The sexual assault of military dependents occurs hundreds of times each year. There were at least 1,584 substantiated cases between fiscal years 2010 and 2014, according to Defense Dept. data. The abuse is committed most often by male enlisted troops, followed by family members. The figures offer greater insight into the sexual abuse of children committed by service members, a problem of uncertain scale due to a lack of transparency into the military's legal proceedings.   read more

The labeling requirements were eliminated through an attachment to the omnibus budget bill passed by Congress and signed by Obama earlier this month. The move was prompted by threats from the World Trade Organization, which threatened to allow Mexico and Canada to hit the U.S. with more than $1 billion in tariffs if it continued to require beef and pork labeling for foreign producers. The WTO said the labels discriminate against meat from animals raised and slaughtered outside the United States.   read more

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that FHWA failed to explain the rationale behind its exemption while noting the term “predominately” in a 1997 memorandum about minimal-use exemptions. “The 2012 memorandum says nary a word about why 90 percent was chosen as the threshold value to mean ‘predominately,’” Mehta wrote. “Not a single word. And defendants’ post-hoc efforts to rationalize the choice of that number ring hollow.”   read more

Forty percent of the shootings involved black male victims — “a grossly disproportionate number with African-American males making up only 6 percent of the population,” Tom Boggioni wrote in Raw Story. Caucasians made up the majority of cases where police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone or brandished a weapon. But 60% of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.   read more

Environmentalists fought the project and when it seemed inevitable, proposed road-building alternatives that would do less damage to the environment. But the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) signaled that it was prepared to approve the Greater Mooses Tooth as the oil company wanted. “BLM in Alaska is coming perilously close to acting as a leasing agent of the ConocoPhillips company,” Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who fought the project, said according to the reporting.   read more

Just in time for New Year’s Eve, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have put a damper on your party with the news that alcohol-related deaths have climbed 37% since 2002. In 2014, according to the CDC, 30,700 people died from alcohol-related causes, or 9.6 deaths per 100,000 population. That doesn’t include those killed in traffic accidents or homicides in which alcohol was a factor.   read more

President Obama has said since he entered office that transparency was a priority for his administration. But his own bureaucratic “right hand” has failed to live up to the expectations set for other agencies. The White House Office of Budget and Management (OMB) is in charge of ensuring government agencies make their operations open to the public. OMB has been criticized, though, for not updating its own guidance on transparency. Its last update was in 2010.   read more

Defendants are shown videos resembling game shows where court concepts such as a bailiff and juries are discussed. There are mock trials where patients can see how a trial works and quizzes on the process. When they’re deemed able to understand the process, defendants are returned to jail. There, they often lose access to the medication that made them lucid enough to appear in court. That can cause them to begin the process over for subsequent court appearances.   read more

Until eight years ago, Missouri had one of the country’s toughest gun control laws. But in 2007, the state legislature repealed that law and has since adopted others making gun ownership less restricted. Federal data released last month showed that from 1999 to 2006, Missouri’s gun homicide rate was 13.8% higher than the national rate. After the background checks were repealed, from 2008 to 2014, it was 47% higher.   read more

The Observer has stopped running pot ads in its issues it mails. “The ban could have a chilling effect on newspapers that deliver by mail,” wrote Willamette Week. “The outdated federal approach to marijuana as described in the response from the Postal Service undermines and threatens news publications that choose to accept advertising from legal marijuana businesses in Oregon and other states where voters also have freely decided to legalize marijuana," said three Oregon politicians.   read more

One message was sent out on Thunderclap, a social media tool that allows sharing on a wide scale. That message, which reached 1.8 million people at once, read: “Clean water is important to me. I support EPA’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family and my community.” The GAO ruled the message illegal, according to the Times, because during its subsequent sharing across the Internet, some may not have known it was originally sent by the EPA, thereby qualifying it as covert propaganda.   read more

Death row numbers are dwindling because states are handing down fewer death sentences. This year saw courts sentence only 49 individuals to death, the lowest number of death sentences imposed since 1973. “The numbers are consistent with a long-term trend in which public support for the death penalty is dropping, the number of executions is dropping and the number of death penalties imposed is dropping,” said DPIC executive director Robert Dunham.   read more

The report warned that in gathering census information electronically, “the threshold for effectively manipulating the census process is surprisingly low.” It noted that particular concern should be paid to “large-scale, organized fraud [which] could pose a threat to the integrity of the census.” Census fraud can have serious consequences, such as affecting the loss or gain of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives,” according to the study.   read more

Even staffs of senators representing states with large minority populations have very small numbers of staff members of color. Among the senators from states in which Latinos comprise 15% to 45% of the population, only 8.5% of the staffers are people of color, according to the report. And of the 10 southern and border states in which African-Americans comprise 17% to 38% of the population, their senators have exactly one African-American top staffer.   read more

Democratic State Representative Stacey Newman introduced House Bill 1397 (pdf), which would require anyone buying a gun to complete a checklist of requirements, just like women have to do under state law before aborting a pregnancy. Her proposal would mandate gun purchasers talk to a doctor about the risks of gun ownership at least 72 hours before trying to buy a firearm. They also would have to watch a 30-minute video on fatal gun injuries.   read more

The board is to have nine appointed governors confirmed by the Senate, but Chairman James Bilbray is the only confirmed member. Sen. Tom Carper, author of a bill to overhaul the agency, criticized Congress for not confirming governors since 2010. “This is negligence on the part of Congress,” Carper said. “This would never occur in the private sector because shareholders would demand oversight from a strong board to protect their investment. Congress has failed to protect postal customers.”   read more