Chicago Police Department officers stashed microphones in their squad car glove boxes. They pulled out batteries. Microphone antennas got busted or went missing. And sometimes, dashcam systems didn’t have any microphones at all, DNAinfo Chicago has learned. https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160127/archer-heights/whats-behind-no-sound-syndrome-on-chicago-police-dashcams Police officials last month blamed the absence of audio in 80 percent of dashcam videos on officer […]

The District of Columbia bar is pursuing ethics charges against a former Department of Justice lawyer who has said he was one of the sources for a 2005 article in The New York Times about the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/us/politics/ex-department-of-justice-lawyer-faces-penalties-in-leak-of-nsa-program.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=11&pgtype=sectionfront This week, the District of Columbia Office of Disciplinary Counsel […]

A Texas grand jury has cleared Planned Parenthood of misconduct after the abortion provider was accused of selling foetal body parts for profit. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35405636 Instead, the panel charged the filmmakers behind the accusations with tampering with government records. The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) secretly filmed videos that caused an outcry and prompted efforts to […]

President Obama secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels in 2013 and the spy agency knew it would have a willing partner in Saudi Arabia to help pay for the covert operation.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/world/middleeast/us-relies-heavily-on-saudi-money-to-support-syrian-rebels.html  It was the same partner the C.I.A. has relied on for decades for money and discretion and […]

The billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has told the BBC that the United States “should set a better example” by taking in more refugees. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35381129 Mr Gates said his home country “had the capacity” to follow the examples of Germany and Sweden, who were “to be congratulated” for welcoming migrants. But he acknowledged that relaxing immigration […]

Satellite imagery appearing to show the US expanding a formerly disused air strip in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria has been seen by the BBC. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35387388 The images, from the security analysts Stratfor, show a runway near the town of Rmeilan being extended from 700m (half a mile) to 1.3km. That would be long enough to land […]

A culture of deference to “untouchable stars,” an “above the law” attitude among members of management and a climate of fear at the BBC allowed Jimmy Savile, the disgraced British television personality, to carry out sexual assaults on children for decades, according to a leaked draft of an inquiry published on Thursday. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/world/europe/inquiry-jimmy-savile-bbc.html?ref=world The 500-page […]

A UK court of appeal ruled that the detention of journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, under the Terrorism Act violated his human rights as a journalist. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/19/journalism-is-not-terrorism-criticism-of-the-government-is-not-violence?CMP=share_btn_link The court rebuked the government’s unprecedented and dangerous definition of “terrorism” that would have encompassed all sorts of actions regularly made by law-abiding citizens. Miranda was detained […]

Nicholas Kristof: For those of us who argue in favor of gun safety laws, there are a few inconvenient facts. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/sunday/some-inconvenient-gun-facts-for-liberals.html We liberals are sometimes glib about equating guns and danger. In fact, it’s complicated: The number of guns in America has increased by more than 50 percent since 1993, and in that same period […]

Three chances were missed to prosecute late peer Lord Janner over sex abuse claims, an inquiry has found. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35352809?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central The independent inquiry, commissioned by the director of public prosecutions, found police and prosecutors missed opportunities to charge Lord Janner in 1991, 2002 and 2007. Before he died in December, the ex-Labour MP – who then […]

US authorities have arrested a man described as a supporter of so-called Islamic State (IS) and accused him of planning an attack in New York State. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35206711 Emanuel Lutchman, 25, from Rochester, is charged with plotting to kill people at a restaurant on New Year’s Eve. Mr Lutchman told an FBI informant he would use […]

Rob Bilott, a law partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently had operated a site close by, was responsible. […]

A Florida Atlantic University professor who suggested in blog postings and radio interviews that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary and other mass shootings were a hoax designed by the Obama administration to boost support for gun control was fired Tuesday. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/us/florida-professor-who-cast-doubt-on-mass-shootings-is-fired.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0 James F. Tracy, 50, a tenured associate professor of communications […]

Rand Paul was thought by many to be a top contender for the Republican presidential nomination. He’s not. What happened to the “libertarian moment” he was supposed to lead? http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-35127873 On a chilly Tuesday morning in Las Vegas, Nevada, Rand Paul addressed a crowd of about 50 supporters at his local campaign headquarters in a […]