In one corner is Delta Air Lines, which wants the bank to die, or at least cut its ability to make loan guarantees. Delta has support from conservative free-market advocates like Heritage Action and the Koch brothers-backed Freedom Partners, which see the Ex-Im Bank as a form of “crony capitalism” and “corporate welfare.” On the other side is airplane manufacturer Boeing, which has benefited for years from the bank’s loan guarantees.   read more

The $25 limit came as an amendment offered by Republican Sen. Caryn Tyson to HB 2258, which originally set the limit at $60 a day. Democratic Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau called the amendment ludicrous, saying a limit could create significant problems for beneficiaries. HB 2258 would impose other restrictions, like kicking people off welfare altogether after a lifetime limit of 36 months. It also would ban repeat drug offenders for life from receiving food assistance.   read more

In Tewksbury, Mass., police agreed to pay $500 in bitcoin to a hacker who infected the department’s electronic files with the CryptoLocker ransomware virus. The infiltration left the files, including backup copies, locked up and useless. “It basically rendered us in-operational, with respect to the software we use to run the police department,” said Police Chief Timothy Sheehan. “It made you feel that you lost control of everything.”   read more

Sixty-two police vehicles and more than 100 officers--37% of the police force--joined the pursuit. Once the suspects were cornered, more than a dozen officers opened fire and unloaded 137 shots at the vehicle. Forty-nine of the bullets fired came from the gun of Brelo, who climbed on top of the suspects’ Chevrolet Malibu and fired pointblank at the windshield. Russell and Williams were hit more than 20 times each and died inside their car. It was determined that neither of them had been armed.   read more

Private companies and some law enforcement agencies have readers in stationary locations and mounted in vehicles all over the country. By collecting information on all the places a license plate has been spotted, a person’s movements can be tracked. The largest commercial database is owned by Vigilant Solutions and as of last fall, the company had more than 2.5 billion records and its database was growing by 2.7 million records a day.   read more

In 1975, according to a report by the American Academy of Diplomacy, 60% of State Department personnel with the rank of assistant secretary or higher were career Foreign Service personnel with only 37% of them political appointees. In 2014, the percentages were nearly reversed: only 30% of senior leadership at State were active Foreign Service officers while 51% were political appointees.   read more

Auto companies, with the assistance of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restrict car owners and others from tinkering with or even examining the code that performs many functions in modern vehicles. They’ve come up with excuses ranging from nanny state nagging (you can’t repair your car because you might not do it right) to the ridiculous (you might use a vehicle’s entertainment system to illegally pirate music).   read more

When three white University of Iowa students were arrested after being caught with loot stolen from seven homes in the Marion, Iowa, area, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids ran the suspects’ freshman yearbook photos, which showed them looking clean-cut in suits with matching gold ties. When four black men were arrested on the same day for a burglary and assault they committed in a home Coralville, The Gazette ran police mug shots.   read more

The Oregon House and Senate are considering similar bills that would prohibit giving antibiotics to healthy animals and force factory farms to report how they’re using the drugs. Such operations around the country give low doses of antibiotics to animals who are not sick. Rather they are used to promote growth and to combat diseases they might contract from being held in tight quarters filled with excrement.   read more

The SEC ruled that KBR’s actions had the potential to intimidate workers from reporting allegations of fraud. This was done “by requiring its employees and former employees to sign confidentiality agreements imposing pre-notification requirements before contacting the SEC,” said SEC's Andrew Ceresney. Former KBR employee Harry Barko had sued the contractor, accusing it and Halliburton of inflating the cost of a military supply contract for U.S. bases in Iraq.   read more

“Better-informed patients are more likely to take better care of themselves, comply with prescription drug regimens and even detect early-warning signals of illness,” said Steve Lohr. Some hospitals are starting to see the wisdom of letting patients access their records online. Not all hospitals have embraced data sharing. “The problem is that you have institutions whose business models do not favor sharing information, either with other hospitals or patients,” said professor Ben Shneiderman.   read more

Governor Andrew Cuomo had promised the new ethics measures would clean up the state legislature. But the state’s top law enforcement official said, “It is hard to see how these changes in the law will have any meaningful effect on public corruption.” Among other things, the changes don’t address a loophole in state law that permits businesses to give large campaign donations as smaller gifts in an effort to disguise who’s giving the money.   read more

At least three major financial institutions—Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs—have separately said wind and solar power projects won’t be deterred by cheap oil. Financial experts say petroleum and renewable energy are more exclusive of one another than many people realize. Oil is vital for automobiles and home heating, but provides only 1% of the electrical generation in the U.S. Solar, wind and hydropower, however, contribute to 12% of the electricity on the grid.   read more

Such a change was soundly rejected by survey respondents, with 87% saying at-will would politicize their ranks, weaken morale and possibly drive talented people from the federal workforce.More than 90% said making members of the SES at-will employees would discourage them from disagreeing with their political bosses, or increase the likelihood of being fired if they did speak up. One survey respondent said, “It will convert the SES into a cadre of political hacks.”   read more

Judge Ramos ruled that Restis will “not get [his] day in court, but cannot be told why.” Glenn Greenwald called the ruling “a truly stunning debasement of the U.S. justice system” that “occurred through the joint efforts of the Obama Justice Department and a meek and frightened Obama-appointed federal judge, Edgardo Ramos, all in order to protect an extremist neocon front group from scrutiny and accountability. The details are crucial for understanding the magnitude of the abuse here.”   read more

Suspicion was first raised when Mo Hailong was found to be snooping around Iowa corn fields owned by Monsanto and Pioneer. The FBI began to investigate the Mos, tapping cellphone calls and going through email. “Stealing hybrid seeds enhanced with traits such as drought resistance doesn’t pose the same immediate threat as a suicide bomber, but the FBI treats economic espionage and similar trade secret theft as dangerous threats to national security,” wrote the Register's Grant Rodgers.   read more