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

Agrabah is a fictional city in the Disney movie, "Aladdin." The question’s insertion into the survey was inspired by the “extreme rhetoric” of Republican presidential candidates in the debates and on the campaign trail. “Anything that sounds Arab might make these [respondents] think of people who might associate with terrorism,” Mayhew told MTV News. “It also relates to the fear people are feeling and it speaks to the fear that the right is playing to with their campaigns.”   read more

The one thing that historically has held back women in the armed forces is that not all jobs were open to women, especially spots in combat units which are seen as a prerequisite for promotion. But Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s announcement that all jobs are open equally to men and women changed that and women should soon see a clearer path to advancement. The Coast Guard offers a two-year sabbatical to encourage mothers to stay in the service.   read more

Humboldt Superior Court will receive a $110,000 loan from the California Judicial Council to help pay for 24 homicide cases. Eighteen of them are currently headed to trial. The county usually averages 11 murders a year. Many of the pending trials are for homicides that occurred in 2014, when Humboldt experienced 16 murders. That was the highest number in the county in at least 30 years.   read more

Jane, a retired science teacher, said the solar technology might interfere with nearby plants’ ability to carry out photosynthesis. “She added that no one could tell her solar panels didn’t cause cancer,” the Huffington Post reported. Lane said Woodland had already approved three major solar farms within the past year, and that the decision to reject the fourth had more to do with space and location because it “would have completely boxed the town in with solar farms.”   read more

A review of more than 50 contracts found "the vast majority have provisions that block accountability and protect officers from being investigated, indicted, and ultimately convicted,” ThinkProgress reported. They include the expungement of internal records and the use of a “do not call” list of officers who cannot testify, which can “impede the effective investigation of reported misconduct and shield officers who are in fact guilty of misconduct from meaningful discipline,” said the study.   read more

Death row numbers are dwindling because states are handing down fewer death sentences. This year saw courts sentence only 49 individuals to death, the lowest number of death sentences imposed since 1973. “The numbers are consistent with a long-term trend in which public support for the death penalty is dropping, the number of executions is dropping and the number of death penalties imposed is dropping,” said DPIC executive director Robert Dunham.   read more

The authors of the study said “stabilization programming actually had the perverse effect of increasing support for the Taliban in Taliban-controlled villages.” In other cases, USAID did such a poor job of managing its projects that Taliban leaders were able to successfully submit requests through intermediaries for American aid projects for villages under their control. Also, USAID’s targeting of some villages not under Taliban control resulted in increased violence from the Taliban.   read more

The GAO makes recommendations to federal agencies on ways they can save taxpayer dollars. However, some of the larger agencies have yet to embrace 4,800 recommendations made by auditors. The Defense Dept., which has failed to implement 1,004 such suggestions, has by far ignored the GAO the most. One of the biggest defense programs the GAO has examined is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon, said GAO, did not adequately assess the affordability of the plane, which has had severe problems.   read more

RCP’s polling analysis showed Sanders with 32.2% support among voters, and Trump with just slightly more at 33%. But Gallup’s party affiliation numbers showed 44% of those surveyed identify with Democrats, compared to 42% of Republicans, giving a bit more weight to the Sanders supporters. Meanwhile, Trump this year received 234 minutes of coverage among NBC, CBS and ABC evening news broadcasts, while Sanders got only 10 minutes of coverage from the Big Three.   read more

The report warned that in gathering census information electronically, “the threshold for effectively manipulating the census process is surprisingly low.” It noted that particular concern should be paid to “large-scale, organized fraud [which] could pose a threat to the integrity of the census.” Census fraud can have serious consequences, such as affecting the loss or gain of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives,” according to the study.   read more

Fatal drug overdoses in 2014 totaled 47,055, a 7% increase from 2013, according to figures from the NCHS. Heroin deaths, which numbered 10,574 in 2014, have tripled over the past five years. The rise in opioid overdoses has come despite local, state and federal agencies devoting “additional resources to cracking down on illegal drug traffic, more widely distributing the drug naloxone, which reverses overdoses, and sending users to treatment instead of jail when possible,” reported the Post.   read more

Research until now showed that people tend to get happier as they grow older, at least until age 65. But starting right after the Great Recession the trend shifted. Since 2010, adults have reported less happiness than young people, “reversing old notions of how happiness changes across the life span,” Stephanie Pappas wrote at The Washington Post. “My conclusion is that our current culture is giving teens what they need, but not mature adults what they need,” psychologist Jean Twenge said.   read more

Despite recent high-profile police shootings in places such as Chicago, St. Louis and Baltimore, it’s not a big city that leads the U.S. in killings by police. Kern County, California, is home to oil wells, country music star Merle Haggard and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. It’s also where America’s deadliest police forces patrol the streets. A new study shows that officers in Kern County, including Bakersfield, kill more people per capita than in any other U.S. jurisdiction.   read more

President Obama has called for more gun control laws on 16 occasions, which triggered an increase in gun sales and investments. Since 2010, shares of Smith and Wesson have risen by 400%. At the same time, initiatives for divestment of stakes in the gun industry were launched following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the recent San Bernardino attack. Some of these are being sponsored by cities and major retirement funds.   read more

“Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds seemed like an ordinary American soldier, but he had an extraordinary sense of responsibility and dedication to his fellow human beings,” Avner Shalev told AP. “[He] set an example for his fellow American soldiers as they stood united against the barbaric evil of the Nazis.” The Israeli honor might not be the only one to be bestowed upon Edmonds. He's now being considered for the Medal of Honor, America's highest award that can be bestowed on a combat soldier.   read more

Even staffs of senators representing states with large minority populations have very small numbers of staff members of color. Among the senators from states in which Latinos comprise 15% to 45% of the population, only 8.5% of the staffers are people of color, according to the report. And of the 10 southern and border states in which African-Americans comprise 17% to 38% of the population, their senators have exactly one African-American top staffer.   read more