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

Since 2003, state law has mandated that pregnant women be provided information when mulling an abortion. The Texas Department of State Health Services issued the new edition of "A Woman's Right to Know" on Monday. The new edition of the booklet contains a section titled "Breast Cancer Risk," despite numerous, peer-reviewed studies that have refuted links between abortion and breast cancer. The booklet also says women who terminate pregnancies can become suicidal and infertile.   read more

While there have been clear successes, other areas have seen little change or even gotten worse. "The data speak for themselves," said CDC chief Dr. Tom Frieden,. "If you look for the goal we set for ourselves, and look at what happened, we didn't achieve it." Despite the mixed grades, some experts applauded CDC efforts, saying the agency had only limited abilities to prevent illness or stop people from doing things that hurt their own health.   read more

Trump mystified many with his praise for Putin. But what seemed inexplicable when Trump first expressed his admiration for the Russian leader seems, in retrospect, to have been a shrewd dog whistle to a small but highly motivated part of his base. AltRight's Spencer claimed that “an understanding” between Trump and Putin might bring together Slavic and American Caucasians and eventually “foretell a unified white world.”   read more

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a continuing dispute led by civil rights groups over transparency in how the NYPD holds officers accountable for misconduct. The lawsuit calls for release of disciplinary actions taken against police officers. “There is no excuse for New York City to be taking steps backwards on police transparency,” said CUPR's Monifa Bandele. “It leaves communities most impacted by police abuses and misconduct at further risk and without accountability from the NYPD.”   read more

The multi-billion-dollar project, the biggest in Taiwan's history, is seeking investors. And a representative of Donald Trump took a meeting. “She had authorization documents issued by the Trump company,” confirmed the Taoyuan mayor on Nov. 18. The meeting went largely unnoticed outside Taiwan until Friday, when president-elect Trump received a congratulatory phone call from the Taiwan’s president. Now, the perception of a possible business conflict in Taiwan further complicates the situation.   read more

Food allergies can trigger reactions severe enough to kill. About 12 million Americans may have such allergies. The report said the FDA should replace the "precautionary" label approach with one that's risk-based. The idea is to determine a safety level for different allergens The resulting labeling would give consumers more information in deciding if they'd take a chance on a food or not, said Taylor, who pointed to a similar voluntary system in Australia and New Zealand.   read more

The GOP already controls Congress, the White House and more governorships than in a century. But with control of state legislatures, they have power for an unprecedented opportunity: change the Constitution. A convention dominated by delegates from a single party is "alarming," said DLCC's Fiddler. "There are no rules. They can just throw out the whole Constitution if they want to. It's the wildest of Wild West situations."   read more

The ruling was particularly important because it upheld the government’s use of emails gathered without a warrant under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The law permits the government, on domestic soil, to collect phone calls and emails of noncitizens abroad, even when they are communicating with an American. The government gathered the emails via the PRISM program, which collects messages in the accounts of targeted foreigners from webmail providers.   read more

U.S. Rep.Cummings said he'd "fight any effort to roll back civil service protections." He worries that whistle blowers could lose their legal right to be immune from retaliation. Evan Osborne said these protections date to the 1800s when federal employees couldn't be fired on the whim of new administrations coming to power. "The idea of civil servant protections has a long history in the country," Osborne said.   read more

Racial bias in the New York state prison system is a fact of life. It is also measurable. A review by The New York Times of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of pages of internal reports and three years of parole decisions found that racial disparities were embedded in the prison system. Blacks and Latinos were disciplined at higher rates than whites and were sent to solitary confinement more frequently and for longer durations.   read more

Six days before the election, Flynn posted on Twitter a fake news story that claimed N.Y. police had found evidence linking Clinton and her staff to pedophilia, money laundering, perjury and other felonies. “U decide,” Flynn wrote in the message, though it appeared there was little doubt what he thought. Flynn's views on social media, including messages viewed as Islamophobia and spreading fake news, had already prompted questions about his fitness to be Trump’s national security adviser.   read more

Donald Trump's move to pack his administration with military brass has prompted worry about an increased militarization of American policy. Former Defense Dept adviser Singh said the law requiring a gap between military service and leading the Pentagon is "to preserve civilian control of the military, a cornerstone of American democracy." VoteVets' Soltz said, "We should never lose sight of the balance in civilian and military roles that has served our nation well for centuries."   read more

“The fake news is the good news,” the 18-year-old said. “A fake news article is way more opened than any other.” He ripped much of his material off a right-wing news site that produces a steady drumbeat of pro-Donald Trump pieces. With 685,000+ page views a week, his monthly revenue is in the four figures, a considerable sum in a country where the average monthly pay is $383. He sees it all as a money-making scheme and preparation for his career after high school--in marketing and politics.   read more

President-elect Donald Trump supports completion of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline in the Midwest, based on policy and not the billionaire businessman's investments in a partnership building the $3.8 billion pipeline, according to an aide's memo. Trump's most recent federal disclosure forms show he owned a small amount of stock in Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline builder, and at least $100,000 in Phillips 66, an energy company that owns one-quarter of the pipeline.   read more

Despite losing a milestone abortion case at the U.S. Supreme Court this summer, Texas threw down another stumbling block last week. It will require facilities that provide abortions to pay for the cremation or burial of fetal remains, rather than dispose of them as biological medical waste. It is the latest attempt by abortion opponents to make it more burdensome for women to get abortions — by creating rules and laws that make it more difficult for providers to stay in business.   read more

Supporters of the bipartisan bill say it is needed to ensure freedom of speech in a growing online economy. It was written in response to businesses that have made customers sign non-disparagement clauses and then sued if a bad review showed up. In one case, a Dallas couple was sued by a pet-sitting company for up to $1 million after giving the company a one-star review on Yelp and complaining that their fish had been overfed. The case was dismissed this past summer.   read more