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 turns out that the person who controls your schedule and has the right to make your job—and life—difficult isn’t really your supervisor. Last year’s 5-4 Vance v. Ball State decision (pdf) by the Supreme Court significantly narrowed the definition of what a supervisor is and in doing so made it easier for companies to get away with having employees who harass others.   read more

According to the report, “Until recently, Morgan Stanley controlled over 55 million barrels of oil storage capacity, 100 oil tankers, and 6,000 miles of pipeline....In 2012, Goldman owned 1.5 million metric tons of aluminum worth $3 billion, about 25% of the entire U.S. annual consumption. Goldman also owned warehouses which, in 2014, controlled 85% of the LME aluminum storage business in the United States.”   read more

Forty years after Lyndon Johnson left office, only 20% of college students could identify his position as president of the United States. “By the year 2060, Americans will probably remember as much about the 39th and 40th presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, as they now remember about our 13th president, Millard Fillmore,” Roediger said.   read more

McKinley got his first ambassadorial post in 2007 in Lima, Peru. Shortly after assuming his post, he helped coordinate the U.S. response to the August 2007 earthquake. In September 2010, he was sent to Colombia to serve as ambassador there. McKinley went to Afghanistan in September 2013 as deputy ambassador, a role he continues to serve in as he awaits Senate confirmation.   read more

What’s your life worth? According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), if you fly in a private plane, you’re worth only $1 million. Other agencies have different, mostly higher, valuations on human lives. The Environmental Protection Agency values lives at $3.3 million and the Department of Transportation says a human is worth $9.1 million.   read more

A new study published in the Journal of Sports Economics says crime shoots up when NFL games take place. Total crime increases about 3% when a city hosts a pro football game. With certain crimes, such as larceny and auto theft, the jumps are even higher: 4% and 7%, respectively, according to researchers David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee.   read more

Amazon has already invested in a fleet of small drones to develop a new way of delivering consumer goods to customers. That’s why the online giant hired lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump and paid the firm at least $120,000 to sway the FAA decision. The new rules will impose many restrictions on drones, requiring operators to have a pilot’s license and limit flights to daylight hours, below 400 feet and within sight of the person at the controls.   read more

In 2003, Folmsbee published a novel, Flight of the Feathered Serpent, about two Icelanders who are shipwrecked in 12th century Mexico. Folmsbee was sent to Pakistan in 2006 as director of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, working on counter-terrorism issues. The following year, he was embedded with the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq as a Provincial Reconstruction Team team leader.   read more

Phee served as a desk officer for United Nations (UN) political affairs in the International Organizations Bureau but took a break to do a tour in al-Amarah, Iraq, as “governate coordinator” (a.k.a. senior civilian representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority) of Maysan Province for several months beginning in November 2003. This position was considered so dangerous that she was supplied with twenty bodyguards.   read more

“I was raised with this idea that ultimately you have to do the right thing. It was just simple things like—you can’t take money from people. We are talking about pension plans and retirement funds, things people are relying on at a time when they don’t have another income. I just grew up with a value that a lot of people have—and that is, it’s OK to do well, but you can’t do that at other people’s expense.”   read more

The Parliament on Thursday adopted a nonbinding resolution calling for the dissolution of Google. The vote was merely symbolic because the legislative body lacks the legal authority to force Google to divest portions of its empire. But it demonstrated just how fed up Europeans are with the growing might and invasive capabilities of American technology.   read more

Insys Therapeutics, maker of the drug Subsys, paid millions of dollars to physicians to prescribe the product, which is approved only for cancer patients who are already taking opioid drugs constantly for pain. However, only 1% of Subsys prescriptions have been written by oncologists, according to The New York Times.   read more

In July 1998, Hernandez took over as director of the Colorado Community Business Center for Fannie Mae, facilitating housing and community development. He remained in that post for more than nine years. Hernandez was chosen to be director of Colorado’s Division of Local Government in 2007, a position he held for more than five and a half years. He managed development programs for rural communities in the state, serving until taking over at the Rural Housing Service.   read more

Mulina worked his way quickly through the ranks of the Papua New Guinea government. Mulina was named to head the government-owned Papua New Guinea Banking Corporation in 1997. In 2003 he became the chairman of the Rural Development Bank. He took over as the ambassador from Papua New Guinea to the United States in March 2014, about a year and a half after his appointment was announced. Mulina is also accredited to Canada and Mexico.   read more

Cyberwarriors are at it again, this time with a malicious program called Regin that has infected computers in Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries and is so complex that security experts say it probably came from the United States, Britain or another Western government.   read more

Drones can now be purchased for about $500, well within the budget of many. Consequently, the global civilian drone market has skyrocketed by 45% since last year. Part of those sales are going to those who are using the craft for pranks and even criminal acts. Drones have flown flags over soccer games and have been used to case buildings for burglars.   read more