LA RUANA, Mexico — The farm state of Michoacan is burning. A drug cartel that takes its name from an ancient monastic order has set fire to lumber yards, packing plants and passenger buses in a medieval-like reign of terror.

The Knights Templar cartel is extorting protection payments from cattlemen, lime growers and businesses such as butchers, prompting some communities to fight back, taking up arms in vigilante patrols.

Lime picker Alejandro Ayala chose to seek help from the law instead. After the cartel forced him out of work by shutting down fruit warehouses, he and several dozen co-workers, escorted by Federal Police, met on April 10 with then-state Interior Secretary Jesus Reyna, now the acting governor of the state in western Mexico.

The 41-year-old father of two only wanted to get back to work, said his wife, Martha Elena Murguia Morales.

But, as often, the cartel responded before the government did.

On the way back, his convoy was ambushed, twice. Ayala and nine others were killed.

“I called him after the first one, and he said, `They shot at us, but I’m OK,’” Murguia Morales said. “Then I called him again, and he didn’t answer.”
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The heart of a conflict where a mafia openly rules and the government is largely absent is nowhere more evident than in the lime groves that cover the hot, hilly plains, miles and miles of trees with the fruit yellowing and falling into uncollected heaps on the ground.

More: Knights Templar Drug Cartel Burns Michoacan, Western State in Mexico

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) brushed away a question about Latinos working in his administration during a roundtable discussion at The Union League in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Friday, telling the moderator, “If you can find us one let me know”:

MODERATOR: Do you have staff members that are Latino?

CORBETT: No, we do not have any staff members in there. If you can find us one, please let me know.

MODERATOR: I am sure that there are Latinos that…

CORBETT: Do any of you want to come to Harrisburg? See?!

More: Governor Can’t Find a Single Latino in Pennsylvania to Work for Him

Tesla haters just lost another quiver in their dwindling arsenal. The upstart electric automaker has paid off the entirety of its Department of Energy loan — a whopping $451.8M — and did it nine years ahead of schedule.

“I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the [Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing] program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” Tesla CEO and co-founder Elon Musk said in a statement. “I hope we did you proud.”

The repayment of the DoE loans comes just weeks after Tesla reported its first profit after 10 years in the car-making business. And thanks to a stock offering last week that raised $1 billion, it was able to repay the balance of its federal loans.

Tesla is also crowing about the fact that it’s the first American automaker that has fully paid back the feds through the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) program. But then again, Tesla didn’t take much compared to Ford ($5.9 billion) and Japanese automaker Nissan ($1.4 billion).

More: Tesla Pays Off All $465M in Federal Loans 9 Years Early

More: $40 for Case of Bottled Water? ‘Preying’ on Oklahoma Tornado Victims

Investigators with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office have already uncovered evidence of businesses taking advantage of the recent tornado’s devastation by price-gouging in the weather-ravaged region, including a grocery store accused of charging consumers $40 for a case of water.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told ABC News that 30 investigators from his office started aggressively combing the region for fraud just hours after the tornado tore through it – and immediately found businesses violating the law.

“This is something we were putting in place and starting in motion as soon as we knew the threat existed,” Pruitt said. “We’re going to places where we think potential harm could occur.”

Using a law known as the Emergency Price Stabilization Act, consumer protection investigators are teaming with local law enforcement to catch fraud as it happens. The law was passed after a tornado leveled the same region in 1999 and prohibits price increases of more than 10 percent on goods and services such as water and hotel rooms for 30 days after a disaster. It extends to 180 days for construction-related complaints.

In addition to the $40 cases of bottled water, Pruitt said his team uncovered a hotel in the area that was allegedly overcharging in violation of the law.

“We’re looking at everything from work gloves to water to storage units, hotels and car rentals. And long term, we’ll be dealing with home construction and repair,” he said.

Despite repeated warnings to be on the lookout for scam artists after a disaster, Pruitt said many Oklahomans are still unaware that they can be ripped off.

“They would never anticipate or expect or guess that someone would take advantage of them right now, but this situation is what criminals prey upon,” he said.

Read more at ABC News.

Duke University engineers have developed a novel method for producing clean hydrogen, which could prove essential to weaning society off of fossil fuels and their environmental implications.

While hydrogen is ubiquitous in the environment, producing and collecting molecular hydrogen for transportation and industrial uses is expensive and complicated. Just as importantly, a byproduct of most current methods of producing hydrogen is carbon monoxide, which is toxic to humans and animals.

The Duke engineers, using a new catalytic approach, have shown in the laboratory that they can reduce carbon monoxide levels to nearly zero in the presence of hydrogen and the harmless byproducts of carbon dioxide and water. They also demonstrated that they could produce hydrogen by reforming fuel at much lower temperatures than conventional methods, which makes it a more practical option.

Catalysts are agents added to promote chemical reactions. In this case, the catalysts were nanoparticle combinations of gold and iron oxide (rust), but not in the traditional sense. Current methods depend on gold nanoparticles ability to drive the process as the sole catalyst, while the Duke researchers made both the iron oxide and the gold the focus of the catalytic process.

The study appears online in the May issue of the Journal of Catalysis, viewable at sciencedirect.com

More: New Method for Producing Clean Hydrogen

We the people
In order to form a more perfect union
Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
Provide for the common defense,
Promote the general welfare and
Secure the blessings of liberty
To ourselves and our posterity
Do ordain and establish this Constitution
for the
United States of America.

(emphasis mine)

Wow, who knew the Founding Fathers were a bunch of socialists, talking about helping out other people and whatnot?

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“The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don’t trust the Republicans,” Cruz said. “

More: Ted Cruz: ‘I Don’t Trust the Republicans’

“It all points to a culture of political intimidation. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that the culture of intimidation is simply confined to the Executive Branch. The Administration’s allies in the Senate are trying to intimidate their political opponents as well. What I’m talking about, is the persistent threat by the Majority to break the rules of the Senate in order to change the Rules of the Senate—in other words, to use the nuclear option—if they don’t get their way.

More: Mitch McConnell Loses His Mind and Accuses Harry Reid of Intimidating Him