When Pope John Paul II visited Damascus in May 2001, Bashar used his welcoming speech to denounce the Jews, saying, “They tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.”   read more

Environmentalists complained that ICAO has been working on international standards for 18 years and is now proposing to give aircraft manufacturers another dozen years to comply. "These dangerously weak recommendations put the Obama administration under enormous pressure" to take greater action, said Vera Pardee, an attorney who has sued the U.S. government over aviation emissions. Aviation accounts for about 5% of global greenhouse emissions, according to environmentalists.   read more

The registration was conditional, to be canceled if additional studies found the chemical to be damaging, said the EPA. The agency concluded that "continued use of the product will result in unreasonable adverse effects on the environment." The chemical is used to control yield-damaging moths and worms in more than 200 crops including almonds, oranges and soybeans. Bayer's own tests have found that the pesticide is toxic in high doses to invertebrates in river and pond sediment.   read more

A HUD I.G. report has found that more than 25,000 of the 1.1 million U.S. families in public housing - about 2.5% - earn too much money to qualify for housing subsidies. "The families identified by HUD ... met the income limits at the time of admission...but their income now exceeds such income limits," HUD said. The agency added that rising income is good because it is a sign that a family is on its way to self-sufficiency, but when it's temporary it shouldn't be used to end assistance.   read more

Police weren't prepared for the firehose of less-valuable intelligence generated by the $750,000 system. Since the scanners went live, they've been triggering an average of 700 alarms a day, mainly about cars with expired registration. Officers have impounded 500 vehicles. They've written more than 2,000 court summonses, mostly for minor violations. "It is a tremendous amount of workload that has been increased due to this new technology," said Freeport police chief Miguel Bermudez.   read more

Using executive power in a state where legislative bids to ban the therapy have stalled, Cuomo announced planned regulations that would bar insurance coverage for the therapy for minors and prohibit mental health facilities under state Office of Mental Health jurisdiction from offering it to minors. "Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice" that punishes people "for simply being who they are," Cuomo said in a statement.   read more

Joseph De Lopez, a former Chicago Police deputy superintendent hired to review policies of the Colorado City Marshal's Office, told the jury the towns' Marshal Office did not investigate reports that town members married underage girls. "Not only should there be an Internal Affairs investigation if it involves an officer, but a criminal investigation," De Lopez testified. The towns' former Chief Marshal Helaman Barlow testified that the Marshal's Office ignored claims of underage marriages.   read more

House Bill 2975 would create penalties for public officials who block people from owning or buying guns. The four-page bill devotes a page to quotes on gun ownership purportedly from the men who created the U.S. Constitution. Researchers say at least three of the quotes used in the bill and attributed to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were not said or written by them.   read more

At least $4 million in dark money is flowing to outside groups helping White House hopefuls. Both parties benefit from money routed through obscure corporations, or from nonprofits that don't have to disclose their donors. The contributions are a reminder of federal court decisions in recent years, like Citizens United, that loosened prior restrictions in campaign finance laws. That can hide who's really backing candidates — and what favors or influence could be owed should they get elected.   read more

Twitter’s disclosure of the number of terrorist account suspensions sets it apart from its social media peers. Facebook regularly discloses the number of government requests it has received for content takedowns on its service, but the company does not break out the removal of terror-related content. YouTube has given more than 200 outside organizations the ability to “flag” potentially harmful content, which YouTube can then review and remove.   read more

Barack Obama might seem an unlikely investor in the firearms industry. But the U.S. president, a fierce advocate for gun regulation, has money in a pension fund that holds stock in gun and ammunition companies. Obama is among millions of Americans buying into gun companies - often unwittingly - as mutual funds have increased such holdings to record levels. The influx has helped boost two gun firms' shares by more than 750%; each now has a market value of about $1 billion.   read more

New Jersey is joining the states of Texas, New Mexico and West Virginia and Harris County, Texas, in suing Volkswagen. The U.S. Justice Department filed its own lawsuit accusing VW of violating clean air laws and seeking up to $46 billion on Jan. 4. VW faces more than 500 civil lawsuits that have been consolidated before a federal judge in California, who has retained a former FBI director as a settlement adviser. The automaker also faces investigations by 48 U.S. state attorneys.   read more

“These social network tools provide individuals with tremendous reach,” said Horvitz. “People can share ideas with only a few jumps to a large portion of the world’s population and with even fewer steps to the entire population of a nation.” It is a startling notion that reaching someone on the other side of the world takes only a small group of social connections. On the other hand, the result could also be evidence of psychological distance: that we were actually five “worlds apart.”   read more

Morrell was born in 1933 in the town of Utica to Lena Pierce, who named her Eva May. Social welfare officials took the baby away because Pierce, then 13, was herself a ward of the state. Eva May was adopted by a family on Long Island and grew up as Betty Morrell, an only child. She was in her early 30s when she started looking for information about her birth family. She had been told her birth mother had died during childbirth and was shocked when she learned she was still alive.   read more

Robert M. Gates, then defense secretary, appealed to President Obama to reconsider the release of the photographs, warning that it could provoke attacks against U.S. troops in the war zones. Obama changed his mind and obtained legislation from Congress permitting the defense secretary to exempt the photos from disclosure. Current Pentagon chief Ash Carter extended it again in November, but decided that the 198 photos could be made public.   read more

The promises of the industry are potentially far-reaching and attracting notice on Wall Street. As more states legalize marijuana sales, analysts are weighing the stock market benefits of new businesses as cannabis goes corporate. Funds are considering the ethics of investing in marijuana. Parents are even debating whether to allow their children to buy the stocks. Lucrative legal side businesses are spinning off, like climate systems for growers and child-resistant marijuana bags.   read more

Talks focused on letting UK agencies, such as MI5, serve orders on U.S. firms demanding data for “live intercepts” in inquiries involving UK citizens. UK agencies might also be able to ask U.S. companies to turn over stored data, such as emails. Rep. Adam Schiff said Congress should monitor any privacy and civil liberties issues, "including making sure these British orders do not cover U.S. persons or individuals within the U.S., do not permit bulk collection, and have due process protections."   read more