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Wall Street Journal – by JAMES V. GRIMALDI And REBECCA BALLHAUS

The Clinton Foundation has dropped its self-imposed ban on collecting funds from foreign governments and is winning contributions at an accelerating rate, raising ethical questions as Hillary Clinton ramps up her expected bid for the presidency.

Recent donors include the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany and a Canadian government agency promoting the Keystone XL pipeline.   Continue reading “Foreign Government Gifts to Clinton Foundation on the Rise”

The Hill – by Timothy Cama

Towns and cities in Ohio cannot regulate hydraulic fracturing on their own, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The court ruled 4-3 that Ohio’s legislature gave state agencies exclusive authority over all aspects of oil and natural gas drilling, including fracking, in a 2004 law, and any local ordinances would violate that exclusivity.

“We have consistently held that a municipal-licensing ordinance conflicts with a state-licensing scheme if the local ordinance restricts an activity which a state license permits,” Justice Judith French wrote in the majority opinion.   Continue reading “Ohio court strikes down local fracking bans”

Yahoo News – by Ken Ritter

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas mother of four killed in a road rage shooting last week got in her car with her adult son and his gun and drove around their neighborhood looking for the assailant who ended up shooting her in a residential cul-de-sac, police said Tuesday.

In a change from earlier accounts, police Lt. Ray Steiber said 44-year-old Tammy Meyers had her teenage daughter run in the house to fetch her armed son, who then went with her as she drove to find the driver who had earlier stopped his car in front of hers, got out and approached her with angry words.   Continue reading “Police: Vegas mom, son searched for vehicle before shooting”

BBC News

Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says.

Exactly who these people were and why they were killed is not clear, but Col Qasim al-Obeidi said he believed some were members of the security forces.

IS fighters captured much of the town, near Ain al-Asad air base, last week.   Continue reading “Islamic State militants ‘burn to death 45 in Iraq’”

Reuters – by Steve Gorman

West Coast ports that were closed to incoming cargo vessels during the holiday weekend reopened in full on Tuesday as Labor Secretary Tom Perez arrived in San Francisco seeking to broker a settlement ending months of shipping disruptions.

Perez was sent to meet with the two sides in the conflict at the behest of President Barack Obama, who has come under mounting pressure to weigh in on a labor dispute that has cascaded through the U.S. commercial supply chain and beyond.   Continue reading “West Coast ports reopen as labor secretary arrives for talks”

LA Times – by MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE, KATHLEEN HENNESSEY AND MICHAEL MUSKAL

The Obama administration on Tuesday said it would appeal a move by a federal judge in Texas that temporarily stopped the president’s executive actions on immigration, an anticipated judicial roadblock that was greeted with partisan reactions.

In a decision released late Monday night, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen put on hold Obama’s executive action to protect between 4 million and 5 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally from deportation. The first of the actions, expanding a program that protects young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, was set to launch on Wednesday.   Continue reading “White House to appeal ruling blocking Obama’s immigrant protections”

The Hill – by Martin Matishak

The White House on Tuesday will begin hosting a three-day summit to examine ways to counter violent extremism.

The meeting will put a special emphasis on domestic and international efforts to prevent extremists and their backers from radicalizing young people.   Continue reading “White House hosts summit on extremism”

Fox News

A federal judge has granted a request by 26 states to temporarily block President Obama’s executive action on illegal immigration, allowing a lawsuit aimed at permanently stopping the orders to make its way through the courts.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen granted the preliminary injunction Monday after hearing arguments in Brownsville, Texas last month. He wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”   Continue reading “Federal judge temporarily blocks Obama’s immigration executive action”

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IB Times – by Reissa Su

A security mission near the city of inner Samarra in Iraq has led to the arrest of the two relatives of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A group from the Regiment Special Assignments has managed to detain the ISIS leader’s uncle Saleh Ibrahim Abdulmomen and the husband of al-Baghdadi’s niece Dhiya Nuori Sadoun.

Al Arabiya reports that Iraqi state television was told of the arrest by a security source from the southern Dhi Qar governorate’s police. The state-owned television channel had quoted an Iraqi government security official who confirmed the arrests of the two relatives known to be top-level ISIS commanders.   Continue reading “ISIS Top Commanders Related To Al-Baghdadi Captured; Western Fighters Join Christian Militia Against ISIS”

Bloomberg – by Asjylyn Loder

The U.S. drilling frenzy is over. What’s not is the boom in oil production.

While companies have idled 151 rigs in five shale formations since reaching a peak of 1,157 in October, they’ll need to park another 200 for growth to stall, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Output there will reach a record 5.47 million barrels a day in March even though the number of rigs exploring for oil is the lowest since 2013.   Continue reading “U.S. Rigs Are Being Idled, but the Oil Boom Is Not Ending”

ABC News – by HAMZA HENDAWI and MAGGIE MICHAEL

Security officials say Egyptian warplanes have staged a second wave of airstrikes against positions of the Islamic State group in neighboring Libya.

The officials said the warplanes struck on Monday in Darna, an extremist stronghold in eastern Libya. The first wave of airstrikes also targeted Darna.   Continue reading “Egypt Stages 2nd Wave of Airstrikes After Video of Killings”

Yahoo News

Jerusalem (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue.

“Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe,” Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a similar call after attacks by jihadists in Paris last month when four Jews were among the dead.   Continue reading “Netanyahu urges Jews to move to Israel after Copenhagen attacks”

Reuters

Canadian Pacific Railway’s train engineers and conductors walked off the job on Sunday as a midnight deadline to reach agreement on a new contract passed, setting the stage for back-to-work legislation to be enacted by the government.

Canada’s No. 2 railway had reached a last-minute deal with another union, Unifor, which represents safety and maintenance workers minutes before the deadline.   Continue reading “CP Rail’s train engineers, conductors go on strike in Canada: union”

Voice of America

Danish police said a man they shot dead early Sunday was likely behind the two shooting attacks Saturday in Copenhagen that killed two civilians and wounded five police officers.

Officials said no evidence suggests other gunmen were involved in the shootings, one of which took place at a free-speech event at a cafe and the other outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue.   Continue reading “Danish Police Kill Suspect Believed Responsible for Deadly Attacks”

CS Monitor – by Patrik Jonsson

This week, lawmakers in New Hampshire, Kansas, Mississippi, and Montana advanced bills that, if made into law, would no longer require special permits to carry concealed weapons in public. Five states already have no concealed permit requirement – part of a broader trend toward so-called constitutional carry.

Also this week, Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas introduced federal legislation that would turn concealed weapons permits into something like state driver’s licenses, which are legal anywhere in the United States. The measure nearly passed a Democrat-controlled Senate last year, meaning it could well end up on President Obama’s desk in 2015.   Continue reading “Concealed carry without a permit: Will crime go up or down?”

Survival Scout – by Matt Redhawk, My Patriot Supply

If your body were a house, protein would be the nails and screws that hold it together.

And when a crisis hits your “house,” you need to weather the storm. The protein that keeps everything running smoothly today needs to be constantly replenished so your house will stand tomorrow.

Your body is constantly burning energy. Protein triggers the chemical reactions needed to keep your metabolism running smoothly. You need protein to properly support your body and protect it against viruses. You also need it to help regulate your insulin level.   Continue reading “Why Protein Is Important In Your Diet”

Washington Post – by Katie Zezima

PALO ALTO, Calif. – President Obama signed an executive order Friday that urges companies to share cybersecurity-threat information with one another and the federal government.

Obama signed the order, which is advisory in nature, at the first White House summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University here. The summit, which focused on public-private partnerships and consumer protection, is part of a recent White House push to focus on cybersecurity.   Continue reading “Obama signs executive order on sharing cybersecurity threat information”

USA Today – by Michael Winter

With lethal injection under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Utah House of Representatives on Friday approved legislation to resume executions by firing squad, which were halted in 2004.

The bill, which narrowly cleared the Republican-controlled chamber, faces uncertain prospects in the GOP-dominated Senate, and Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has not said whether he would sign it into law.   Continue reading “Utah House votes to resurrect firing squads”

Bloomberg – by Emily Greenhouse

On Friday afternoon, Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon resigned, and the Oregon secretary of state Kate Brown, also a Democrat, became the state governor. In an instant, Oregon had the first openly bisexual governor in American history.

For many of Gov. Brown’s constituents, this may mean little, because she is married to a man, and has been for many years. The adjective becomes easy to explain away, then; bisexuality is often dismissed as something made up, a risqué adolescent antic, something college girls do to impress boys. Last January, Lisa Diamond, a scholar of sexual orientation, told the reporter Michael Schulman that many people feel bisexuality “is a transitional stage or a form of being in the closet,” but that in fact it’s more common than strictly same-sex attraction.    Continue reading “Does It Matter That Oregon’s New Governor Is Bisexual?”