By The U.S. Department of Labor

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has ordered Wells Fargo Bank N.A. to compensate and immediately reinstate a former bank manager who lost his job after reporting suspected fraudulent behavior to superiors and a bank ethics hotline.
The manager, who had previously received positive job performance appraisals, was abruptly dismissed from his position at a Wells Fargo branch in the Los Angeles area after he reported separate incidents of suspected bank, mail and wire fraud by two bankers under his supervision. He was told he had 90 days to find a new position at Wells Fargo, and when he was unsuccessful, he was terminated. He has been unable to find work in banking since his termination in 2010.

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Posted on April 4, 2017

By Tanya Golash-Boza/The Conversation

Although it is difficult to get exact numbers, some estimates show Immigration and Customs Enforcement home raids have never resulted in more than 30,000 apprehensions in any given year. At that rate, it could take 366 years for immigration agents to remove all 11 million undocumented migrants using home raids.
I contend immigration raids are not intended to deport large numbers of people. Instead, my research has shown that they are primarily effective in spreading fear among immigrants.

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Posted on March 27, 2017

By David Glance/The Conversation

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released what it claims is the largest leak of intelligence documents in history. It contains 8,761 documents from the CIA detailing some of its hacking arsenal.
The release, code-named “Vault 7” by WikiLeaks, covers documents from 2013 to 2016 obtained from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence. They cover information about the CIA’s operations as well as code and other details of its hacking tools including “malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits” and “malware remote control systems”.
One attack detailed by WikiLeaks turns a Samsung Smart TV into a listening device, fooling the owner to believe the device is switched off using a “Fake-Off” mode.

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Posted on March 8, 2017

By Tracy Rucinski/Reuters

U.S. coal miner Peabody Energy said on Monday it has agreed to set aside collateral to cover future mine cleanup costs as part of its bankruptcy reorganization plan, ending its controversial use of “self-bonds.”
For decades the largest U.S. coal companies have used a federal practice known as “self-bonding,” which exempts companies from posting bonds or other securities to cover the cost of returning mined land to its natural state, as required by law.
Concerns over how Peabody, the world’s largest private-sector coal miner, would finance about $1 billion in self-bonds when it emerges from bankruptcy protection had led a series of complaints over its reorganization plan.
Under a deal announced on Monday, Peabody said it had arranged for $1.26 billion in third-party bonds and $14.5 million in a state bond pool in Indiana, one of the states where it held self-bonds, to fully satisfy its financing requirements.

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Posted on March 8, 2017

By Steve Balkin

The United States Postal Service is issuing a set of 10 new stamps on Wednesday to commemorate the 1930s Works Progress Administration (WPA).
The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Roosevelt, creating the WPA.
The purpose was to provide public employment slots to build public infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools, post offices, etc.) at prevailing wages, and in the process preserve skills, self-respect, and bolster aggregate demand.
The 10 stamps showcase 10 of the projects or purposes of the WPA. Their topics include providing wage work opportunities, encouraging work safety, promoting domestic tourism, and building tennis courts, zoos, airports, national parks, hiking trails, and docks.

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Posted on March 6, 2017

By Annie Waldman/ProPublica

Over the last three years, pharmaceutical companies have mounted a public relations blitz to tout new cures for the hepatitis C virus and persuade insurers, including government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, to cover the costs.
That isn’t an easy sell, because the price of the treatments ranges from $40,000 to $94,000 – or, because the treatments take three months, as much as $1,000 per day.
So to persuade payers and the public, the industry has deployed a potent new ally, a company whose marquee figures are leading economists and health care experts at the nation’s top universities.

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Posted on March 3, 2017

By Raymond Bonner/Special to ProPublica

In August of 2002, interrogators at a secret CIA-run prison in Thailand set out to break a Palestinian man they believed was one of al-Qaeda’s top leaders.
As the CIA’s video cameras rolled, security guards shackled Abu Zubaydah to a gurney and interrogators poured water over his mouth and nose until he began to suffocate. They slammed him against a wall, confined him for hours in a coffin-like box, and deprived him of sleep.
The 31-year-old Zubaydah begged for mercy, saying that he knew nothing about the terror group’s future plans. The CIA official in charge, known in agency lingo as the “chief of base,” mocked his complaints, accusing Zubaydah of faking symptoms of psychological breakdown. The torture continued.

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Posted on February 27, 2017

By Renee Dudley/Reuters

BOSTON – Last month, the governing body of the College Board – the not-for-profit that owns the SAT college entrance exam – met at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Fort Lauderdale for its annual retreat.
In 2016, the organization struggled with myriad problems: security lapses overseas, a major breach of questions from the new SAT in the United States, concerns that math questions on the redesigned exam were too long, and continuing setbacks in its years-long effort to digitize the test.
Whether the organization’s Board of Trustees discussed any of those issues at its Florida retreat is unclear. Trustees have declined to discuss the College Board’s problems. In a statement to Reuters, a spokeswoman cautioned that “outside experts” who comment on the College Board “have no knowledge of the Board of Trustees’ deliberations.”
A lack of disclosure by the board is precisely the issue, say some specialists in non-profit governance. Oversight of the College Board and its CEO, David Coleman, has been opaque, they say, as members of the Board of Trustees have proved unwilling to discuss how the organization is handling its problems.

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Posted on February 17, 2017

By Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: Immigrant Workers’ Project

CALUMET CITY – On Wednesday evening, community residents of Calumet City will host a nonpartisan candidates forum to ask candidates where they stand on local issues.
Given the current political climate around the recent executive orders targeting specific communities as well as the raids this past weekend in which 600 people were arrested by federal immigration agents, many immigrants like Guadalupe Baez are wondering where current and potential elected officials stand on strengthening protections for immigrants in Calumet City.

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Posted on February 14, 2017

By A.C. Thompson/ProPublica

The year was 2012. The place was Bowling Green, Ohio. A federal raid had uncovered what authorities feared were the makings of a massacre. There were 18 firearms, among them two AR201315 assault rifles, an AR201310 assault rifle and a Remington Model 700 sniper rifle. There was body armor, too, and the authorities counted some 40,000 rounds of ammunition. An extremist had been arrested, and prosecutors suspected that he had been aiming to carry out a wide assortment of killings.
“This defendant, quite simply, was a well-funded, well-armed and focused one-man army of racial and religious hate,” prosecutors said in a court filing.

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Posted on February 8, 2017