Oakland Sues Wells Fargo for Lending Discrimination

The city is blaming Wells Fargo for the loss of millions of dollars of potential tax revenue, leading to budgetary limits for services like parks, policing, and libraries. City attorney Barbara Parker said in a statement after the filing, “Wells Fargo’s discriminatory conduct devastated individuals and communities, increasing poverty and wiping out or drastically reducing wealth for minority communities while bankers prospered.”


Study Finds Nearly 96 percent of Deceased NFL Players had CTE

In total, the researchers from the nation’s largest brain bank examined 165 brains of people who played football professionally, semi-professionally, or in college or high school while living. The brain bank is run as a joint venture between the VA and the university. They found 131 of the brains showed some evidence of CTE, including the 87 NFL pros.


FBI Launches Investigation into 1MDB Malaysia State Development Fund

Najib and Malaysian authorities have undergone exhaustive means to curtail the domestic investigation into allegations that the prime minister funneled money from the fund into his personal account through Swiss banks and the Middle East. The regime gutted the committee appointed to investigate the allegations, shut down a news source, replaced the deputy prime minister and attorney general, and arrested former members of Najib’s political party, including Khairuddin Abu Hassan as he was preparing to travel to the U.S. to urge investigators to help with the probe.


Will Industry Ties Hamper Nominee for FDA Commissioner?

Dr. Califf, a cardiologist, has been serving as the FDA’s deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco since he joined the agency in February, divesting interest in his pre-FDA activity. Although he has donated his proceeds from private industry to nonprofit groups since the mid-2000s, Dr. Califf has taken some form of financial support from over 20 companies according to a disclaimer added to the end of a European Heart Journal article he penned last year. His financial disclosure form for 2014 alone lists consulting fees provided to him from seven companies, and his salary at Duke was funded in part by drugmakers Merck, Novartis and Eli Lilly.


House Committee Clears Major Hurdle to Repeal Crude-Oil Ban

The bill is expected to easily pass the Republican-led House, however it faces a much stronger challenge after that. President Barack Obama has refused to lend his support to the bill, stating that oil-export decisions are made by the executive-controlled Department of Commerce, and that the Department can decide on its own to lift the ban. Still, the president has loosened restrictions in recent months, allowing Shell to drill in a new area off of the Alaska coast and allowing additional oil trade to Mexico. The bill may not reach Obama’s desk anyway, as key Senate Democrats are poised to prevent it from being brought to a vote in that chamber.


Settlement Reached in Police Shooting of Former MLB Player’s Son

Tolan’s mother Marian said about the resolution, “Though I still have my son, I’ve had to watch his dreams and part of his spirit die. We’ve given up so much as a family for a chance at justice, a chance at peace, a chance at being whole again. This has been a horrific experience.” While the attorney for the Tolan family Daryl Washington told reporters outside the courthouse, “As Mrs. Tolan has said and as Robbie has said on many occasions this is not about black versus white this is about right versus wrong,”


GM, Justice Department Tentatively Agree to Ignition-Switch Settlement

It is likely that General Motors got off easy both in comparison to Toyota and to future corporate federal prosecutions. Last week, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates announced major policy changes in the Justice Department for corporate investigations, focusing on prosecuting individuals who are responsible for wrongdoing instead of offering the deferred agreements and taking financial penalties in lieu of criminal charges. The change in policy discourages the probationary deferred prosecution agreements and requires companies to point out wrongdoing by specific employees to receive any kind of prosecutorial credit.GM as a company had been charged with felonies, according to the New York Times, sources familiar with the settlement say no individuals will be charged in the agreement.


No Jason Rezaian, No Iran Deal

I am not for or against a deal per se, I think the execution and enforcement of the agreement will be much more important for the U.S. than whether a nuclear deal exists or not. But, I believe that more time is needed to rethink the demand that Rezaian, and the other journalists’ release be a component to the deal. I cannot in clear conscious reward arbitrary detention as a policy, in the U.S. or abroad.


Car Manufacturers Agree to Make Automatic-Braking a Standard Feature

A recent IIHS study estimates that injury claims could be reduced by as much as 35 percent by implementing the technology. A comparative study of Volvo insurance claims found that property damage claims involving vehicles with automatic-braking systems were 15 percent lower than vehicles without the systems. IIHS president Adam Lund said about automatic-braking systems, “Most crashes involve driver error. This technology can compensate for the mistakes every driver makes because the systems are always on alert.”


Obama Scraps Federal College Ranking System for “Scorecard”

Unlike most college rating platforms, the scorecard contains a plethora of useful data that is usually unavailable from the private sector. Although prefacing by saying the data is based on students who have received federal grants and loans, the site contains income information, not just for recent grads, but also containing 10-year median income for graduates and loan default rates. The search-engine styled site also contains net costs for students from high-income and low-income families, as well as the ethnic diversity of particular colleges.