“Celebrating” the holiday with shootings was most popular in Chicago, where nine people were killed and 46 wounded with guns over the weekend. Charlotte, North Carolina, was also busy, with five people killed and 12 wounded.   read more

Derrick Hunter and Lee Sullivan are accused in the 2013 shooting death of Jaquan Rice and the wounding of his girlfriend. The defendants subpoenaed Facebook, Instagram and Twitter seeking the private messages of Rice and Renesha Lee, Sullivan’s former girlfriend and a prosecution witness. Defense attorneys say the records will help them prove that Rice was a dangerous criminal who had threatened others and that Lee was motivated by jealousy.   read more

The past few months have seen dramatic coverage of shootings, including those in South Carolina and Louisiana, which prompted some to call for tighter background checks and other gun safety measures. In August, the FBI received reports of 1.7 million background checks required of gun purchasers at federally licensed dealers, which was the highest number recorded in any August since gun checks began in 1998. Likewise, July broke the record for that month, with 1.6 million requests.   read more

"Land dries up. Trees die. Crops cannot take root," wrote Flesher. Such spills rarely result in penalties for oil and gas companies. This does little to encourage the industry to take action to prevent accidents. “It’s almost a coddling relationship,” said PRBRC's Jill Morrison. “The industry looks at spills as a cost of doing business.” Meanwhile, the victims—farmers, ranchers, landowners—spin their wheels in court while their land, water and livestock deteriorate.   read more

These changes would include making buildings more efficient, investing in public transportation, deploying high-efficiency lighting and installing solar panels. “There is now increasing evidence that emissions can decrease while economies continue to grow,” said researcher Schultz. “Becoming more sustainable and putting the world — specifically cities — on a low carbon trajectory is actually feasible and good economics.” The $17 trillion savings could be more if indirect benefits are considered.   read more

Researchers at Chapman University’s Food Science Program gathered 48 meat samples from local supermarkets and online specialty meat distributors and tested the DNA contained in them. The results showed 10 of the 48 samples were mislabeled—and that nine of the 10 mislabeled samples contained additional species. Two of the 10 included horse meat, which is illegal to sell in the U.S. for consumption.   read more

President Barack Obama has used his executive powers to force federal contractors to provide seven days of paid sick leave to employees. The new rules, which won’t go into effect until 2017, demand that companies doing business with the U.S. government give their workers (both full-time and part-time) an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked for a total of up to seven days in a year.   read more

The welfare reforms enacted during the Bill Clinton administration have made it easy for states to cut off funding to even the most desperate. Studies have shown that the number of people neither working nor receiving benefits has increased substantially since then. Even when benefits are available, many don’t know to apply. Some people are left to survive by donating plasma, selling aluminum cans for scrap, or in some cases, entering the sex trade.   read more

Officials knew they had a problem on their hands three years ago when an 82-year-old nun, Sister Megan Rice, and two other anti-nuclear activists cut through Y-12’s fences and walked through a field of motion detectors to deface the exterior of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. They were able to do so because security guards ignored the warnings coming from the sensors—because they’re easily set off by wildlife and the guards assumed it was a false alarm.   read more

The contractor fell almost a year behind schedule, and by then, the building was no longer needed. Six months later, the military canceled the project, which had already used up $2.2 million in taxpayer money. The building now sits half completed, with no stairs to the second floor, electrical wiring or plumbing. U.S. taxpayers may even be on the hook for the balance of the $5 million contract. Before SIGAR found this waste, it uncovered $40 million worth of other unused buildings.   read more

More than half of the forest loss occurred in tropical countries, which chopped down or burned 24.5 million acres. Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Uruguay and Paraguay have accelerating rates of deforestation. Cambodia in 2014 had four times as much tree loss as it did in 2001. An increase in the price of rubber has caused more forests to be cleared for its production.   read more

Making changes--working to cut carbon in the atmosphere--would cost $190.2 trillion, the report says, but doing nothing would cost $192 trillion. Taking action would be cheaper “due to the rapidly falling costs of renewables, which combined with lower fuel usage from energy efficiency investments actually result in significantly lower long-term fuel bill,” wrote The Guardian. Investing in changes that reduce the impact of climate change could lessen its financial implications for businesses.   read more

Employers who wish to avoid providing contraception coverage to their workers can do so on moral grounds, a federal judge ruled Monday. The ruling came in a case brought by an anti-abortion group, March for Life, which sued the Department of Health and Human Services over the contraception mandate contained in Obamacare. March for Life contends it should not have to provide contraception coverage because its objections are not that different from those raised by religious groups.   read more

“The U.S. really isn’t even in this game,” said Coast Guard commandant Zukunft. “When Russia put Sputnik in outer space, did we sit with our hands in pocket with great fascination and say, ‘Good for Mother Russia’?” The Obama administration's actions are mostly on paper. Meanwhile, Russia has telescoped its sovereign designs on a vast expanse of the Arctic roughly the size of South Africa. It also made a symbolic move by planting a titanium Russian flag in the seabed beneath the North Pole.   read more

The panel ruled unanimously that the plaintiffs, led by conservative activist Larry Klayman, couldn’t prove their calls had been swept up because their calls were handled by Verizon Wireless, not Verizon Business, which had previously been found to have turned over calling data to the National Security Agency (NSA). This ruling came despite government documents released earlier this month that showed the NSA had also swept up Verizon Wireless data.   read more

Exelon is primarily a power-generation company with more nuclear plants than any other U.S. utility. The company has consistently fought renewable energy efforts and the rejection of the merger came as a welcome surprise to clean energy advocates. The commission’s decision in the high-profile pending merger was reported to have taken all parties by surprise, from the power industry to renewable energy advocates.   read more