President Barack Obama announced new steps Friday to help curb gun violence, including by identifying the requirements that “smart guns” would have to meet for law enforcement agencies to buy and use them as well as sharing mental health records with the federal background check system. The president also called for more attention to be paid to the mentally ill.   read more

Houston’s efforts to use local clean air laws to regulate pollution in the home of the nation’s largest petrochemical complex were halted Friday by a Texas Supreme Court ruling in favor of energy and chemical companies that claimed the city had overreached. The coalition made up of ExxonMobil Corp. and other companies with nearby refineries and plants had sued in 2008 after Houston passed ordinances that required businesses to pay registration fees.   read more

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials say there’s no clear evidence the agency violated its own rules when it posed as The Associated Press to unmask a criminal, according to a report obtained through a public records lawsuit. However, the internal FBI report being made public by the AP and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press says “an argument can be made” that field agents bucked protocol by not informing senior brass in Washington of the 2007 operation.   read more

Women would be required to register for the military draft under a House committee’s bill that comes just months after the Defense Department lifted all gender-based restrictions on front-line combat units. A divided Armed Services Committee backed the provision in a sweeping defense policy bill that the full House will consider next month, touching off a provocative debate about the role of women in the military.   read more

Long wait times are a known problem at hospitals and health centers run by the Indian Health Service, particularly in rural areas where unemployment and poverty levels are high, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said Thursday. New patients waited up to four months to see a physician at a facility on the Navajo Nation and up to a month for a routine vision check at a clinic in the Billings, Montana, region, staff told federal investigators.   read more

Aircraft which can't be deployed is not a solution to the need for deployed aircraft. The Pentagon's Frank Kendall has called this "acquisition malpractice." Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James: "People believed we could go faster, cheaper, better" by designing and building the F-35 concurrently, "and that the degree of concurrency would work. Indeed it has not worked as well as we had hoped and that's probably the understatement of the day." The F-35 won't be combat capable any time soon.   read more

Brainard called these unprepared TSA executives "the biggest bullies in government," and said their past efforts to avoid punishment by coming down hard on employees who pointed out misconduct have left a broken, battered workforce with poor morale. "The same people who broke this agency are the same people who are essentially still running it," he added.   read more

Executive Order 10450, signed by President Eisenhower in 1953, allowed broad categories of federal workers, including those with criminal records, drug addiction and "sexual perversion," to be singled out for scrutiny and termination as threats to national security. Suspicions of homosexuality led to between 7,000 and 10,000 workers losing their jobs in the 1950s alone.   read more

The bats were originally proposed for endangered status, but, the group claims, "intense industry pressure" caused the agency to list the species as threatened instead, with a special rule under Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act that allowed activities that destroy the bats' forest habitat, such as logging, mining and energy development, to continue. Section 4(d) exemptions are not available for species with an endangered status.   read more

Samples taken from surface waters affected by waste spills in the state's Bakken oilfield region turned up high levels of lead, ammonium, selenium and other contaminants. The researchers found that some spills had tainted land with radium, a radioactive element. The study revealed "clear evidence of direct water contamination" from oil development using fracking, describing the problem as "widespread and persistent." Wastewater spills have worsened as North Dakota's daily output soared.   read more

The letters from the defense officials, Rep. Tsongas said, "demonstrate that arguments to halt this progress are not actually about military readiness but instead are an attempt to interfere with management of our nation's public lands and undermine the Endangered Species Act." Rep. Grijalva said the "letters put to bed once and for all the silly speculation that a few birds could hamstring the greatest fighting force in the history of the world."   read more

The method has been widely condemned as inhumane. State officials in New York and Massachusetts for years have tried to force the center to abandon using shocks as multiple complaints about them surfaced. The devices can cause both physical and psychological harm, the FDA wrote, including risks of pain, burns, tissue damage, depression, fear and aggression. They may even have led a resident to enter a catatonic state, the agency said. The shocks can worsen the symptoms it purportedly treats.   read more

Dept of Children and Families had proposed rules that would have prohibited anti-LGBT bullying and discrimination, as well as banning conversion therapies aimed at changing children's sexual orientation. But after at least two religious groups objected, the state abruptly backtracked from putting the new protections in place. At Friday's hearing, many shared personal stories about foster children who have been mistreated because they identify as LGBT.   read more

Neal's lawsuit said the problem is systemic, caused in part by the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter from Education Dept's Russlyn Ali. The student claimed the letter encourages universities to mete out harsh punishments to young men without due process. The letter "aggressively dictated" how colleges "handle sexual assault [on campus]...causing schools to brand more students 'rapists' based on the excessively low 'preponderance of the evidence' burden of proof..." the complaint states.   read more

Critics vowed to appeal the ruling and charged that the legislature sought to eliminate tools that made it easier for everyone, particularly minority voters, to get to the polls. “By meticulously targeting measures that were most used by people of color — in addition to imposing a restrictive photo ID requirement — the Legislature sought to disturb the levers of power in North Carolina, ensuring only a select few could participate in the democratic process,” said Penda Hair.   read more

The store owners, all first- and second-generation immigrants, say they felt entrapped and then strong-armed into signing settlements with steep fines and onerous conditions. The stipulations often allow for sweeping surveillance, such as warrantless searches and unbridled police access to video cameras. They also permit the NYPD to automatically fine and padlock a store should another allegation arise — all without giving merchants the opportunity to defend themselves in court.   read more