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

Canada’s government may be having second thoughts about allowing former al-Qaeda child soldier Omar Khadr back into the country.   Khadr agreed to a plea with U.S. military officials that required him to provide information on other terrorism su...   read more

Of the 17 Afghans murdered by Bales on March 11, 11 of them were relatives of farmer Muhammad Wazir, who lives in the village of Balandi in the Zangabad area of Panjwae district.   Wazir was away at the time of the attack, visiting his brother, ...   read more

Nearly 40 members of the House of Representatives earmarked $150 million to organizations affiliated with themselves and their family members from 2008 to 2010, according to a government watchdog organization.   Citizens for Responsibility and E...   read more

Even as the Obama administration goes full speed ahead on its version of the Bush administration’s supposedly defunct “total information awareness” program by building a massive complex in the Utah desert that will intercept, analyze and store com...   read more

Scientists at a leading defense contractor and government research laboratory have been working on developing a new generation of drone aircraft that utilizes nuclear power.   Based on a vaguely worded report out of Sandia National Laboratories,...   read more

When the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) released revised regulations last year to allow the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to kill sea lions thought to be eating too many salmon, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and...   read more

Election year pressure from the U.S. weapons industry succeeded last week in persuading Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to release $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt by using her authority under a new law to waive a requirement that she cert...   read more

Despite a recent study showing that mountaintop removal coal mining—in which coal companies literally remove the tops of mountains, dump the tons of debris into nearby streams and then strip mine the underlying coal—causes children born nearby to ...   read more

Just three years after Kingston, Tennessee, (pop.: 5,934) suffered through a massive spill of up to 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic coal waste from earthen dams and holding ponds at a local TVA facility, some residents are complaining about a dif...   read more

A career Senior Foreign Service Officer whose career has included two postings to Africa will be the next ambassador to the African nation of Uganda. President Barack Obama nominated Scott H. DeLisi to the post on January 23, 2012, subject to Sena...   read more

The former Soviet republic of Georgia is to be sent a new ambassador who previously served there as a peacekeeping monitor during the Georgian Civil War of the 1990s. Richard B. Norland, who was nominated by President Obama on February 17, 2012, w...   read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed to let Pfizer sell a higher dosage of a best-selling Alzheimer’s drug as a means of extending its patent, even though the new prescription dose caused potentially harmful side effects.   Developed by...   read more

Advertising is a billion-dollar investment for the U.S. government, which ranks in the top 10 of biggest spenders on marketing campaigns.   In 2010, federal agencies spent $945 million on ad contracts. More than half of this total was allocated ...   read more

For hundreds of American communities, prohibition never ended. Nearly 80 years after the law banning alcohol was repealed in 1933, many counties and towns in the South continue their “dry” ways. Citizens residing in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkans...   read more

The Pacific island nation of Micronesia will soon have its eighth U.S. ambassador, a career Foreign Service Officer who will be serving her first ambassadorship. Dorothea-Maria (Doria) Rosen was nominated by President Obama on March 9, 2012, subje...   read more

The new U.S. ambassador to Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, has specialized in relations with Africa and the Caribbean. Makila Z. James was nominated by President Obama on February 17, 2012, subject to Senate confirmation, to replace Am...   read more