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

The federal government abolished the civil service exam in 1981 following multiple discrimination lawsuits that claimed the test was biased against minorities. But with so many people applying to become federal employees, some agencies decided to bring back the civil service exam, albeit in a much newer and modern format that tries to avoid being unfair to blacks and Hispanics. About 10% of would-be bureaucrats at three dozen government agencies will take the USA Hire test.   read more

Sixty-two police vehicles and more than 100 officers--37% of the police force--joined the pursuit. Once the suspects were cornered, more than a dozen officers opened fire and unloaded 137 shots at the vehicle. Forty-nine of the bullets fired came from the gun of Brelo, who climbed on top of the suspects’ Chevrolet Malibu and fired pointblank at the windshield. Russell and Williams were hit more than 20 times each and died inside their car. It was determined that neither of them had been armed.   read more

The problem, critics say, is the face. It features jagged teeth and a crazed expression, prompting comparisons to everything from zombies and Yoda to Joseph Stalin, and actor Steve Buscemi. “If he’s the artist and the sculptor, you would think he would take some pride in his work and say, ‘Yeah, that’s probably not up to par and I should make it right,’” said Mayor Schrecengost. “But his last statement to me was, ‘If nobody likes it...just take it down and put it in storage.’”   read more

LegiStorm, a non-partisan watchdog group, analyzed the number of Senate and House of Representatives legislative assistants and other staffers who are assigned to the issue of abortion. On the Democratic side, 173 women and 60 men deal with abortion. But among Republicans the gender breakdown is the opposite: 139 women and 153 men.   read more

Private companies and some law enforcement agencies have readers in stationary locations and mounted in vehicles all over the country. By collecting information on all the places a license plate has been spotted, a person’s movements can be tracked. The largest commercial database is owned by Vigilant Solutions and as of last fall, the company had more than 2.5 billion records and its database was growing by 2.7 million records a day.   read more

In 1975, according to a report by the American Academy of Diplomacy, 60% of State Department personnel with the rank of assistant secretary or higher were career Foreign Service personnel with only 37% of them political appointees. In 2014, the percentages were nearly reversed: only 30% of senior leadership at State were active Foreign Service officers while 51% were political appointees.   read more

Auto companies, with the assistance of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restrict car owners and others from tinkering with or even examining the code that performs many functions in modern vehicles. They’ve come up with excuses ranging from nanny state nagging (you can’t repair your car because you might not do it right) to the ridiculous (you might use a vehicle’s entertainment system to illegally pirate music).   read more

When three white University of Iowa students were arrested after being caught with loot stolen from seven homes in the Marion, Iowa, area, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids ran the suspects’ freshman yearbook photos, which showed them looking clean-cut in suits with matching gold ties. When four black men were arrested on the same day for a burglary and assault they committed in a home Coralville, The Gazette ran police mug shots.   read more

The biggest travel spender in the House from 2010 to 2014 was Democrat Madeleine Bordallo, a non–voting delegate who represents Guam. She spent $1,061,780. Bordallo’s office explained the high expenses were a result of the cost of flying the delegate and staffers back and forth from Guam. However, Sunlight Foundation reporting showed that Bordallo and her staff were not taking advantage of more favorable airfares negotiated by the government.   read more

The State Department has been doing business with 30 contractors who use policies that discourage whistleblowing by employees, according to a government audit. The report said 13 contractors required workers to tell their superiors about being contacted by a government auditor or investigator. Five contractors use non-disparagement agreements that demand current and former employees avoid saying anything negative about the company or its officers or employees.   read more

Linda Thomas was moved from her office to a converted cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago after she reported mismanagement and financial waste in June 2014. The “office” had no phone, computer or other equipment necessary for her work and she was forced to climb staircases through inmate areas to reach her desk.   read more

A group protesting a proposed purchase of environmentally sensitive Everglades land from U.S. Sugar Corporation was found to be actors from a nearby theater group. The “protesters” were asked via Facebook to show up last Thursday at South Florida Water Management District headquarters in West Palm Beach. The actors were offered $75 (but “NO BREAKFAST”), according to the posting.   read more

In July 2012 Delawie returned to Washington as deputy assistant secretary for European security, technology and implementation verification in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, where he still serves as he awaits Senate confirmation to the Kosovo post. There he’s responsible for the Offices of Euro-Atlantic Security Affairs; Verification, Planning, and Outreach; and the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center.   read more

The 4-second recording contains information related to negotiations between the U.S. government and South Vietnam connected to the war. The NSA claims the brief recording, if released, “would reveal information that would impair U.S. cryptologic systems or activities.” Historians say the snippet probably refers to former President Johnson's threat to expose an illegal effort by the Nixon presidential campaign to sabotage the Paris peace negotiations on ending the war in Vietnam.   read more

The worms have been shown to sniff out stomach, colorectal, colon, esophageal, pancreas, bile duct, prostate, breast and lung cancers and correctly diagnose it 96% of the time, which researchers say is better than a blood test. “In existing tests, people must have different examinations according to the type of cancer they have,” study author Takaaki Hirotsu said. “Our odor-based test detected all nine types of cancer we tested.”   read more

Correctional officer Robert Johnson was the target of an unsuccessful murder-for-hire by a prison inmate. Johnson and his wife, who witnessed the shooting, sued nine telecommunications providers, including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, claiming they should be held partly responsible for allowing the calls that arranged for the shooting. But the court said that would mean the cell phone providers would have had to stop the calls and, in doing so, violate federal law.   read more