Daily Archives: January 29, 2013 - 5 results

A federal judge accepted a guilty plea agreement with BP, settling the company’s criminal charges related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion that killed 11 people and spewed roughly five million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The deal was approved despite requests for harsher penalties from injured rig workers and families of those who were killed. BP pleaded guilty to 14 counts, including 11 felony counts of seaman’s manslaughter and one count of obstructing …

This article first appeared on Politix. Click here to access the original article and to participate in the Politix comment board. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide if the police have the power to strap you down and take a blood sample without a search warrant when you are arrested for a DUI. It happened to a drunken trucker who was pulled over for his third DUI and who refused to take the breathalyzer test. His blood alcohol level was …

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Jan. 28 proposed a new immigration framework that – were its principles to become law – would open up citizenship options for millions of immigrants in the United States. The plan, “Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” was released by four Democrats, led by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, and four Republicans, featuring Arizona senator John McCain – the day before President Barack Obama was set to announce his own plans to …

Federal law clearly prohibits employers from discriminating against workers based on sex, race, age, and disability, but did you know employers are basically free to discriminate against you based on your sexual orientation? President Barack Obama is being asked to change that, but any large-scale extension of federal law to include gay workers as a protected class is not likely anytime soon.   Federal Action? The executive order Obama is being asked to sign would prohibit discrimination by federal contractors …

Google released a transparency report last week showing that government snooping into your personal data is on the rise. The numbers released by the Internet giant show that law enforcement officials in the United States made 8,438 data requests over the second half of 2012, a 6 percent increase from the first six months of the year. Such requests have risen by more than 85 percent since 2010. Of the governmental requests, Google says that it complies with about 89 …