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

Shortly after taking command of the military campaign in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal pledged American forces would be more selective and careful in the use of airstrikes against the Taliban in order to reduce the number of ci...   read more

Imagine spending $1.4 million every day since the beginning of this year to convince Congress to do right by you. That’s the amount the health industry has averaged with its lobbying expenditures from January to June on Capitol Hill, while lawmake...   read more

On Monday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin will decide if Bernard Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison. Of the more than 1,300 individuals swindled by Madoff, one investor who can’t say he was victimized by the now-infamou...   read more

The battle is not yet over, insist environmentalists, following a decision on June 22 by the U.S. Supreme Court that allows mining companies to dump waste into lakes and waterways. The court case stemmed from efforts by Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. t...   read more

As with almost any agreement, there’s always the fine print. Iraqis making plans to celebrate the “victory” of American troops pulling out of their cities by June 30 might want to check out certain, little-noticed exceptions to the Status of Force...   read more

Regardless of the public declarations by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the Obama administration will bolster defenses to protect Hawaii from a possible North Korean missile launch on July 4, the United States has nothing to worry about. Nort...   read more

The United States has controlled Puerto Rico for 110 years, yet American lawmakers have never bothered to ask Puerto Ricans what they want to do about their future. But a bill currently in Congress would do just that, by conducting a two-part refe...   read more

In a ruling that has major ramifications for government whistleblowers, an obscure federal employment review board decided this week that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was justified in firing a veteran air marshal for revealing ...   read more

There are two major flaws in the Obama administration’s plan for reorganizing the federal government’s oversight of the financial industry, according to Richard Posner, a judge on the seventh circuit court of appeals. First, the 88-page report pro...   read more

Within the nearly 90 pages of President Barack Obama’s plan to reform the government’s regulation of the financial industry is a recommendation to expand the role of a little-known international banking body called the Financial Stability Board. T...   read more

On June 28 New Yorkers will participate in the five-mile “Hope and Possibility” run, an event inspired by the recovery of Trisha Meili, a young woman who was raped and brutally assaulted in Central Park on April 19, 1989. In 2004, Meili finally we...   read more

For Jon and Kate Gosselin, stars of the reality TV show “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” the news isn’t all bad. They are still getting a divorce, but it just so happens that the Internal Revenue Service has just changed its rules that apply to claiming child...   read more

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, any community that averages less than 100 cases of cancer for every 1 million people is doing okay. Once the rate goes above a hundred, EPA considers the situation unacceptable. Which begs the...   read more

When is a tiny mysterious island bigger than just a “speck” of earth in the ocean? When that speck sits atop huge oil reserves, say officials in Mexico. The long lost Isla Bermeja has been the focus of an intense search by scientists from the Nati...   read more

Let the festivities begin! Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has declared June 29 a national holiday in Iraq to celebrate the withdrawal of American forces from Iraqi cities. In accordance with the security agreement Washington signed late last year ...   read more

Even if a lawsuit by families of those who died during the September 11, 2001, attacks is not successful in court, the effort may result in shedding light on long-alleged connections between al-Qaeda and the Saudi royal family.   Lawyers represe...   read more