News recap: US Gov. FOIA failure, FLDS Church found guilty, KS Gov. implodes, Saudis own US refinery

By Robert A. Vella

Here are four important news stories from last week which might have escaped your attention:

U.S. federal government, under President Obama who had promised more transparency, has set a new record of failing to comply with Freedom Of Information Act requests (FOIA)

The twin communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah – collectively known as Short Creek – were found guilty of systematic religious discrimination against individuals not belonging to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) in a civil rights case prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

The Tea Party’s libertarian experiment in Kansas devolved into more chaos when ideologues in the state legislature purged more members deemed insufficiently conservative, and engaged in open conflict with the state’s Republican administration over an anti-gay bill and emergency measures designed to prevent Kansas’ bond rating from slipping into “junk” status

Saudi Arabia now owns the largest oil refinery in the U.S.