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Daily Archives: May 12, 2013

TRAC: Southern District of Texas Leading in Record Year for Immigration Prosecutions

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “Very timely Justice Department data show that during the first six months of FY 2013, the rate of federal criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses is up 9.8 percent over the previous year, with 50,468 such prosecutions reported as of the end of March. If this pace continues, more individuals will have faced criminal immigration charges this year than at any other time in United States history. Regionally, the Southern District of Texas (Houston) now leads the nation with 17,022 immigration prosecutions so far this year. The Western District of Texas (San Antonio) is in second place with 13,379 prosecutions. Arizona, the district with the most immigration prosecutions in FY 2012, has slipped to third place with 11,476. Arizona is also recording the largest decline — 22 percent — of any district in the nation. For more details, including top ten district rankings and lead charges, go to the report.”

Quantifying the benefit of early climate change mitigation in avoiding biodiversity loss

Quantifying the benefit of early climate change mitigation in avoiding biodiversity loss. Nature Climate Change (2013). doi:10.1038/nclimate1887. “Climate change is expected to have significant influences on terrestrial biodiversity at all system levels, including species-level reductions in range size and abundance, especially amongst endemic species. However, little is known about how mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions… Continue Reading

Annual Energy Outlook 2013

Annual Energy Outlook 2013: “The projections in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA’s) Annual Energy Outlook 2013 (AEO2012) focus on the factors that shape the U.S. energy system over the long term. Under the assumption that current laws and regulations remain unchanged throughout the projections, the AEO2013 Reference case provides the basis for examination and… Continue Reading

Declining Migration Within the US: The Role of the Labor Market

Declining Migration Within the US: The Role of the Labor Market, Raven Molloy, Christopher L. Smith, and Abigail Wozniak. April 2013, Finance and Economics Discussion Series – Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C. “We examine explanations for the secular decline in interstate migration since the 1980s. After showing… Continue Reading

Unintended Consequences of School Accountability Policies

“Accountability policies linked to school performance may result in unintended consequences, such as inducing schools to engage in strategic classification of certain students to improve overall scores rather than make genuine improvements to the quality of education. This “gaming of the system” by schools in an influential model program is revealed in new analysis by… Continue Reading

GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Study Requests

“Access to the underlying (patient level) data that are collected in clinical trials provides opportunities to conduct further research that can help advance medical science or improve patient care. This helps ensure the data provided by research participants are used to maximum effect in the creation of knowledge and understanding. Researchers can use this site… Continue Reading

Chairman Bernake Speech – Monitoring the Financial System

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke At the 49th Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois – May 10, 2013 – Monitoring the Financial System “The step-up in our monitoring is motivated importantly by a shift in financial regulation and supervision toward a more macroprudential, or systemic,… Continue Reading

Investigative report – chemicals from personal care products and cancer

Did my wife’s cosmetics give her breast cancer? Inside a regulatory disaster zone by John Wasik – Washington Monthly, May 6, 2013. “The European Union bans nearly 1,400 chemicals from personal care products because they are carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic to reproduction. But in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration entrusts safety regulation… Continue Reading