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

The company has been around for only a month, and operates out of a private home. The only person associated with it is its registered agent, William S. Rose Jr., a lawyer with a disconnected phone number, according to The Center for Public Integrity. Rose issued a press release on Monday explaining that Specialty is involved in “real estate ventures and investments.”   read more

Last year, the maker of the iPhone paid only 1.9% in taxes on profits generated outside the United States. In terms of actual dollars, Apple paid $713 million in taxes on $36.87 billion in foreign profits. Its tax bill was considerably higher in the U.S., where the corporate tax rate is 35%. However, the company’s effective tax rate in 2011 was less than 10%. Critics noted that while Apple did not break any laws or even use tax loopholes .   read more

The IG reported that company supervisors had distributed copies of test questions and answers to guards before the exam. WSI-OR’s actions were described as “inexplicable and inexcusable” in the IG’s report. This is not the first time the contractor was caught cheating. Eight years ago it was revealed that Y-12 guards knew when mock assaults were going to take place to test their readiness and response. As a result, the guards responded in impressive fashion to the fake attacks.   read more

Out of 1,041 requests since 2008, the president has pardoned only 22 people, for a rate of 1 in 50. In comparison, Ronald Reagan pardoned 1 of every 3 applicants, George H.W. Bush 1 in 16, Bill Clinton 1 in 8 and George W. Bush 1 in 33. The chance of having a sentence commuted by Obama is 1 in 5,000. Under George W. Bush, it was about 1 in 1,000. Under Reagan and Clinton, it was 1 in 100.   read more

The revelation came about as a result of a lawsuit claiming that fracking and the storage of resulting wastewater in southwestern Pennsylvania had contaminated water supplies near the Range Resources drilling site and sickened seven people. Those being sued are 17 companies, including Range Resources, which is a leading developer of natural gas in Pennsylvania.   read more

Glybera, which corrects errors in a person’s genetic code, will be available next year, now that the European Medicines Agency has approved its sale. The treatment will cost about 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) per patient. The company’s goal is to gain the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for the drug by 2014.   read more

The clock is running on Barclays for the bank to show U.S. regulators that it shouldn’t be fined a record $470 million for manipulation of California’s electricity markets. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) accused Barclays of making trades in the energy market that it purposely lost money on in order to make huge profits on investments in a related derivatives swaps market.   read more

After a gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, exploded in flames, killing eight people and leveling a neighborhood, a federal investigation laid the blame at the feet of pipeline owner Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) but included lax state oversight as a contributing factor.   read more

On the eve of votes in Richmond and El Monte, California, on taxation of sugar-sweetened sodas, a new study says if the tax were applied statewide, the danger of diabetes and heart disease would plummet and be most acutely felt among the ethnic groups at highest risk.   read more

The Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia has sent a career diplomat to serve as its next ambassador to the United States, replacing a political appointee, Datuk Seri Dr. Jamaluddin Jarjis, who served in Washington for two-and-a-half years.   read more

A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluding that tax cuts for the wealthy have not yielded economic growth but have contributed to growing economic inequality was quashed by Republican senators unhappy with its conclusions.   read more

Although about 17% of the U.S. food supply is imported and several recent cases of food contamination have originated abroad, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has quietly cut spending since 2009 on in-person inspections of foreign slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, relying instead on a risk-based system that features more self-reporting. USDA officials disdain the phrase “risk-based,” preferring to call it “system-based.”   read more

DynCorp of West Virginia, one of the largest military contractors in Afghanistan, was awarded a $72.8 million contract to train pilots for the Air Force about one week after the special inspector general for reconstruction called the company’s earlier work at the Kunduz army base “unsatisfactory.”   read more

The Hyundai Motor Group, the world’s fourth-largest automaker, admitted last week that it overstated the fuel efficiency of about 900,000 vehicles across 13 different models over the past three years, a problem that will cost it millions of dollars in reimbursements to consumers and inestimable damage to its reputation.   read more

If voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington on Tuesday pass ballot measures legalizing possession of marijuana they will be striking a blow against the violent drug cartels that sell Mexican weed in the U.S., according to a new report from a respected think tank in Mexico City. Marijuana has been illegal nationwide since 1937.   read more

In response to criticism from conservatives and Fox News, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) disclosed for the first time how its agents assisted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, when it came under attack two months ago. Republicans have tried to score political points by questioning the Obama administration’s reaction to the assault that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.   read more