Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent messages to all members of Congress terminating their positions, stating “Your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment.” All Democratic and independent members of Congress, as well as two Republicans, found themselves locked out of their offices after everything inside had been confiscated.   read more

Leave it to the great minds at MIT and Georgia Tech to figure out a way to read the pages of a book without actually opening it. Heshmat said the project was inspired by the work 10 years ago of a group at MIT that showed you could look through a closed envelope with terahertz waves. With the new system, he said, "you can actually look deeper into multiple pages." It has already been used to to analyze mummies and find a hidden face behind a Roman fresco.   read more

In 2001 Bitter was made a special assistant in the office of Secretary of State Colin Powell. She was appointed in 2009 as Deputy Director of the U.S. State Dept Operations Center and became Director the following year. That put her in charge as the WikiLeaks papers were being released, and Bitter was one of the officials charged with trying to mitigate the damage caused by them. She was named Consul General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2013.   read more

"I feel we need to make small sacrifices — and money is a small sacrifice — to make life better for future generations," said teacher Sarah Griffin. Post-grad student Greg Davis agreed: "It's far more important to protect the environment than to save money. I think that's true for businesses as well as individuals." That a majority is willing to pay more is a new phenomenon, said professor Tom Dietz. "While the amounts may seem small, the willingness to take action...is encouraging."   read more

Civil rights activists have long called for police officers to wear body cameras, and even more so since the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white officer. The Clarksville program ended when Chief Mark Palmer pulled the cameras in response to Indiana's new law requiring extended video storage. ACLU's Stanley said he's concerned that some departments might use those costs "as a cover" to avoid the added layer of oversight the cameras bring.   read more

"For me it's important to emphasize it's not about immigration. It's about building inclusive democracies and removing barriers in our communities," said Detroit Councilwoman Castaneda-Lopez. NCAAC's Tonova said the program "sends a really strong statement" about welcoming "the most vulnerable" residents. The push has come amid Republican nominee Donald Trump's proposal to temporarily ban foreign Muslims from entering the country and vowing to build a wall along the Mexican border.   read more

Trump described his call for repeal of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits such endorsements, "my greatest contribution to Christianity and other religions." Repealing the amendment also is a plank in the GOP party platform. RNS reports that 79% of Americans polled thought such endorsements were inappropriate. "Americans already argue about politics enough outside the church. They don't want pastors bringing those arguments into worship," said LifeWay's McConnell.   read more

Gay affluence may be largely a Hollywood myth, with tired cliches of gays and lesbians living handsomely in chic American cities. But men in same-sex marriages tend to make a good deal more money than households with heterosexual spouses, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury Dept. The findings are as much a portrait of the community as they are a look at societal gender norms and biases, experts said, with wrinkles that are both well-understood and still being explored.   read more

When Adam’s father found out the police had taken his son’s DNA, he immediately contacted the Melbourne Police Dept. to ask what they intended to do with the sample and on what legal basis it had been taken. As a doctor, he understood what had happened could have far-reaching implications. “My concern, being in the medical field, is that it’s not just Adam’s DNA,” he said. “It’s my DNA, it’s my wife’s DNA, and our parents. Not to sound bad, but... There’s some collateral damage there.”   read more

Bob Burke, a longtime workers’ comp attorney who has filed several successful challenges to Oklahoma’s new law, called opt out “the biggest attack on the American worker” since he started practicing law. Had the Supreme Court not acted, the Oklahoma opt-out law “would have deprived injured workers out of necessary surgeries and weekly benefits,” he said. “Opt out also would have allowed companies to shift the cost of paying for work-related injuries to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”   read more

Boston began its police bodycam program on Monday after a superior court judge rejected a request by the city's largest police union to delay it. While Judge Wilson found no evidence the union tried to sabotage the program, he nevertheless criticized it for its "lackluster" effort to recruit volunteers. The city had sought 100 volunteers but when few stepped forward, city officials announced that it would choose the officers. The police union consequently sued the city.   read more

"Many voters take ballot selfies and post them to social media sites like Facebook on Election Day, and it is a powerful form of free speech," said Crookston's attorney. "Instead of just telling people whom they voted for, voters can actually prove whom they voted for — there's just no other way to do that so convincingly. But the Secretary of State prohibits this. This is not just a case against silly rules; it's a case against unconstitutional censorship."   read more

Many concussions in soccer occur when heads collide as two players jump up to head the ball, said Dr. Cynthia LaBella. She said learning proper technique including tensing neck muscles can help kids avoid injury while heading the ball. Labella noted that soccer has become so popular that it attracts kids with a wide range of athletic ability, and that many injuries she treats are in kids who lack adequate strength and conditioning for their soccer level.   read more

The bacteria was found among 31 microbes in two fracking wells in different kinds of shale separated by hundreds of miles. Interestingly, the wells are owned by different energy companies that use different techniques. "We think that the microbes in each well may form a self-sustaining ecosystem," said professor Wrighton. "Drilling the well and pumping in fracturing fluid creates the ecosystem, but the microbes adapt to their new environment in a way to sustain the system over long periods."   read more

In 1964, the Sugar Association internally discussed a campaign to address "negative attitudes toward sugar" after studies linked it to heart disease,. The group paid Harvard researchers for an article that concluded there was "no doubt" reducing cholesterol and saturated fat was the only intervention needed to prevent heart disease. The researchers downplayed studies on sugar. "Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind..." wrote a sugar industry employee to the researchers.   read more

Families pushed hard for the legislation, fueled by suspicion that Saudi Arabia had played a significant role in the attacks. President Obama could veto the bill — and has lobbied against it. Critics say the bill will strain relations with Saudi Arabia, But that reasoning has not resonated with either chamber of Congress. In July, a declassified document revealed that the FBI and CIA believed that five Saudi officials helped the hijackers.   read more

Beginning in the 1960s, Chavez brought laborers together and formed the United Farm Workers in California's Central Valley. He used the rallying cry "si se puede," or "yes we can," and became a celebrated civil rights leader, particularly among Latinos. Brown signed the historic bill granting farm workers the right to unionize when he was governor in 1975. He has declined to comment on the overtime legislation all year and declined again Monday.   read more