“The idea that any business would seek to take advantage of stranded rail passengers in the wake of such a tragic event is unacceptable,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. The investigation is unusual for the agency, which hasn’t played a strong role in airline regulation since changes in federal law approved in the 1970s. “We have not investigated an airline for this type of conduct in at least the last 12 years, if ever,” said a department spokeswoman.   read more

The planes regularly fly low over the community, producing a loud noise. The EA-18s have been recorded producing noise at 130 decibels outside and 81 decibels inside homes. “Exposure to 140 decibels may cause immediate and permanent hearing damage or loss, as well as bleeding from the ears,” Dahr Jamail wrote at Truthout. Jamail added “the human health impacts from these levels of chronic jet noise include hearing loss, immune toxicity, insomnia, stroke, heart attacks and even death.”   read more

The Justice Department has apparently decided that it gets to decide if it will be investigated. Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Karl Thompson, who runs the Office of Legal Counsel, released a 58-page ruling (pdf) Thursday saying that inspectors general must ask for permission for access to wiretaps, grand jury and credit information.   read more

--Homicides involving white victims are seven times more likely to result in an execution than that of a black victim. --Homicides involving white females are 14 times more likely to result in executions than those involving black male victims. --Although fewer than 40% of murder victims in Missouri were white, 81% of executed murderers killed a white victim.   read more

Up to about $83 million was run through the operation. Task force records account for most of it, but as much as $12 million is unaccounted for. Large withdrawals were being made from task force bank accounts with no accounting for what the money was spent on. There were trips to Las Vegas and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with agents staying in luxurious accommodations. Money taken as commissions in the laundering business was also used to pay for task force members’ salaries.   read more

“Peggy Ryan wore a wire, risked her career, and invested 9 years of her life in this fight," wrote Judge Kelly. "Her lawyers had millions of dollars tied up in this litigation. Nothing would have happened if a whistleblower had not stood up, spoken up, and lawyered up.” Kelly called the Justice Dept. "ridiculous" for shortchanging Ryan. “While they are tight-fisted when it comes to rewarding integrity, they often pull their punches when it comes to fining fraudster companies,” he pointed out.   read more

Environmentalists were glad that the state at least required water monitoring. University of Utah geology professor Bill Johnson says there’s a good chance that the operation will pollute water supplies. “Unfortunately, every decision that has been made to date is the (same) as looking out at the sky today and saying it is impossible that water can fall from the sky, and I find that infuriating,” he said at a hearing about the project.   read more

The initiative’s sponsors sought to stop the Pebble mining project, a large-scale copper and gold extraction located 200 miles southwest of Anchorage which has been approved by the state. The mining would take place in the Bristol Bay region, which supports one of the world’s top sockeye salmon fisheries. The initiative required the borough to deny development permits like those associated with Pebble without consideration of any changes that could be made to avoid hurting the environment.   read more

Problems that arose during robotic surgeries included broken instruments falling into patients’ bodies, electrical sparks causing tissue burns and system errors making surgery take longer than planned. “Despite widespread adoption of robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery, a non-negligible number of technical difficulties and complications are still being experienced during procedures,” the study states. The vast majority of robotic surgery (86%) deals with gynecology and urology.   read more

Fata pleaded guilty to multiple counts of health care fraud, money laundering, kickbacks and overbilling Medicare to the tune of $35 million. While the guilty plea covers cases involving 10 patients, it is believed that his victims numbered in the hundreds. In sentencing the physician to 45 years, U.S. District Judge Paul Borman said: “This is a huge, horrific series of criminal acts that were committed by the defendant.” Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 175 years.   read more

The Sacklers own Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, a heavy-duty painkiller that has turned millions into addicts. The drug has been blamed for helping cause the increase in prescription drug overdoses. “According to the Centers for Disease Control, of the nearly 44,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2013, more than half were from prescribed drugs, and of those deaths, 72% were from opiate overdoses,” AlterNet's Phillip Smith wrote.   read more

The Archive said that the documents cleared for release had been identified by Chiquita as the most sensitive of all the records it had given up to the SEC. “Chiquita became the first U.S. company to be convicted for engaging in transactions with a global terrorist organization,” said Michael Evans. “Finally the victims of AUC violence and the general public will get a look at what might be the most important document collection ever assembled on corporate ties to terrorism.”   read more

in the wake of Obama’s recent commutation of 46 prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and his plans to have Congress change federal sentencing laws, the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys is warning lawmakers and others to not make changes. The group says crime rates will go up if Congress adopts sentencing reforms, and insists “drug trafficking is inherently violent." FAMM's Molly Gill called it a “demonstrably false claim and a shameful scare tactic.”   read more

The EEOC’s ruling was based at least in part on a Supreme Court decision written by none other than Justice Antonin Scalia. In a 1997 case in which a man claimed sexual harassment by other men, Scalia held for the plaintiff. Those whose rights have been violated may still have to sue to have the EEOC ruling enforced, and courts are not bound to follow independent agencies’ rulings. However, courts usually defer to the agencies’ decisions.   read more

The rule that has been stuck in limbo the longest—1,439 days and counting, almost four years, according to White House Safeguard Tracker—is one from the U.S. Agency for International Development that specifies that USAID funds can’t be used to build religious structures that would be ineligible for government spending domestically because of the establishment clause of the constitution.   read more

A 2013 law required the Department of Justice to publish “a description of protocols and practices . . . for the accurate, timely, and effective collection and processing of DNA evidence, including protocols and practices specific to sexual assault cases.” That was supposed to be accomplished by September 7, 2014, but has yet to be done. There has been $1.2 billion appropriated to ensure that rape kits are tested, but some of that money has been used on other things.   read more