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

Local politicians see many opportunities with Cuba. The local airport could expand direct flights to Havana, while the city’s port wants cruise ships to base their Cuban voyages out of Tampa. The port could also serve as major commercial shipping center for expanded trade with Cuba. If the plan works, Tampa’s gain could be Miami’s loss.   read more

Others have said that the women, estimated to be upwards of 200,000, worked in Japanese brothels because it was steady employment, their pimps back home compelled them, their families thought they would be safer during the war or their families sold them to the enemy. Those are not reasons heard from the Korean, Filipino and Chinese women who are still alive to tell the story.   read more

According to Transparency International (TI), a nongovernmental organization, nurses in at least one local hospital made women pay $5 every time they screamed while giving birth. The penalty was allegedly intended to discourage women from raising false alarms. Women who didn’t pay the fee or simply couldn’t afford it were forced against their will to remain at the hospital until they paid their debt (which sometimes included accruing interest).   read more

McCulley received his first ambassadorship when President George W. Bush nominated him to be ambassador to Mali in May 2005; confirmed by the Senate in June, McCulley served three years in Bamako. After serving as deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 2008 to 2010, McCulley served as ambassador to Nigeria starting in August 2010.   read more

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), the company involved in the derailment and explosions that killed an estimated 50 people in Lac-Mégantic, Québec, has been involved in eight derailments and four collisions in just the last three years in Canada, and another 10 derailments in the U.S. since 2003. The national average of accidents per million miles of travel by railroads is 2.3 accidents in Canada. But for MMA, the rate is 34.7 accidents.   read more

Adopted in May, the new regulations mandate labeling for steaks, ribs and other cuts of meat to detail where animals were born, raised and slaughtered. Previously, labels only required the notation of countries of origin for meat. Now, labels must specify such things as “Born in Canada, raised and slaughtered in the United States.”   read more

“It is critical in our efforts to [spend] 100% of our available resources this fiscal year,” the email from Deputy Chief Financial Executive Sanna Sims and procurement director Kathleen Miller stated. “It is also imperative that your organization meets its projected spending goal for June. . .” In 2010 Sims received a Presidential Rank Award for her ability to “consistently demonstrate strength, integrity, industry and a relentless commitment to excellence in public service.”   read more

The report states, “we recognize the challenges that MPD officers confront on a daily basis. The delivery of police services is a difficult, often dangerous, job in which the use of force, including the use of deadly force, is sometimes necessary.” Nonetheless, the Justice Department concluded that “MPD engages in a pattern or practice of excessive use of force with respect to firearm discharges.”   read more

The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community filed a federal class action case against Oak Harbor and three construction firms, Strider Construction Co., Perteet Inc. and KBA Inc., claiming the defendants refused to stop the roadwork after uncovering a burial ground on March 8, 2011. The Swinomish lived on the site until 1855, when they were moved to a reservation.   read more

The account indicated that the NSA had collected military and security data on countries including Venezuela, while also carrying out surveillance operations to acquire trade secrets from within the oil industry in Venezuela and the energy sector in Mexico. O Globo also published a story over the weekend saying Brazil was a major target of the NSA’s global spying on telecommunications, which involved the cooperation of American and Brazilian companies (which were not named).   read more

In a new national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, 55% of respondents said they consider Snowden a whistleblower for telling the media about secret National Security Agency programs involving phone records of Americans. The survey also revealed what Quinnipiac called “a massive shift in attitudes” regarding the government’s anti-terrorism efforts. The new poll found 45% said those efforts have gone too far in restricting civil liberties.   read more

Top U.S. military brass who toured the facility described the center as as large as the Supreme Allied Headquarters in Europe or the U.S. Central Command and, according to one two-star Marine general, “better appointed than any Marine headquarters anywhere in the world.” According to John Sopko, special inspector general for the reconstruction of Afghanistan: “The building will probably be demolished.”   read more

It turned out that only two computers actually had a virus. But even that doesn’t explain why the agency’s top IT official thought it was necessary to not only destroy all the computers, but also discard keyboards, monitors, mice, cameras and even televisions—when such equipment isn’t vulnerable to malware.   read more

In an unexpected turn of events, it was discovered on Wednesday that Bulletproof is not licensed to operate in the state of Wisconsin. The mining site is reportedly highly controversial, in part because it is in violation of a treaty with Native Americans.   read more

Information about the mission was stored at the Department of Defense (DoD) until Admiral William McRaven, the top U.S. Special Operations commander, ordered the files be purged from Pentagon computers and sent to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where it will be more difficult for the media and the American public to access them. The move violates government rules regarding the archiving of official records and possibly the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).   read more

Congress passed legislation to give telecommunication companies retroactive immunity (pdf) from lawsuits resulting from their collusion with the NSA. The Supreme Court later rejected an EFF and ACLU petition arguing that the immunity law was an “unprecedented violation of the separation of powers.” The new states secret ruling comes a month after The Guardian leaked documents that seem to support allegations made in the EFF’s lawsuit.   read more