Light News Dump

The U.S. Department Of Agriculture’s ‘Wildlife Services’ intentionally murdered nearly 1.5 Million native wildlife last year in the United States to "benefit" the meat and dairy industry
https://worldanimalnews.com/breaking-agriculture-departments-wildlife-services-killed-nearly-1-5-million-native-animals-last-year-in-the-united-states/

Justice Dept. Agrees to Turn Over Key Mueller Evidence to House
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/us/politics/mueller-judiciary-committee.html

Company part-owned by Jared Kushner got $90m from unknown offshore investors since 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/10/jared-kushner-real-estate-cadre-goldman-sachs

Kushner’s Company Received $90M From Anonymous Foreign Investors, Says Report
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jared-kushners-company-received-dollar90m-from-anonymous-foreign-investors-says-report

Research group finds way to turn plastic waste products into jet fuel: "We can recover almost 100 percent of the energy from the plastic we tested," Lei said. "The fuel is very good quality, and the byproduct gasses produced are high quality and useful as well."
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-group-plastic-products-jet-fuel.html

Fossil Fuel Companies Face Climate Liability Claims After Decades of Denial
https://blog.ucsusa.org/kathy-mulvey/reality-bites-fossil-fuel-companies-face-climate-liability-claims-after-decades-of-denial

Google’s search tool falsely called Mueller report “fiction"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/10/googles-search-tool-falsely-called-mueller-report-fiction/

Canada to ban single use plastics
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-to-ban-single-use-plastics-as-early-as-2021-source-1.5168386

Reminder: Catholic Church spent $10.6 million to lobby against legislation that would benefit victims of child sex abuse
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/catholic-church-scandal-spent-10-million-lobbyists-fight-extension-statutes-of-limitations-child-sex-abuse-vicims

McConnell's wife Elaine Chao illegally created paths for McConnell’s favored projects
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/10/mcconnell-elaine-chao-1358068
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chao-mcconnell-kentucky-projects-transportation

GOP Senators Join Dems To Block Trump Admin’s Saudi Arabian Arms Sales
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-democrats-block-saudi-arabia-arms-sales

The Freedom Caucus Reaps What It Has Sown — Far-Right House Members Spent Years Trying to Impeach Obama Appointees. Suddenly They’re Concerned With Civility.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/10/impeachment-fever-the-freedom-caucus-reaps-what-it-has-sown/

A 'friendship tree' Emmanuel Macron gave to Trump as a symbol of French-US unity reportedly died within weeks of being planted
https://www.businessinsider.com/friendship-tree-symbol-of-france-us-unity-reportedly-died-2019-6

Alabama law still protects rapists’ parental rights while abortion banned for victims
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alabama-abortion-ban-rape-victims-rapists-parental-rights-a8951751.html

Georgia congressman refuses to read Mueller report because he no longer trusts investigations
https://thinkprogress.org/georgia-congressman-rob-woodall-refuses-to-read-mueller-report-because-he-no-longer-trusts-investigations-7643e88d18cf/

GOP group urges Republicans to speak out on obstruction claims against Trump in new ad
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/447651-gop-group-urges-republicans-to-speak-out-on-obstruction-claims-against-trump

Banned from guns, Texas gave him a license anyway. Citizens paid the price. If you wanted to invent an avatar to represent the type of person who should not have easy access to firearms, you might come up with someone like Heon “Hank” Yoo. In 2013, after threatening to shoot his resident counselor at Rutgers University, the then-19-year-old Yoo was committed to a New Jersey psychiatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with “aggressive homicidal ideation and explosive personality disorder.” A year later a friend was alarmed enough at Yoo’s behavior at a shooting range to alert police. He “would shoot at the head of the target every time, even though range policy specifically prohibited such contact,” he reported. Even after warnings, Yoo “continued to shoot at the head.” Yoo was admitted to a psychiatric clinic again in 2015 “after repetitive disruptions [and] homicidal threats.” Several colleges banned him from their campuses. He was twice rejected for military service because of his unstable mental health. Online, he became known as the “Asian Nazi” for his racist rants and threats of violence against blacks and Jews. Yet the Texas Department of Public Safety issued Yoo a license to carry a handgun. The hospitalizations should have barred Yoo from Texas licensure; federal law prohibits anyone who has been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility from buying or possessing a gun. The public safety agency insists it conducts thorough background checks to vet applicants, so it’s unclear how it missed the red flags fluttering in Yoo’s wake. The department did not respond to questions. Yoo’s case represents a facet of the so-called relinquishment gap: the regulatory lapses that occur between the time authorities determine a person shouldn’t have guns, and when they actually disarm him. While there is no evidence a large number of gun owners slip through the public safety department’s background checks — and as a group Texas handgun licensees rarely commit crimes — the agency’s error with Yoo demonstrates how, when guns are involved, even the occasional snafu can have long-lasting consequences as officials navigate a tangle of laws to undo it. Texas’s carry permit holders can purchase guns without undergoing the required federal background check - the assumption being state regulators have already scrubbed the applicant’s past. With his record of mental instability cloaked by his Texas license, Yoo was able to easily accumulate weapons he should have been banned from having, including handguns and assault-style rifles. Later, when the public safety agency realized its error and moved to take away his license, the process took months — during which time Yoo continued using the wrongly issued permit to buy more guns. Even when it finally revoked the license, the Department of Public Safety merely mailed Yoo a letter asking him to send it back. Instead, he used it to buy even more guns. The mistake compounded and spread as Yoo used the weapons state regulators allowed him to acquire to menace and threaten East Texas residents over nearly two years. “My opinion is that he literally held the university hostage for two months with his disruptive behavior,” University of Texas-Tyler Police Chief Mike Medders said. In one 2017 incident, Smith County officials tried to have Yoo committed at a psychiatric hospital after he’d threatened to kill people. But they couldn’t find an open bed and so had to release him. “Just as an FYI, we returned Yoo’s guns to him this morning,” a Texas Ranger wrote in an email. It is not clear why the agency returned firearms to a person prohibited from having them.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Banned-from-guns-Texas-gave-him-a-license-13950790.php#photo-17626588

Impeachment Isn’t an Easy Shortcut. It’s the Hard, Necessary Thing to Do.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/06/09/impeachment-isnt-an-easy-shortcut-its-the-hard-necessary-thing-to-do/

Three Hindu men have been jailed for life for the rape, torture and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in Indian-administered Kashmir.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-48552354

China just blocked The Washington Post and The Guardian on internet
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-banned-washington-post-and-the-guardian-internet-censor-2019-6

The name of a female nurse and embryologist who played a crucial role in developing the world’s first test-tube baby was excluded from a plaque honouring the pioneers of IVF despite objections from her colleagues, newly released letters reveal.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/10/jean-purdy-female-nurse-who-played-crucial-role-in-ivf-ignored-on-plaque

Conservatives should change how they think about global warming. I did. The uncertainty of climate change is an argument for – not against – decarbonizing the economy as quickly as possible.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/10/conservatives-should-change-how-they-think-about-global-warming-i-did

Sanders voted for Hyde Amendment too
https://thehill.com/homenews/presidential-campaign/447621-sanders-defends-support-for-spending-legislation-that-included

German boat captain Pia Klemp says she faces up to 20 years in prison in Italy for "aiding illegal immigration." Her crime was rescuing people from drowning in the Mediterranean Sea.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-boat-captain-pia-klemp-faces-prison-in-italy-for-migrant-rescues/a-49112348

UK Government 'funding fossil fuel-burning plants abroad' - The government has been taken to task by its own MPs for sending billions of pounds overseas to help build power plants that burn fossil fuels while claiming a climate victory on home soil.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/10/government-funding-fossil-fuel-burning-plants-abroad

Insys becomes first drugmaker to file for bankruptcy to cover opioid penalties
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/06/10/insys-becomes-first-drugmaker-file-bankruptcy-cover-opioid-penalties/

 Pacific sea turtles likely to go extinct under Trump administration policy, lawsuit argues
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article231312373.html

House Democrats To Get Some Mueller Report Material, But Contempt Vote Is Still On
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/731300750/house-democrats-to-get-some-mueller-report-material-but-contempt-vote-is-still-o

Cummings Schedules Vote to Hold Barr and Ross In Contempt for Blocking Census Investigation
https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/cummings-schedules-vote-to-hold-barr-and-ross-in-contempt-for-blocking-census

Resolution Recommending That the House of Representatives Find William P. Barr, Attorney General of the United States, and Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Secretary of Commerce, in Contempt of Congress for Refusal to Comply With Subpoenas Duly Issued by the Committee on Oversight and Reform
https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2019-06-12.Census%20Contempt%20Resolution%20and%20Report.pdf

DOJ Inspector General says a "senior DEA official wasted and misused hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds and engaged in misconduct" by having his son and others hired by a DEA contractor though they were unqualified. The son billed DEA during college spring break.
https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1138086809097912320

Homeland Security watchdog retires after his office was forced to retract ‘feel-good’ audits of disaster response
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2019/06/10/homeland-security-watchdog-retires-after-his-office-was-forced-to-retract-feel-good-audits-of-disaster-response/

Canada Just Banned Whale and Dolphin Captivity
https://www.livekindly.com/canada-bans-whale-dolphin-captivity/

That Missing $450 Million Da Vinci Painting Is Reportedly on Saudi Crown Prince MBS' Yacht
https://time.com/5604018/missing-da-vinci-painting-mbs-yacht/

Measles cases hit 1,001 as anti-vaxxers hold another rally of disinformation
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/anti-vaxxers-continue-spreading-wild-conspiracy-theories-amid-measles-outbreak/

‘Frightening’ number of plant extinctions found in global survey | The researchers said the plant extinction rate was 500 times greater now than before the industrial revolution, and this was also likely to be an underestimate
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/10/frightening-number-of-plant-extinctions-found-in-global-survey

Gun Seller That Bet Big on Hillary Clinton Getting Elected Goes Bankrupt
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-10/political-misfire-debt-load-bankrupt-gun-seller-united-sporting

Judge says Missouri’s only abortion clinic can remain open
https://apnews.com/3b6f9de282534083b22b2f5f702c5f28

Reminder: Special Counsel heavily implied that they didn't find enough evidence to determine conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt because TRUMP obstructed the investigation