According to aides who were present when Trump discussed the issue, but who choose to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, Trump said he was sick of Vance and wanted to fire him. “I wanted him to be my attack dog,” said Trump, “but he appears foolish on television. He dropped the college football trophy. He met with Pope Francis and the next day the pope died. Vance is toxic, and I don’t want him to come near me. He just doesn’t look as good on television as I thought he would.”   read more

Under the proposal drafted by the Dept. of Labor, workers would be allowed to use the paid sick leave for themselves or to care for family members, including parents, children, spouses and domestic partners. “It would apply to absences from work resulting from domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, if that time was used to seek medical attention, obtain counseling, seek relocation assistance from victim services organizations or prepare civil or criminal proceedings,” wrote the Times.   read more

Civil liberties groups have said the CISA bill could weaken privacy protections for Americans. DHS reported that CISA would allow tech companies to share the data they’d collected on their users with the government. “CISA’s vague language and expansive definitions will give the government new ways to collect and use the personal information and communications of innocent Americans, all without a warrant or any review by an independent court or overseer,” wrote ACLU's Nathaniel Turner.   read more

The law, drafted by the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, was passed last year after an animal rights group produced an undercover video of the Dry Creek Dairy showing workers abusing cows. Judge Winmill tossed out the law, saying it criminalized investigative journalism, undercover investigations and whistleblowing. Winmill even cited Upton Sinclair’s classic exposé, “The Jungle,” saying that if Sinclair had written that today in Idaho, he would be prosecuted.   read more

In New York state, more than 40 lawmakers were found to have collectively spent $7 million of their campaign funds on lawyers hired to deal with scandals or investigations since 2005. Former N.Y. Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver spent $1.5 million in campaign funds to pay for lawyers in his corruption case. “Campaign funds should not be used to keep someone out of jail,” said Lauren George of Common Cause. “And most donors didn’t have that in mind when they contributed.”   read more

The concern stems from a device used around the world to monitor natural gas facilities and their leaks. It relies on two sensors that are supposed to measure the amount of methane that escapes. However, researchers found that one of sensors sometimes fails to do its job, causing the device to undercount the methane leak. "The finding could also have implications for all segments of the natural gas supply chain, with ripple effects on predictions of the rate of climate change," wrote the Times.   read more

Experts at the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland said many glaciers are melting up to three times the rate of the 20th century. “The observed glaciers currently lose between half a meter and one meter of its ice thickness every year—this is two to three times more than the corresponding average of the 20th century,” said lead study author Michael Zemp. "These glaciers will suffer further ice loss, even if climate remains stable.” The researchers called it "a global phenomenon.”   read more

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) led Republicans this week in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood for a practice he supported and voted for in Congress. In 1993, Congress approved the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, which authorized the donating of fetal tissue for research, including samples from legal abortion procedures. McConnell, along with other Republicans, voted for that bill and others that allowed fetal tissue research.   read more

The Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in San Francisco seeking documents under the Freedom of Information Act that document Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) procedures for issuing national security letters to spy on the media. The Justice Department has so far refused to release the information or even respond to the FOIA request the foundation made in March.   read more

The Marine Corps can’t account for $800 million in transactions after proclaiming last year that its books were balanced, something the Marines and other branches of the military have struggled to accomplish. The Defense Department is facing a deadline of 2017 to show Congress that all of its books are up to date and accurate. The Pentagon was originally supposed to have its accounting squared away by 1997, but the deadline has been pushed back several times   read more

The group Airwars says its six-month investigation into the airstrikes found enough evidence to believe at least 57 attacks caused between 459 and 591 civilian deaths and between 48 and 80 allied military fatalities between Aug. 8, 2014 and June 30, 2015. The coalition has looked into only 10 reported incidents of non-IS deaths, admitting just two civilians have died out of more than 5,800 airstrikes that unleashed 18,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria.   read more

Gallup was named in a class-action lawsuit for violating a law that prohibits making making “any call . . . using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice.” Gallup denied having done this, but settled the suit for $12 million. The settlement may now cause Gallup and other polling firms to think twice before calling mobile phone users. Those who use mobile phones exclusively include many young people and Latinos. That group also tends to skew Democratic.   read more

In what may be a first for the agency, the FDA has issued a cybersecurity alert to hospitals using computer-controlled pumps to administer drugs to patients. Certain Hospira pumps contain vulnerabilities that could allow a hacker to adjust the dosage of a drug. With their communications modules used for updating, "you can make the pump do whatever you like,” Rios said. A hacker would need no physical access to the pump.   read more

The New York Times called this “concentration of political donors” “unprecedented in the modern era.” Most of the $388 million in contributions has funneled into super PACs, some of which have collected tens of millions of dollars from a small number of donors in just a matter of days. Republicans have been especially good at this. “Just 130 or so families and their businesses provided more than half the money raised through June by Republican candidates and their super PACs,” wrote the Times.   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t override tribal laws because the tribes are not parties to the U.S. Constitution. Tribal members Alray Nelson and Brennen Yonnie may challenge the legality of the Dine Marriage Act in the Navajo Supreme Court. “We can, yes, remove ourselves from our community and go get married like say in a city in San Francisco or in Albuquerque," said Nelson. "But that's not our community. Our songs and those prayers we were both raised with...[are] located here."   read more

If the women make it all the way through Ranger School, they will receive the coveted Ranger tab. However, they will not be permitted to serve with the 75th Ranger Regiment, which performs special operations missions. The women are part of a one-time experiment as the Army attempts to find out which combat jobs may be opened to women. The services may close off certain jobs to women, provided they show why they wouldn’t be suitable for the assignments.   read more

Labor salaries have tripled in China over the past decade, from $4.35 to $12.47 an hour. The average manufacturing wage in the U.S. is $22.32, which is still higher than in China. But when the costs of energy and materials are factored in, Chinese executives have concluded their businesses may be better off in the U.S. American states can provide tax breaks and subsidies and the companies get better prices on natural gas and cotton.   read more