Today’s News & Commentary — May 2, 2017

The nonprofit group United to Protect Democracy is suing the Trump administration over alleged intimidation of civil civil servants. In a blog post, one of the lawyers asserted that their goal was to protect “the civil service from purges, intimidation, or politicization.” The group seeks documents from the Department of Energy related to an attempt by the Trump transition team to get the names of civil servants and other contractors who worked on Obama administration climate change programs. A suit against the Department of Health and Human Services is similar, seeking documents related to the Trump administrations targeting of employees who worked on or expressed views on the Affordable Care Act or abortion rights.

The New York Times offers analysis on the “winners and losers” of the Congressional spending deal that will fund the government until Oct. 1. Among the winners are retired mine workers, who will receive federal backing for their struggling health care plans. The agreement represents a concession by Democrats generally, but a big win for  Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-WV) and others from coal states.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a Female engineer at Facebook has collected data that suggests code written by women is rejected 35% more often than their male counterparts. The finding affirms a long-held suspicion among female engineers that their work received more scrutiny than men’s. A Facebook spokesperson described the findings as, “incomplete and inaccurate—performed by a former Facebook engineer with an incomplete data set.”

French labor unions are split on whether to endorse Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen in the upcoming presidential election, according to the New York Times. Unions have historically opposed Le Pen’s far right National Front, but are also skeptical of the job market overhauls that Macron defended as economy minister and intends to expand.