The opening prayer by Democrat Juan Mendez included a call to work to help the state and its residents flourish and to “honor the Constitution and the secular equality it brings.” But he didn’t pray to any deity, which infuriated some Republicans who are Christians. After his prayer, House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro said Mendez’s decision not to pray to God didn’t meet House rules. Speaker David Gowan then called on a Baptist minister on hand in an apparently planned response.   read more

A man who spent 20 years in jail for a murder he didn’t commit cannot put San Francisco on trial for violating his due-process rights, a federal magistrate judge ruled Wednesday. Although Maurice “Twone” Caldwell raised legitimate questions about a police officer’s motive to frame him for murder, a prosecutor “broke the chain of causation” by reviewing all the evidence before he brought the case to trial, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte found.   read more

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter assured an audience of computer security experts Wednesday that he was not in favor of a “back door” that would give the government access to data that is protected by encryption. “Just to cut to the chase, I’m not a believer in back doors or a single technical approach,” Carter said to loud applause during a panel discussion at the conference. “I don’t think it’s realistic. I don’t think that’s technically accurate.”   read more

While GOP task forces are talking about national security, jobs and health care, the House floor has largely been turned over to the obscure and the arcane. Instead of wrapping up a typical day’s work at suppertime, early afternoon getaways are the norm. And it could remain that way for much of the year. “There’s not a single priority issue,” said No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer of Maryland, citing issues such as aid to Flint, Michigan, as it grapples with tainted drinking water.   read more

When South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed a bill this week that would have required transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their sex at birth, it wasn’t his first break with members of his Republican Party. Daugaard — who says he has no aspirations to remain in politics once his second term expires — said he waited until after the vote on the tax bill before revealing his decision to veto the transgender bathroom measure, so that it wouldn’t affect the outcome.   read more

Almost 1 million U.S. physicians can write a prescription for opioid painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin — one pathway to opioid addiction. But, because of regulatory hurdles and other factors, fewer than 32,000 doctors are permitted to prescribe buprenorphine, a medication to treat such addiction. Less than half of the 2.5 million Americans who could benefit from medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction receive it.   read more

The state of Michigan restricted Flint from switching water sources last April unless it got approval from Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration under the terms of a $7 million loan needed to help the city emerge from state management, according to a document released Wednesday. By the time the loan agreement was in place, complaints about Flint’s water quality were growing louder, but officials had not yet discovered that improperly treated Flint River water had caused lead to leach from pipes.   read more

The Senate on Wednesday rejected a Democratic effort to add $600 million to a bipartisan bill targeting heroin and opioid abuse. Supporters of the immediate funding won a majority of the Senate votes. But the 48-47 tally fell short of the 60 votes required for an attempt by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to add the money. Shaheen said “the reality is unless we provide the resources to make these programs work it’s like giving a drowning person a life preserver that has no air in it.”   read more

Utah senators on Wednesday voted to abolish the death penalty, advancing what had been considered a longshot proposal in the conservative state. The measure marks a stunning turn in Utah, where a year ago lawmakers voted to reinstate the use of the firing squad as a backup execution method. Lawmakers argued that if the state has a shortage of lethal injection drugs, it must still find a way to kill death row inmates.   read more

The House provision is drawing protests from officials suing Monsanto to try to recover costs associated with PCB cleanups, and from lawyers trying to collect damages for individuals with health problems linked to PCB exposure. “Call me a dreamer, but I wish for a Congress that would help cities with their homeless crises instead of protecting multinational corporations that poison our environment,” said attorney Pete Holmes, suing Monsanto to cover costs of reducing PCB from Seattle sewers.   read more

Some billboards have been equipped with small cameras that collect information about the people walking by. Privacy advocates, however, have long raised questions about mobile device tracking, particularly as companies have melded this location information with consumers’ online behavior to form detailed audience profiles. “People have no idea that they’re being tracked and targeted,” said CDD's Jeffrey Chester. “It is incredibly creepy, and it’s the most recent intrusion into our privacy.”   read more

Basin & Range Watch posted a video that it says shows birds flying into the solar beams and "incinerating in the intense reflected heat." About 115 birds were set aflame that way, the group says. The video shows them "being burned and literally turning to smoke as they fly through the concentrated solar rays," says the complaint. Biologists calls these bird deaths "streamers," due to the smoke they give off as their feathers catch fire and the birds fall to the ground in the 900-degree beam.   read more

The FBI did not help its case with lawmakers when Comey acknowledged the mistake of changing the iCloud password. “There was a mistake made in that 24 hours after the attack,” Comey told lawmakers at a hearing on the government’s attempt to force Apple to help “unlock” the iPhone. “If the FBI hadn’t instructed San Bernardino County to change the password to the iCloud account, all this would have been unnecessary, and you would have had that information,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.   read more

The story of how some of the country’s leading civil society advocates came to lose faith in the White House’s privacy initiative does not follow the typical plot of Washington gridlock. It is a tale of clashing visions for U.S. society and commerce. And it provides an instructive preview of looming battles among government agencies for control over industries like drones, smartphones and gadgets yet to come.   read more

State and local officials assured the public on several occasions that the water was safe. But many residents here believe the damage has already been done in Hoosick Falls. Families have lined up to have their blood drawn and their wells tested. Banks stopped giving out mortgages, and some local residents stopped washing their dishes, their clothes and themselves. Erin Brockovich has been to town.   read more

The complaint claims that the voting law affects more than 600 mentally ill residents, and could affect up to 850 given the maximum occupancy of the five state hospitals that house such residents. Featherston claims the law is a form of discrimination because similar restrictions do not apply to college students and those who live in a veterans home, who are allowed by law to vote in those precincts. The residents of those facilities have no other homes where they could claim residency to vote.   read more