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

Conventional rare earth element (REE) extraction requires the grinding of huge amounts of hard rock. It is "energy intensive, disturbs large areas of pristine land, and generates large volumes of toxic tailings,” reported HSNW. Now WVU has been given nearly $1 million by the Dept. of Energy to see if REEs can be extracted from coal waste. In Pennsylvania and West Virginia alone, it is estimated [coal mining] generates about three times the current U.S. demand for total REEs.   read more

Some military officials say much of the pushback is coming from Marine Corps General John Kelly. Kelly has put up roadblocks in the way of officials from other nations who attempt to interview prisoners for possible resettlement. Former State Dept. official James Dobbins said talking over prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like “punching a pillow. [They] would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument. And then nothing would happen.”   read more

Both cars and guns killed Americans at the same rate in 2014: 10.3 fatalities per 100,000 people. Firearm related deaths included homicides, suicides and accidental deaths, while motor vehicle deaths resulted from car crashes, collisions between cars, and pedestrian struck by autos. Christopher Ingraham at The Washington Post reported that auto deaths have been dropping since the 1960s, while gun deaths have erratically gone up over time.   read more

U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said this week that the restrictions on data collecting and disseminating may be “a façade for content or viewpoint discrimination.” The laws in question created criminal and civil penalties for anyone who gathers information about or takes photographs of land or resources and turns it over to government agencies. The plaintiffs said the laws prevent them from collecting information about animal abuse on farms and ranches and about food safety.   read more

Lansing took over as Scripps’ senior vice president for television in 2001 and was in charge of the 10 television stations the company owned at the time. He moved over to Scripps Networks, which managed cable television programming, in 2004. There, he was in charge of channels such as Food Network, HGTV, the Travel Channel, and others. It was a good time for Scripps Networks; revenue tripled under Lansing’s watch to $2.1 billion in 2012.   read more

The state expects to spend upwards of $1.8 million of the BP funds on the renovation of the mansion. The diversion of money to the mansion repairs is somewhat surprising considering Bentley’s administration claimed earlier this year that it had no money to keep DMV offices open in some of Alabama’s poorer counties. The DMV offices are the primary place voters can obtain the identification required to vote under the state’s new laws.   read more

Thomas had to handle an angry town hall meeting of Foreign Service officers who objected to the G.W. Bush State Dept's plans for Iraq, including ordering people to serve at diplomatic posts. Thomas tried to quell the anger by explaining the department was not getting enough volunteers to go to the war-torn country. When one officer called an assignment to Iraq “a potential death sentence,” producing considerable applause, Thomas responded: “OK, thanks for your comment,” and ended the meeting.   read more

"The Government Accountability Office in 2010 estimated that about half of the agency’s inventory — said to be worth nearly $14 billion at the time — was just taking up space,” wrote Politico. It’s no wonder what one ex-general had to say about the Defense Logistics Agency. “How do you buy $7 billion of stuff you don’t need?” said Arnold Punaro, a retired major general in the Marine Corps Reserve. “If a company did that they’d be out of business. Even Wal-Mart.”   read more

During her term as ambassador, Stewart focused on helping to remove unexploded ordnance left over by the U.S. and other countries during the Vietnam War and broke ground on a new U.S. embassy in Vientiane. She also performed in a rap video—in Lao—for a local crowd. Stewart returned to Washington in 2013 to serve as political adviser to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.   read more

1. Lawyer who Defends Corporations Accused of Creating Toxic Pollution Sues Neighbor for Smoking Inside his own House 2. 47% of Americans would have to Borrow or Sell Something to Cover an Unexpected Expense of $400 3. FBI Upgrades Animal Cruelty to Class A Felony   read more

The federal program has permitted police to keep up to 80% of assets they seize, such as TV sets, cars, cash and even houses. “Asset forfeiture has become an increasingly contentious practice in recent years. It lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted — and in many cases, never charged — with wrongdoing,” wrote the Post. Widespread use of the practice has prompted "concern that, in some cases, police are motivated more by profits and less by justice.”   read more

The labeling requirements were eliminated through an attachment to the omnibus budget bill passed by Congress and signed by Obama earlier this month. The move was prompted by threats from the World Trade Organization, which threatened to allow Mexico and Canada to hit the U.S. with more than $1 billion in tariffs if it continued to require beef and pork labeling for foreign producers. The WTO said the labels discriminate against meat from animals raised and slaughtered outside the United States.   read more

The report said 78,000 active-duty soldiers were clinically obese based on having a body mass index of 30 or higher. “These soldiers also are less likely to be medically ready to deploy,” wrote Army Times. About 13% of male soldiers were classified as obese, compared to 8% of women. “The obese service members in the brigade in Afghanistan were 40% more likely to experience an injury than those with a healthy weight, and slower runners were 49% more likely to be injured.”   read more

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that FHWA failed to explain the rationale behind its exemption while noting the term “predominately” in a 1997 memorandum about minimal-use exemptions. “The 2012 memorandum says nary a word about why 90 percent was chosen as the threshold value to mean ‘predominately,’” Mehta wrote. “Not a single word. And defendants’ post-hoc efforts to rationalize the choice of that number ring hollow.”   read more

Some states as well as privacy experts and civil liberty groups say the law’s requirements for secure identification would amount to something like a national identification card. “The federal government has quietly gone around and clubbed states into submission,” said Minnesota senator Warren Limmer. If DHS tells TSA to begin enforcing the law, it could mean passengers from some states would not be able to use their driver’s licenses at airport security checkpoints.   read more

Forty percent of the shootings involved black male victims — “a grossly disproportionate number with African-American males making up only 6 percent of the population,” Tom Boggioni wrote in Raw Story. Caucasians made up the majority of cases where police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone or brandished a weapon. But 60% of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.   read more