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

About one fifth of all life insurance being taken out is by companies hoping to reap cash from their employees’ demise. The “cash surrender value,” the amount policyholders can receive before a worker dies, of BofA’s policies is at least $17.6 billion. At Wells Fargo it’s $12.7 billion, and at JPMorgan Chase it’s $5 billion, according to the Times. Banks can use those numbers on their balance sheets as “Tier 1 capital,” a measure of an institution’s strength.   read more

With only seven votes to spare (310-303), Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s (PC(USA) governing body voted last week to divest $21 million from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. The corporations have reportedly provided Israel with means to destroy Palestinian homes, operate border checkpoints, and develop border barriers between it and Gaza. The church’s decision also included statements affirming the church’s belief in Israel’s right to exist.   read more

The UC Davis MIND Institute released a study showing expectant mothers exposed to certain agricultural chemicals, specifically organophosphates, face a 60% higher chance of having autistic offspring. The danger is especially prevalent during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Those at risk include residents near fields growing cantaloupes, melons, oranges, tomatoes, cotton and alfalfa.   read more

A team of researchers says they found remains stuffed inside garbage bags, body bags and in some instances nothing at all before their unmarked burials. Skulls were found in red plastic biohazard bags placed between coffins. The haphazard internment included putting multiple bodies in a single bag, making it difficult for anthropologists to determine just how many immigrants were dumped this way.   read more

Thursday’s amendment and the USA Freedom Act must still be approved by the Senate and signed into law by President Barack Obama before they become law. And the legislation would affect only the NSA. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for instance, could still attempt to have corporations install back doors in their products.   read more

If it is not flooding, it is drought—another growing concern in this climate-change century—that could severely affect power plants, many of which rely on volumes of water for their operations. Rising water temperatures will also make it more difficult to cool plant equipment. Oil and gas pipelines near coastal areas risk being hit by rising sea levels and those in the Arctic are in danger from thawing permafrost, which can affect the infrastructure of the lines.   read more

Gallup’s latest survey shows that only 7% of Americans have confidence in Congress. That’s not just the lowest number since Gallup began asking that question in 1973, but the lowest confidence figure for any institution about which it has polled.   read more

Stuck said she was given a list of words to watch for by her supervisor. “There was a list of buzzwords we had gotten,” Stuck said. “There were some obvious ones like fracking, gas, soil contamination. There were probably 15 to 20 words and short phrases that were on this list. If anybody from the public called in and that was part of the conversation, we were not allowed to talk to them.”   read more

In light of the sectarian violence in Iraq, Jones said during his June 11 confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his first priority as ambassador in Baghdad will be to protect the U.S. embassy and its employees.   read more

The documents do not divulge which governments service RAMPART-A. But it is known that under the program, the NSA has established at least 13 RAMPART-A sites, nine of which were active in 2013, it was reported. Gallagher says the NSA documents “point towards some of the countries involved – Denmark and Germany among them.” The cost of the program to American taxpayers was about $170 million for the period from 2011 to 2013, the documents show.   read more

According to an analysis by Eric Ostermeier of Smart Politics, McCarthy, 49, whose district is in California’s Central Valley, has been in the House only about 7½ years. That’s more than a year less than any other floor leader in the history of the House, and about 10 years less than average. Eric Cantor (R-Virginia), whom McCarthy is replacing, was in the House 10 years, or five terms, before he was elected leader.   read more

The numbers are a sharp increase, with much of it coming as a result of the fighting in Syria. In 2008, Syria was the country hosting the second-largest number of refugees. Now, it’s the second-largest refugee=producing nation, trailing only Afghanistan. More than half of all refugees worldwide come from those two nations, along with Somalia. The countries hosting the most refugees are Pakistan, with 1.6 million, and Iran, with almost 900,000.   read more

In 2006, Mulamula was named first executive secretary of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region in Burundi. Mulamula served with that organization until 2011. Mulamula was named senior personal assistant to Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete in 2012, a position she held until coming to Washington.   read more

In 2007, foreign ministry nominated him to be the ambassador to the United States. However Romanian President Traian Băsescu vetoed the move, and Buga returned to Bucharest to serve as state secretary in the foreign ministry. In 2009, Buga was sent to Ireland to serve as his country’s ambassador in Dublin. He stayed there until his assignment to Washington.   read more

The latest figures show immigrants make up 49.7% of the 22 million Hispanics working in the U.S., as of last year. In 2007, just before the beginning of the downturn, the share of Hispanic immigrant workers was much higher, 56.1%. Since then, American-born Hispanics have gained the vast majority of the 2.8 million jobs captured by Hispanics over the past five years, with only 453,000 going to immigrants.   read more

The ruling did not apply to the team’s logo, which means it can still have a monopoly on marketing millions of dollars in merchandise with the team insignia. In the meantime, Native Americans and others continue to call on Dan Snyder, the team’s owner, to choose a new name. To date, Snyder has refused to budge on the issue and has sworn to fight the battle in court.   read more