An employee at the Federal Communications Commission told investigators that the reason he watched up to eight hours of porn at work every week was "out of boredom." A FOIA report revealed that he is far from alone in having both too little work to do and a rampant porn consumption habit. A Treasury employee who had viewed more than 13,000 pornographic images at work "stated he is aware it is against government rules and regulations, but he often does not have enough work to do and has free time," said the report.
It is unlikely that these and similarly bored federal employees will undergo significant discipline for their misconduct. In fact, poor performance in government employees is sometimes even rewarded. A Commerce Department investigation revealed this week that paralegals at the U.S. Patent and Trademark office were paid salaries as high as $80,000 per year, with $3,500 annual bonuses, while spending their days watching TV and doing the dishes at home, with the full knowledge of their supervisors.
Bonnie Kristian
Jussie Smollett is not being written out of Empire, 20th Century Fox says.
Fox said in a statement Wednesday that Smollett "continues to be a consummate professional on set," and the network reiterated that he's "not being written out of the show." This followed reports from Deadline and TMZ that Smollett was having his role on Empire reduced. When these reports first emerged, Fox declined to comment.
Still, the original reports did not exactly claim that Smollett was being written out of the series entirely. Rather, the reporting was that his role was being minimized, with TMZ saying that scenes focused on Smollett were being cut but that the actor would still have a presence in ensemble scenes.
These questions about Smollett's future come as questions emerge about his claims that he was the victim of a hate crime last month. CNN has reported that Chicago police believe he paid two men to assault him, while Smollett continues to deny these claims. Brendan Morrow
Four days out from the 2019 Oscars, pundits are generally in agreement about what is likely to win in the top categories. But could some stunning upsets be in store?
A few scenarios are plausible, if still unlikely. Here are five potential outcomes to brace yourself for this Sunday:
1. Black Panther wins Best Picture: Roma is the clear frontrunner, but a foreign film has never won Best Picture, and there are some who believe its status as a Netflix movie may hold it back. If so, in years when no film runs away with the top prize, the Oscars' preferential balloting system can favor one with broad appeal. Green Book is controversial, though, and may not have the broad appeal of the $1.3 billion phenomenon Black Panther, which already picked up a win at the SAG Awards.
2. Spike Lee wins Best Director: The frontrunner here, Alfonso Cuarón, won five years ago, while the Academy has repeatedly whiffed on even nominating Lee. This year, voters could decide his time has finally come.
3. Bradley Cooper wins Best Actor: This would be the wildest upset of the night, since Rami Malek likely has this category locked up. But Cooper was shut out throughout awards season and snubbed for Best Director, which could actually work in his favor, earning him enough sympathy votes for a shocking victory, Argo style.
4. Olivia Colman wins Best Actress: This is Glenn Close's to lose, but don't fully count out Colman. There's plenty of affection in the Academy for The Favourite, which tied with Roma for the most nominations, and Colman already won an acting award at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs.
5. Rachel Weisz wins Best Supporting Actress: A potential red flag for this category's frontrunner, Regina King, is that she wasn't even nominated at the SAG Awards. If this sets her back, perhaps the Favourite love will continue and Weisz, who won the BAFTA, really is in contention. Brendan Morrow
Brexit isn't the only political crisis tearing the U.K.'s Parliament apart.
Three Conservative and eight Labour members of Parliament have left their parties in the past few days, and they have a surprisingly unified reason, BBC reports. All the defectors are fed up with Brexit proceedings and how their parties are being run, so they're coming together under a newly formed Independent Party.
Britain voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union, but just how that's happening has been a total mystery ever since. Parliament hasn't confirmed a Brexit deal with the EU, it doesn't really want a Brexit with no deal, and it hasn't opted for a referendum on the entire thing. Prime Minister Theresa May has just barely retained her seat through it all.
The leadership crisis has spanned both major parties, with seven Labour MPs first announcing their resignation from the party on Monday, CNN says. One defector, Luciana Berger, cited anti-Semitism within the party and said it had been "hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left." Joan Ryan, an eighth Labour defector, joined the new Independent Group on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, three Conservatives joined the Independents on account of "this government's disastrous handling of Brexit," they said in a letter to May.
The 11-member, centrist party is already united under the premise of fixing a "broken" political system, per its Twitter. The Labour Party is now seemingly worried about losing more MPs, as staffers lost access to voter rolls Wednesday, per The Guardian. Kathryn Krawczyk
The Department of Justice is ready for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to drop his report, CNN reports.
Newly-confirmed Attorney General William Barr will announce "as early as next week" that Mueller has completed his probe into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election interference, sources tell CNN. He'll reportedly only give Congress a summary of the confidential report and not the whole thing — a contrast to what many Democrats demanded of Barr during his confirmation proceedings.
Mueller has been investigating President Trump's 2016 campaign staff for nearly two years and has levied indictments against or negotiated plea deals with 37 people. Per CNN's reporting, this is the strongest sign that Mueller is finishing the probe. Still, "the precise timing of the announcement is subject to change," CNN says. If it comes next week, Trump will likely be in Vietnam meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
It's unclear what Barr will include in the summary to Congress, or how long it will take for him to prepare that summary after announcing the probe has wrapped. Both the Justice Department and the special counsel's office declined to comment, CNN reports. Kathryn Krawczyk
Michael Cohen will have two more months of freedom than expected.
President Trump's former lawyer has been granted a request to delay the beginning of his prison sentence. He was originally ordered to report to jail on March 6, but U.S. District Judge William Pauley has delayed this to May 6, reports BuzzFeed News. Cohen had been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations related to his role in paying off two women who claim they had affairs with Trump. He also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.
CNN reports Cohen's lawyers when making this request had pointed to Cohen's shoulder surgery, as well as his planned congressional testimony. Cohen plans to testify before three different congressional committees before his prison sentence begins, according to CNBC, and now, he'll have plenty of time to do so. Brendan Morrow
Before health insurance brokers pitch a plan to employers, the brokers are pitched by the insurance companies themselves — and the pitches come with promises of luxury vacations, $100,000 bonuses and in one instance, the chance to play baseball with former New York Yankee Mariano Rivera.
The lucrative health insurance business doles out commissions and bonuses to independent brokers who are working with employers, reports ProPublica. But these additional incentives are ultimately paid for by the employers and the employees who purchase the plans. One major insurer, Health Care Service Corporation, spent $816 million on broker bonuses and commissions in 2017.
When insurance brokers sign up more employers, they receive commission based on the price of the premium, often upwards of $50,000 per client. Commissions increase for costlier plans, therefore creating a lack of incentive to promote more cost-effective options, per ProPublica. The average cost of employer-sponsored health insurance premiums has reportedly tripled since the 1990s.
Insurers foot the bill for commissions, but these payments are ultimately factored in to the price of the premiums that employers pay. Some insurers offer additional non-financial incentives to brokers, and these are often not revealed by brokers to the employers they are advising unless specifically asked for. Read more about the lucrative brokering business at ProPublica. Marianne Dodson