Marktain Kilpatrick Simmons, 43, was jailed in November 2006 for the stabbing death of Christopher Joiner and yet his case has not yet gone to trial. Six other inmates have been in the Hinds County jail for more than four years. Sixteen have been there more than three years. There are 75 inmates who have been incarcerated without trial for more than two years, and 29 for more than a year   read more

Some of the deployed drones were used in investigations of dog-fighting rings and drug trafficking operations in 2011. The documents also showed that the FBI deployed a drone on May 9, 2012, to assist agents with locating a “most wanted” fugitive involved in a kidnapping. While the documents don’t say who the fugitive was, Musgrave reported that the FBI added Adam Mayes to its Ten Most Wanted List on the same day.   read more

The company that sells Cheerios and other popular foods says consumers who purchase its products should be prohibited from suing it no matter how wrong its actions might be. General Mills, which produces Chex, Bisquick, Betty Crocker products and more, claims it can deny Americans their day in court if they buy any of its goods, download coupons, or “friend” it on Facebook. The food manufacturer claims it do this by simply amending its “legal terms” found on the General Mills website.   read more

One of the most powerful Republican campaign groups in the country--Crossroads GPS, the conservative nonprofit helmed by consultant Karl Rove--is at the center of political battles involving the IRS and the FEC. Rove’s operation has sparked controversy at the FEC, whose Republican commissioners publicly attacked the Democrats’ leading member over a potential investigation of Crossroads, which Democrats contend is a partisan campaign machine.   read more

Tyson farmers own their land, but not the chickens they raise for the corporation. The company also owns the feed, which is specially designed at a Tyson plant, that’s given to the birds. The cost of the feed is later deducted from any profits the farmer earns from Tyson. According to Leonard, Tyson has contracted out the job of raising chickens because it’s the riskiest part of the industry.   read more

The carnage of layoffs resulting from the Internet age has been quite gruesome for journalism employment, with the U.S. having lost 30% of its paid media workers. Print publications facing dwindling subscription rates laid off 17,000 reporters and editors from 2006 to 2012, according to Pew. Many commentators have lamented the loss of so many “watchdogs,” fearing the downsizing and closing of newspapers and magazines would spell the end of investigative journalism.   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the First Amendment protects lying in political campaigns. The case centers on an Ohio law that penalizes candidates or groups that knowingly lie in campaign ads. The plaintiffs have an unlikely supporter in the ACLU, which filed a brief supporting the right-wing groups’ contention that the Ohio law violates the First Amendment rights of Americans. Fifteen other states have laws that make it a crime to lie in political campaigns.   read more

The Florida Sheriffs Association opposes the bill, and tried for weeks to amend its language. One sheriff, Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, home of St. Petersburg, which saw riots in 1996, called the bill “crazy” and “absurd.” “To allow people to go into a riot while concealing a gun without a permit is the definition of insanity,” he told the Miami Herald.   read more

Coal plants that emit 100 tons of a pollutant each year are required to obtain Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permits that mandate EPA oversight, among other things. But biomass plants are allowed to produce 250 tons of a pollutant before the same permit requirement kicks in for them. “We're talking about the same pollution, the same health effects, but biomass plants get to emit two and a half times as much,” Booth said.   read more

Commissioners in Iron County, Utah, complain that there are more horses on the land than the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has planned for and that the bureau has done a poor job of managing the horses, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. County Commissioner David Miller claims there are 2,000 wild horses in the county, while wild horse advocates say the number of less than 500. The commissioners say that if the BLM doesn’t act, the county will. However, public roundups are illegal.   read more

Burls, the knotty growth found on ancient redwoods, are the focus of the wanton destruction that has left massive scars on the trees and endangered their growth and reproduction. Poachers prize the burls because they contain intricate wood patterns sought by makers of tabletops, clocks and other home furnishings. Items made from burls can fetch hundreds if not thousands of dollars, making the collection of burls a lucrative—and often illegal—trade.   read more

Figures from the U.S. Department of Justice show Indiana led the nation last year in meth incidents, such as labs, chemicals and paraphernalia and dump sites: 1,797. Tennessee was second on the list with 1,616 reports, followed by Missouri with 1,496 and Ohio with 1,010. Ralph Weisheit, a criminal justice professor at Illinois State University and an expert on meth, told The Plain Dealer that most of Ohio’s labs are “mom and pop” operations.   read more

The British government spent more than $700 million stockpiling Tamiflu, while the U.S. paid $1.3 billion for a massive antiviral reserve. Yet the researchers found few if any benefits and, in fact, discovered negative side effects which were previously dismissed or never acknowledged. All the money spent by governments “have been thrown down the drain,” said lead investigator Carl Heneghan. This is because the drug firm withheld data from regulators, the medical community and the public.   read more

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl told U.S. News & World Report that the apology “illustrates the failures of the FISC’s one-sided court system,” which acts in response to legal requests from the Executive Branch, but will not accept filings from non-government parties.   read more

An investigation revealed that the FDA provides insufficient supervision when it comes to food safety. The agency has allowed possible conflicts of interest to jeopardize food safety evaluations and permitted companies for decades to put hundreds of chemicals in food without requiring FDA approval. Lax oversight has resulted in 275 chemicals to appear in foods due to the "GRAS" law, a loophole that allows chemicals to become part of the food system without being reported to the FDA.   read more

At least nine states (Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas) have recently adopted secrecy laws that prevent the public or inmates from knowing the source of execution drugs. Their justification is that opponents of capital punishment might harass drug makers if their identities were revealed. Delaware, Nevada and Virginia have revealed that they buy their execution drugs from Cardinal Health, based in Dublin, Ohio.   read more