The Panama Papers: China is blocking news coverage and internet information about the Panama Papers, the massive leak of documents that have revealed the offshore financial dealings of the rich, the famous and a handful of people connected to the highest levels of the Communist Party. At least three of seven highly placed Chinese people named in the documents are related to party biggies, including President Xi Jinping.

The Panama revelations are an embarrassment to China, which is at least trying to look like it’s routing out corruption. Now they’ve got families related to the government hiding wealth in offshore tax dodges, not to mention the question of where they got the money. Apparently their solution is to try to keep the Chinese public from hearing about it.

White Collar: Former Massey Energy executive Donald Blankenship, who was found guilty of violating federal coal mine safety standards after an explosion that killed 29 miners, has been sentenced to one year in prison and a $250,000 fine. That’s the maximum he could have received.

A semi-repentant Blankenship said before sentencing, “My main point is wanting to express sorrow to the families and everyone for what happened,” and later added, “I am not guilty of a crime.”

Blankenship was acquitted of three felony charges, but prosecutors successfully argued for a misdemeanor count that he made employees ignore safety standards that threatened profits.

God and Man in Mississippi: Governors in New York, Vermont, and Washington have banned non-essential state employee travel to Mississippi because of its new “religious freedom” law that allows discrimination against homosexual, transgender, and even unmarried people living together on the basis religious objection.

Some of Mississippi’s largest companies including MGM Resorts and Nissan have voiced their objection to the law.

The law defines as “religious beliefs or moral convictions” the beliefs that marriage is only between a man and a woman, sex is exclusive to such unions, and gender is defined by anatomy and genetics at birth. The law lays out a range of business and personal services that can be denied, including performing a wedding, making a cake, and renting out apartments and hotel rooms.

Nation: Former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka has been convicted of impeding an FBI investigation into corruption and beatings inside the LA County jail. Tanaka was accused of ordering his deputies not to cooperate with the lead FBI investigator and concealing an inmate who was working as an informant. Tanaka could get 15 years in federal prison – too bad it couldn’t be the LA County Jail.

The Obit Page: Merle Haggard, the man who put the twang in country music and lived a life that gave him heartbreak to sing about, died at age 79 in California. Thirty-eight of his singles, including “Hungry Eyes,” “Workin’ Man Blues,” and “Okie from Muskogee” hit No. 1 on the Billboard country chart between 1966 and 1987.

Haggard did time in juvenile detention and California’s notorious San Quentin, where he saw Johnny Cash perform. Several of Haggard’s songs were about prison. In “Mama Tried” he sang:

“I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole.

No one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried.”

Acronymity: George Mason University has already changed the name of its planned law school to be named after the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The school was to be called the Antonin Scalia School of Law, but when they realized that the name reduced to an acronym is “ASSoL,” they thought better of it. Now it’s the Antonin Scalia Law School, which is just no fun.

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