If the legislation passes, licensed professionals would have 30 days to report any convictions more severe than a traffic violation as well as professional misconduct violations. An investigation cited examples of nurses who retained their licenses even after being charged with or convicted of violent crimes. Currently, nurses are required to disclose convictions and misconduct only once every three years at license renewal.The new measure requires hearings on summary suspensions within 90 days.   read more

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the city of Cleveland on Tuesday, saying that it was violating protesters’ free speech rights with undue restrictions on demonstrations during next month’s Republican National Convention. The lawsuit challenges a number of the restrictions, including limits on street marches to 50 minutes per group and to a single approved route over a bridge, and on three of the four convention days to the hours of 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.   read more

On Tuesday, the Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would for the first time require young women to register for the draft. The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. Under the Senate bill passed on Tuesday, women turning 18 on or after Jan. 1, 2018, would be forced to register for Selective Service, as men must do now.   read more

The Kansas State Board of Education voted unanimously on Tuesday to ignore a directive from President Obama’s administration that public schools allow transgender students to use restrooms matching their gender identity, and instead the board left decisions up to school districts. What remains unclear is whether the 10-0 vote will endanger over $479 million in federal aid, or about 10% of the state’s education budget.   read more

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the government’s “net neutrality” rules that require internet providers to treat all web traffic equally. The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a win for the Obama administration, consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix that want to prevent online content from being blocked or channeled into fast and slow lanes.   read more

More than a decade into his 18-year prison term, a man hammered by disproportionate crack cocaine penalties can try to benefit from recent drug sentencing reform efforts, the Ninth Circuit ruled Monday. The U.S. Sentencing Commission passed an amendment the following year that would allow more than 12,000 drug offenders to apply for retroactive relief. But prosecutors claimed that Davis waived his right to contest his sentence when he signed his plea agreement back in 2005.   read more

Washington firefighters asked Gov. Jay Inslee (D) to stop oil trains from running through the state until a “full investigation” is conducted into the June 3 derailment in Oregon. “The account given by firefighters of the Mosier response and by others who have responded to similar incidents across North America make it clear these fires are exceedingly difficult to extinguish, even under unusually ideal circumstances,” council president Dennis Lawson wrote.   read more

Starting in 1932, North Dakota law barred nonfamily corporations from owning farmland or operating farms. But that changed in March of last year when the state legislature passed a bill that would relax the corporate farming ban and Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed it into law. Citizens protested the new law, with the state’s farmers union at the forefront, which led to a referendum that voters will face on Tuesday.   read more

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), released a report today slamming an accreditor of for-profit colleges for its “appalling record of failure.” “Students and taxpayers have paid the price” for the failures of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), she wrote in an accompanying letter to the U.S. Secretary of Education. Warren urged the Department of Education to take “strong, aggressive action to hold ACICS accountable.”   read more

In the 21st century, the United States has reinstated a broad system of debtors’ prisons, in effect making it a crime to be poor. If you don’t believe me, come with me to the county jail in Tulsa. On the day I visited, 23 people were incarcerated for failure to pay government fines and fees, including one woman imprisoned because she couldn’t pay a fine for lacking a license plate.   read more

The last word about the quality of Dimock’s water came from assurances in a 2012 statement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency declared that the water coming out of Dimock’s taps did not require emergency action, such as a federal cleanup. The agency’s stance was widely interpreted to mean the water was safe. Now another agency has analyzed the same set of water samples, and determined that is not the case.   read more

On Oct. 14, 2014, an Arizona teen says, a Border Patrol agent accused her of carrying drugs, without cause. He arrested her, took her to a detention room, handcuffed her to a chair, had her sniffed by dogs, and strip-searched by women agents. She was never informed of her legal rights, nor was she allowed to call her mother. Nor did the agents or the dogs find any drugs. But that didn’t stop them from taking her to a hospital, in handcuffs, to be X-rayed and strip-searched more thoroughly.   read more

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s conviction on ethics charges automatically removes him from office and could mean years in prison for the powerful Republican. Friday night, a jury found the one-time GOP star guilty of 12 counts of public corruption for using the influence and prestige of his political stature to benefit his companies and clients. He faces up to 20 years in prison for each count.   read more

House Republican leaders have blocked a Democratic congressman from Mississippi from offering legislation to ban Confederate imagery from the House side of the Capitol complex. Rep. Bennie Thompson had sought the opportunity to ban display of the Mississippi state flag and statues of Confederate icons such as President Jefferson Davis. Mississippi’s state flag incorporates the Confederate battle flag in its top inner corner.   read more

Despite new legal powers to compel recalls and sophisticated technology to fingerprint pathogens, the Food and Drug Administration allowed some food-safety investigations to drag on, placing consumers in jeopardy of death or serious illness. In an unusual urgent warning called an “early alert,” the internal watchdog said the FDA needs to pay “immediate attention” to the problem and follow clear procedures to get manufacturers to promptly recall tainted foods.   read more

On Wednesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine endorsed continued research on a revolutionary technology known as “gene drive,” concluding after nearly a yearlong study that while it poses risks, its possible benefits make it crucial to pursue. The group also set out a path to conducting what it called “carefully controlled field trials,” despite what some scientists say is the substantial risk of inadvertent release into the environment.   read more