"Earlier this week, an amateur radio astronomer named Scott Tilley decided to have a look for the presence of secret military satellites. Instead, he found an undead NASA mission. Given the relative costs of launching vs. maintaining contact with a satellite, if IMAGE can still provide useful data, Tilley just may have given NASA scientists a bargain."
"Health apps are providing much-needed access and services to millions of patients on a global scale. Efforts to curtail their use, despite the best intentions, only work to deny access to those who may need it most. It would be folly to ask patients to wait in long lines or for federal regulators to verify quality when so many are receiving help every day."
"The three companies unveiled an as yet unnamed company to give their U.S. workers and families a better option on health insurance. The statement said the new company will be 'free from profit-making incentives and constraints.'"
"AutoNation may represent the first wave of a coming trend as marijuana becomes more socially acceptable and companies vie for workers in the tightest labor market in 17 years. As more states legalize -- Vermont will do so in July -- more employees are testing positive on drug tests, according to a Quest Diagnostics report released last year. Positive tests for marijuana rose about 75 percent from 2013 to 2016, the study showed. Results were based on more than 10 million drug tests."
"Store owners, growers and distributors are being forced to use cash because most banks won’t open accounts for them while the federal government still considers marijuana illegal. As revenues inevitably increase, they will be lugging larger stacks of 50s and 100s to the tax collector, a situation that everyone agrees makes businesses vulnerable to thievery, violent crime, money laundering and extortion."
"Most of the subsequent press coverage has shown nary a doubt about Mueller’s purity. But, during his 11 years as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mueller’s agency routinely violated federal law and the Bill of Rights."
Following last year's San Francisco ban on flame retardants in furniture, a California Democrat now aims to ban Elon Musk's new and hugely popular flamethrower from the market.
"A recent clampdown by the Libyan coastguard means fewer boats are making it out to sea, leaving the smugglers with a backlog of would-be passengers on their hands. So the smugglers become masters, the migrants and refugees become slaves."
"What has been the outcome of this 16-year quagmire in Afghanistan? The nation-building war that Bush, Obama and now Trump continue to wage has destabilized neighboring Pakistan further."
"DRIPA was passed in 2014 as 'emergency' legislation, with parliamentary debate restricted to just a single day of discussion. The law paved the way for 2016’s Investigatory Powers Act, which authorized even more intrusive powers, and which Edward Snowden dubbed 'the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy.' With DRIPA struck down as unlawful, it’s likely that the government will now have to scale back parts of the Investigatory Powers Act, otherwise known as the Snoopers’ Charter. The Act replaced DRIPA in 2016, and, among other measures, legalizes targeted hacking by the UK security services and requires that ISPs keep a record of all citizens’ web browsing habits for at least a year."