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

A final settlement last week of the largest meat recall in the nation’s history assessed the largest monetary judgment ($155 million) ever entered in an animal abuse case. In response to the abuse videos and ensuing legal action—not to mention a century of exposé and scandal—lawmakers across the country sprang into action…to protect slaughterhouses and meat processors.   read more

HRA Pharma, the French manufacturer of Norlevo, an emergency contraceptive pill identical to Plan B (aka the morning-after pill), found that its product began to lose effectiveness for females above 165 pounds, and was completely ineffective for those weighing more than 176 pounds. The news could mean that millions of American women won’t be able to use Plan B or its generic equivalents. The average weight of females 20 years and older is 166.2 pounds.   read more

Critics of the program argued that there really was no evidence of an urban nuclear threat and that development of the technology to detect such a threat may not be possible. Despite attempts to cut Securing the Cities funding in 2009 and 2010, Congress finally made the pilot program permanent and increased its funding in 2011.   read more

Shezanne Cassim is the first foreign national to be charged under a 2012 cybercrimes law that targets threats to national security made via the Internet. It was only after five months of incarceration that Cassim was told what the charges are against him. His crime was posting a 19-minute video on YouTube about the fictional Satwa Combat School. The mock documentary was intended to satirize teenagers in Dubai who act like “gangstas,” but really are mild-mannered.   read more

The Army decided to expand the deal and purchased licenses for five servers and several thousand workstations, as well as annual maintenance. But by 2008, company officials realized the Army was using the software on more servers and workstations than it had paid for. In total, the service had installed the programming on at least 98 servers and 11,000 computers.   read more

The Central Austin Neighborhood Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois filed suit two years ago claiming the city violated the Illinois Civil Rights Act by not providing consistent emergency response service to all Chicago neighborhoods. The groups claimed that this problem has persisted for two decades.   read more

Bultemeier, a Department of Defense employee assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Niger, was shot to death in the capital city of Niamey as he left a restaurant with colleagues in December 2000. Armed with a handgun and an AK-47 assault rifle, Cheibani and an accomplice accosted the group. Bultemeier was shot by Cheibani, and again by the accomplice, after Cheibani demanded the keys to his U.S. Embassy SUV   read more

Of the 52 measures that cleared both houses this year, just 44 are considered “substantive,” with the other eight being commemorative or ceremonial—like naming a subsection of federal tax code after former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and naming a bridge across the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri after baseball legend Stan Musial.   read more

Iulia Filip of Courthouse News Service described the district’s shape as looking “something like a mutant salamander.” “Congressional District 2’s tortured shape further contorts the districts around it,” the complaint states. “Congressional District 6 surrounds Congressional District 2 on three sides, appearing to shoot Congressional District 2 out of its cragged jaws like a crooked tongue.”   read more

DuPont, along with Huntsman International, Kronos Worldwide and Millennium Inorganic Chemicals allegedly worked together to set the price of titanium dioxide, a key ingredient of white paint, paper, plastics and cosmetics. The four companies control 90% of the titanium dioxide market in the country.   read more

Levinson disappeared on March 9, 2007, while working as a private investigator looking into cigarette smuggling on the Iranian resort island of Kish. On November 27, his captivity hit 2,455 days, one more than journalist Terry Anderson, who was held by Hezbollah in Lebanon until 1991. U.S. officials suspect that Iranian intelligence services are holding Levinson. His family last received photos of him in April 2011.   read more

advances in coal mining technology have both increased productivity and—since the late 1990s— and clouds of “disease-causing dust” in mines, making them no more safe for workers when it comes to black lung than they were for their fathers and grandfathers.   read more

The Obama administration has decided to limit the scope of big-money campaign operations that until now have enjoyed tax exemptions while doling out enormous sums in recent elections. New regulations crafted by the Department of the Treasury would prevent prominent nonprofit groups like Crossroads GPS, created to support Republicans, and the Democratic-allied League of Conservation Voters from claiming some of their activities as part of their work as “social welfare” organizations.   read more

Two years after 9/11, the U.S. government tried to flip members of al-Qaeda held in Guantanamo and turn them into agents for the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA operated the secret program in a special wing of Guantanamo named “Penny Lane.” Participants lived in cottages equipped with plush beds, private kitchens, patios, showers and televisions. They were also provided with money and pornography as long as they agreed to serve as CIA spies once released from the prison.   read more

The United Nations is close to adopting a resolution that calls for the end of excessive government surveillance and reaffirms the “human right to privacy.” The resolution was introduced by representatives of Germany and Brazil, following revelations of NSA spying on those countries, as well as on the phone calls of their two leaders, respectively, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Dilma Rousseff. The resolution was amended under pressure from U.S. officials.   read more

The National Security Agency (NSA) has collected information on the online pornography habits and other sexual activity of individuals considered potential threats or problems to U.S. security. The spy agency considered discrediting half a dozen Muslims with details of porn websites they visited. None of the targeted individuals were accused of being involved in terror plots, according to the document.   read more