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

The company has admitted to violating the Clean Water Act, and will pay a total of $1.4 billion in civil and criminal fines and penalties, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. As part of the criminal settlement, Transocean will pay the National Academy of Sciences and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation $150 million each. These monies will pay for oil spill prevention and response in the Gulf and natural resource restoration projects.   read more

In the wake of the March 2012 massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by an American soldier, the U.S. gave the victims’ families $50,000 for each of their murdered relatives, and $11,000 for those wounded in the attack. Even the Afghan government got into the act by making compensation payments of $2,000 for each death and $1,000 for each person wounded.   read more

The California Court of Appeal for the Second District ruled that sex-by-impersonation is only rape when the impersonator is pretending to be a spouse. The three-judge panel voted unanimously to order a retrial of Julio Morales with instructions that the lower court, essentially, ignore his trickery. However, the court also urged the California legislature to change the outdated 1872 law to expand the definition of rape to include impersonating a boyfriend or significant other.   read more

Her sexual orientation has made her a historic figure already, but there’s much more to Kyrsten Sinema than just being the first openly bisexual member of Congress. The financial struggles she endured as a child motivated her to overachieve. After growing up in a Mormon family, she experienced homelessness in the 1980s following her mother’s divorce, which forced her family to live in an abandoned gas station for two years.   read more

With all ballots finally counted and certified, the tally from the November election revealed that Obama won 51.1% and Mitt Romney 47.2%. Four years ago, Obama received 52.9% of the vote. Although George W. Bush was elected twice, he earned only 47.9% of the vote in 2000 and 50.7% in 2004. In fact, in 2000 he actually lost the popular vote to Al Gore by 543,895 votes. Before Bush, Bill Clinton won 43.0% in 1992 and 49.2% in 1996.   read more

On behalf of the panel, Judge Jon Newman wrote that “This ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity. Surely no passenger planning some wrongful conduct toward another occupant of an automobile would call attention to himself by giving the finger to a police officer.”   read more

Scientists say spending years at a time in space could make astronauts more vulnerable to developing Alzheimer’s disease. This would happen because of the long-term exposure to cosmic radiation, which spacecraft can’t entirely block out. To do so, said the study’s senior co-author Dr. M. Kerry O'Banion, “one would have to essentially wrap a spacecraft in a six-foot block of lead or concrete.”   read more

The two men were part of an archeology expedition searching for remains of Noah’s Ark in Turkey when, in August 1991, members of the PKK captured and held them for three weeks. The plaintiffs sued the Damascus government claiming it had allowed the PKK to operate from Syrian territory, and provided financial support and training to the terrorist group. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Syria was “vicariously liable” for the kidnapping.   read more

Ten years ago, the profits of these five companies were $2.4 billion (adjusted for inflation) collectively. By 2011, their profits had soared to $13.4 billion. During the period in which the profits of weapons makers were going up 450%, the U.S. defense budget rose 55%. During the same time frame, the median annual income for American families actually went down almost 6%.   read more

The problem with the loan-a-drone program, according to critics, is that it is being operated on an ad-hoc basis with no established regulations for how and when to use them, or how to protect Americans’ privacy, or how to make sure taxpayers are reimbursed for the loaners. After all, CPB’s drones can cost between $15 million and $34 million each to purchase, not to mention their hourly operational costs.   read more

Blake DeVolld, a civilian Air Force intelligence officer, lost top-secret security clearance in 2006 after his ex-wife told federal agents that he had classified documents in his home. After half a dozen years, the Air Force exonerated him and restored his security clearance. He collected his $93,000 salary for four years, but was suspended without pay for another two.   read more

According to the plaintiff, the products include GMO corn and corn derivatives, making any “all natural” claim out to be “false, misleading and likely to deceive reasonable consumers.” The lawsuit notes that “Genetically modified corn products contain genes and/or DNA that would not normally be in them, and are thus not natural, thereby causing the Product to fail to be ‘All Natural.’”   read more

After compiling studies that covered 2.88 million people, researchers found that those considered overweight based on their body mass index (BMI) had less risk of dying than people of normal weight. Also, people on the lower end of obesity (BMI of 30 to 34.9) were not more likely to die than normal-weight people.   read more

As much as she wanted to do something for those suing the Obama administration, federal Judge Colleen McMahon concluded on Wednesday that she just couldn’t force the government to reveal the memo that describes its legal justification for President Barack Obama’s assassinations of U.S. citizens accused of terrorism. Included in McMahon’s opinion was a classified appendix that was kept secret and was not even made available to the lawyers of the plaintiffs in the case.   read more

• $43 million over two years for owners of motorsports entertainment complex properties (read: NASCAR racetracks) engaged in construction. • $150 million in deductions for Hollywood studios that film in low-income communities of just in the United States. • The bill allows the banks and multinationals to defer paying taxes on foreign income, thus encouraging the creation of jobs outside the United States.   read more

The New York Police Department (NYPD) had stored more than 10,000 barrels of evidence containing sensitive DNA material in two Brooklyn warehouses. The evidence included rape kits and other materials collected for the courts to use in upcoming trials. In the case of a sexual assault trial, a rape kit may no longer be admissible if water contaminated the contents. The flooding may also have compromised about 5,000 “narcotics items” stored in one of the buildings.   read more