The nation’s largest contractor, Lockheed Martin, has received $331 billion in federal dollars since Oct. 2005. The company spent at least $140 million on lobbying and political contributions between Oct. 2005 and Sept. 2015. Boeing, which took in $201 billion over the decade, spent $150 million on political influence. General Dynamics accumulated $136 billion in contracts, while spending $96 million on lobbying and political action committees.   read more

"At the seat of our national government - in the congressional chamber based on proportional representation - the chaplain is dividing and excluding citizens based on their religious or nonreligious beliefs," Barker claims. Since 2000, nearly 97% of guest invocations have come from Christians, although just 70% of the country identifies as Christian. Less than 3% were delivered by Jewish representatives. Atheists and agnostics have not given a single invocation in the past 16 years, says Barker.   read more

Sha’Quille, age 2, was buried in a pink coffin. She had been napping in bed with her father late last month when she discovered the 9mm handgun he often kept under his pillow. It had a laser sight that lit up like the red lights on her cousins’ sneakers. Her dad woke to see Sha’Quille by his bed, bleeding and crying, the gun at her feet. A bullet had pierced her skull. In a country with more than 30,000 annual gun deaths, the smallest fingers on the trigger belong to children like Sha’Quille.   read more

The proposed rule would give Americans major new protections and deliver a serious blow to Wall Street that could cost the industry billions of dollars. In effect, the move by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the biggest that the agency has made since its inception in 2010 — would unravel audacious legal maneuvers by corporate America that have prevented customers from using the court system to challenge potentially deceitful banking practices.   read more

Even President Barack Obama's executive branch cannot read the full report, and the National Archives and Records Administration has stonewalled questions about whether it qualifies as a federal record, which would require preservation. The rights groups worry that more history might be lost, and they reminded archivist Ferriero that the CIA has destroyed "crucial video records of the torture program" more than a decade ago, "without NARA's knowledge or authorization."   read more

The study estimates more than 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors. That would rank just behind heart disease and cancer, which each took about 600,000 lives in 2014, and in front of respiratory disease, which caused about 150,000 deaths. Medical mistakes that can lead to death range from surgical complications to medication mix-ups. However, the system used to record death data doesn’t capture things like diagnostic errors and poor judgment that cost lives.   read more

“These leaked documents confirm what we have been saying for a long time: TTIP would put corporations at the center of policymaking, to the detriment of environment and public health,” said Greenpeace's Jorgo Riss. “We have known that the EU position was bad, now we see the U.S. position is even worse.” The Sierra Club said it was dismayed that the words “climate change” were “not mentioned once in the 248 pages.”   read more

Last month, during a routine review of New Jersey’s finances, one could sense the alarm. The state’s wealthiest resident had reportedly “shifted his personal and business domicile to another state,” Frank W. Haines III, New Jersey’s legislative budget and finance officer, told a state Senate committee. If the news were true, New Jersey would lose so much in tax revenue that “we may be facing an unusual degree of income tax forecast risk,” Haines said.   read more

An oil and natural gas field in the western United States is largely responsible for a global uptick of the air pollutant ethane, according to a new study. The team led by researchers at the University of Michigan found that fossil fuel production at the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and Montana is emitting roughly 2% of the ethane detected in the Earth's atmosphere.   read more

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal to stop Texas from enforcing its challenged voter ID law. But the court said it could revisit the issue as the November elections approach. The law has been in effect for recent elections, even after a trial judge struck it down in 2014 and an appellate panel found last year that the law had a discriminatory effect on minority voters.   read more

A U.S. aerial gunship attack on a hospital in Afghanistan that killed 42 people occurred because of human errors, process mistakes and equipment failures, and none of the aircrew or U.S. ground troops knew the target was a hospital, a top U.S. general said Friday. Sixteen military members have been disciplined for their roles in the tragedy, Gen. Joseph Votel said. None face criminal charges.   read more

While checks of criminal histories have become routine in the public and private sectors, a regulation being proposed by the Obama administration would remove a barrier that discourages many freed prisoners from applying for jobs. The rule would prevent supervisors interviewing applicants for about half of all federal positions from asking about a job seeker’s criminal or credit history until a conditional offer is made.   read more

Wall Street dominates political giving. But it’s these donors, a much smaller subset of the securities sector, who play with the biggest money. The fact that hedge fund money continued to flood the presidential race after one of the donors’ favorite candidates — Rubio — dropped out would be surprising were it not for the anti-Donald Trump movement. For this group, there’s still work to be done with their money — namely, beating back Trump’s ascension to the Republican nomination.   read more

Vet Brian Sweeney grew emotional after a reporter read him details of the new bladder cancer research. Sweeney recalled in Vietnam once driving through a misty fog of chemicals so thick he had to stop the vehicle and turn around. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that was probably Agent Orange,” he said. When he went to the VA to see if he could receive benefits, the claims specialist “pretty much told me I wasn’t eligible because Agent Orange doesn’t cause bladder cancer.”   read more

Drugmakers have been enduring withering criticism over the rising cost of drugs. It does not seem to be working. They've raised prices on brand-name drugs by double-digit percentages since the start of the year, and list prices increased more than 12%, in line with the trend over the five previous years. One of the cruelties of drug pricing is that the burden falls most heavily on those least able to pay it. Uninsured patients often must pay the list price of a drug.   read more

"Texans don't generally expect a lot of their politicians," said political scientist Cal Jillson. "Politicians often get off because the laws they are accused of violating are so poorly written. They have holes in them big enough to drive a truck through ... They'd rather have this guy who agrees with their politics, under indictment than someone else who is not beholden to them. What that says about Texas is that the state is currently run by [Republicans]."   read more