The full costs of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy are coming into sharper relief as contracts are renewed and federal spending data is made available.
Under president Donald Trump, the United States has loosened automobile emissions standards, slashed the budget of the National Park Service, and chipped away at protections for everything from the environment to the LGBTQ community. But there’s one thing American leaders will simply not accept, and that’s substandard cream of mushroom soup.
If you’ve ever fantasized about hauling pallets of intercepted marijuana around the American southwest, the US Border Patrol (USBP) has a job for you. Earlier this week, the agency issued a request for proposals seeking drivers to transport “bulk marijuana and other incidental controlled substances” from government facilities in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to commercial incinerators for disposal.
Next month, 660 bitcoins seized by US officials will be auctioned off—online, of course. And you’ll need to pony up a $200,000 deposit just to get the chance to make a bid.
The explosive device sent to CNN at its New York headquarters was intercepted in the mailroom of parent company WarnerMedia. Along with government agencies, US corporations have been on high alert since 9/11 and the subsequent scare during which anonymous letters containing anthrax spores were sent to US media organizations and congressional offices.
In an age where you can buy a professional (or college) athlete’s game-worn socks, it’s not unreasonable to assume someone out there would pay good money for Stephen Hawking’s old wheelchair. And the expected price tag demonstrates the value we as a society place on celebrity mementos and artifacts, even those with relatively gloomy associations.
When you fire a gun, it leaves a “ballistic fingerprint” on the shell casings, markings that are unique to that weapon. Shell casings recovered at US murder scenes can be subsequently entered into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, where they are compared against all the guns already in the NIBIN database. Even if there’s no match, the information is stored away for future use.
Internal FBI documents released last week provide an intriguing peek at its private intranet for agents and other personnel.
The federal government’s low-security correctional institutions are at their breaking point, according to a set of redacted contracting documents filed last week by the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Shortly after last August’s violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the toppling of a statue of rebel soldier at Ohio’s Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery two weeks after the demonstration, the US Department of Veterans Affairs hired round-the-clock security guards to protect at least eight Confederate cemeteries from potential vandalism, according to records reviewed by the Associated Press.
The next time you drive past one of those road signs with a digital readout showing how fast you’re going, don’t simply assume it’s there to remind you not to speed. It may actually be capturing your license plate data.
While the world was quasi-agog last week over images of Google chairman Eric Schmidt watching students at Kim Jong Il University utilizing his company’s search engine, it’s a safe bet they won’t be networking with potential employers after graduation.
