In 1997, Texas Disposal Systems was competing with Waste Management of Texas for trash-hauling contracts in Austin and San Antonio. At one point, Waste Management issued an “alert,” which was distributed to Austin community leaders, calling into question the environmental safety of Texas Disposal’s landfill. Texas Disposal sued Waste Management. The original trial court found Waste Management’s statements to be false.   read more

If either of these measures becomes law, the NSA will still be able to use 702 to access communications without a warrant through what’s known as the “back door search loophole.” Former NSA director General Keith Alexander has admitted that the NSA utilizes “U.S. person identifiers” to go through data collected under Section 702. Section 702 also has allowed the agency to vacuum up huge volumes of Internet traffic directly from companies such as Facebook and Google.   read more

Justice Antonin Scalia, the present court’s longest-serving member and one of its most conservative, also has the court’s most pronounced history of supporting speech by conservative speakers more often than he does that of liberal speakers, the study showed that his record on 161 cases from 1986 to 2011 revealed that he favored conservative speakers in 65% of the cases they brought before the Court, but voted in favor of liberal free speech in only 21% of their cases.   read more

In a new report, the world’s oldest and largest insurer says, “Earth’s global climate system is warming. This conclusion is supported by a large body of evidence” from scientists and that “increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere” are “largely due to human activity such as combustion of fossil fuels and land use change.” Such changes have caused Lloyd’s to blame almost a third of its losses in 2012’s Superstorm Sandy on climate change.   read more

A member of the U.S. Supreme Court seems to believe that states may establish an official religion, despite the constitutional ban on government from doing it. As part of the recent ruling that sanctioned prayers before government meetings, Justice Clarence Thomas offered a different take on the Establishment Clause: state governments are not prohibited from establishing an official religion. Religious scholar Marci Hamilton called Thomas’ view “radically subversive.”   read more

Climate change is affecting all parts of the United States, but the majority of Americans aren’t very concerned. A new study says droughts, floods, heat waves and other extreme weather are here to stay and yet multiple surveys reveal most Americans don’t take climate change or global warming very seriously. One poll showed only 40% of Americans listed global climate change as a major threat to the nation. Residents of other developed nations put it much higher on their lists.   read more

In a controversial decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has sanctioned the practice of prayer, particularly Christian ones, before local government meetings. The dissenting justices disagreed with the majority’s assertion that Greece’s town hall predominantly Christian prayers did not violate “the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her government."   read more

The people who will decide the fate of online privacy in court cases have little or no personal point of reference when it comes to understanding how email and other electronic communications have shaped Americans’ lives. Nearly half the U.S. Supreme Court was born during the 1930s. Four are in their 60s, and the youngest is 54. Most of them already lived half or more of their lives when the Internet came into being, putting them behind the modern curve of email, texting and social media.   read more

U.S. sanctions against Russia have now affected the U.S. Air Force’s need for Russian-made rocket engines. A joint venture known as United Launch Alliance (ULA) between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, two of the nation’s largest defense contractors, has long purchased Russian RD-180 engines for American Atlas V rockets, which the Air Force uses to put military satellites into orbit.   read more

The iP1 works in tandem with a special watch, and can’t be fired unless a five-digit code is entered into the watch, and the gun must be within 10 inches of the watch to operate. The primary market for such firearms is people who want to prevent children or thieves from using their gun. Gun-rights advocates fear sales of smart guns because they’re afraid they will be mandated.   read more

The fenceline zone is one-tenth the distance of a vulnerability zone for a given facility. African-Americans make up 12.2% of the U.S. population, but are 21.3% of those living in fenceline areas, according to the report. Similarly, Latinos make up 16.1% of the general population, but 25.7% of those in fenceline zones. The numbers are similar for poor people. Those in poverty are 14.3% of the U.S. population at large, but 21.5% of those living in fenceline areas.   read more

President Obama lashed out a Republicans over their vote, and other Democrats backed him up. “Their vote today defines their priorities,” said Sen. Patty Murray. “It is the equivalent of looking American women in the eye and telling them they don't deserve a living wage. It is telling our middle-class families they don't deserve a fair shot.” Multiple national polls show a majority of Americans support raising the minimum wage, which is currently $7.25.   read more

In a major victory for the Obama administration’s environmental policies, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate cross-state air pollution. The case focused on EPA rules issued in 2011 that were designed to reduce the amount of air pollution, primarily from coal-fired power plants, that drifts from 28 Midwestern and Appalachian states to the East Coast.   read more

To the delight of education leaders, the U.S. high school graduation rate has reached its highest level on record. The U.S. Department of Education reported Monday that 80% of seniors received their diplomas in 2012, the most recent year with available statistics. For comparison, the non-governmental Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, which publishes the national magazine Education Week, reported that the high school graduation rate in 2007 was only 69%.   read more

These days the Department of Homeland Security is tackling a whole lot more than terrorist plots. Agents are investigating movie piracy, counterfeit merchandise, and small-time pickpockets. They’re even spending time at schools and senior centers telling kids and the elderly to beware of crooks and perverts on the Internet. This has government watchdogs and civil libertarians questioning DHS’s direction. “They’ve kind of lost their way,” said former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge.   read more

About 3.6 million jobs were lost in higher-wage industries during the downturn. Since then, however, the recovery has seen only 2.6 million of these positions return. Meanwhile, lower-wage sectors lost 2 million jobs, but have gained back nearly twice as many, 3.8 million. As for mid-wage industries, they accounted for 37% of job losses, but only 26% of recent employment growth. This has resulted in 958,000 fewer jobs in mid-wage industries than at the start of the recession.   read more