FBI agents will have to defend claims they improperly retaliated against Muslim Americans after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to nix the suit.

While Congress continues to dither over distributing another stimulus check to members of the American public during a pandemic that has stuttered the economy and left many unemployed and unable to meet the cost of their basic needs, it’s become increasingly clear that the Paycheck Protection Program—ostensibly meant to support workers in small businesses—has been a site for all kinds of scamming.

I mean, I guess they are better than their opponents, maybe.

Having declared victory in its war on Backpage and sex work, the liberal-conservative coalition has pivoted to porn.

After a Russian Secret Service officer died by suicide inside the Kremlin last month, Meduza special correspondent Maxim Solopov started looking into the psychological resilience of security officials. In the process, he uncovered a company supplying Russia’s intelligence services, police, and military with “Multipsychometers” — “psychodiagnostic hardware and software systems” developed at a research institute run by the Soviet Union’s Strategic Missile Forces in the 1980s. As it turns out, an entrepreneur who now lives in Moscow’s ritzy Rublevka suburb managed to build a successful business off this piece of psychotechnology — thanks to some good connections in the Russian Defense Ministry and security agencies. ... The DIP Center’s flagship product for the intelligence services and law enforcement agencies is the “Multipsychometer” psychodiagnostic system — a computer equipped with a special software and the following basic hardware accessories: “a specialized psychodiagnostic keyboard, a unit for psychomotor tests, a joystick-type analogue manipulator, a foot pedal, [and] headphones.” The “psychodiagnostic keyboard” looks like a regular one that’s had all its keys removed except for the arrow and the number buttons. For mass testing, the manufacturer offers a version of the “Multipsychometer” system complete with a printer and scanner, which can be used to print tests on forms and processes the results automatically (all you have to do is load the results back into the system). The programs for the psychodiagnostic systems contain a library with several hundred tests designed to identify psychiatric problems, depression, and workplace conflicts, as well as assess the psychological resilience of test subjects. On the company’s website, prices for the base model “Multipsychometer” start at 183,000 rubles ($2,485). Publicly available government contracts show that one of the fully optioned models (complete with a steering wheel and pedals) costs up to 300,000 rubles ($4,074). According to the business database Spark-Interfax, the DIP Center, which employs 16 people, had its highest earnings in 2015 — 100 million rubles in revenue ($1.36 million). But in 2019, revenues fell to 21 million rubles (about $285,000) and the company showed a loss. The software, patents, and trademarks used by the DIP Center — in other words, all of the intellectual property for the psychodiagnostic systems — belong to a software supply company called Innovative Psychotechnologies. The company’s main owner, according to Russia’s Unified State Register of Legal Entities, is the former co-owner and founder of the DIP Center, 58-year-old Vladimir Burlakov. Though he comes from the city of Zlatoust in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, Burlakov now lives in Gorky-2, a luxury settlement in Moscow’s Rublevka suburb, located along the Rublevo-Uspenskoye Highway. Customers listed on the Innovative Psychotechnologies website include the Russian Investigative Committee, Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, and Russian Railways (RZD), as well as the Moscow and St. Petersburg subway systems. This company also has many letters of gratitude from high-ranking security officials, including certificates from Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin and former Internal Troops Commander Viktor Zolotov, who now heads the Russian National Guard. The company proudly proclaims that “more than a milin specialists” have been tested using its methodologies. A former DIP Center employee told Meduza that each deal with the security forces on the sale of psychodiagnostic systems brought Burlakov “at least 200 percent profits.” Apparently, the businessman also liked to boast about his great connections in government agencies. “How far upwards his connections extend I don’t know, maybe it’s more bluff than reality,” Meduza’s source said. Burlakov himself did not respond to Meduza’s interview request. Spokespeople for his company, Innovative Psychotechnologies, warned our correspondent that he is unlikely to talk to the press.

Women involved in a massage-parlor prostitution sting involving Robert Kraft were ordered to pay fines last week - months after all charges were dropped against the New England Patriots owner. Four women, Kraft, and 24 other men were charged last year when state prosecutors said the men engaged in sex acts with employees at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa and Massage in Jupiter, Florida.

Flint has taken important steps toward resolving the lead contamination crisis that made the impoverished Michigan city a symbol of the drinking water problems that plague many U.S. communities.

On Wednesday morning, a suspect walked into the Teamsters building on Indiana and Division carrying a device that he claimed was a bomb.

A sheriff's deputy working for a fugitive task force shot and killed a Black man trying to enter his own home in Columbus, Ohio, last week in a case that is now being investigated by federal authorities.

Going viral was nice. But it didn’t appear to actually move persuadable voters in swing states.

Older lawmakers’ foibles and infirmities are coming under new scrutiny, violating an unspoken culture of complicity and coverup.

"I had a dream where there was a food called 'King’s Hand', a hollow hand made of m&m cookie, filled with Greek salad. I could not stop thinking about it. Here is the culmination of a week long effort," they wrote in a tweet that now has over 138,000 likes and 13,000 retweets (and counting). The post included a photo set of the finished product and a cross section of the cookie and salad concoction.

Have you heard the news? The world’s tallest mountain got a little taller yesterday. At the start of the week, Mt. Everest’s officially listed consensus height was 29,028.87 feet, but after Chinese and Nepalese authorities agreed on the results of a recent survey, it is now 29,031.7 feet. Headlines around the world blared that Everest had just undergone a growth spurt. It hadn’t—the only sudden change in Everest’s height in the last decade, as we’ll get into, was actually a negative one. But more to the point, the sudden confluence of the messiness of a seemingly simple question like “What is the shape of the Earth?”, the inscrutability of geologic time, and scientifically illiterate headlines was more or less made for me. Before I took to writing for a living, I was on the honest path of an Earth scientist, and I graduated with a degree in geology. A fellow student of mine in those days, Curtis Baden, is now in his seventh year of his PhD study at Stanford. During our time, we mapped a chunk of the Argentinean Andes, and though I split dramatically with my education, he is now on a lifer’s path. The reception of the Everest news was inevitably overblown, and while well-actuallying it might be worth it, I think it’s the perfect opportunity to get into the weeds on this stuff. What really is a mountain range? How special are the Himalayas? The geoid was in the news, for chrissakes.

Sludge produces investigative journalism on lobbying and money in politics. The American Prospect is re-publishing this article.

After pausing in the months before the election, federal authorities are now actively investigating the business dealings of Hunter Biden, a person with knowledge of the probe said. His father, President-elect Joe Biden, is not implicated. Now that the election is over, the investigation is entering a new phase. Federal prosecutors in Delaware, working with the IRS Criminal Investigation agency and the FBI, are taking overt steps such as issuing subpoenas and seeking interviews, the person with knowledge said. Activity in the investigation had been largely dormant in recent months due to Justice Department guidelines prohibiting overt actions that could affect an election, the person said. CNN contacted Biden's attorney and the campaign this week seeking comment about the investigation. On Wednesday, they released a statement acknowledging the probe.

Tax records obtained by CMD reveal two donors to the right-wing publication's new, affiliated nonprofit.

Joe Biden has offered Marcia Fudge the role of HUD secretary, even though she is more qualified for the Department of Agriculture... Fudge lamented that in her view, Black politicians tend to be relegated to a limited number of cabinet positions. “As this country becomes more and more diverse, we’re going to have to stop looking at only certain agencies as those that people like me fit in. You know, it’s always ‘we want to put the Black person in labor or HUD,'” she said.

Facebook becomes the latest Silicon Valley giant to be hit with an anti-trust lawsuit for its possible monopolistic practices

Theresa Toledo was known for her delicious Mexican food and had been preparing tamales to deliver to relatives. But she struggled with her 28-year-old grandson, Alexander Toledo, who lived in the basement of her south-central Omaha home. Theresa had grown fearful of him, and on Monday she filed an application for a domestic abuse protection order. In the petition, she said he used methamphetamine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. “I need Alex out of my house now before he destroys my house or harms me, the drugs make him crazy,” she wrote. Theresa, 73, and her 45-year-old daughter, Angela Toledo Miller, who is Alex’s mother, died Tuesday morning when Theresa’s house exploded. The blast and resulting fire leveled the family home at 4810 S. 51st St. and damaged neighboring houses. Theresa’s partner, Larry Rodriguez, 72, and Alex Toledo were taken to Nebraska Medical Center in critical condition, family members told The World-Herald. Alex was then flown to a burn unit in Kansas City for treatment, family members said.

“There is no reason to think that in 30 years much of anything will be as it is today,” one of the editors of a new report on the Arctic climate said.