“Why this love affair in this country with lengthy incarceration, to our great embarrassment as a civilized nation?” he asked. He confessed to wanting to “scream out in frustration, sadness and anger” at being forced by Congress to impose mandatory sentences on many defendants. He said most criminals are “not evil incarnate” but rather act out of “weakness, need, sometimes desperation. So many...are without schooling, skills, hope or direction, and no term of years is going to change that.”   read more

A Tennessee woman slipped into a coma and died after an ambulance company took so long that one worker took a cigarette break. A man watched a fire burn his house to the ground as he waited for the fire department, which billed him anyway and then sued him for $15,000 when he didn't pay. In each of these cases, someone dialed 911 and Wall Street answered. This approach creates a fundamental tension: the push to turn a profit while caring for people in their most vulnerable moments.   read more

Fistfights at campaign rallies. A congressional sit-in. Angry political trolling on the internet. It’s not your imagination: America’s partisan divide is deeper today than at any point in nearly a quarter-century, says a new study. The Republican Party strikes fear in the hearts of 55% of Democrats surveyed, Pew found. Among Republicans, 49% felt the same way about the Democratic Party. “It’s really this intensity of negativity that’s increased,” said Pew report author Carroll Doherty.   read more

Mitchell and Jessen acknowledge using waterboarding, loud music, confinement, slapping and other harsh methods but deny that they were torture. "Defendants deny that they committed torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, non-consensual human experimentation and/or war crimes," their lawyers wrote. "This is historic," ACLU attorney Dror Ladin said Wednesday. "Until now, no one responsible for the CIA torture program has ever been forced to admit their actions in court."   read more

The Senate rejected the amendment 58-38, two votes short of the 60 necessary to move ahead with the measure that would give federal law enforcement direct access to email and text message logs, internet browsing histories and other potentially sensitive online data. Sen. Ron Wyden opposed the amendment and decried what he said was the hypocrisy of defending gun rights while pushing for a measure that would undermine the constitutional prohibition against unlawful search and seizures.   read more

With at least 60 oil producers declaring bankruptcy since 2014, orphaned wells have become potential environmental hazards below ground as well as rusted-out eyesores above. Texas officials predict the number of orphaned wells could soar to 12,000, which would be nearly 25 percent more than what regulators can't keep up with now. Landowners, meanwhile, are growing restless with abandoned pump jacks and damage while drillers warn that crackdowns would only put them out of business faster.   read more

Justice Sotomayor delivered a fiery dissent: "It is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of scrutiny. This case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.”   read more

Even before the shooting rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were already the most likely targets of hate crimes in America, reports the FBI. LGBT people are twice as likely to be targeted as African-Americans, and the rate of hate crimes against them has surpassed that of crimes against Jews. There is a long history of not being treated with respect by law enforcement, social service agencies and the legal system, said Roger Coggan.   read more

In a dissenting opinion, Alcala challenged the court's rejection that "evolving standards of decency" show the death penalty to be deemed unconstitutional. "In my view, the Texas scheme has some serious deficiencies that have, in the past, caused me great concern about this form of punishment as it exists in Texas today," she wrote. "Given...the history of racial discrimination in this country, I have no doubt that race has been an improper consideration in particular death-penalty cases..."   read more

The Orlando shooting happened just blocks from a major trauma care hospital, an accident of geography that saved lives. But swaths of the country don't have fast access to top care, and it urges establishing a national system that puts the military's battlefield expertise to work at home. Military findings suggest about 20% of deaths could be prevented with optimal care. That translates into "81 patients a day dying in the U.S. — every day — that are potentially preventable."   read more

The fear is an oil spill, like BP's Deepwater Horizon accident, would kill off the marine and bird life upon which the village depends for its survival. But while native-owned corporations press for development, other native leaders say the risk of a spill is too great. "We have our food source out there in the ocean, and if there's an oil spill...there's no scientific proof they clean it up," Tracey said. "It would take days, if not weeks, for the Coast Guard to get up here."   read more

Sophisticated hackers linked to Russian intelligence services broke into the Democratic National Committee’s computer networks and gained access to confidential emails, chats and opposition research on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, people familiar with the breach said Tuesday. The newly revealed attacks join a host of high-profile digital breaches affecting current and past White House hopefuls.   read more

In an effort to appeal to picky young palates, food processors often make their products more tempting by putting color in the food. A recent study (pdf) has shown, though, that 43% of foods marketed to children contain artificial food colors (AFCs). The food most likely to contain artificial dyes is—no surprise—candy, with 96.3% of the brands sampled containing artificial dyes. Next on the list were fruit-flavored snacks (94.7%); drink mixes and powders (89.7%); and frozen breakfasts (85.7%).   read more

Gun homicides are a common cause of death in the United States, killing about as many people as car crashes. Some cases command our attention more than others, of course. Counting mass shootings that make headlines and the thousands of Americans murdered one or a few at a time, gunshot homicides totaled 8,124 in 2014. This level of violence makes the United States an extreme outlier when measured against the experience of other advanced countries.   read more

Seven years into his presidency, Barack Obama continues to publicly back ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed late last year to “re-energize” efforts for congressional approval — a move that the head of the U.N. organization created to enforce a ban says would lead at least some of the other holdouts to do the same. But with Obama’s days in office numbered, that appears to be a forlorn hope.   read more

Executives from a Panamanian securities dealer cannot make the Securities and Exchange Commission foot the bill for the “bacchanalian adventure” that accompanied their deposition in London. Exasperation dripped Thursday from the court’s refusal to make U.S. taxpayers underwrite the European jaunt of Verdmont Capital’s principals and counsel.   read more