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

Under the president's instructions, the U.S. should not withhold or censor government files merely because they might be embarrassing. USAID cited privacy exemptions in 82 requests last year, and that was the exception cited most often. In one newly released USAID message, one government official's friend suggested FOIA should be tightened up: "AP didn't get this through FOIA, did they? If so, maybe it's time to hire some new redactors. They got a bit too much of an inside view."   read more

Aviation accounts for about 5% of global carbon emissions, with U.S.-owned airliners emitting about 30% of all aircraft pollution worldwide. While carbon emissions from land-based sources are largely in decline, pollution from airplanes is projected to triple by 2050 without stricter limits. "The evidence becomes clearer every day that airplanes significantly accelerate climate disruption," said FOE's Marcie Keever. "The Obama administration must act immediately..."   read more

More than 8,500 megawatts of wind power capacity was built last year, almost double the 2014 tally. More than 3,600 megawatts of that construction - enough to power about 100,000 homes - was built in Texas, which now counts almost a quarter of the country's wind energy. The surge followed a rush by wind developers to get projects under construction before the end of 2014 out of fear Congress would not renew the tax credit, an uncertainty that has hung over the industry for nearly 20 years.   read more

Goldman is the last major bank to settle with the government. Deals with other banks contained some of these concessions, but Goldman appears to have negotiated an even sweeter deal. “They appear to have grossly inflated the settlement amount for PR purposes to mislead the public, while in the fine print, enabling Goldman Sachs to pay 50 to 75% less,” said Dennis Kelleher. “[These settlements] are carefully crafted more to conceal than reveal to the American public what really happened here...”   read more

The tribal community of San Ildefonso Pueblo sits in the shadow of Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. The tribe is on the front lines of a battle to rein in contamination left behind by decades of bomb-making and nuclear research. Groundwater sampling shows increasing chromium concentrations at the edges of the plume, indicating it's migrating through an area considered sacred by the tribe. It's only about a half-mile from the closest drinking water well.   read more

Dozens of TSA employees in recent years have been reassigned, demoted, investigated or fired for reporting lapses or misconduct by senior managers, charges later upheld by whistle-blower protection agencies. OSC said 87 complaints were received last year from workers at the TSA claiming retaliation, discrimination and other prohibited hiring practices. OSC took the cases of two of the top women at TSA, Sharlene Mata and Heather Chuck, to begin a full investigation of their retaliation claims.   read more

Exactly how 32 American lobsters wound up in Swedish waters isn't clear. But many suspect they were exported to Europe and then either escaped or were set free by animal rights activists. Whatever the case, their discovery has set off a high-stakes trade dispute between Sweden on one side and the U.S. and Canada on the other. The North Americans are recruiting members of Maine's congressional delegation and U.S. ambassadors and asking Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House for help.   read more

Men with the top 1 percent in income lived 15 years longer than men with the lowest 1 percent in income; for women that gap was 10 years. The lowest life expectancies for the poorest men and women — less than 78 years — were in Indiana, Nevada and Oklahoma. For the richest, the lowest life expectancies — less than about 85 years — were in Hawaii, Nevada and Oklahoma. The poorest Americans fared best in affluent cities with highly educated populations.   read more

California’s medical marijuana czar says she believes there’s a need for weed, although she’s never smoked pot herself. “Unlike regulating alcohol, I’m not a user of marijuana, so I am not familiar with how that affects people or what it does,” Lori Ajax said. “But from the outreach I’ve done since I got here, it appears there is a medical need, and I’m tasked with doing this, and I’m going to do it.”   read more

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless allege that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s “actions violate the roll-maintenance provisions of the National Voter Registration Act,” causing many Ohioans to be deprived of their voting rights “merely because they had not voted for a period of six years.”   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court may have struck down mandatory life sentences for minors, but a new federal complaint says hundreds of these “juvenile lifers” have received no “meaningful opportunity for release.” Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit Wednesday on behalf of the Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative, a nonprofit prisoners’ rights advocacy organization.   read more

A challenge to what 12 Democratic voters claim is “one of the worst partisan gerrymanders in American history” is headed to trial in Wisconsin next month. The voters sued the individual members of Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board in 2015, claiming that Republican lawmakers secretly crafted and hurriedly passed a redistricting plan that would give them overwhelming – and unfair – control of the state legislature.   read more

Recruiters, on-campus career specialists and economists remain generally upbeat about prospects for this year’s graduates. Michigan State University’s Collegiate Employment Research Institute projects that hiring will be up 15% across all degree levels from last year, part of a stuttering rebound from the Great Recession and its aftermath, 2009 to 2013. Of course, applicants’ experiences will vary, perhaps significantly, depending on their field of study and position sought.   read more

For decades, both major parties have used a somewhat convoluted process for picking their nominees, one that involves ordinary voters in only an indirect way. As Americans flock this year to outsider candidates, the kind most hindered by these rules, they are suddenly waking up to this reality. And their confusion and anger are adding another volatile element to an election being waged over questions of fairness and equality.   read more

Prosecutors said Friday that Wells Fargo will pay $1.2 billion to settle claims of mortgage fraud related to government-insured loans, a penalty that represents a fraction of the lender's profits. Wells Fargo Bank admitted that it told the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that certain residential home mortgage loans were eligible for federal housing insurance when they were not.   read more

Under a new rule implemented by Arizona's Republican House Speaker David Gowan, reporters convicted of “a felony within the last 10 years or a misdemeanor within the last five years, excluding traffic arrests” would be denied “non-employee” badges. Non-employee badges are typically held by law enforcement officers and reporters. The rule comes after the Arizona Capitol Times reported in January that Gowan racked up travel costs at the state’s expense.   read more