BancorpSouth deliberately avoided building branches in minority neighborhoods in Memphis, Tennessee from at least 2011 to 2013. The bank also denied more loans to African Americans and other minorities when compared to neighborhoods with smaller minority populations, the Justice Department and CFPB said Wednesday, and minorities who were approved for loans were given higher interest rates when compared to non-minorities.   read more

The city of Cleveland agreed Wednesday to allow protests closer to the site of the Republican National Convention, approving rule changes that increases the amount of space demonstrators can occupy and allows for longer events. A federal judge ruled last week that Cleveland’s regulations on protests and marches during the convention infringed on the right of free expression and ordered city officials and the ACLU to negotiate new rules.   read more

The organization filed a lawsuit accusing Black of sending poor defendants to jail when they can't pay fines and charging them a questionable "extension fee" to avoid jail time. It's the latest of a series of legal challenges across the country to a system that opponents say criminalizes being poor. For the next 75 days, the judge has agreed to stop charging the $50 extension fee the group had objected to as well as some other fees and to stop jailing people who can't pay fines and fees.   read more

Environmental groups accused the USDA of violating the law by issuing a rule change to its organic standard that allowed organic farmers to use compost with synthetic chemicals without notifying the public. Before the rule change was issued, national organic food regulations banned synthetic substances in compost unless they were on an approved list. "It was more than a slap on the wrist to have [it] remanded," said CFS's Van Saun. "Now it remains to be seen what USDA will do with this."   read more

The concerns are fueling a debate in the industry over whether the test items were sufficiently vetted for gender bias, and whether the exam was unfair to female students. The two item posed what some test-prep experts considered a textbook example of “stereotype threat.” When people are reminded during a test of a negative stereotype about their race or sex, psychologists say, it creates a kind of test anxiety that leads them to underperform.   read more

Defense Secretary Ash Carter has called the regulation outdated and harmful to the military. A year ago, he directed officials from all the military branches to determine what changes would be needed to lift the ban. A study found that letting transgender members openly serve would cost little and would have no significant impact on unit readiness. It estimated that 2,450 active-duty members of the military were transgender.   read more

What was encouraging about the court decision, experts said, was that in affirming the value of diversity, the court recognized there was not one, immutable way of defining and achieving it. “I think today’s decision is about deference,"said ACE VP Peter McDonough. "It’s not about dictating. I think it’s about the continuing recognition that our country’s campuses are laboratories for experimentation and that the formula for diversity does remain elusive. It changes over time.”   read more

The industry lobbying group is backing the senators' deal. It opposes mandatory labeling but advocates for electronic labels. Labeling advocates frown on digital labels, saying they discriminate against those without smartphones or computers. "This proposal falls short of what consumers rightly expect — a simple at-a-glance disclosure on the package," said Hirshberg. Sen. Bernie Sanders said he'd do "everything I can" to defeat it. "People have a right to know what is in the food they eat."   read more

"I'm going to continue to demand accountability to ensure the manufacturers of these powerful prescription drugs aren't having an undue influence on policies designed to reduce their usage," said Wyden. Two panelists work for a non-profit which receives funding from drugmakers, including OxyContin-maker Purdue, which donated $100,000 to the organization in 2013. One panelist holds a chair at the center and the other received more than $8,660 in fees and accomodations from pain drugmakers.   read more

Two New York City police unions failed to convince a state appellate court that a law prohibiting controversial stop-and-frisk tactics is at odds with longstanding criminal procedure rules. A law prohibited law enforcement officers from engaging in racial or ethnic profiling — i.e. basing police action on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Yet the law didn't provide any enforcement mechanism, like a cause of action against individual officers.   read more

Carlton Palms has faced enormous criticism in recent years after a series of incidents involving abuse by staff and the death of a 14-year-old autistic girl from dehydration after a night in which she was at times strapped to a bed while vomiting repeatedly. Carlton's workers have relied for years on mechanical restraints, such as ankle shackles and a device similar to a full-body straight jacket. Carlton’s staff used restraints roughly 28,000 times in less than five years, records showed.   read more

Arsenic exposure raises the inmates' cancer risk and the prison does not have air-conditioning in inmate housing areas, so officials recommend that the inmates, many of whom suffer from health problems and take medication that make them heat-sensitive, drink lots of water to fend off heat stroke. "At least 20 prisoners have died indoors in non-air-conditioned TDCJ prisons from hyperthermia since 1998. ... Ten inmates died of heatstroke in 2011 while in TDCJ custody," the June 21 order states.   read more

Among all ages, there were nearly 19,000 fatal overdoses on prescription opioids in 2014. The magnitude of its use among seniors is "astounding," said Frederic Blow. "It's not just a young person's problem," he said. Overdose risk for older Americans is heightened by medication interactions and alcohol. There were about 40 million prescriptions for these drugs last year," said lead study author Miriam Anderson. "That's enough to give one to every Medicare beneficiary in the country."   read more

"Trump is concerned about a poisoned jury pool," wrote Forge. "After dedicating months to poisoning that pool with dozens of nationally publicized speeches denigrating the claims against him and championing his hollow defense, he should be concerned. He knows the best cure for a snake bite comes from the snake's own venom. After months of spewing venom into the jury pool, Trump is trying to suppress the cure — his own admissions."   read more

"Blood tests are significantly more intrusive, and their reasonableness must be judged in light of the availability of the less invasive alternative of a breath test," said the ruling. For Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court should also require warrants for breath tests. "A citizen's Fourth Amendment right to be free from 'unreasonable searches' does not disappear upon arrest," she wrote. Sotomayor slammed the majority for creating a "categorical exception to the warrant requirement.   read more

The Obama administration on Wednesday decried a ruling by a federal judge that blocks rules for hydraulic fracturing. The Bureau of Land Management and a coalition of environmental groups say the rules are necessary to protect the environment. The bureau's rules would have required petroleum developers to disclose to regulators the ingredients in the chemical products they use to improve the results of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.   read more