Domestic Glance
Connecticut lawmakers announced a deal Monday on what they called some of the toughest gun laws in the country that were proposed after the December mass shooting in the state, including a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre that left 20 children and six educators dead.
The proposal also called for background checks for private gun sales and a new registry for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a compromise for parents of Newtown victims who had wanted an outright ban on them, while legislators had proposed grandfathering them into the law.
Legislators in Connecticut Agree on Most Comprehensive Gun Laws in the US
Obama's Crackdown on Whistleblowers
In the annals of national security, the Obama administration will long be remembered for its unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. Since 2009, it has employed the World War I–era Espionage Act a record six times to prosecute government officials suspected of leaking classified information
. The latest example is John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer serving a thirty-month term in federal prison for publicly identifying an intelligence operative involved in torture. It’s a pattern: the whistleblowers are punished, sometimes severely, while the perpetrators of the crimes they expose remain free.
'Underwear bomber' was working for the CIA
A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged.
The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.
UPS pays $40M to end online pharmacies probe
Shipping company UPS has agreed to pay $40 million to end a federal criminal probe connected to its work for online pharmacies. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that the Atlanta-based company would also "take steps" to block illicit online drug dealers from using their delivery service.
The DOJ says the fine amount is the money UPS collected from suspect online pharmacies.
UPS won't be charged with any crimes. Its biggest rival, FedEx Corp., has also been a target of the federal investigation.
On tape, NYC cop told to frisk 'the right people'
A police inspector in New York, speaking on a recording played in court, orders his subordinate to target male blacks for street stops. The recording was played Thursday, the fourth day of a trial on a class-action lawsuit that covers stop-and-frisk inspections, The New York Times reported.
During a conversation, South Bronx Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack urged his subordinate, Pedro Serrano, to be more active and conduct more street stops. McCormack told Serrano he needed to stop "the right people at the right time, the right location."
US secrecy policy run as though formed by Orwell and Kafka – top official
Successive US presidents, including Barack Obama, have abused the system for handling classified information to expand their executive powers, the former senior official who oversaw state secrecy under George W Bush has claimed.
William Leonard, who was entrusted with ensuring proper treatment of state secrets by government agencies in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said that over the past decade both the Obama and the previous Bush administrations had manipulated their classification authority to create new executive powers without congressional oversight or judicial review.
Research exposes racial discrimination in America's death penalty capital
Back defendants facing trial in Houston – the death penalty capital ofAmerica – are more than three times as likely to face a possible death sentence than whites, new academic research has revealed.
The study, by a criminologist at the University of Maryland, exposes the extent of racial discrimination inherent in the administering of capital punishment in Harris County, the ground zero of the death penalty in the US. The county, which incorporates Houston, Texas's largest city, has carried out 116 executions in the modern era – more than any entire state in the union apart from Texas itself.
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