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

A new law is forcing the IRS to employ private debt collectors, which will cost the agency money and make it easier for scammers to defraud Americans. The provision means that bill collectors will be using the same tactics to collect tax debt as they do for a late credit-card payment. That concerns IRS officials, who have long warned Americans to beware of calls from scam artists claiming to be from the IRS. Such scams have cost 3,000 victims a total of $14 million this year alone.   read more

Environmentalists fought the project and when it seemed inevitable, proposed road-building alternatives that would do less damage to the environment. But the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) signaled that it was prepared to approve the Greater Mooses Tooth as the oil company wanted. “BLM in Alaska is coming perilously close to acting as a leasing agent of the ConocoPhillips company,” Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who fought the project, said according to the reporting.   read more

U.S. foreign sales increased from $26.7 billion in 2013 to $36.2 billion last year, despite increased competition for a market that hasn’t gotten much bigger. The U.S. is the biggest provider of arms in the world, controlling a bit more than 50% of the global arms export market. Russia is the next biggest supplier, with $10.2 billion, off a little from its 2013 total of $10.3 billion. Sweden, which supplies fighter planes to such countries as Brazil, was third at $5.5 billion in arms exports.   read more

Just in time for New Year’s Eve, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have put a damper on your party with the news that alcohol-related deaths have climbed 37% since 2002. In 2014, according to the CDC, 30,700 people died from alcohol-related causes, or 9.6 deaths per 100,000 population. That doesn’t include those killed in traffic accidents or homicides in which alcohol was a factor.   read more

“There is an alarming and growing trend of schools quietly seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT students, and not disclosing that information publicly,” HRC President Chad Griffin said. “We believe that religious liberty is a bedrock principle of our nation, however faith should never be used as a guise for discrimination. Prospective students and their parents deserve greater transparency, and we urge the Department of Education to take action...”   read more

President Obama has said since he entered office that transparency was a priority for his administration. But his own bureaucratic “right hand” has failed to live up to the expectations set for other agencies. The White House Office of Budget and Management (OMB) is in charge of ensuring government agencies make their operations open to the public. OMB has been criticized, though, for not updating its own guidance on transparency. Its last update was in 2010.   read more

DaVita, the leading provider of dialysis services in the United States, agreed to pay two of the largest settlements: $450 million to resolve allegations that it knowingly generated unnecessary waste in administering the drugs Zemplar and Venofer to dialysis patients and billed the government for costs that could have been avoided; and $350 million for paying kickbacks to physicians to induce patient referrals to its clinics.   read more

Defendants are shown videos resembling game shows where court concepts such as a bailiff and juries are discussed. There are mock trials where patients can see how a trial works and quizzes on the process. When they’re deemed able to understand the process, defendants are returned to jail. There, they often lose access to the medication that made them lucid enough to appear in court. That can cause them to begin the process over for subsequent court appearances.   read more

McKesson, which made $6.2 billion providing healthcare services and information technology, paid the most in penalties: $2.05 billion for 24 instances of misconduct. Its biggest single penalty was in 2005, when it paid $960 million to members of a class action suit in connection with accounting improprieties in a company acquired by McKesson. It paid $150 million earlier this year because of reporting problems for controlled substances. The company has been led since 2001 by CEO John Hammergren.   read more

Blau conducted a year-long investigation into the financing of the settlements. He found 50 pro-Israeli settlement nonprofits aided by U.S. donors had funneled more than $220 million to Jewish communities in the West Bank from 2009 to 2013. The organizations spent the money, much of which was tax-deductible, on everything from air conditioners to supporting the families of convicted Jewish terrorists.   read more

“America’s next president could be eased into office not just by TV ads or speeches, but by Google’s secret decisions, and no one—except for me and perhaps a few other obscure researchers—would know how this was accomplished,” Epstein wrote. “Research I have been directing in recent years suggests that Google, Inc., has amassed far more power to control elections—indeed, to control a wide variety of opinions and beliefs—than any company in history has ever had."   read more

Until eight years ago, Missouri had one of the country’s toughest gun control laws. But in 2007, the state legislature repealed that law and has since adopted others making gun ownership less restricted. Federal data released last month showed that from 1999 to 2006, Missouri’s gun homicide rate was 13.8% higher than the national rate. After the background checks were repealed, from 2008 to 2014, it was 47% higher.   read more

Parent Kimberly Herndon said the assignment amounted to “indoctrination” and that it violated the students’ right of religious freedom. Not all members of the community were as quick to condemn LaPorte. A Facebook page supporting the teacher had more than 2,000 members. “As a community, it is up to us to defend a teacher who is not in the wrong and deserves our support as she supported a great number of us through our high school years,” Grace Zimmerman, a former student of LaPorte’s, posted.   read more

The Observer has stopped running pot ads in its issues it mails. “The ban could have a chilling effect on newspapers that deliver by mail,” wrote Willamette Week. “The outdated federal approach to marijuana as described in the response from the Postal Service undermines and threatens news publications that choose to accept advertising from legal marijuana businesses in Oregon and other states where voters also have freely decided to legalize marijuana," said three Oregon politicians.   read more

“It’s outrageous that lawmakers are interfering with the most modest measures to increase disclosure of political spending,” said Public Citizen's Lisa Gilbert. “The American people want – and deserve – to know who is trying to buy our elections.” The budget deal also includes another Republican-supported rider designed to prevent the SEC from moving forward with a regulation requiring disclosure of political donations by public corporations.   read more

One message was sent out on Thunderclap, a social media tool that allows sharing on a wide scale. That message, which reached 1.8 million people at once, read: “Clean water is important to me. I support EPA’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family and my community.” The GAO ruled the message illegal, according to the Times, because during its subsequent sharing across the Internet, some may not have known it was originally sent by the EPA, thereby qualifying it as covert propaganda.   read more