The Obama Administration and a federal judge in San Francisco appear to be headed for a showdown over the controversial state secrets privilege in a case about the U.S. government's 'no-fly' list for air travel.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup is also bucking the federal government's longstanding assertion that only the executive branch can authorize access to classified information.

The disputes arose in a lawsuit Malaysian citizen and former Stanford student Rahinah Ibrahim filed seven years ago after she was denied travel and briefly detained at the San Francisco airport in 2005, apparently due to being on the no-fly list.

In an order issued earlier this month and made public Friday, Alsup instructed lawyers for the government to "show cause" why at least nine documents it labeled as classified should not be turned over to Ibrahim's lawyers. Alsup said he'd examined the documents and concluded that portions of some of them and the entirety of others could be shown to Ibrahim's attorneys without implicating national security.

"After a careful review of the classified materials by the Court, this order concludes that a few documents could potentially be produced with little or no modifications to them," Alsup wrote in an April 2 order (posted here). "This order independently determines that in addition to correspondence between the parties, the two internal training documents are eligible for production to plaintiff's counsel without implicating national security."

If the judge persists in his ruling, it would be highly unusual since most judges are loath to override the executive branch's conclusions that certain information needs to be classified on national security grounds. It has happened on a few occasions (see here, here, and here), but such decisions are very rare.

Three years ago, Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists and supporters of libertarian causes, held a seminar of like-minded, wealthy political donors at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colo. They laid out a three-pronged, 10-year strategy to shift the country toward a smaller government with less regulation and taxes.

The first two pieces of the strategy - educating grass-roots activists and influencing politics - were not surprising, given the money they have given to policy institutes and political action groups. But the third one was: media.

Other than financing a few fringe libertarian publications, the Kochs have mostly avoided media investments. Now, Koch Industries, the sprawling private company of which Charles G. Koch serves as chairman and chief executive, is exploring a bid to buy the Tribune Company's eight regional newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Orlando Sentinel and The Hartford Courant.

By early May, the Tribune Company is expected to send financial data to serious suitors in what will be among the largest sales of newspapers by circulation in the country. Koch Industries is among those interested, said several people with direct knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition they not be named. Tribune emerged from bankruptcy on Dec. 31 and has hired JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners to sell its print properties.

The papers, valued at roughly $623 million, would be a financially diminutive deal for Koch Industries, the energy and manufacturing conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., with annual revenue of about $115 billion.

Politically, however, the papers could serve as a broader platform for the Kochs' laissez-faire ideas. The Los Angeles Times is the fourth-largest paper in the country, and The Tribune is No. 9, and others are in several battleground states, including two of the largest newspapers in Florida, The Orlando Sentinel and The Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. A deal could include Hoy, the second-largest Spanish-language daily newspaper, which speaks to the pivotal Hispanic demographic.

The United States is exploring how to save money on security by charging a toll to Canadians crossing the border by ground - a possible new traveller's tax that immediately raised fierce opposition from political and business leaders in both countries.

The idea of a "crossing fee" was revealed in a recent budget request by the Department of Homeland Security, which was seeking funds to study the cost of collecting a new toll for people walking and driving into the United States from the north and south.

Exercise Saturday will test the Postal Service and the region's response plans to a biohazard event.

The U.S. Postal Service plans to conduct an emergency preparedness exercise in Melville this week.

The exercise planned for Saturday will test the Postal Service and the region's response plans to a biohazard event.The Postal Service says the "full-scale" exercise will include employee evacuations from the Mid Island Mail Processing & Distribution Center.

The exercise is scheduled to begin Saturday, April 27 at 11 a.m. and last about three hours. Some disruption to traffic may be expected at this location.

Also participating in this activity will be the Melville Fire Department and other community mutual aid responders, Suffolk County Public Health Department, County Homeland Security and Anti-Terrorism, County Fire Rescue Emergency Services and other federal agencies.

Raleigh, NC - NCDOT Ferry Division is taking part in security exercise drills on Wednesday, involving its ferry terminals at Cherry Branch, Minnesott Beach, Pamlico River and Cedar Island. All vessels assigned to those routes will also be involved.

NCDOT would like to point out that the exercise is not taking place in response to any threat to the ferry vessels, terminals or any other transportation venue or facility, but rather as a learning exercise to assist in making North Carolina ferries safe for the traveling public.

Similar drills have been taking place within the Ferry Division over the last few years.

The Ferry Division and its staff will be partnering with the Transportation Security Administration's Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) team, Craven and Carteret County Sheriff departments and emergency services, and the United States Coast Guard Sector North Carolina.

This is an exercise in which local and federal agencies work together to supplement existing security resources, officials say.

Cleveland - Today the Indians are partnering with the City of Cleveland for a full-scale emergency exercise.

The practice drill has been in the planning stages for the past six months and is set to begin around 10:30 a.m. Downtown patrons will see members of the Cleveland Police Department, Fire and EMS, plus Cuyahoga County's office of emergency management, the Medical Examiner's and Sheriff's Department around Progressive Field.

The FBI, Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center, Urban Search and Rescue, SWAT and other agencies are expected to participate as well, however, there will be no disruption of public safety services.

The exercise has been in the planning stages for the past six months. Local officials say recent events in Boston and West, Texas, have highlighted the importance of these types of training sessions. Follow live tweets from NewsChannel 5 Managing Editor James Pollack inside the emergency exercise.

The Department of Defense is holding an urban warfare training exercise at the former Tinley Park Mental Health Center site tonight and tomorrow, village officials have announced.

The government training exercises "will include building breaching and helicopter operations," according to Mayor Ed Zabrocki.

"Building breaching" involves the use of small explosives that are used to take out doors, explained Pat Carr, the Emergency Management Agency's director in Tinley Park.

"The Mental Health Center grounds provide a very realistic training environment for these different types of exercises," Carr said.

Village officials are notifying the public about the training exercises to avoid frightening local citizens after the Boston Marathon bombing last week.

"The concern we have is that, when this occurs...on the hands of what happened in Boston, it's gonna make people's nerve-endings a little more sensitive," Zabrocki said.

The Tinley Park Mental Health Center will be closed to the public during the event. Carr said there shouldn't be too much noise from the helicopters or the explosives.

In the past two years, the Mental Health Center has been used during training exercises by the Illinois State Police, the Cook County Sheriff's Office, Chicago Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in addition to Tinley Park's public safety agencies.

"What's unique about this one is that it goes on multiple days and it's probably the largest of what we've had so far," Zabrocki said.

What is happening to you America? Once upon a time, the United States was a place where free enterprise thrived and the greatest cities that the world had ever seen sprouted up from coast to coast. Good jobs were plentiful and a manufacturing boom helped fuel the rise of the largest and most vibrant middle class in the history of the planet. Cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Baltimore were all teeming with economic activity and the rest of the globe looked on our economic miracle with a mixture of wonder and envy. But now look at us. Our once proud cities are being transformed into poverty-stricken hellholes.

Did you know that the city of Detroit once actually had the highest per-capita income in the United States? Looking at Detroit today, it is hard to imagine that it was once one of the most prosperous cities in the world. In fact, as you will read about later in this article, tourists now travel to Detroit from all over the globe just to see the ruins of Detroit. Sadly, the exact same thing that is happening to Detroit is happening to cities all over America. Detroit is just ahead of the curve.

We are in the midst of a long-term economic collapse that is eating away at us like cancer, and things are going to get a lot worse than this. So if you still live in a prosperous area of the country, don't laugh at what is happening to others. What is happening to them will be coming to your area soon enough.

The following are 24 signs that our once proud cities are turning into poverty-stricken hellholes...

A woman who suffers from depression has admitted killing her friend after she called at her house for tea and a chat.

Marlene Torlay, 61, attacked Mary McCracken, 59, with scalding water, a hammer and a knife sharpener, at her home in East Kilbride, in October 2012.

The Crown accepted her guilty plea to a reduced charge of culpable homicide due to diminished responsibility.

Torlay was ordered to be detained under an interim compulsion order at Royal Edinburgh Hospital's Orchard Clinic.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that she had been prescribed too high a dose of an anti-depressant which could cause acute withdrawal symptoms, and may have missed a dose of the drug.

The court heard that Torlay was friends with Mrs McCracken, who was known as Marie and was a senior service assistant for the WRVS at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride.

Now that Federal Aviation Administration furloughs have gone into effect, the U.S. Department of Transportation is considering lifting a rule that says airplanes can't remain on the tarmac for more than three hours for domestic flights before allowing passengers to deplane.

The tarmac delay rule was put into place in 2009 after a series of incidents in which passengers were stranded on airplanes for lengthy periods of time. The Department of Transportation mentions one case of a six-hour ground delay in Rochester, Minn.

Two airline industry associations filed a motion with the Department of Transportation requesting a moratorium on the rule for at least 90 days or until the FAA furloughs end. They cite the " substantial delay and disruption to air travel that will occur at U.S. airports from the FAA decision to implement daily ground delays and reduce air traffic control personnel" as part of the federal spending cuts known as the sequester.

The motion notes that about 6,700 flights will be delayed daily at 13 of the country's busiest airports now that the furloughs have started. And that doesn't take into consideration bad weather, staffing problems or " any other issues that could affect daily operations."