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

In 2010, two-thirds of all gun-related deaths were the result of someone shooting themselves (20,000 out of 30,000), according to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). State level statistics indicate that with higher rates of gun ownership comes higher rates of suicide. The three states with the highest suicide rates are also the top gun-owning states (Wyoming, Montana and Alaska).   read more

Despite the old saying, it seems a rising tide does not necessarily lift all boats. According to newly released data, since the end of the Great Recession in 2009 the richest 1% have increased their income by 11.2% while incomes for the bottom 99% actually shrank by 0.4%. As study author Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, put it, “the top 1% captured 121% of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery.”   read more

In a victory for anti-fracking activists and open government advocates, a federal judge in Denver has ordered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to disclose the names of companies that nominate specific parcels of public land for oil or gas development. The North Fork leases, which are opposed by a coalition of environmentalists, ranchers, tourism interests, and farmers, have twice been put up for sale and then yanked back by BLM, most recently on the same day Matsch signed his ruling.   read more

In a sign of continuity with the pre-revolutionary regime, President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt last fall appointed a new ambassador to the U.S. who is a career diplomat in the Egyptian Foreign Service going back to 1983. Mohamed M. Tawfik, who presented his credentials to President Barack Obama on September 19, 2012, served previously in the U.S. during the 1980s. A member of the Egyptian Writers Union and PEN International, Tawfik has published three novels and three volumes of short stories   read more

New research shows that the developed nations’ decision years ago to classify plastic as solid waste was based on the now discredited view that plastics are inert. Now we know that plastic debris is laden with highly toxic pollutants, which can be inhaled or ingested by people and wildlife as plastic debris degrades and breaks down. Studies have found that such microscopic fibers are present in human lung cancers.   read more

Trial judges may admit testimony from high-paid fact witnesses, but should alert the jury to the danger of bias, New York’s highest court ruled last week. At issue was a $10,000 fee paid to fact witness Barry Krosser, an emergency room physician who treated a patient for a fall she had suffered. Under cross-examination, Krosser acknowledged the fee, but insisted it had no effect on his testimony.   read more

On May 11, 2012, four villagers in a boat on the River Patuca, two pregnant women, a 21-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy, were killed when local police entered the town of Ahuas in northeastern Honduras to conduct a counternarcotics operation. Another four boat passengers were injured by gunfire. It was later learned that members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) participated in the raid, which raised questions of whether Americans were responsible for the killings.   read more

Filed January 31, the bill clarifies the state’s indecent exposure law by redefining “private parts,” to include “the nipple, or any portion of the areola, of the human female breast.” If the exposure is determined to be “for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire,” the woman could be charged with a felony, while non-sexual exposure would be a misdemeanor worth up to 30 days in jail, and “incidental” exposure during breastfeeding would remain exempt.   read more

Kaambi was the communications adviser to President Azali Assoumani from 2004 to 2006. An educator, Kaambi taught high school philosophy in Moroni and in Mitsamihouli from 1995 to 2003, and was a law professor at the University of Comoros from 2006 to 2011. Kaambi is concurrently accredited as permanent representative to the United Nations in New York and as ambassador to Canada and to Cuba. Comoros has a population of about 800,000.   read more

O’Connor reportedly lost $13 million gambling between 2000 and 2009, while placing wagers worth $1 billion. O’Connor’s attorney said she would play video-poker for hours at the Barona Resort & Casino near San Diego. But she was also a regular in Las Vegas, where casinos would send a jet for her. O’Connor admitted taking money from the R.P. Foundation in 2008 and 2009 while she was one of its trustees.   read more

An investigation by USA Today found the government delved into state driver’s license records to locate foreign-born applicants, and sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to local traffic safety checkpoints in an effort to catch as many illegal aliens as possible before 2012 was up. ICE also focused on processing more unauthorized immigrants arrested for low-level crimes to pad the agency’s numbers.   read more

Jack Riley, the DEA’s top official in Chicago, not only compared Guzmán to Capone, but he thinks the drug lord is more dangerous. In 1993 Guzmán was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. While in prison, he was also convicted in connection with the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo. However, after bribing several guards, Guzmán escaped from a maximum security prison on January 19, 2001.   read more

Ernest Evans (Checker’s real name) says the “Chubby Checker” app was produced made available in 2010 without first getting permission from him to use the name. The downloadable application “enables women to estimate the size of a man’s penis [Chubby] based on his shoe size,” according to the lawsuit. Actually, the Chubby Checker app sold only 84 downloads before it was removed from Palm and Hewlett-Packard listings in September 2012.   read more

First elected to the Parti Lepep Central Committee in 2005, and re-elected in January 2012, from 2007 to mid-2012, Potter was Leader of Government Business in Parliament. She caused a stir in September 2010 when she stated that some members of the Parti Lepep did not have sufficient education or technical knowledge to understand the content and meaning of bills placed before them.   read more

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) shut down the foreclosure review by independent consultants—which had already cost about $2 billion— after it was revealed that the banks had selected said consultants. Instead of federal regulators doing the work, they are trusting the financial institutions, including Bank of America and Wells Fargo, to do it.   read more

The union wants to know what the FDA’s inspector general said in an internal report about defibrillator devices manufactured and sold by St. Jude Medical (SJM). When labor officials received a copy of the report, “almost every portion” of the document had portions blacked out. The company stopped selling the devices in December 2010 due to safety concerns, but more than 79,000 people in the U.S. and 49,000 abroad still have the implants.   read more