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

With more people choosing to reduce, if not eliminate gluten from their diet, Catholic leaders have tried to accommodate those who can’t ingest communion wafers—which are made of whole wheat per the Code of Canon Law—without getting sick. “Imagine how painful and spiritually challenging it is for faithful Catholics, who desire to receive Holy Communion...but who are unable to ingest wheat bread because of the grave physical harm it can cause them,” wrote Monsignor Mark J. Meridian.   read more

How are small towns expected to finance their equally small governments? Use of roadway speed traps is the obvious answer. Or so claims one state attorney general. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster has sued 13 municipalities in St. Louis County for violating state law. Four were accused of using monies from speeding tickets and other traffic violations to pay for more than 30% of their budgets, which is in violation of Missouri law.   read more

The United States didn’t skip a beat last weekend when it officially ended the war in Afghanistan, then launched its new mission to justify the nearly 11,000 American soldiers remaining in the country. A ceremony was held Sunday that declared the 13-year war against the Taliban and insurgents was concluded. The very same ceremony was used to proclaim the start of operation “Resolute Support,” which calls for keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan to advise and train the Afghan military.   read more

“A global disease-forecasting system will improve the way we respond to epidemics,” Sara Del Valle, a study co-author, said. “In the same way we check the weather each morning, individuals and public health officials can monitor disease incidence and plan for the future based on today’s forecast.” The researchers said that through Wikipedia, they observed flu outbreaks in the U.S., Poland, Japan and Thailand.   read more

The Marshall Islands has asked the International Court of Justice to order nations with nuclear weapons to engage in talks to ban the weapons. The action is directed at the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China, as well as India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. The Marshall Islands contend the original five nuclear powers promised in 1968 to negotiate a nuclear disarmament treaty, which never came about.   read more

The York City School District developed financial difficulties two years ago, which led to the appointment of a local businessman, David Meckley, as the chief recovery officer. That put him in charge of most of the district’s financial matters. But now Judge Stephen P. Linebaugh turned control of the district to Meckley, who has advocated for converting all eight of the local public schools to charter schools that would be run by a for-profit company, Charter Schools USA.   read more

Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor found immigrants who Americanized their names earned more than those who kept their original names, regardless of what they did for a living. Changing first names to popular ones like John or William resulted in a wage boost of as much as 14%. The research was based on information from 3,353 male immigrants found on Ancestry.com. The immigrants were mostly from Italy, Russia, Poland or the Czech Republic.   read more

The National Security Agency (NSA) took full advantage of the holiday, issuing reports on 12 years of overreaches and mistakes by its employees at 1:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Because the released reports have been heavily censored, it is impossible to tell if any of the admissions by the NSA involved serious wrongdoing.   read more

Texas will not lack for influence in the U.S. House when the new Congress convenes in January. Despite representing a tiny percentage of Americans, white males from the Lone Star state will occupy six of the 21 committee chairmanships. Not bad, considering white Texan men account for only 3.35% of the U.S. population.   read more

Increases in the minimum wage in 21 states that will go into effect in the new year will mean that some Walmart employees in a third of the company’s U.S. stores will get raises. Don’t worry about Walmart though. A memo sent last month to store managers shows that the company will narrow the wage gap among its hourly employees, paying less for more skilled workers.   read more

In 2008, the EPA issued regulations that would allow some areas extra time to comply with a Clean Air Act-mandated reduction in the allowable amounts of ground-level ozone, which is a product of fossil fuel consumption. Ozone is hard on those with respiratory problems and has been linked to nervous system disorders and heart ailments.   read more

Similar to the ethically squishy subprime home loan mess, financial institutions are offering loans to people who put up their cars as collateral at rates ranging from 80% to 500% per year. More than 1.1 million American households used car title loans last year.   read more

The Obama administration sought to expand protections provided under the 1974 Fair Labor Standards Act (pdf) (FLSA), which included an exemption for home care workers who provide “care and fellowship” to their clients. Congress was unwilling to amend the FLSA to provide minimum wages to those workers, so the Labor Department attempted to do it by way of a regulation.   read more

Investigators from the state prosecutor’s office in Azerbaijan raided the Baku offices of Radio Free Europe (RFE), confiscating computers and other items and ordering the office closed. Staff members were held incommunicado during the December 26 raid. Three weeks ago, Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist and contributor to U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, was jailed in Baku.   read more

Maj. Jason Brezler alerted his superior officers to the presence of an Afghan police chief, Sarwar Jan, with ties to the Taliban at Forward Operating Base Delhi. Jan kept an entourage of young male sex slaves, one of whom in August 2012 opened fire on Marines at the base, killing three and wounding one. Brezler and another Marine, Captain Andrew Terrell, had previously expelled Jan from an Afghan village for keeping the sex slaves.   read more

Dinan has worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., since July 1989, most recently as chief of the criminal division. He specialized in gangs, organized crime and drug trafficking.   read more