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

HIPAA requires tight security over personal health information. Apps and wearables may not have the same protections. A study looked at 600 of the most commonly used health apps and found that fewer than a third had privacy policies. Many apps connect to third-party websites without users’ knowledge and send data in unencrypted ways that potentially exposed personal information. Many people do not read an app’s privacy policy, leaving them open to having their information used in myriad ways.   read more

Judge Adelman said a “safety net is needed for those voters who cannot obtain qualifying ID with reasonable effort.” He called the option of signing an affidavit “a sensible approach that will both prevent the disenfranchisement of some voters” but also “preserve Wisconsin’s interests in protecting the integrity of its elections.” Wisconsin’s attorney general, Brad Schimel, said in a statement that he was “disappointed with the court’s decision. We will decide the next course of action..."   read more

The companies will spend $403 million to install equipment to control carbon dioxide and other emissions at the refineries. Federal officials say the settlement will improve air quality because the installed equipment will reduce pollutants, including an estimated 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Leaks, flares and excess emissions from the refineries emit dangerous air pollutants known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects, and seriously harm the environment, the officials said.   read more

While government recommends people fill their plates with fruits and veggies to help prevent obesity, only a fraction of its subsidies support the production of fresh produce. The vast majority of subsidies go instead to commodity crops that are processed into many of the foods that are linked to the obesity crisis. “The subsidies damage our country’s health and increase the medical costs that will ultimately need to be paid to treat the effects of the obesity epidemic,” said a USPIRG report.   read more

The textbook titled "Mexican American Heritage" is being decried as racist and inaccurate by many of the same advocates who had wanted a broader Mexican-American studies course. "What we have now is a deeply flawed and a deeply offensive textbook," said Celina Moreno. Activists said that, among other things, the book suggests that Mexican culture promotes laziness, and it links Mexican-Americans to immigrants who are not in the country legally.   read more

Jenesis staggered naked and bleeding away from gang members. “She had been raped and shot in the stomach,” Elena recalled. After years of such brutality, the family finally fled. Yet they aren’t safe, in part because of a policy backed by Obama and Mexico to return refugees to the countries from which they fled. Because Americans worry about refugees swarming across our borders, we help pay for Mexico to intercept them and return them home, where they may well be raped or killed.   read more

Philadelphia hospitals will conduct an experiment that asks: When gunshot victims are being rushed to the ER, could paramedics do more to save them by doing less? It's an approach that could change practices at trauma centers across the country. And everyone in Philadelphia could become a study subject, though the biggest effect will probably be in the most violent neighborhoods — poor, mostly black sections where people are skeptical of essentially being experimented on.   read more

A nationwide class of Apple device users can seek damages over claims that Apple let a social networking app download users' personal data without consent, a federal judge ruled Friday. Opperman claims Apple distributed "invasive versions" of the Path app, which downloaded details from each user's contact list without their knowledge or consent. Path stored the data, which included email addresses and birthdays, and mined it to create social graphing maps, the plaintiffs claim.   read more

As Republicans maintain their party's long-standing blockade against action to reduce carbon emissions, they also are embracing a renewable energy industry that is driving investment and jobs in GOP strongholds like Texas. The balancing act comes as the battle lines around climate change are being redrawn. Prominent Republican donors are putting millions into the congressional campaigns of candidates willing to offer their support for the renewable energy industry.   read more

Fracking may worsen asthma in children and adults who live near sites where the oil and gas drilling method is used, according to an 8-year study in Pennsylvania. The study found that asthma treatments were as much as four times more common in patients living closer to areas with more or bigger active wells than those living far away. Previous research has found heavy air pollution in areas where oil and gas drilling is booming.   read more

Powerful economic incentives discourage hospitals from reporting doctor abuse, and in many cases, reports are never filed in the first place. But even when they are, they may classify violations in a way that conceals the scope of abuse. The investigation found about 70% more physicians accused of sexual misconduct than the 466 classified as such in the public version of the data bank. To date, no official action has ever been taken by HR against a hospital for failing to report properly.   read more

The inspector general's office said it identified 7,106 offenders over a three-year period who could have been suitable candidates for pretrial diversion. The department spent millions of dollars to imprison offenders who might be suitable for pretrial diversion, the audit found. "By diverting those offenders from traditional court proceedings, the department could have potentially saved millions of tax dollars in prison costs," said Inspector General Michael Horowitz.   read more

The case attracted widespread attention in the tech industry and among legal experts because of its potential privacy implications for the cloud computing business, with implications for internet email and online storage, among other services. Had the U.S. government prevailed, Microsoft and others warned, it would set a dangerous precedent making it increasingly difficult to resist orders from foreign courts demanding data, such as email from human rights activists or political dissidents.   read more

When a certified nursing assistant in Iowa shared a photo online of a nursing home resident with his pants around his ankles, covered in feces, health officials discovered: It wasn’t against the law. “It speaks to the lowest instincts of humankind that you never expect people to do,” said Sen. Grassley. Other states have been more aggressive in pursuing such cases. In Colorado, a volunteer who took a selfie with an 108-year-old resident who was urinating has been charged in juvenile court.   read more

ACLU's Romero said Trump's stands would violate the First, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights of Americans. He said ACLU must "muster all the legal arguments we can to derail and deter [Trump's] patently anti-civil liberties proposals should he become...president. Our institutions...are stronger than the will of one man. But we need to be prepared because the very freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution could come under a sustained attack by a President Trump..."   read more

In a new type of imposter scam, crooks infiltrate companies' or organizations' email systems and send messages purporting to be from the CEOs to employees with urgent instructions to wire money somewhere. Complaints about phony IRS agents was one of fastest-growing complaints last year, according to the new report. "Scammers are always changing their pitches and looking for things that work," said CFA 's Susan Grant. "The IRS phony agent obviously works. It scares the heck out of people."   read more