BP’s $34.3 billion in penalties, most stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, account for 37% of all penalties paid. Next on the list is drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline, with more than $10 billion in penalties for unsafe drugs, financial irregularities, and illegal marketing practices. “Of the 17 different types of misconduct included in the database, labor and environmental violations are the most common, accounting for a combined 40 percent of the resolved instances,” said POGO.   read more

Almost 1,000 members of the military were given cell phones that operate on an older version of Android that needs a security patch for “Stagefright” bugs, a collection of flaws that gives attackers access to everything that flows through the devices. The phones can be compromised via text message sent by hackers or if users visit an infected website. "Devices that do not get upgraded are in great danger — especially government devices,” said cyber-security expert Zuk Avraham.   read more

“Particularly notable within the vast trove of phone records are what appear to be at least 14,000 recorded conversations between inmates and attorneys, a strong indication that at least some of the recordings are likely confidential and privileged legal communications — calls that never should have been recorded in the first place,” reported The Intercept. ACLU's David Fathi said the recordings “may be the most massive breach of the attorney-client privilege in modern U.S. history."   read more

Those wishing to become officers in Inkster, Michigan, must pay $6,000 to attend an academy. Making candidates pay for their tuition limits the pool of those who can afford a police career. Like some other states, Michigan is prohibited from reimbursing towns for training. This kind of restriction is good for budgets, but not for diversifying police departments. “That knocks out a whole swath of people that I know are eligible,” said Inkster police chief William Riley III.   read more

The FCC has rejected a petition from a consumer group to require online companies to honor do-not-track requests from consumers. Consumer Watchdog petitioned the FCC to start developing a new regulation mandating ‘edge providers’ such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Pandora, Netflix, and LinkedIn to honor do-not-track requests from consumers. Users can set their browser preferences to request that their online movements aren’t tracked, but few companies comply.   read more

Republicans in Congress have worked to cut funding for the IRS, forcing the agency to lay off thousands of workers, including those who review income tax returns. The cuts have resulted in the audit rate for individual tax returns dipping to 0.84% for fiscal year 2015. That’s the lowest rate since 2004. The IRS has lost 15,000 workers since 2010, but at the same time, the number of income tax returns filed by individuals went up 3%, to 146 million.   read more

In Mexico, President Peña’s presidential campaign used neuropolitical techniques to gauge voters’ brain waves, skin arousal, and heart rate. One way the new methods are applied is by placing cameras in digital billboards and recording people's facial reactions to political messages. Use of neuropolitics could increase during the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Hillary Clinton’s campaign already hired a neuromarketing firm to help it improve its targeting and messages.   read more

Companies such as BP, Shell and Texaco, which is now part of Chevron, were also among those that questioned climate science and joined organizations that fought policies designed to tackle the problem. According to energy industry experts, those companies could also be investigated to determine whether their public stance on the issue coincided with their internal discussions. "ExxonMobil is not alone,” said professor Stephen Zamora. “This is not likely to be an isolated matter.”   read more

“I have nothing to say about that right now,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. But University of Washington women’s soccer coach Amy Griffin has identified more than 60 soccer players, particularly goalies, who played on crumb rubber turf and have been diagnosed with various forms of cancer. The Washington State Department of Health is now conducting its own study of the playing fields.The EPA in 2008 declared the crumb rubber fields to be safe.   read more

“The never-ending cases of corporate wrongdoing, seen most recently in the Volkswagen emissions scandal, make it essential for policymakers, advocates, journalists, and the general public to have access to systematic information across agencies,” said Philip Mattera. BP paid the largest penalty, totaling $25.4 billion, for the Deepwater Horizon disaster that polluted large parts of the Gulf coast. Toyota had a unique standing as it also received more than $1 billion in government subsidies.   read more

“There are few things in this job that literally make my jaw drop,” said Sen. McCaskill. “But of all the examples of wasteful projects in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Pentagon began...this genuinely shocked me." A similar natural gas station was built in Pakistan for only $500,000. But this one ballooned from $3 million to $43 million. Are there any cars there running on natural gas? Not really, according to Sopko, who investigated the project despite efforts by the Pentagon to thwart him.   read more

The investigation revealed Northrup contributed $4.6 million to the campaigns of 224 lawmakers since 2010, demonstrating a long-range lobbying strategy devised to win the contract. In all, the defense contractor spent $85.4 million to lobby Congress, the Pentagon and other agencies on the bomber program as well as other military spending issues. It also hired more than 100 lobbyists and others, including five former members of Congress, to work specifically on defense issues.   read more

The VA has changed its wait-time calculations in what may be an attempt to hide the ongoing issue. The L.A. VA claims the average wait time was less than four days in August. But an internal document obtained by CNN showed the average wait time for new patients seeking mental health care at the LA VA was 43 days that month. “They’ve started to measure the numbers differently more than they have actually improved the patient's actual wait time in many cases,” said a CNN source.   read more

Under chairman Lee Raymond, Exxon worked in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty. It merged with Mobil in 1999 and began to fund climate-change denial efforts. For more than a decade it financed conservative groups that publicly attacked the scientific consensus that climate change is a real threat to the planet. Environmental groups compare the obfuscation practiced by ExxonMobil on climate change to the tobacco industry’s cover-up of its own data that showed the dangers of smoking.   read more

There is a deep rural-urban divide when it comes non-discrimination protections for LGBT people,” said Ineke Mushovic. “Vast geographic stretches in this country—mostly in rural areas—lack LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination laws. Advocates have done impressive work extending local protections, but an LGBT person in a state that lacks statewide protections is fifty times more likely to be covered by local laws if he or she lives in an urban rather than a rural area.”   read more

People on Kili say their home has become uninhabitable because global warming has created more frequent “king tides” and severe storms that are swamping their island. "It’s getting to the point where people are tired of having water in their living rooms and trying to deal with the waves and the water coming over the island," said Bikini Officer Jack Niedenthal. Bikini refugees want to come to the U.S. and call it home, but they need the U.S. government to pay for their second relocation.   read more