Residents said all Muslims "are killers" and that women who wear burqas are "scary and disgusting." Another wondered where the money for the mosque had come from, telling the commission that "all Muslims who live in America are on food stamps," according to the complaint. There was an unprecedented FBI background check after the mayor's office received emails asking if anyone affiliated with the mosque was "on the terrorist watch list."   read more

The Justice Dept. said it would ask law enforcement and medical examiner’s offices to fill out forms when there is a news report or another indication that a person died while in police custody. The proposal comes as police killings of African-Americans have fueled protests in recent years and led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. The resulting scrutiny has focused attention on the lack of reliable and comprehensive data about how many people are killed by the police each year.   read more

The action will potentially spur broad scientific study of a drug that is being used to treat dozens of diseases in states across the nation despite little rigorous evidence of its effectiveness. The restriction has so limited the supply of marijuana federally approved for research purposes that scientists said it could often take years to obtain it and in some cases it was impossible to get.   read more

A federal court on Wednesday blocked a lower court from allowing voters in Wisconsin to cast ballots without photo ID, stating the lower court was too lenient in loosening a state voter ID law. The injunction adds new confusion into a fierce battle over the 2011 law in a battleground state, three months before the presidential election. “The election is looming, and everyone understands the importance of finality,” said Myrna Pérez. But “the timing is going to be very tight."   read more

BLM's Sarah Levy defended the new plan, calling it the result of a painstaking effort to balance opposing interests. But loggers and environmentalists are all in agreement: the new plan won't work. The real dispute is centered on the rural counties in western Oregon who say they are stymied by their inability to tax the majority of their land base because it is owned by the federal government.   read more

The Justice Dept. has found that the Baltimore Police Dept. for years has hounded black residents who make up most of the city’s population, systematically stopping, searching and arresting them, often with little rationale. In a blistering report, coming more than a year after Baltimore erupted into riots over the police-involved death of a young black man, Freddie Gray, the Justice Dept. is sharply critical of policies that encouraged police to charge black residents with minor crimes.   read more

Wind-turbine opponents persuaded the court that the government issued a permit to an Ohio wind farm without fully considering ways to reduce the deaths of endangered Indiana bats. In its application for a permit, Buckeye Wind estimated that its wind-generation facility would injure or kill 5.2 bats per year. The Indiana bat has been listed as an endangered species since 1967. Though the species does not hibernate in the area of that facility, it migrates through it.   read more

The declassified document shows that if top NSC officials agree that a proposed strike would be lawful and appropriate, the Pentagon or CIA can proceed. “From one perspective it might be seen as reassuring, because it makes clear that these decisions are considered by many different senior people,” said ACLU's Jaffer. “On the other hand, the document drives home how bureaucraticized, and therefore normalized, this practice of killing people away from conventional battlefields has become.”   read more

Think tanks have power in government policy debates because they are seen as researchers independent of moneyed interests. But in the chase for funds, they are pushing agendas important to corporate donors, at times blurring the line between researchers and lobbyists. And they are doing so while quietly reaping the benefits of their tax-exempt status. On issues such as military sales and global trade, think tanks have frequently become vehicles for corporate influence.   read more

The aquifer sits under 20 enormous underground tanks the Navy uses to store fuel for military ships and aircraft. Each tank is 25 stories tall and holds 187 million gallons of fuel. "If we don't have the fuel to operate the forces, then we can't...help our friends," said Rear Adm. Fuller. But one tank leaked tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel into the ground in 2014. The aquifer supplies a quarter of the water consumed in urban Honolulu, which includes the tourist mecca Waikiki.   read more

The industry has been on the defensive since Gov. Edwards ended eight years of Republican leadership last November. Geologist Gagliano contends that extracting millions of barrels of oil and gas from below the surface has caused vast swaths of the coast to sink. "It's like an Atlantis oilfield," he said. "Abandoned production platforms now completely submerged. Oilfields developed on land are now under 5 or 10 feet of water. And that is happening all the way across the coast."   read more

The CIA tortured Rahim at one of their black sites. But that hasn't dampened his sense of humor. He mocked the Ashley Madison hack scandal, asking that his profile be quickly removed. "I'll stick with Match.com even though you say it is for old people. There is no way I can do Tinder in here," he wrote. The U.S. claims he had close ties with bin Laden, including knowledge of 9/11. "I am innocent and I was tortured," he says. "I thought I could prove my innocence in the U.S. I was wrong."   read more

Crystal cringes whenever a patrol car appears in her rear view mirror. Her personal experience with police, plus recent fatal shootings of unarmed black men by white officers, has led the mother of two to ask: Who are the good guys and who are bad? "You are the people I'm supposed to go to when I'm in trouble," Webb says of police. Two-thirds of young African-Americans and 4 in 10 Hispanics say that they or someone they know has experienced violence or harassment at the hands of the police.   read more

Ceccotti said it remains to be seen whether the ruling could be applied retroactively to the 13 men currently on Delaware's death row. "What we know for sure is that the scheme in Delaware is unconstitutional ... and that will have a direct impact on cases that are pending," he said. Ceccotti said all defendants in cases in which prosecutors are seeking the death penalty will have to be recharged. "With this decision, capital murder is no longer an option," he said.   read more

For most algorithms, people are expected to read fine-print privacy policies to determine whether their data might be used against them in a way that they wouldn’t expect. “We urgently need more due process with the algorithmic systems influencing our lives,” says Kate Crawford. “If you are given a score that jeopardizes your ability to get a job, housing or education, you should have the right to see that data, know how it was generated, and be able to correct errors and contest the decision.”   read more

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling in the voting-rights case, critics argue, the blatant efforts to keep minorities from voting have been supplanted by a blizzard of more subtle changes. Most conspicuous have been state efforts such as voter ID laws or cutbacks in early voting periods, which critics say disproportionately affect minorities and the poor. Less apparent, but often just as contentious, have been numerous voting changes enacted in towns across the South and elsewhere in the U.S.   read more