Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) is reportedly on an increasingly short list of candidates being considered by Donald Trump for secretary of state. But when pressed Wednesday night by Yahoo News' Bianna Golodryga about Trump's friendliness towards Russia, considering the human rights abuses committed by the nation, Rohrabacher scoffed, "Oh, baloney! Where do you come from?"

From there, the exchange became fiery and downright personal. Golodryga responded that she is from the former Soviet Union and that she came to the U.S. as a political refugee, to which Rohrabacher shot back: "Oh, well, then that's good, then the audience knows you're biased."

When challenged again about Russia's human rights violations, Rohrabacher, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, said Reagan would have loved his stance on Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Reagan was the one who reached out to [Mikhail] Gorbachev," he explained. Again, Golodryga attempted to clarify: "Are you comparing Gorbachev to Vladimir Putin?"

"Absolutely, I am," Rohrabacher confirmed. Watch the explosive exchange below. Jeva Lange

The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't want to prioritize health anymore.

In a rule change proposed Friday, President Trump's EPA seeks to soften its regulation of toxic mercury emissions. It'll reconfigure the Obama-era Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS), giving higher consideration to how much future regulations would cost manufacturers before implementing them, The Washington Post reports.

In 2011, former President Barack Obama's EPA implemented the standards, which essentially created an algorithm to determine whether health benefits would outweigh the massive cost of cutting power plants' toxic emissions. Scientists say there's been an 80 percent reduction in mercury pollution since then, The New York Times reports. Friday's proposal wouldn't repeal the Obama rule entirely, but would merely discount the value of human health in its equation.

Complying with MATS costs power plants $7.4 to $9.6 billion annually, the EPA estimated in its Friday statement. But it only estimated $4 million to $6 million in annual health benefits, concluding it's not "appropriate and necessary" to regulate "hazardous air pollutants" from oil- and coal-fired power plants. The Obama-led EPA produced a similar figure, but also said the regulations would reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in the air, producing further cost benefits. That's not to mention that mercury itself can "lower IQ, cause motor function deficits, damage the nervous system, and lead to more heart attacks," Bloomberg reports.

Power plants initially opposed MATS and some sued for its repeal. But an energy lobbyist has since told the Times "nobody who operates power plants ... is asking for the rule to go away" anymore, seeing as they've already spent an estimated $18 billion to comply with it. Kathryn Krawczyk

Facebook has had a rough 2018. But you wouldn't get that impression from Mark Zuckerberg's year-end message.

In a Friday post, the Facebook founder and CEO recounted his "personal challenge" of "preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation," and other goals throughout 2018. And despite dozens of reports suggesting Facebook is going through an extended rough patch, Zuckerberg said he's "proud of the progress we've made" in the past year.

Of Facebook's many 2018 gaffes, one particular lowlight was a breach that exposed 50 million users' personal data. That major hack didn't get a mention in Zuckerberg's message, but he did vaguely say the company "invest[s] billions of dollars in security yearly."

He did, however, hone in on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which let user information be used to influence the 2016 election. Zuckerberg said Facebook "reduce[d] the amount of information apps can access" and is building a "Clear History tool that will give people more transparency into their browsing history" — a tool Facebook once promised would be ready months ago.

Zuckerberg also discussed how Facebook "built AI systems to automatically identify and remove" harmful content and worked on "identifying the fake accounts and coordinated information campaigns" that drive election interference. But fixing all of Facebook's flaws "is more than a one-year challenge," Zuckerberg said, adding that some of these "problems can never fully be solved."

There's no mention of Zuckerberg's Jan. 4 pledge to "fix" Facebook in this year-end post, which you can read at — where else? — Facebook. Kathryn Krawczyk

Carrie Fisher isn't really gone. Three years after death, she will appear posthumously in Star Wars: Episode IX, and her brother has just provided some new details about her role in the movie.

Fisher died in December 2016 before filming on Star Wars: Episode IX could take place, but Lucasfilm announced in July that she would still appear in it, as director J.J. Abrams will incorporate "unseen footage" shot during production of 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

On Friday, Fisher's brother explained to ABC News that there's "a lot of minutes of footage" of Fisher and that it's not "outtakes" but instead "new content that could be woven into the storyline" and that will "look like it was meant to be." He wouldn't offer any other details, but he did say he's "thrilled" with what Lucasfilm has accomplished.

Fans have speculated that the footage may concern a storyline rumored to have been cut from The Force Awakens that involves General Leia Organa trying to create a superweapon called the Warhammer, IGN reports. It has never been confirmed that this separate Leia plot was filmed, but if it was, it's possible Abrams has been able to incorporate it into the new film.

Star Wars: Episode IX, which will also see the return of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, will hit theaters on Dec. 20, 2019. Brendan Morrow

The federal government is recommending that employees who have been furloughed as part of the ongoing shutdown simply perform chores for their landlord in exchange for rent.

That's the actual advice straight from the Office of Personnel Management, a government agency that oversees federal employees, which on Thursday tweeted a series of "sample letters" for furloughed employees to make use of. One of them is addressed to the employee's landlord, which says, in part, "I would like to discuss with you the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance (e.g. painting, carpentry work) in exchange for partial rent payments."

To make matters worse, when the agency tweeted out a link to these forms, it also recommended employees "consult with your personal attorney," assuming furloughed workers who are struggling to pay their rent would have a personal attorney on hand.

More than 800,000 federal employees are furloughed, CBS News reports, as part of a government shutdown that still has no end in sight. Brendan Morrow

Without The Apprentice, there would likely be no President Trump. And without Mark Burnett, there would be no Apprentice.

Burnett was the show's executive producer for its entire 14-season run, turning the "floundering D-lister" that was Trump into "the ultimate titan," The New Yorker documents in a new profile. Beneath the surface, showrunners knew Trump "was a fake," Apprentice editor Jonathan Braun said. But it was "our job ... to make it seem otherwise," Braun added.

The Apprentice featured 16 competitors who worked to complete a "weekly series of business challenges," with Trump firing the worst performer each week, The New Yorker writes. But Trump usually had "little grasp of who had performed well" and fired the wrong candidates, as The New Yorker explains below.

When this happened, Braun said, the editors were often obliged to "reverse engineer" the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trump's shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense. During the making of The Apprentice, Burnett conceded that the stories were constructed in this way, saying, "We know each week who has been fired, and, therefore, you're editing in reverse." [The New Yorker]

Braun went on to compare this to now-President Trump's constant firings and resignations, and how Trump often highlights staffers' flaws once they've departed. "I find it strangely validating to hear that they're doing the same thing in the White House," Braun said. Read more at The New Yorker. Kathryn Krawczyk

Former President Barack Obama has a few apolitical reminders of what went well in 2018.

On Friday, Obama continued what he called his "favorite tradition" and shared a list of his favorite songs, books, and movies of the year. His eclectic music taste featured everything from the Carters' "Apesh**t" to "Girl Goin' Nowhere" by country star Ashley McBryde, to a throwback album from jazz legend Nancy Wilson, who died this month.

Black Panther and The Death of Stalin were on an alphabetized list of Obama's top movies, while he said Michelle Obama's Becoming was "obviously" his favorite book. Check out all of Obama's 2018 picks below. Kathryn Krawczyk