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

“It is clear that we’ve reached a tipping point,” Collins wrote. “In accordance with NIH’s commitment in June 2013, I have reassessed the need to maintain chimpanzees for biomedical research and decided that effective immediately, NIH will no longer maintain a colony of 50 chimpanzees for future research.” Additionally, NIH intends to develop a plan for phasing out all agency support for the remaining chimps that are supported by, but not owned by, the NIH.   read more

Jeb Bush adviser John Noonan wrote: “Forced federal registration of US citizens, based on religious identity, is fascism. Period. Nothing else to call it.” Another right-wing voice, Iowa radio host Steve Deace, remarked: “If Obama proposed the same religion registry as Trump every conservative in the country would call it what it is—creeping fascism.” Trump’s attempts to control the media and inciting violence against critics also suggest fascist characteristics, according to some historians.   read more

Pew Research Center conducted a survey last year to discover what differences appear between telephone polls and those conducted online. Pew found that questions asked on the phone about the quality of a respondent’s life tended to have more positive answers than those posed online. Societal discrimination was another area that had a noticeable difference, with telephone subjects more often saying gays and lesbians, Hispanics and blacks face a lot of discrimination.   read more

The Republican presidential hopeful has gotten nearly $8.5 million in TV advertising and he hasn’t paid a dime for it. The ads have come courtesy of the Conservative Solutions Project, an organization that is supposed to use its money to promote social welfare causes. But the only cause it appears to be promoting is Rubio’s, which would appear to be a violation of IRS regulations. The New York Times called the organization’s tactic “one of the most brazen” abuses of the political finance system.   read more

The judge’s rulings in the case are seen as setting a precedent in support of requests for e-file data from the government and, consequently, may motivate the IRS and other federal agencies to overhaul its longtime method of releasing records. The IRS had balked at complying with the FOIA request, claiming that it would cost $6,200 to develop new technology and train its employees in its use--an "undue burden" under a "sequestration" budget. Judge William Orrick rejected that excuse.   read more

In his confirmation hearing on Nov. 17, 2015, Califf drew opposition from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on his ties to the drug industry. “At a time when millions of Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescription drugs they need, we need a new leader at the FDA who is prepared to stand up to the pharmaceutical companies and work to substantially lower drug prices,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that Dr. Califf is not that person.”   read more

He served as a second lieutenant in Cambodia’s army from 1972 to 1975 as a military police officer, with training in the United States at Fort Gordon, Georgia. When the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975, Bun Rong initially went into hiding, then was imprisoned by the regime. He told journalists, according to his biography, “I basically thrown away my uniform and escaped into the jungle feeding myself with insects and roots to survive.”   read more

Sayavongs began working with Laos’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1982. He was sent to the then-Soviet Union for education, earning an MA in international relations in 1988. Upon his return to Laos, Sayavongs was a desk officer in the ministry’s Department of International Organizations. He took time to earn another MA, this one in Asia and international studies from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, in 1996.   read more

Eighty of the largest cities in the world are working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the effort seems to be a success. A new report says the C40 network of cities (now with 80 members) is expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 645 megatonnes by 2020. The reduction would be equivalent to not using 1.5 billion barrels of oil, or nearly 170 coal-fired power plants. The cities collectively represent 600 million people and a quarter of the global economy.   read more

Nix, a federal employee, gave a copy of his film to the FBI, but sold the original to then-wire service UPI for $5,000. UPI promised to keep it for 25 years. Nix died in 1972. When Nix’s granddaughter, Gayle Nix Jackson, tried to recover the film from UPI, the wire service said it no longer had it. Jackson has been trying for years to get the government to return the film to her family and has now filed a lawsuit seeking its return.   read more

Thanks to the import policy and labeling, the number of dolphin deaths related to tuna fishing has gone down 97% since the ban went into effect in 1990. But that successful effort is now being threatened by the WTO, which has ruled for the fourth time in four years that the labeling program is unfair to Mexico. The Mexican government fought the labeling since 2008, resulting in WTO decisions against the U.S. in 2011, 2012 and twice this year.   read more

He came home in 2006 to serve as executive assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. He was sent back to Mozambique the following year, this time as Deputy Chief of Mission. He did a tour in Kabul, Afghanistan, as senior diplomatic coordinator for economic affairs, from 2010 to 2011, where he helped administer $4 billion in economic assistance.   read more

In 1988, Greenberg joined the Center for Law and Social Policy, where he wrote extensively on federal welfare policies. He was on hand for the welfare reform signed into law by President Clinton. “This is not a proposal that provides or creates jobs for people. It simply pulls out the rug from under them,” said Greenberg in 1993. “So long as we have a society with unemployment, there are going to be people who cannot find jobs. Under this proposal, they and their children are going to be hurt.”   read more

Pritzker and seven scientific organizations have not backed down in the face of Smith’s threats, going so far as to accuse the congressman of conducting “a partisan witch hunt” and “inquests.” “The repercussions of the committee’s actions could go well beyond climate science, setting a precedent to question other topics such as [GMOs] and vaccines that have controversial regulatory and policy implications,” the groups wrote. “It’s an affront to the scientific process," said AAAS CEO Rush Holt.   read more

Valeant Pharmaceuticals is boosting the prices of older drugs, this time remedies for cancer patients with skin conditions. The soaring costs “have been off the charts," said researcher Dr. Steven Rosenberg. "We're not talking about new [or exotic] drugs. None of this makes any sense other than that they can get away with it.” Drug giant Pfizer is planning to boost profits another way, by buying Allergan and relocate to Ireland so it can avoid paying income taxes to the U.S. government.   read more

Over the past two years, frackers have been less forthcoming, with drillers increasingly citing use of proprietary compounds to limit disclosure. The trend was discovered by two Harvard researchers who examined more than 96,000 disclosure forms. It was found that drillers have been holding back more information. The study documented a 16.5% withholding rate on forms filed between 2013 and April 2015, compared to 11% in an Environmental Protection Agency analysis between 2011 and 2013.   read more