U.S. Attorney’s Office Will Not Investigate Crumbling Concrete Foundations In Connecticut

The U.S. Attorney's office has rejected a complaint filed by homeowners seeking a federal investigation into failing concrete foundations. In a letter dated Aug. 11, Nancy Gifford, Assistant U.S. Attorney, wrote that the office was unable to provide further assistance to the homeowners, but that victims could contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation .

California, San Francisco sue over sanctuary city grants

The state of California and city of San Francisco are suing the U.S. Department of Justice over President Donald Trump's sanctuary city restrictions on public safety grants. In a news conference Monday, Attorney General Xavier Becerra and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, both Democrats, announced the lawsuit, which makes California the first state to challenge the administration on its sanctuary city policy of denying funds to cities that limit cooperation with enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.

Peter Lim snubs DOJ drug probe

The Department of Justice started yesterday its preliminary investigation on the drug charges filed against Cebu-based businessman Peter Lim for his alleged involvement in the illegal drugs trade in Central Visayas. Lim, however, did not appear in the first hearing and instead sent his lawyers to receive the copy of the complaint and other documents on the charges filed by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police .

Clean Power Plan Still In Limbo After Appeals Court Ruling

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has decided to put off making a decision about the Clean Power Plan for two more months - on top off the delay it had issued in April. Now, though, the US Environmental Protection Agency must file monthly updates with the court, meaning that its patience is wearing down with regard to how many more delays it will issue.

Sexual orientation Title VII cases work way toward Supreme Court

When the Trump Justice Department last month asserted that civil rights laws don't protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation, it clashed with another part of the administration - the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission - which previously claimed that the laws did apply. Federal appeals judges are also at odds.

Kansas Democrat shares ideas after spurning run for governor

Democratic state Rep. Cindy Holscher campaigned and voted for a dramatic shift in Kansas tax and budget priorities during the 2017 legislative session. The Johnson County representative embraced repeal of an income tax exemption to owners of 330,000 businesses and endorsed an increase in the state's personal income tax to close a budget deficit.

Warranted enforcement

In an important act of civic mercy, masses of New Yorkers who more than a decade ago engaged in nonviolent misbehavior such as drinking alcohol in public, being in a park after dark or biking on the sidewalk - and have committed no crimes since - have just had those warrants shredded. The question henceforth is whether the civil penalties that have replaced criminal ones for such conduct will be enforced with sufficient zeal to stop lower-level disorder from flooding the city again.

New House push arises to ax health act

Hard-line conservatives began an uphill fight Friday to force a fresh House vote this fall on erasing much of President Barack Obama's health care law without an immediate replacement. The effort by the House Freedom Caucus appears to have no chance of passing Congress.

Democrats use bus tour to criticize GOP health care vote

Democrats used a bus emblazoned with the words "Drive for our Lives" to gin up opposition to vulnerable House Republicans who voted against "Obamacare" with the aim of upending the GOP's majority in next year's midterm elections. The vote to repeal and replace the Obama health care law looms large for 21 GOP lawmakers, including Iowa Reps.

California official sues EPA over records on administrator

In this June 2, 2017, file photo, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt looks back after speaking to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to provide records he contends could show conflicts of interest by Pruitt on Friday, Aug. 11, 2017.

ICE: Arrests still up, deportations still down

The Trump administration continues to arrest higher numbers of undocumented immigrants, with especially higher rates of noncriminal immigrants as part of those arrests - but deportations continue to lag behind the rates of the Obama administration, according to new data. Overall, arrests ticked up nearly 40% from 2016 in the first half of this year - but arrests of noncriminal immigrants more than doubled.

Prosecutors: Teenage killer should still get life

Despite a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling limiting life sentences for minors, a drifter convicted of murdering two people when he was a teenager should still be sentenced to life in prison for his "heinous" crime, county prosecutors argued Thursday. Kenneth Carl Crawford III, now 34, is serving life in prison without parole for murdering Diana Algar and Jose Molina in a trailer at a campground in Hollenback Twp.

Despite Unequal Treatment, Black Women Will Rise

Many women's organizations commemorate Equal Pay Day, which this year was April 5. It meant that women, in general, would have had to work all of 2016, and until April 5, 2017, to earn the same amount of money that a White man earned in 2016. Few will recognize July 31, 2017, the day that the pay for African American women catch up to the 2016 earnings of White men-seven extra months.