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 passage of the amendment, which would have guaranteed that equal rights could not be denied on account of gender, was passed by 35 states by the 1982 deadline, leaving it three short of ratification. To get the effort going again, two measures have been introduced in Congress. One would erase the 1982 deadline but keep intact the ratification by 35 states, so backers would have to get only three more states to sign on.   read more

A Patent Office employee put a “mouse-mover” program on his computer so it would appear he was working. It was noticed by a manager, who reported it up the chain of command, but no action was taken. Many employees did little work until the end of each quarter, when they’d rush to complete their required tasks before their deadline. Meanwhile, the agency has fallen behind on processing patent applications, creating a backlog of more than 600,000 requests.   read more

Between 2009 and 2010, officials made eight bond offerings. But at no time did they inform bond investors that Kansas’ public-employee pension was the second-most underfunded in the United States. At one point, the gap between the fund’s liabilities and assets reached $8.3 billion.   read more

The billboard read: “Welcome to America, home to 5% of the world’s people [and] 25% of the world’s prisoners. . . . Let’s build a better America together,” But Philadelphia airport officials rejected the ad, claiming their policy allowed only advertisements with commercial appeal. However, the airport had already displayed ads by other non-profits, including the World Wildlife Federation and the National Parent-Teacher Association.   read more

FWS scientists in Montana first suggested protecting the animals, saying the loss of spring snow from global warming could adversely impact the species that lives in underground dens. Climate change had been used as a justification for the listing of polar bears as a threatened species in 2008.   read more

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed 51% of respondents said the children coming to the U.S. from Central America should be permitted to remain in the country, at least temporarily. Only 32% said the children should be immediately deported, indicating Obama is bending to the will of the minority by ordering immigration courts to fast track the children’s hearings.   read more

Women’s business-ownership more than doubled following the passage of the Women’s Business Ownership Act in 1988, going from 4.1 million small businesses to 8.6 million by last year. Women now own 30% of all businesses. But “Only 4 percent of the total dollar value of all small business loans goes to women entrepreneurs,” the report states.   read more

The crisis in the Ukraine continues as American and European leaders lob more sanctions against Russia for its actions in the war-torn country. But in the oil world, it’s business as usual. Oil king ExxonMobil last week began drilling a new oil well off Russia’s Arctic frontier, in cooperation with OAO Rosneft, the country’s state-run oil company.   read more

The weed Palmer amaranth started showing up in cotton fields in the South, and before farmers knew it, it was everywhere. It can grow higher than six feet tall and spread a million seeds from each plant. Roundup was useless against it, leaving farmers the choice of pulling the weed by hand or using more powerful herbicides that could kill crops as well. Now, it’s showing up in the Midwest.   read more

The DEA forked over $854,460 over a 20-year period to a secretary-turned-snitch. The DEA was involved in a joint drug enforcement task force with Amtrak Police during the payoffs—and it could have easily gotten the information through this channel without paying a dime, the IG reported, leading to speculation that DEA officials didn’t trust their legitimate Amtrak partners.   read more

In a court filing produced two years ago for a lawsuit brought by 9/11 victims against the Saudi government, Graham said: “I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia.”   read more

The law bans same-day voter registration, cuts early voting days from 17 to 10, eliminates the use of provisional ballots if the voter votes in the wrong precinct, eliminates a program to allow 16- and 17-years-old to pre-register at public high schools, says that a disabled voter can only be helped by a near relative or legal guardian and mandates that candidates belonging to the same party as the governor have their names appear first on the ballot.   read more

Truck drivers’ salaries have declined since the Great Recession, from more than $42,500 a year in 2009 to $40,940 last year. The drop is even larger going back to 2003, when the average trucker salary was more than $43,000 annually. In addition, the industry is having trouble replacing retired drivers with younger workers who are reluctant to take a job that involves long hours and sometimes weeks at a time on the road.   read more

The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) issued a report Friday saying formaldehyde, a common chemical found in clothing, homes and furniture, causes head and neck cancer (nasopharyngeal), nose cancer (sinonasal) and bone cancer (myeloid leukemia). The NAS findings supported other reports by American and international experts who have said the chemical is a danger to human health.   read more

FICO announced last week that it would give less weight to medical debts when factoring credit scores—a significant move considering the debts account for about half of all unpaid collections on consumers’ credit reports. The company also said paid collections would no longer cause scores to be downgraded. . It might take a year or more for the changes to be adopted by lending institutions.   read more

The 10 states with the highest uninsured rates in the country, all run by Republican governors or legislatures or both, have all refused to accept the expansion of Medicaid and have declined to participate in the state exchanges. Those states are Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alaska, and New Mexico.   read more