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

Mines are closing and the coal industry is facing a run of bankruptcies and other bad news, but a company backed by a $90 million investment is defying conventional wisdom by preparing to open two new mines in Appalachia, the hardest-hit coal region. This coal won’t be used for electricity but for steel manufacturing. Metallurgical coal prices are up lately due to a mix of international market factors.   read more

“This is opening up a whole new can of worms — we have seen problems with security contractors on the battlefield since 9/11, and there’s been an improvement in oversight in that area, but that came after a decade of problems,” said law professor Laura A. Dickinson. “With drones, this is a new area where we already do not have a lot of transparency and with contractors operating drones there’s no clearly defined regime of oversight and accountability.”   read more

This election cycle, it seems that many CEOs have chosen to be less public about whom they are supporting in the presidential race. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich canceled an event at his home for Donald Trump after it was reported to be causing a firestorm among Intel employees. Some executives privately say they worry they could see reprisals against their business or industry if they were to actively campaign for one candidate or another.   read more

Borrowers wrestling with college debt often complain about the companies that manage their student loans. Now federal regulators have stepped up pressure on loan servicers to treat their borrowers better. Just this week, Wells Fargo, the second largest lender of private student loans, agreed to pay a $3.6 million civil penalty to settle allegations that the bank used illegal loan servicing practices that resulted in higher costs and fees for some borrowers.   read more

It is a growing national problem. The number of homes on the market in the U.S. has fallen for the last 14 months. The inventory of homes for sale is the lowest it has been since modern records started being kept in 1982. Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire Facebook CEO, found a place he liked near San Francisco’s Mission District in 2012 and paid the owner at least twice what it was worth. People of much more modest means are now echoing his tactics, even if they cannot extend his lavish terms.   read more

She began work at the Afghanistan desk on July 30, 2001, while the Taliban were still in power. Less than two and a half months later, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Beginning in 2003, Pasi served as deputy principal officer and acting consul general at the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt, Germany. From 2006 to 2009, she was the deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.   read more

The NSO Group sells surveillance tools that can capture all smartphone activity, such as a user’s location and personal contacts. They can even turn the phone into a secret recording device. Last month, its spyware tried to gain access to the iPhone of a human-rights activist in the UAE. A second target was a Mexican journalist who wrote about corruption in the Mexican government. “There’s no check on this ... governments can essentially use them however they want," said Bill Marczak.   read more

“I’m a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,” said Tybee mayor Jason Buelterman. Local leaders say they cannot tackle this problem alone. Yet Congress has largely ignored their pleas, and has even tried to block plans by the military to head off future problems at the numerous bases imperiled by a rising sea. A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda."   read more

Thousands of earthquakes have hit Oklahoma in recent years. Seismologists say the quakes are caused by high-pressure injection of wastewater from oil and gas wells, both conventional ones and those that are hydraulically fractured, or fracked. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas activity, announced that it had ordered the shutdown of wastewater wells across 725 square miles in the area hit by the quake. About three dozen wells are affected.   read more

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and other GOP state officials hoped the Supreme Court would grant a stay that would keep their law in place. The split meant a loss for the state's appeal. Voters thus will not have to show one of several qualifying photo IDs when casting ballots in the presidential battleground state. It also means early voting also reverts back to 17 days, to begin Oct. 20. The now defunct rules would have reduced the number of early voting days to 10.   read more

Among the new FDA rules is a ban on the charitable donation of tobacco products. Van Trees runs Support the Troops, a nonprofit organization that sends care packages to bases in locations such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Cigars are the second-most-requested item in those packages, behind coffee and ahead of toothpaste and tube socks. "It means the world to these guys who love to sit by the fire and smoke some sticks," Van Trees said. "This is going to put a huge hole in what we do for them."   read more

Microsoft’s effort to rally support is part of a growing resistance by technology companies to government attempts to snoop on the electronic communications of their customers. Microsoft president Brad Smith said the company was grateful for the support of 80 signatories. “It’s not every day that Fox News and the ACLU are on the same side of an issue,” he said. “We believe...people should know when the government accesses their emails unless secrecy is truly needed,”   read more

"We have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," said FDA's Dr. Woodcock. Studies showed changes in testosterone, estrogen and thyroid hormones. Scientists worry that it could raise the risk of infertility, early puberty and even cancer. Because the chemicals are known to kill some bacteria, even if they are no better than soap, experts worry that routine use will help allow drug-resistant germs to emerge that cannot be killed by antibiotics.   read more

A judge will allow the Engineers to keep shooting cormorants by the thousands,despite objections from environmentalists who say the slaughter doesn't address the real cause of dwindling salmon populations: hydroelectric dams. Since 2015, the government has shot 4,740 cormorants and poured vegetable oil on 6,181 nests to suffocate the eggs. Judge Simon said the government violated the law by not considering other ways to increase salmon survival rates but declined to stop the killing.   read more

Online sales make up only 7% of all U.S. retail transactions. But players such as Amazon are only getting bigger while traditional department stores and big-box chains are getting smaller. So real estate developers are looking for new tenants not directly competitive with Amazon. They're filling shopping plazas with urgent care centers and dentist offices, hair salons, gyms and restaurants. "What's in high demand is Internet proof," said Wheeler. "It's all experiences you can't get online."   read more

In 2011, he was made special assistant for Europe and Russia to Vice President Joe Biden. He later became a point man for the State Department in relations with those countries and helped coordinate aid for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Silverman turned down a chance to become Ambassador to Lebanon in 2015 because of health reasons, and remained a Deputy Assistant Secretary until accepting the Kuwait post.   read more