Although the Iraq war has been over for a few years now, it still was the more costly of the two conflicts. Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn consumed $815 billion, or 51% of the total. As for Operation Enduring Freedom, which is still ongoing, the cost of American involvement in Afghanistan is now up to $686 billion. The human cost of the two wars for Americans has been: 4,491 deaths and 32,244 wounded in Iraq; and 2,356 deaths and 20,060 wounded in Afghanistan.   read more

From human rights organizations to the editorial boards of leading national newspapers, there have been numerous calls for the Obama administration to prosecute former officials in the CIA and the administration of George W. Bush for allowing and carrying out last decade’s controversial torture program against detainees. To many, nothing short of a war-crimes tribunal will suffice for the sake of bringing justice—and closure—to one of the ugliest episodes in modern U.S. political history.   read more

Thursday the Federal Reserve granted financial institutions extra time to divest themselves of private equity and hedge fund investment they’d been required to sell as part of the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from investing their own capital. The postponement is seen as the work of Fed general counsel Scott Alvarez, a holdover from Alan Greenspan’s tenure as Fed chair who has been trying to water down Dodd-Frank since it was passed.   read more

The decision came as a disappointment to those who had hoped the substance would be classified as hazardous waste. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the rules, which will cover 1,425 coal ash ponds and landfills in 37 states, will treat coal ash the same as common household waste. That designation comes even though coal ash contains chemicals such as arsenic, chromium, mercury, and lead.   read more

“Suicide is far more common than homicide and its rate is increasing,” Garen Wintemute of U.C. Davis wrote in his new study. “The homicide rate is decreasing.” He also noted that firearm violence is a “large and costly public health problem in the United States for which the mortality rate has remained unchanged for more than a decade.” Even when the homicide rate was far higher than now, it was outpaced by the suicide rate, according to the study.   read more

State health officials said that until more studies can be performed, it was necessary to stop fracking because of the risks it poses to residents’ water supplies. The decision comes in the wake of state environmental and health reports that concluded New York citizens would be placed at risk by continued fracking operations. “We cannot afford to make a mistake,” said acting state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. “The potential risks are too great. In fact, they are not fully known.”   read more

The ACLU has honored nine officials who took a stand against torture of U.S. detainees. Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, who was chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay from 2005 to 2007, advocated for a policy barring the use of evidence obtained through torture. His effort failed, and when Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes became Haynes’ boss, he resigned. “The guy who said waterboarding is A-OK, I was not going to take orders from. I quit,” Davis reportedly said.   read more

More than 160,000 pounds of depleted uranium projectiles and millions of artillery shells were left, unexploded, at the firing range. The Army, however, is showing no signs of cleaning up the mess. In fact, it's asking the NRC to allow them to halt environmental testing of the area. Some local residents worry that the radioactive materials will spread during rains. “The Army never thought much about the future,” said Mike Moore. “No thought was given that you've ruined this land forever.”   read more

For the first time since 2009, Congress has moved to protect large swaths of undeveloped land throughout the Western United States. By folding several bills into a defense authorization plan, environmentalists were able to push through protection for national parks, wilderness areas and untamed rivers. More than 1 million acres of public lands will be set aside. However, part of the price for the conservation package was the approval of measures benefiting various industry interests.   read more

When Democrats controlled Congress in 2010, they tried to rein in some banking activities again under the Dodd-Frank law. The wide-ranging bill included a provision, the swaps push-out rule, which forced banks to relocate their risky derivatives trades to parts of their businesses that aren’t backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). The four biggest U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo, have been working to get rid of this provision ever since.   read more

Give Altria, makers of Marlboro cigarettes and other tobacco products, credit for one thing: the company will prohibit its U.S. tobacco growers from hiring children under the age of 16. Human Rights Watch found that tobacco farming exposed children and others working in the fields to nicotine, toxic pesticides and extreme heat. The group said most children interviewed reported nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness, which are signs of acute nicotine poisoning.   read more

The Cornucopia Institute says it has uncovered “one of the largest fraud investigations in the history of the organic industry.” Using aerial photography, the institute found 14 factory farms that have produced milk, meat and eggs under the organic label. Photographs showed the cattle and chickens on these farms were confined to “industrial-scale confinement livestock facilities” and cows were not given access to fields for grazing, which is required under federal rules for organic farming.   read more

While the media poured over the Senate's CIA torture report, the Obama administration was fighting to keep the lid on another torture report.The Justice Dept. probe into the CIA program was conducted by prosecutor John H. Durham, who spent four years delving into the controversy but ultimately recommended to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. to not file charges against the agency or any of its employees or contractors. Holder followed Durham’s suggestion and refrained from going after the CIA.   read more

In fact, 26 of the 119 detainees held by the CIA were individuals who did nothing wrong and were not involved with al Qaeda. One was Abu Hudhaifa, who endured ice water baths and more than 60 hours of standing without being allowed to sleep. Gul Rahman, a “suspected Islamic terrorist,” died of hypothermia after being forced to sleep without pants on a cold concrete floor. Other detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding and rectal rehydration,” even when cooperating with normal feedings.   read more

“The results: a decided advantage for corporate America, and a growing insularity at the court,” according to the Reuters investigation. “Some legal experts contend that the reliance on a small cluster of specialists, most working on behalf of businesses, has turned the Supreme Court into an echo chamber – a place where an elite group of jurists embraces an elite group of lawyers who reinforce narrow views of how the law should be construed.”   read more

An investigation uncovered “the unprecedented, secretive alliance” between numerous state attorneys general and “some of the nation’s top energy producers to push back against the Obama regulatory agenda.” Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt appears to be one of those having his strings pulled. His office copied a three-page letter from Devon Energy, which had backed Pruitt’s campaign, changed a few words, put it on official stationary and sent it to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.   read more