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

When a federal court overturned much of N. Carolina’s sweeping 2013 election law last month, saying it had been deliberately designed to discourage African-Americans from voting, the ground rules for this year’s elections in a critical swing state were thrown out too. Critics are accusing some of the boards of staging an end run around the court ruling. Like the law that was struck down, they say, many election plans have been intentionally written to suppress the black vote.   read more

Planning on picking up a flowering plant at your local garden center to attract bees? If you're thinking it hasn't been treated with harmful pesticides, think again. A new report shows that 23% of such plants sold at Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace Hardware, True Value and Walmart have been treated with bee-toxic pesticides. It is one of the contributors to population declines in bees and other pollinators. Bees and other pollinators are essential for everyone.   read more

In a class action that sounds like a Tom Clancy novel, a patient claims that implanted heart devices can be attacked by hackers. The security flaws not only put patients' information at risk, but the heart implants are vulnerable to attack "in ways previously not possible." For instance,someone could "modify the implant without necessarily being close to the victim," Ross says. "Such attacks can put at risk the safety of the patient with the implantable device, with fatal consequences..."   read more

The lawsuit against Pima County seeks a temporary restraining order and injunction to preserve image files generated during the early vote count in the primary and subsequent elections. Pima plans to delete the images after counting them, a problematic process, because "if there are any questions or concerns or auditing that would need to come up later, there's that kind of missing piece in the chain of custody of the ballots in the counting process," said attorney Nye.   read more

Not all college prep companies are playing by the rules. In their investigative series for Reuters, a team of reporters found that foreign companies are increasingly helping students game the U.S. college application process. Some companies have leaked questions from college entrance exams to their students before they take the test. Others have gone so far as to ghostwrite entire college applications and complete coursework for students when they arrive on campus.   read more

One horrifying example detailed the heart surgery of a 7-month-old child. The operation took extra hours after a suction tube used for blood was found clogged with that of a previous patient. Staffers found hair and dried blood on instruments, and were often forced to use malfunctioning equipment, like a cauterizing tool that burned a child's lip during use. Another harrowing incident had staffers scrambling to obtain tools to regulate a patient's heartbeat during his open heart surgery.   read more

Georgia voters have had to prove where they lived, been purged from rolls and rejected from registering to vote. Will any of that will have a chilling effect on voter participation this presidential election? Voting rights groups have made Georgia one of the most closely watched states in the nation, given fears that the state's elections agency has become too partisan, tried to hinder registrations or suppress turnout. On top of that: Georgia could be in play in the presidential race.   read more

"States have strong interests in ensuring that charities do not serve as fronts for fraud or crime," the judge said. Requiring charities to disclose their source of funds directly promotes New York's interest in fighting fraud and does not substantially burden a charity's 1st Amendment rights, the opinion states. Stein said Citizens United presented "no factual background or support for their conclusory assertions" that their donors would face harassment if their contributions were disclosed.   read more

According to investigations in several states, Insys’ business model relied on funneling substantial payments to the doctors who most frequently prescribed its drugs, even if they had troubling disciplinary records or even criminal histories. The lawsuit alleges the speaking events “functioned more as social gatherings,” and physicians in attendance hardly mentioned the drug at all, instead ordering as much food and drink as they liked.   read more

"We never had any idea we were being recorded," said public defender Cardarella. "This has had a chilling effect." A federal judge said the recordings might have violated the Sixth Amendment rights of hundreds of inmates and ordered them stopped. Kansas Public Defender Melody Brannon called the intrusion into attorney-client privilege "unprecedented." "We couldn't find anything even comparable to the degree of invasion and misconduct by the government that is before the court," she said.   read more

Record visitor numbers have created a sometimes dangerous frenzy, with selfie-taking tourists routinely breaking park rules and getting too close to Yellowstone's storied elk herds, grizzly bears, wolves and bison. Major parks are grappling with illegal camping, vandalism, theft of resources, wildlife harassment and other visitor misbehavior. In July alone, law enforcement rangers handled more than 11,000 incidents at the 10 most visited national parks.   read more

The curb on new student enrollment at ITT, which has been under heightened financial scrutiny from the department since 2014, is just the latest move in a long-running campaign to halt deceptive advertising, illegal recruitment practices and other abuses by career training and other for-profit educational institutions. “People are defaulting at a rate of two per minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Nassirian said. “The vast majority [of students] are victims, not deadbeats.”   read more

Bee expert Marla Spivak said the governor's order "puts Minnesota miles ahead of all the other states in our nation. ... Some may think that these actions go too far, but I honestly don't know a farmer, a nursery operator, a grower, a pesticide applicator that wants to kill a bee or monarch while they're controlling their crop pests." Said Gov. Dayton: "We're not trying to ban anybody's practices or businesses. but there's a lot more we can do...to protect the pollinators."   read more

Even before the latest incidents, Cook had many misadventures. He got bitten by an alligator that he "accidentally" caught while fishing. And he was bitten by his friend's Burmese python, which he was trying to feed. "It's been a rough four years," he said. "Maybe the higher up ... is trying to get your attention that maybe something is going wrong. Or maybe I've simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time my whole life." He is unemployed because the company fired him due to his absences.   read more

Cars that wirelessly talk to each other are finally ready for the road, creating the potential to dramatically reduce traffic deaths. The government and auto industry have a decade and more than $1 billion researching V2V technology. "We're losing 35,000 people every year (to traffic crashes)," said GM lobbyist Lightsey. "This technology has the power to dramatically reduce that. To me, the ability of somebody to download movies or search the internet or whatever should be secondary to that."   read more

"Historically, doctors and therapists were held in high regard and protected in general," said Spero. "And so to start bringing them into the criminal system, there's a lot of resistance." Agencies may even pull the plug on their investigation if the doctor agrees to step aside. That means any evidence of violations is hidden from the public. Regulators can also discipline a doctor without ever considering whether his violations could be criminal.   read more