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

Most of these empty accounts were originally created to distribute grants from the Department of Health and Human Services. Once the full amount of the grant has been distributed, the account that serviced it is supposed to be closed. But because of required audits and the general snail’s pace of government bureaucracy, the empty accounts often remain open long after their purpose has been fulfilled.   read more

22% of American adults had signed a paper petition, while only 17% had signed an online petition; 21% had recently contacted a government official about an issue by phone, by letter or in person, whereas 18% had done so online, by email or by text message. About 60% of people who had made political donations had done so in person, by telephone or by regular mail, while 23% had done so online. Another 16% had contributed both online and by more traditional methods.   read more

In the United States, the term “Caucasian” is generally accepted as a synonym for people who are white. Historically, white Americans have been satisfied with being called Caucasians. However, when it was discovered that the Tsarnaev brothers accused of planting the Boston Marathon bombs came from the region of the Caucasus Mountains and were therefore real Caucasians, some white Americans have been wondering if “Caucasian” is now a bad word.   read more

The Indian Ocean island nation of Maldives—at 4 feet 11 inches (1.50 meters) above sea level the lowest-lying nation on earth—sent a new ambassador to the U.S. at the end of 2012. Ahmed Sareer succeeded Abdul Gafoor Mohamed, who resigned over the February 2012 transfer of power from former President Mohamed Nasheed to current leader Mohamed Waheed Hassan. From December 2009 until his recent appointment, Sareer served as the high commissioner of Maldives to Bangladesh.   read more

To many people, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu (pop.: 12,177) is best known for the fact that it won the coveted Internet country domain extension .tv. The nation sent a new ambassador to the U.S. late last year who is concurrently accredited as his country's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, partly because Tuvalu does not own an embassy in Washington, D.C. Aunese Makoi Simati presented his credentials to President Barack Obama on January 14, 2013.   read more

An audit of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) by the U.S. Department of Justice’s inspector general found that 58% of gun sellers have operated since 2008 without any government inspections. The IG also uncovered that it takes anywhere from one to three years for ATF to revoke a gun dealer’s license after finding serious violations. Violations of record-keeping rules went up 276% over a nine-year period, while the number of firearms licenses revoked dropped 43%.   read more

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which audits the IRS, found the agency overpaid between $11.6 billion and $13.6 billion in Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC). EITC is primarily used to give low- and moderate- income workers credit for their children. If the credit exceeds the amount of money they owe, they receive a refund. The report stated that “the annual EITC improper payment amount has consistently been one of the largest of all Federal programs.”   read more

They did not contain anything nuclear, biological or chemical, but the homemade explosives allegedly used by accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan were still weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), as far as the federal government is concerned.   read more

The truck loaded with shale drill cuttings contained radium 226, which was emitting gamma rays at 10 times the level allowed at the hazardous waste landfill in South Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. The shale drill cuttings in the truck were found to emit 96 microrem per hour of radiation, roughly 84 times higher than EPA’s yearly standard.   read more

Researchers concluded that catastrophic collisions could occur every five to nine years from abandoned rocket stages, broken satellites and other debris striking important operational equipment. Currently, there are nearly 30,000 objects about four inches in size or larger floating around the planet. There are another 670,000 pieces less than half an inch in size, and more than 170 million tinier fragments (.03 inches) up there—all of which can cause harm to satellites and spacecraft.   read more

“I went to the U.S. as an ambassador for Yemen,” al-Muslimi testified before the panel, “and I came back to Yemen as an ambassador for the U.S.” Six days before his testimony, his village was struck by a drone attack aimed at a militant al-Muslimi said could easily have been arrested. “What a violent militant had previously failed to achieve, one drone strike accomplished in an instant: There is now an intense anger against America.”   read more

You would think that when the U.S. government determines how much money should be spent to protect various cities and metropolitan areas, it would take into account not just the size of the city, but also its history as a target. The attacks of September 11, 2001, were centered on New York City and Washington DC, and the terrorists boarded flights from Boston, Washington and Newark. Three of the flights were headed to Los Angeles and one to San Francisco. But Boston is only in tenth place.   read more

BP lawyers also tried to convince Judge Carl Barbier that if the company is to be found guilty, it should amount to only “negligence” and not “gross negligence.” Under the Clean Water Act, a “negligence” verdict would translate into fines of $1,100 for each barrel of oil spilled. But a “gross negligence” finding would result in a fine of $4,300 per barrel. Considering that the size of the spill is estimated at 4.9 million barrels, that’s a difference of $15.7 billion.   read more

In fiscal year 2012, 47 of the top 100 Fortune 500 companies received small business contracts, according to figures compiled by the American Small Business League. The total amount of these contracts was nearly $423 million—with one company, General Dynamics, collecting more than half of this total ($216 million). Some of the other “big” winners of small-business opportunities were Lockheed Martin ($111 million), Verizon ($34.8 million) and Abbott Laboratories ($15 million).   read more

The new strains have been called “nightmare bacteria,” due to their resistance to treatments currently available, and that they often result in death. Furthermore, the strains are able to spread their genetic materials to other bacteria, thereby making them resistant to medications as well.   read more

The federal Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP)—which investigated the case—determined that the study violated “regulatory requirements for informed consent, stemming from the failure to describe the reasonably foreseeable risks of blindness, neurological damage and death.” The OHRP, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also found that participation in the study “did have an effect on which infants died, and on which developed blindness,” the plaintiffs say.   read more