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

A nuclear power plant has stirred outrage because it requires demolishing 350 acres of woodlands. “Choosing solar over forests anywhere in the world is just plain stupid,” said Dick Amper, of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society. “Solar is very important to fight global warming and beyond, but I’m afraid we’re making false choices when you destroy portions of nature and the environment to accomplish that end.”   read more

Three people have been charged in an unprecedented $1 billion health care fraud scam, accused of using dozens of Miami nursing homes to bilk the taxpayer-funded Medicare and Medicaid programs. Authorities said Philip Esformes, who ran 30 nursing homes and assisted living facilities, joined with two conspirators and a complex network of corrupt doctors and hospitals to refer thousands of patients to their facilities even though the patients did not qualify for the services.   read more

Democratic Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz repeatedly mocked Bernie Sanders and his staff in private while another top official floated using religion and hit pieces to undermine his campaign, emails published by WikiLeaks revealed Friday. Released as part one of Hillary Leaks series, the trove includes 19,252 emails from the accounts of seven top officials in the party.   read more

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has agreed to pay a woman $475,000 to settle claims that she was subjected to a “humiliating and demeaning” illegal body cavity search at an El Paso border crossing. The unidentified woman sued several border patrol officers, the University Medical Center of El Paso and the El Paso County Hospital District in Federal Court in December 2013.   read more

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a Missouri lawmaker who cited religious objections while challenging the inclusion of birth control coverage in his government-provided health insurance. State Sen. Paul Wieland and his wife, Teresa, who are Roman Catholics, filed a lawsuit asserting it violates their religious beliefs to include contraception coverage in their state health insurance plan.   read more

Officials announced Thursday that some field tests had found THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient, in the water in Hugo, Colorado, but they were awaiting the results of more definitive laboratory tests Friday which would also tell how much THC is in the water, if its presence is confirmed. State health officials say it’s too soon to know whether THC in the water would intoxicate people who drink it. Experts doubt adding raw pot to water would make it intoxicating.   read more

Almost a quarter of the harmed patients had to be admitted to an acute care hospital, at a cost of about $7.7 million for the month analyzed. The physicians who reviewed the cases for the OIG say substandard treatment, inadequate monitoring, and failure to provide needed care caused most of the harm. Almost half the cases, 46%, were related to medication errors, and included bleeding from gastric ulcers due to blood thinners and a loss of consciousness linked to narcotic painkillers.   read more

Snowden said he was concerned that cellphones and smartphones serve as tracking devices that automatically create electronic dossiers that give third parties, including governments, detailed information on location. As an example of the dangers of location data, he cited the mortar attack in 2012 by the Syrian government that killed Marie Colvin, an American journalist who was reporting in Homs, Syria, for The Sunday Times of London.   read more

The findings indicate that climate change is already pushing many forests toward the tipping point — where a forest can suddenly go from being a climate ally to actually producing carbon. Being rapidly exposed to higher temperatures forests have never experienced and are not evolutionarily prepared for hampers growth and makes trees more vulnerable to stress. Projections suggest that the tipping point for many forests may be reached as early as 2050.   read more

The NBA on Thursday dealt a blow to the economy and prestige of North Carolina by pulling February’s All-Star Game to protest a state law that eliminated anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people. The move was among the most prominent consequences since the law was passed in March. The decision by the NBA comes after its commissioner, Adam Silver, had strongly hinted that such a move might be coming and again thrusts the league into the middle of social issues now gripping the nation.   read more

“I just started to search for gun sales, and sure enough, Facebook was full of them,” said one user. Some try to skirt the ban by advertising other products for sale, such as baby powder, next to rifles. Other users did little to hide their intentions. A post on a firearms Facebook page recommended that those who wanted to sell guns or ammunition write the caliber and model numbers using code words, rely on external sites to share photos and make deals through private messages.   read more

The American Diabetes Assn has been working to change Army policy since 2010, and says numerous families across the nation are affected. "The U.S. Army's policy is discriminatory and completely out of step with current practices relating to caring for children with diabetes," ADA's Hagan said. "This discriminatory policy provides little choice for parents who are effectively forced to pull their children out of the U.S. Army's high-quality programs or face jeopardizing their lives," said Smith.   read more

The ruling came under the wire of a July 20 deadline that the U.S. Supreme Court set with the Nov. 8 presidential election in mind, allowing time for a lower court to propose changes to the law. "...The district court did not clearly err in determining that SB 14 has a discriminatory effect on minorities' voting rights in violation of...the Voting Rights Act. ...[W]e remand for a consideration of the appropriate remedy in light of the impending general election," Judge Haynes wrote.   read more

Government lawyers argued that moving beyond two gender choices for passports would upend officials' ability to verify identities and backgrounds because of reliance on drivers' licenses and birth certificates issued by states offering only male and female gender options. Judge Jackson appeared exasperated at times, saying the State Dept. needs to catch up to a new era in which gender identification is not as clear as it was in the past. "A lot of things are changing in our world," Jackson said.   read more

Part of the problem is that overconfidence in the technology causes people to think they can check out. Operators — an airline pilot, a train engineer or car driver — can lose awareness of their environment when they turn control over to automation. "Drivers in these quasi- and partial modes of automation are a disaster in the making," Cummings said. "If you have to rely on the human to see something and take action in anything less than several seconds, you are going to have an accident..."   read more

Slahi was subjected to interrogation approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Slahi wrote of extensive sleep deprivation, beatings, dousings with ice water, and of being shackled in a freezing cell. He denied involvement with terrorism and was never charged with a crime. He was accused of working on chemical and biological weapons for Al Qaeda, but documents showed that intelligence officials decided he “was probably misidentified” and had merely been a bookkeeper and translator.   read more