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

It's getting harder for criminal defendants to win their cases due to judges looking over their shoulders and worrying about political accusations of being soft on crime. This development stems from increases in campaign spending on races for judicial seats. “[State] justices, already the targets of sensationalist ads labeling them ‘soft on crime,’ are under increasing pressure to allow electoral politics to influence their decisions, even when fundamental rights are at stake.”   read more

The terms of the settlement were negotiated by Warren’s lawyers and approved by the mayor and city council. Warren was arrested after a high-speed car chase in which he struck a school bus, a police car, and a police officer. After Warren flipped his car, five Birmingham police officers descended on him, repeatedly hitting and kicking him. The arrest was captured on video taken by a police car dashboard camera and later shown on national news. Warren sued for assault and battery.   read more

No matter how you look at it, the economic picture for most of America is not good. Saddled with growing amounts of mortgage, consumer credit and student debt, the 90% has had little in the way of extra money to put into savings, says a new study. In fact, the savings rate by those in the lower 90% is about zero. By comparison, the top 1% of families put aside about 35% of their income. The authors say that income inequality will increase as long as the middle-class savings rate remains low.   read more

“Afghan farmers grew an unprecedented 209,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2013, surpassing the previous peak of 193,000...in 2007," said SIGAR. "With deteriorating security in many parts of rural Afghanistan and low levels of eradication of poppy fields, further increases...are likely in 2014.” The illicit trade was valued at nearly $3 billion last year. Regions that had become “poppy free” as a result of U.S. anti-drug programs have been experiencing a “resurgence in cultivation.”   read more

“We’re in a day when a person can commit about 15,000 bank robberies sitting in their basement,” said the FBI's Robert Anderson. Some of the big name businesses targeted by hackers recently include JPMorgan Chase, Target and Home Depot. About half of all adult Americans—110 million people—have had their financial data compromised in some way in the past year. About 80% of businesses don’t realize their accounts have been breached until being informed by financial institutions or customers   read more

Republican senators Tom Coburn and Mike Lee are blocking the measure from moving forward in the Senate. They say the plan could result in the federal government paying for a large portion of the museum at a time of trillion-dollar debts. Bill co-sponsor Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) says the holdup is “just outrageous.” She noted that other groups have established museums in Washington through the creation of a commission, which is what the bill calls for.   read more

The government of Rwanda has decided to start screening all visitors arriving from the United States. Rwanda may be reacting to an incident in New Jersey, where two Rwandan exchange students were pulled out of school following fears by staff members and parents that that the two might be carrying the Ebola virus, despite no evidence that they were. In fact, New Jersey is closer to Texas, site of the U.S. outbreak, than Rwanda is to West Africa, more than 2,500 miles away.   read more

“Among those receiving Social Security benefits were SS troops who guarded the network of Nazi camps where millions of Jews perished, a rocket scientist accused of using slave laborers...and a Nazi collaborator who engineered the...execution of thousands of Jews in Poland,” reported AP. Still getting Social Security payments from the U.S. government are Martin Hartmann, former SS guard at the Sachsenhausen camp; Jakob Denzinger, former guard at Auschwitz; and Wasyl Lytwyn of the Nazi SS.   read more

Each year millions of teenage men are required to register for a draft that does not exist. Those who don’t sign up are barred from receiving federal financial aid, student loans, job training, or employment from certain public agencies. In 40 states, getting or renewing a driver’s license is linked to whether a person registered for the draft. Each violator is also at risk for spending five years in prison and being fined up to $250,000, if the Justice Department chooses to prosecute.   read more

Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall said that the lack of disclosure stemmed from a policy requiring the agency to receive three separate Freedom of Information Act requests before releasing a report—an unrealistically high standard. Most of the cases "stayed hidden from public view," according to Greenwire. “Among them were cases exposing nepotism, contracting violations and allegations that BP America underpaid its gas royalties by millions of dollars.”   read more

Officials insisted the plants had to go in order to help preserve water supplies, and the situation was so dire police need not obtain a court order first. Judge Thelton Henderson wrote: “The need to reduce water use, even during a drought, falls below the level of urgency associated with emergencies justifying a warrantless search in existing case law. The county’s inexperience in obtaining warrants...does not excuse the requirements of the [U.S.] Constitution."   read more

Given this year's record-warm months, it’s not surprising that 2014 will likely go down as the hottest year ever recorded. “This is one of many indicators that climate change...continues to be one of the most important issues facing humanity,” said climate scientist Donald Wuebbles. "Next year could well bring Earth's hottest year on record, accompanied by unprecedented regional heat waves and droughts,” warned meteorology director Jeff Masters.   read more

More U.S. police departments are using electronic surveillance on cell phones and laptop computers belonging not just to criminal suspects but also law abiding citizens. It's not clear which departments are doing this because the federal government has helped to shield police from disclosing their spy hardware. However, now that Washington, D.C. police are using this spy gear, members of the government might also be among those spied upon.   read more

With the help of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), the U.S. House has increased the number of investigations into ethics violations. But the Senate has yet to establish its own effort independent of the committee process to probe wrongdoing by members. Since the creation of the OCE in 2009, the House Ethics Committee has handed down 20 disciplinary actions against lawmakers. The Senate doesn’t have an independent ethics board, and it shows.   read more

The Facebook request comes in the wake of a lawsuit filed against the DEA by a woman claiming agents used her name and photographs to create a phony profile on the site, which the DEA did for an investigation. Sondra Arquiett was arrested on drug charges four years ago, during which her cell phone was confiscated. She claims the DEA lifted her images from her phone and put them up on Facebook to create a fake profile using her pseudonym, Sondra Prince.   read more

In 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota. His parents, Jerry and Patty Wetterling have dedicated themselves to not only finding their lost child, but also helping other parents see their children come home safely. While Patty Wetterling has “helped change the landscape of missing children, from sex offender registries to police training,” the rate of missing children found has increased significantly—from 62% in 1990 to 97% today   read more