There’s no question it will benefit the health of public housing residents. “We have a responsibility to protect public housing residents from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, especially the elderly and children who suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases,” said HUD Secretary Julián Castro. “This proposed rule will help improve the health of more than 760,000 children and help public housing agencies save $153 million every year in healthcare, repairs and preventable fires.”   read more

A number of supervisors working for the Marshals Service have expressed concerns about the agency’s new policy, pointing out it could lead to losing trusted local law enforcement partners, a downside for future operations. Former FBI official Ron Hosko cautioned that the policy could lead to the perception “that you have something to hide when you don’t record." The ACLU is concerned that the Justice Department still does not have a bodycam policy more than a year after the Ferguson protests.   read more

What’s a “natural” food? A fresh apple picked off a tree, sure. What about apple juice? What if it has sugar added? What if the juice has a food-based dye added? What if the tree had been treated with pesticides? The FDA has been loath for years to define the term “natural food.” Now, at the behest of consumers, courts and food processors, the agency may soon lay down some guidelines for use of the label that is slapped on $40 billion worth of food products in the U.S. alone.   read more

“[Goodman] met all the objective criteria for the job, including knowledge of Native American culture and work experience in a similar position, but the DSS rejected him,” Courthouse News Service reported. DSS rejected four other Native American candidates and one white applicant before closing the position. Then, the next day, it reopened the position and eventually hired a white recent college graduate whose work experience was primarily in retail and office environments.   read more

One worker, who makes $10.33 an hour, has a second job in a strip club to support herself and her son. When she wrote an op-ed about her two jobs, she was angrily told by a supervisor that she “shouldn’t have said those things” and that “it’s not professional,” according to an unfair labor practice charge she filed. Another Restaurant Associates employee is homeless. Their employer, Restaurant Associates, had revenues last year of nearly $26 billion with profits of about $1.3 billion.   read more

On the one hand, people are not drinking as many non-diet sodas, the consumption of which has declined about 25% since the late 1990s, Yet obesity levels have actually ticked upwards. “The trend is very unfortunate and very disappointing,” said Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “Everybody was hoping that with the decline in sugar and soda consumption, that we’d start seeing a leveling off of adult obesity.”   read more

Dana Perls, food and technology policy campaigner at Friends of the Earth U.S., warned the upcoming trial was unnecessary and possibly dangerous. Jaydee Hanson, senior policy analyst at Center for Food Safety, said: “Once these GE moths are out in the wild, there is no turning back. Every possible scenario needs to be accounted for. Until federal agencies have implemented rigorous regulations around GE insects, this GE moth trial should be halted.”   read more

Judge Leon was not dissuaded by the coming change in the NSA program. “Although this court appreciates the zealousness with which the government seeks to protect the citizens of our nation, that same government bears just as great a responsibility to protect the individual liberties of those very citizens," he wrote. “This court simply cannot, and will not, allow the government to trump the Constitution merely because it suits the exigencies of the moment."   read more

The suit charges use of Zofran for morning sickness amounts to “experimenting with the lives of unsuspecting mothers-to-be and their babies.” It says GSK was warned as of 1999 by the FDA to “immediately cease distribution” of ads that “promote Zofran in a manner that is false or misleading because it lacks fair balance.” Instead, says the suit, GSK urged its staff to emphasize to providers "not only the benefits of Zofran but also the financial benefits to the providers by prescribing Zofran."   read more

President Obama issued several executive orders beginning in 2011 instructing agencies to perform retrospective analyses of rules “that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them" as needed. But researchers discovered few agencies had plans to measure the effectiveness of the regulations, which ranged from enhanced tank car standards for high hazard flammable trains to minimum wages for federal contractors.   read more

Critics accused the GEBN of trying to reshape public opinion about soft drinks to protect Coca-Cola’s bottom-line. The outcry prompted the medical school’s leadership to return the money, saying “the funding source has distracted attention from its worthwhile goal.” Professor Marion Nestle called the network “a front group” for Coca-Cola intended to promote the message that obesity is primarily caused by a lack of exercise, not by overconsumption of junk food.   read more

No sooner was the plan finalized than officials—mostly Republicans—in 26 states sued to block it. “America’s history of political conflict over climate change and the legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan might suggest that the nation is divided over regulating carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants,” said Yale's Anthony Leiserowitz. “This study finds the opposite: A large majority of Americans in almost every state supports setting strict emission limits on coal-fired power plants.”   read more

The town of Pagedale needs more revenue, so officials ticket residents for unmowed lawns, mismatched window coverings, toys in the yard, fallen tree limbs, and not having pants pulled up high enough. The number of tickets issued for such violations has increased 495% in the city since 2010. They result in people, many of them elderly, owing thousands of dollars to the city in fines for housing violations they were already struggling to afford to fix. Some people have even been briefly jailed.   read more

While suicides were up in big cities by 7%, rural counties had a 20% increase. Isolation, lower incomes, health and family problems all contribute to the increased suicide rate in rural areas. “Rather than say, ‘I need help,’ they keep working and they get overwhelmed. They can start to think they are a burden on their family and lose hope,” said Selby-Nelson. Those in rural areas have easier access to the most popular suicide method—firearms. Fifty-one percent of rural households own a gun.   read more

Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital in Las Vegas released 1,500 patients several years ago and put them on buses bound for other states. Patients were given names of homeless shelters or advised to dial 911 when they reached their destinations in California. San Francisco said it spent $500,000 to service the needs of 24 people who ended up there and the city filed a class action suit against Nevada.   read more

Scientist Lundgren made the accusation as part of his whistleblower case. He said his bosses at USDA began to “impede or deter his research and resultant publications” more than a year ago. He also has said the agency tried to keep him from speaking about his findings for political reasons and interfered with his ability to review the research of other scientists. Lundgren said he was suspended by the agency, harassed and put through "utter hell."   read more