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

Boren offers kids $1 for every pound of candy they bring in. He says it’s important to limit a child’s sugar intake because of the damage it can do to their teeth. Too much sugar can cause caries disease that leads to enamel decay, dental research shows.   read more

In heated testimony before the House Intelligence Committee yesterday, NSA chief Keith Alexander claimed that it was European intelligence agencies that did some of the spying in their own countries and supplied the NSA with the data. In one day alone, December 11, 2012, the NSA intercepted 3.5 million calls, according to an NSA graphic entitled “Spain – last 30 days.”   read more

In Pennsylvania in 2012, Republican congressional candidates won 49% of the vote, but gained 72% of the seats. Throwing in Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri and Virginia, the Republican and Democrats split the combined vote almost evenly. Yet in these five states Republicans won 51 seats to only 21 for Democrats.   read more

Once the U.S. removes its remaining 40,000 troops from Afghanistan, only about 20% of the country will be accessible to U.S. government overseers, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). “It’s difficult even for Afghans to inspect some of these projects,” a U.S. reconstruction specialist told the Post. “If they’re walking around with a camera and a notebook, they’ll draw attention to themselves as someone connected with Western money.”   read more

Among those apprehended in the raids—which have also taken place in Santa Clara—was Gurvinder Singh, an Indian national, who had arrived in court to marry his partner, Kuldeet Kaur. He was told he was being arrested due to having entered the U.S. illegally through Mexico, in spite of the fact that he was in the middle of immigration proceedings and had never missed a court appearance.   read more

Games constituted the most common mobile media activity among young children, 63% of parents reported. Only 30% of kids used these devices for reading. The study also found that children eight years and younger still spend more time with “traditional” screen media such as television, DVDs, computers, and video games.   read more

And it’s not just premium high-speeds that put the U.S. so much above other countries in terms of cost. Lower to medium broadband services can average $99 in San Francisco and $70 in New York City, compared to $38 in London, $35 in Paris and $15 in Seoul. “Americans pay so much because they don’t have a choice,” Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy, told BBC News.   read more

Sexwale, now a successful businessman and former South African government minister, was stopped for questioning at John F. Kennedy airport while attempting to enter the U.S. on a recent business trip. Security officials said they held Sexwale because his name appeared on the terrorism watch list, which wasn’t updated to reflect the fact that the ANC member ceased being a threat in his own country 20 years ago.   read more

In 1988, Phillips founded his own law firm, Phillips & Cohen, based in Washington, DC, to specialize in whistleblower cases. At his Senate confirmation hearing, Phillips testified that his firm had helped recover $55 billion from companies that were defrauding the government. Phillips is the founder of Taxpayers Against Fraud, a nonprofit that promotes the use of the False Claims Act and its qui tam provisions to fight fraud against the government.   read more

The German tabloid Bild alleged that Obama was personally briefed in 2010 about the operation to target Merkel’s phone by the NSA’s director, Keith Alexander, and that he authorized it to continue. The Wall Street Journal cited numerous unnamed sources who said the White House didn’t learn of the NSA spying until this past summer, when the operation against Merkel was shut down.   read more

The criminal complaint filed against Muhtorov relies heavily on e-mails and phone calls that the government intercepted without obtaining a search warrant as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Muhtorov’s attorney will now be able to file papers asking the trial court to suppress that evidence, and the inevitable appeals will eventually reach the Supreme Court.   read more

The brothers stand to make up $100 billion from KXL—1 million times more than the average KXL worker’s wages would be over the life of the project, according to the report. The Kochs expect KXL to generate profit for them based on the 4,000 miles of pipeline operated by Koch Pipeline Company, the lucrative dealings in oil derivatives by Koch Supply and Trading, and the ownership of at least 2 million acres in Alberta with tar sands by Koch Exploration Canada.   read more

“Companies are swallowing up stations at an alarming rate, often through deals that violate the law.” The report cites corporations like Sinclair Broadcast Group, Gannett, Media General, Nexstar and the Tribune Company that have created shell companies to buy up local stations and avoid federal limits on such purchases.   read more

It is an indisputable fact that the U.S. tortured detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, during interrogations between 2001 and 2006. Yet when defense attorney Jason Wright pointed out at a recent hearing that his client “was subjected to waterboarding for 183 sessions,” Judge James Pohl ruled him out of order for discussing classified information that can be uttered only behind closed doors.   read more

The asbestos was present in about 13 billion Kents, which were sold between March 1952 and May 1956 with Lorillard’s patented “Micronite” filter, which was made out of cotton, acetate, crepe paper and a particularly virulent form of asbestos called crocidolite. .   read more

Farmer Steven Jensen discovered a six-inch fountain of oil bubbling up from his land and reported a pipeline spill. Investigators determined that a quarter-sized hole in a Tesoro Logistics pipeline had befouled at least seven acres of Jensen’s farm with more than 865,000 gallons/20,600 barrels of oil, making it one of the largest inland oil pipeline accidents in U.S. history. Nevertheless, North Dakota officials kept the massive oil spill a secret for eleven days.   read more