Zelenskyy explained, “I told him that if he gave us the weapons we need and stopped supporting Putin, we would let him build Trump-branded hotels and other Trump-branded buildings in Ukraine’s ten largest cities, as well as Trump golf courses in the countryside. He was quite excited.”   read more

The Commerce Dept is slated to make no fewer than five decisions about steel trade soon after the inauguration which will directly affect businesses that Ross has a stake in. “His business contacts are deep and wide. Life could be very complicated for Wilbur Ross if he chooses to hang onto those interests,” said Schulzke. “It’s never happened that a Commerce secretary has been so directly involved in the fallout, and rewards, from previous trade deals,” said a former Treasury Dept official.   read more

State lawmakers introduced more than 200 anti-LGBT bills this year and dozens more have been drafted. “Religious freedom is a fundamental right,” said ACLU's Esseks. “Everybody has the right to believe whatever they want about God and religion, but none of that gives anybody the right to discriminate against other people.” Republicans in Congress, who will hold a majority in both chambers under Trump, may try to pass a law meant to allow anyone to act with impunity based on religious belief.   read more

As Trump tries to burn the media village down, he may just be saving it. His running campaign of Twitter attacks and vows to punish the traditional news media is threatening to put the industry on more solid economic footing, where customers are willing to pay for it more regularly. As the country and the world head into this confusing new era, news organizations are in a position to make a newly urgent pitch: Buying a subscription is tantamount to supporting the pillars of democracy.   read more

Civil rights advocates see a growing wave of intolerance that has been amplified by the victory of Trump. Experts on religious freedom worry Trump’s inauguration leaves the future of the religious freedom law in doubt. The man he has nominated to lead the Justice Dept, Sen. Jeff Sessions, has endorsed Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Sessions might be less sympathetic to pursuing investigations involving Muslim rights.   read more

The San Ardo Field is the 46th largest oil field in the U.S. The oil is “heavy” and has the consistency of ketchup, but by injecting steam it is heated and extracted more easily. Chevron is the largest operator on the site, producing about 11,000 barrels of oil per day. Measure Z, presented to voters as a ban on fracking and risky oil operations to protect the region’s water, passed with 56% approval on Nov. 8. It prohibits fracking and other procedures deemed a danger to groundwater.   read more

Republicans may be handing wealthy Americans a big tax cut by repealing Obamacare. The "repeal" part of the GOP promise would definitely have one-sided consequences, said researcher Gordon Mermin. "This is a change that helps high-income folks more than everyone else," he said. "People who currently get these premium tax credits are going to lose a lot." More than 8 million consumers could take a significant hit. They would lose financial assistance worth several thousand dollars.   read more

The Justice Dept civil rights division based its lawsuit on a law meant to prohibit religious discrimination and prevent unjustified burdens on people exercising their religion. Vanita Gupta, the civil rights division's chief, said they would continue to “aggressively protect” the rights of communities to live, pray and worship. “We have definitely seen a spike in these cases, in problems when it comes to minority religions,” Azzam Elder, lead lawyer for the community center, said Friday.   read more

The rates correspond with women's use of opioid drugs during pregnancy. This includes use or misuse of oxycodone and other prescription opioid painkillers, and use of illegal narcotics. Newborns whose mothers use these drugs during pregnancy are at risk for seizures, excessive crying, problems with breathing, sleeping and feeding and other withdrawal symptoms. Treatment sometimes includes methadone and babies may need to be hospitalized for weeks or months.   read more

The comic book heroine was abruptly fired from her ambassador job at the U.N. following protests from both inside and outside the world organization that a white, skimpily dressed American prone to violence wasn't the best role model for girls. Critics said the appointment was tone deaf at a time when real women are fighting against sexual exploitation and abuse, and that there were plenty of real heroines that could be the face for gender equality.   read more

Teikmanis was recognized by human rights activists when he found protesters against the Soviet-backed regime not guilty for their part in a non-approved demonstration. In 2005, he was named ambassador to Russia, at one point angering Moscow saying the “Russian state is unfriendly to Latvia.” At a Moscow press conference, he was splattered with fruit juice by two members of the National Bolshevik Party protesting the detention of their leader by the Latvian government.   read more

When CIA said Russia likely sought to influence the U.S. election on behalf of Trump, 10 electors sent an unprecedented letter to Director of National Intelligence Clapper demanding a briefing. Their letter described the Electoral College as a deliberative body whose members have more than an "empty or formalistic task" to cast their votes. "There's been an attack on the integrity of the U.S.," said one elector. "As a person with a background in national security, I take that very seriously."   read more

“One in 10 children in Nebraska have a parent who is behind bars,” according to the report. Coincidentally, or not, “One in 10 Nebraskans are people of color,” the study notes. However, “More than five in 10 Nebraskans in jail pretrial are people of color. Before they even get to trial, Nebraska defendants charged with nonviolent offenses spend an average of 48 days behind bars. This research shows a clear and disturbing overrepresentation of people of color behind bars in Nebraska as well.”   read more

The costs to whistleblowers are high; they often face retaliation and are unable to find work because they are blackballed. These very real perils underscore the significance of new research that found a sharp and lasting drop in financial wrongdoing at companies that were subject to whistleblower investigations. “Following the allegations,” said the study, “whistleblower firms are significantly more likely to experience a decrease in the incidence of accounting irregularities."   read more

The Times Union of Albany reports that a caller told police there was an elderly woman "frozen to death" in a parked car. Officers rushed to the scene and found what appeared to be a woman sitting in a car's front passenger seat wearing an oxygen mask. A sergeant busted a rear window, opened the door and discovered that the woman was a realistic mannequin.   read more

Lucas’ first assignment in the United States came in 1995, when she was named deputy permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. She served there until 2000, when she returned to Luxembourg as the ministry’s deputy director for political affairs. Lucas got her first ambassadorial assignment, to Portugal with concurrent accreditation to Cabo Verde in 2003. She returned home the following year to serve as director for political affairs.   read more

With the election of Donald Trump, there was immediate concern inside NASA about the future of the agency’s earth-science program. Within hours of Trump’s acceptance speech on Nov. 9, an internal email circulated within NASA acknowledging worry that “funding may now be exposed to severe reductions.” Trump's space policy advisor is pushing to take climate science out of NASA, and his NASA transition chief has strong skepticism about the severity of global warming.   read more