Alaska is already feeling the effects of climate change, with some of its villages on the verge of falling into the sea. But instead of working to combat global warming, the state’s governor, Bill Walker, is proposing more oil drilling in his state—specifically in the protected Arctic National Wilderness Refuge—to pay for relocating villages vulnerable to rising sea levels. Environmentalists say it “could have catastrophic impacts for the environment and native communities.”   read more

Obama has decided not to ask Congress to approve a law mandating that companies open up their encryption programming to the FBI. But the White House has not given up on accessing that information, preferring for now to keep talking to companies to provide access to encryption systems on a case-by-case basis. The EFF called the change “a partial victory...[but] the president is continuing the status quo – that is, informally pressuring companies to give the government access to unencrypted data."   read more

“No one who knows him thinks he wants to weaken the regulatory agency he has been chosen to lead,” the Times reported. “But he has deeper ties to the pharmaceutical industry than any FDA commissioner in recent memory, and some public health advocates question whether his background could tilt him in the direction of an industry he would be in charge of supervising.” The multi-million dollar research center that Califf ran received more than 60% of its funding from Big Pharma.   read more

The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, said it was important for his state to outlaw the name. “California has the largest number of Native Americans in the country,” he said in May, when the bill was passed by the legislature. “It’s time we as a state take a stand against racial slurs used by our public schools. This is part of a national movement and now is the time for us here in California to end the use of this derogatory term in our public schools.”   read more

One reason why the suicide rate is so high among ex-military women is they “are more comfortable with firearms — it’s part of the culture,” said the VA's Caitlin Thompson. It’s also the reason that vets are more successful at committing suicide than their non-veteran counterparts. Guns are a much surer method of committing suicide than almost any other. One reason for the higher suicide rate among female vets might be the incidence of sexual assault in the military, added Thompson.   read more

The new law eliminated punishments for possessing and trafficking marijuana, making it a minor drug offense or a fifth-degree felony.Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine responded by filing a lawsuit in state court to get the ordinance thrown out. Not only are the law's provisions illegal, said DeWine, the “ordinance encourages drug cartels to set up marijuana distribution operations in Toledo...[making the city] their regional base of operations.”   read more

It’s one thing to make the EPA mad at you. But get the IRS riled up, and you’ve got real trouble. That’s the position in which Volkswagen may find itself in the latest chapter of its emission-testing cheating saga. The automaker certified its diesel-powered cars as being eligible for a clean energy tax credit for buyers in 2009 and 2010 and some 60,000 Volkswagen owners claimed a $1,300 credit on their taxes. Now some senators want the federal government’s money back.   read more

Ohio tried to obtain sodium thiopental from another country but was stopped by the FDA. Nebraska has been looking for drugs in India. Other states have opted for execution methods that were long ago discarded. If lethal injection is not available, Tennessee intends to use the electric chair, while Utah has approved firing squads once again. Oklahoma and Louisiana are considering the use of nitrogen gas, either in a chamber or delivered through a mask.   read more

The United States has lost nearly 60 rural hospitals over the past five years, leaving communities across the country looking for health care services and enduring the fallout from the closures. One rural hospital lobbyist says there are no simple answers for stopping this trend. “If it were just one silver bullet, it would have been easier to attack it legislatively and figure it out,” said chief NRHA lobbyist Maggie Elehwany. “But it’s really death by a thousand different knives.”   read more

There are those—including members of Congress who should know better—who believe those now imprisoned at Guantánamo, some of whom have not been convicted of any crimes, have some kind of powers that would allow them to escape from the most secure facility that the U.S. can devise. Or it might be that they just want to deny President Obama one of his original goals when he took office—to close the expensive Guantánamo camp, which is a focus of anti-American sentiment around the world.   read more

Last year’s total of opioid overdoses was 1,263, up 97 over the total in 2013, according to The Tennessean. Opioids are found in prescription painkillers such as Hydrocodone and Oxycodone, nicknamed “hillbilly heroin.” “It’s an epidemic sweeping across the state, affecting people in both small towns and big cities,” The Tennessean’s Holly Fletcher wrote. The death toll was highest among men and women ages 45 to 55.   read more

The environmental organization says this amount of greenhouse pollution is equivalent to the emissions of 6.8 million cars and is 10 to 40 times as much pollution as the cars were supposed to emit. “What Volkswagen did wasn’t just consumer fraud, it was a crime against our climate and against future generations relying on us for a livable planet,” said Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity. “This will have a far-reaching effect on our clean air and climate.”   read more

When Virginia’s GOP-dominated legislature was found to have drawn congressional district maps that were racially discriminatory, the districts were ordered to be redrawn. However, the Republicans say their intent was not to discriminate, but to unfairly draw districts that favored candidates from their party, and any remapping should reflect that. Now they’ve admitted in court filings that the gerrymander was intentional, and may they please keep it.   read more

Researchers found that patients with less education, who were unemployed and who were black, Hispanic or another minority tended to have longer wait times. Hispanic patients, for example, spent 105 minutes at a clinic, while white patients spent an average of 80 minutes. When it came to travel time, black patients spent an average of 45 minutes, while white patients traveled an average of 36 minutes getting to a clinic.   read more

The chemical safety board has been rocked by chaos and coup, thanks to poor leadership, which makes you wonder what has gone on at the African Development Foundation to generate such a bottom-of-the-barrel score. Other agencies scoring below 50% were the Federal Election Commission (43%), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (46%), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (47%), and Commission on Civil Rights (49%). DHS had the lowest mark among large federal agencies.   read more

Calling slaves “workers” alarmed former English teacher Dean-Burren because it suggested that they were compensated for their labor. The passage was contained in a section called “Patterns of Immigration,” which implied the slaves weren’t forced against their will to come to the U.S. Texas authorities have an outsized effect on what goes into U.S. textbooks. Publishers defer to Texas’ wishes because their statewide market is huge, leading conservatives to push their ideas into the books.   read more