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

The five have grown invincible to just about any competition. Their powers are a source of pride and fear for Americans. These companies dominate the news and entertainment industries, they rule ad and retail sales, and they’re pushing into health care, energy and autos. In the rest of the world, they are often seen as a reason for fear, not comfort. In part that’s because of a worry about U.S. hegemony: The bigger these companies get, the more room for possible spying by the U.S. government.   read more

The patients affected say they’ve been doubly injured — first by poor service or care and then by the disclosure of information they considered private. The shock of exposure can be effective, prompting patients to back off. “I posted a negative review” on Yelp, a client of a dentist wrote. “After that, she posted a response with details that included my personal dental information. … I removed my review to protect my medical privacy.”   read more

Trump has called for closing mosques and banning Muslims. “People coming to his rallies are cheering what he says,” Baig said. “We are beyond a state of shock.” Emir Alrashid of the Lighthouse Mosque sees parallels with a once-targeted group. “We’re going through the same struggles the Japanese did about their loyalty to the country after Pearl Harbor,” he said. “Just because you share an ethnic group or religion, you shouldn’t have to pass a loyalty oath to be considered a loyal American.”   read more

Free the Nipple wastes no time in stating its position: "Plaintiffs challenge a sexist ordinance that is based on antiquated social mores; justification for the ordinance is rooted in outdated nineteenth century puritanical values and discrimination, nothing more." The group says the ordinance also criminalizes revealing clothing. It calls it "one of the most restrictive public nudity ordinances in the nation." Female toplessness has been legalized in parts of 30 states, including Colorado.   read more

"What do you do if you get one? Throw it in the trash. Personally, I prefer to burn mine," said Rep. Holt. Holt is a longtime critic of traffic camera tickets and has previously called for banning them. In this year's legislative session, he sponsored a bill that requires citations to include the following statement: "Nonpayment of this (citation) cannot adversely affect your credit score or report, driver's license, and/or automobile insurance rates."   read more

The risk score proved remarkably unreliable: Only 20% of the people predicted to commit violent crimes actually went on to do so. When a full range of crimes were taken into account, the algorithm was somewhat more accurate than a coin flip. The formula was particularly likely to falsely flag black defendants as future criminals, wrongly labeling them this way at almost twice the rate as white defendants. And white defendants were mislabeled as low risk more often than black defendants.   read more

Smith apologized for letting students and teachers at two schools continue using the drinking sources after tests showed unsafe levels of lead. When tests came back positive for lead, officials took steps to repair or replace plumbing, but they didn't warn people not to drink the water. "Portland Public Schools regrets not having notified families and staff as soon as the tests indicated that there were elevated levels of lead," Smith wrote in an email to all families.   read more

The death rate in the United States rose last year for the first time in a decade, preliminary federal data show, a rare increase that was driven in part by more people dying from drug overdoses, suicide and Alzheimer’s disease. “We are not accustomed to seeing death rates increase on a national scale,” said Andrew Fenelon, a researcher at the CDC who did not work on the paper. “We’ve seen increases in mortality for some groups, but it is quite rare to see it for the whole population.”   read more

More serious to Connell was the issue of the government unilaterally redacting al Baluchi's medical records, which he said has deprived the defense of key information about his treatment in government facilities. In a case so closely tied to allegations and evidence of torture used against the detainees during time they spend in CIA custody, this information could be invaluable to building a defense. In at least five cases, an entire page was totally covered in black ink to hide its contents.   read more

The Pentagon refers to undisclosed files to challenge AP's findings. But the response fails to counter AP's investigation. It also criticizes a separate examination by the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders. The group's president, retired Col. Don Christensen, fired back at the Pentagon: "The Defense Department repeatedly accused Protect Our Defenders of misunderstanding the military justice process. Yet they are the ones who mischaracterized this process to Congress in the first place."   read more

Some network officials concede that Trump can be unreliable, reversing himself on policies from one interview to the next. But they also say that Clinton — who is more reluctant to give interviews to print outlets than to television — is less comfortable interacting with the media, sometimes keeping her out of the conversation. Still, the presence of Trump can be irresistible, especially in an election where viewership and advertising rates have soared, generating tens of millions of dollars.   read more

His brother describes Azam as an "innocent man" and a father of four who was the family's sole breadwinner. "In our view, both the (officials) who ordered and those who executed the drone strike are responsible for (killing) a man who had nothing to do with terrorism, who was a non-combatant," said Azam's uncle. He said his nephew's death had broken the family, and that as well as caring for his children, Azam was supporting a disabled brother and his mother, who is blind.   read more

One died in her multimillion-dollar apartment. Another left $1.3 million to charity. A third was an opera costume designer. All three donated their bodies to medical science, and eventually served as cadavers for first-year medical students. All three had signed forms that promised cremation and the disposal of their ashes by the medical school “in an appropriate and dignified manner.” So how did their dissected corpses end up instead in mass graves for the unclaimed and indigent?   read more

An analysis of CEO pay at 100 large companies last year found that companies with greater gender diversity on their boards paid their chief executives about 15 percent more than the compensation dispensed by companies with less diverse boards. In dollars, this translated to approximately $2 million more in median pay last year among these companies. The median pay among the chief executives overseeing the companies whose boards had more gender diversity was $15.7 million last year.   read more

Masilingi attended a UN conference on biodiversity in 1992 and was one of the representatives from smaller nations who accused the U.S. of blocking their proposals to protect the environment. He was brought into the government in 1998 as the minister for good governance, where he investigated corruption and fraud in government and business. Masilingi was named his country’s first ambassador to the Netherlands in 2013, where he served until assuming the post in Washington.   read more

Billionaires don't become billionaires by being passive about their interests. Peter Thiel has devoted his almost unlimited means to lawsuits that promise to shutter a news organization he doesn't like. His campaign is in keeping with the pledge his favored candidate for president, Donald Trump, made to ease barriers to lawsuits against journalists. It's the flip side of the media realm’s new coin. Many fellow billionaires gained control of news organizations by buying them or starting them.   read more