Tough: Two women have become the first female soldiers to beat the fatigue, sleeplessness, and hunger to pass the Army’s difficult Ranger training at Ft. Benning, Ga.

The 62-day Ranger course is in three phases – woodland, mountain, and swamp. About a third of trainees flunk one phase and have to cycle back through it. The two women are among 96 soldiers who passed the course. They started with 19 women and 381 men.

Turnover: In a big win for the grownups who run college sports, the Northwestern University football team has been denied its request to be recognized as school employees eligible to unionize. The National Labor Relations Board declined to define the football players as employees, confirming the NCAA’s claim that college athletes are students.

The movement to unionize has been led by a former Northwestern quarterback who claims that college athletes are in school primarily for their sport and earn billons of dollars for their universities while paid a piddling amount in financial aid.

Needle Park: Responding to a quadrupling of heroin deaths over a 10-year period, the Obama Administration announced a $5 million pilot program to fight heroin use and trafficking. The experimental program will operate in 15 states for one year.

Hillary Mail: The State Department so far has found 305 emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server that contained classified information. The emails were found in a sample of 20 percent of the 30,000 messages. Clinton has said she did not knowingly handle classified material on her private email while she was secretary of state.

Permawar: A pipe bomb thrown at a Bangkok transit pier landed in the water today without injuring anyone. It came just 24 hours after an explosion in the center killed 19 people and injured 120 near the Erawan Shrine, a major tourist attraction. Police have a security picture of a man in a yellow t-shirt who walked away from his backpack shortly before the explosion.

The attack is being taken as an effort to hurt the government by discouraging tourism. The government was taken over in a military coup last year and the prime minister is showing signs of establishing an egomaniacal dictatorship.

In the Bedroom: The FDA is expected today to approve a new drug to improve sex drive for women. “The little pink pill,” as it’s been called, was previously rejected twice because of its side effects of sleepiness and dizziness.

Recommended for You: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is defending his company after a NY Times expose of the grueling and sometimes backbiting corporate culture of the online sales behemoth. Bezos said in a letter to employees, “The NYT article prominently features anecdotes describing shockingly callous management practices, including people being treated without empathy while enduring family tragedies and serious health problems. The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day.”

The story based on 100 interviews with current and former employees detailed how Amazon employees are constantly at work in the office, home, and even vacation. Some employees call themselves “Amabots.” The story included anecdotes from employees who had a health crisis, or a baby, and were pushed out.

Employees are subject to punishing reviews. There’s high turnover and some say the company is managed with “purposeful Darwinism.”

The Bezos letter goes on to say, “The article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard.”

Well, the letter was addressed “Dear Amazonian.”

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