval in September 2011 of $1.3 billion in loan guarantees and $2.1 billion in loan commitments to Air India so it could purchase 30 Boeing aircraft.   read more

Mohamed Osman Mohamud of Oregon was found guilty last year of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland in November 2010. His lawyers learned in November 2013 that the Department of Justice used information from the NSA’s warrantless spying to convict him—a discovery that resulted in a delay in his sentencing.   read more

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lost a major legal battle this week when Verizon successfully challenged portions of the government’s net neutrality rules aimed at forcing Internet providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner to allow access to all web sites at an equal speed. The ruling means ISPs can cut deals with large companies like Netflix or Amazon to offer “express lanes” on the Internet to stream video.   read more

The first commandment (“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”) violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which forbids the government from giving preference to any particular religion, according to the plaintiffs. The second commandment (“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…”) also violates the First Amendment, they say, because it conflicts with the right to free speech and expression.   read more

The farmers took no action to incorporate Monsanto seeds into their crops, which became contaminated through the natural travel of the genetically-modified seeds from neighboring farms. This contamination occurs either from accidental seed-mixing or cross-pollination during harvest. The burden has been on the farmers to protect their crops by conducting genetic testing, establishing buffer zones, or simply giving up on planting the crop anymore.   read more