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

The California Department of Corrections will move nearly 2,000 inmates out of solitary confinement, in which prisoners spend all but one or two hours a day in complete isolation. Some have been in solitary confinement for decades. The most time served by an inmate in solitary was 43 years. The decision is “a game-changer," said forensic psychiatrist Terry Kupers, who filed research findings in the case. "California had led the nation in keeping people in cold storage."   read more

“Reasonable people might disagree, as a matter of ordinary usage, as to whether the term ‘family’ should include adult children who live with their parents, or a 17-year-old child who does not, or nieces and nephews who live with their aunts and uncles,” wrote Judge Kethledge. But, he added, there was no ambiguity when it comes to an individual’s husband or wife being a member of their family.   read more

Experts in the developing field of autonomous vehicles say a big challenge ahead is programming self-driving cars to know how to react to cars driven by humans. “The real problem is that the car is too safe,” said Donald Norman, director of the Design Lab at the University of California San Diego, who studies autonomous vehicles. “They have to learn to be aggressive in the right amount, and the right amount depends on the culture.”   read more

The University of Michigan’s annual “Monitoring the Future” study says just less than 6% of full-time college students used pot either every day or at least 20 times in the previous 30 days. That rate was higher than the 5% of respondents who claimed to be heavy cigarette smokers. The study also found 21% college students had used marijuana at least once during the previous month, and 34% said they had used it in the past year.   read more

Employers who wish to avoid providing contraception coverage to their workers can do so on moral grounds, a federal judge ruled Monday. The ruling came in a case brought by an anti-abortion group, March for Life, which sued the Department of Health and Human Services over the contraception mandate contained in Obamacare. March for Life contends it should not have to provide contraception coverage because its objections are not that different from those raised by religious groups.   read more

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report saying the number of reported medical errors (or “adverse events”) at VA hospitals went up 7% from 2010 to 2014. During that same period, the VA system that cares for nearly 6 million veterans saw 14% more patients but spent less time finding out the cause of medical errors. The GAO said investigations of adverse events dropped 18% from 2010 to 2014.   read more

KBR made millions of dollars off the Iraq war by providing a variety of support services to the U.S. military. Its methods of operation also resulted in servicemen and women being exposed to pollutants and toxins. Some of those exposed have since sued KBR and to add insult to injury, U.S. taxpayers will have to cover KBR’s legal expenses, according to the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals.   read more

Americans want tougher gun control laws when it concerns background checks, banning assault weapons and other measures intended to reduce the threat of gun violence, according to a new survey. Background checks and the prohibition on the mentally ill buying guns are widely supported by those from both major political parties. Background checks are favored by 88% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans, while keeping guns from the mentally ill is supported by 81% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans.   read more

Twenty years ago, world leaders set a goal of having women make up 30% of all lawmakers. Only 44 nations have managed to achieve this and the United States isn’t one of them. The U.S. is only at 20% in its Senate and 19% in the House, giving it an overall percentage of 19%. That’s good for the 75th best among world nations and puts the United States one better than Tajikistan, but two behind that noted wellspring of women’s rights, Saudi Arabia.   read more

“The U.S. really isn’t even in this game,” said Coast Guard commandant Zukunft. “When Russia put Sputnik in outer space, did we sit with our hands in pocket with great fascination and say, ‘Good for Mother Russia’?” The Obama administration's actions are mostly on paper. Meanwhile, Russia has telescoped its sovereign designs on a vast expanse of the Arctic roughly the size of South Africa. It also made a symbolic move by planting a titanium Russian flag in the seabed beneath the North Pole.   read more

Donald Trump’s immigrant-bashing message has raised questions about a backlash among Hispanic voters in response to the candidate’s ugly rhetoric. But while Hispanic turnout in elections has been steadily climbing in recent elections, the fact is most of these Americans still don’t cast ballots on Election Day. A new study shows only 47% of Hispanic voters went to the polls during the 2012 election. That means 53% didn’t vote, even though 20% of those who didn’t were registered.   read more

Only 1.5% of Engine 1’s calls in 2014 had to do with fires. The majority of its time was spent going on calls to help homeless people, including those struggling with mental illness or substance abuse. The entire San Francisco Fire Department responded to more than 136,000 incidents in 2014, but only 28,000 of them involved fires and other nonmedical calls. Some of the most dispiriting calls are are to the same homeless person repeatedly—sometimes as much as 20 times—in a single day.   read more

Pantex workers perform critical work involving nuclear weapons life extension programs, weapons dismantlement, development, testing, and fabrication of high explosives components. The plant also stores plutonium pits for warheads. “The Department of Energy and CNS Pantex know that these workers risk exposure to cancer-causing chemicals daily, yet the DOE has imposed a ridiculous policy upon its contractors," said MTD president Ron Ault.   read more

“The untold story of mass shootings in America is one of domestic violence,” Melissa Jeltsen wrote after reviewing Everytown’s statistics. “It is one of men...targeting and killing their wives or ex-girlfriends or families. The victims are intimately familiar to the shooters, not random strangers. [The violence is] frequently preceded by a flurry of red flags: 911 calls, hospitalizations, broken protective orders, repeat arrests, contentious custody battles, death threats and stalking."   read more

The panel ruled unanimously that the plaintiffs, led by conservative activist Larry Klayman, couldn’t prove their calls had been swept up because their calls were handled by Verizon Wireless, not Verizon Business, which had previously been found to have turned over calling data to the National Security Agency (NSA). This ruling came despite government documents released earlier this month that showed the NSA had also swept up Verizon Wireless data.   read more

U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota, whom Bush appointed in 2003, issued an injunction Thursday keeping an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule protecting smaller streams and waterways from pollution from going into effect Friday as scheduled. The rules would force landowners to get a permit if they did something that would pollute or destroy the regulated waters connected to larger bodies of water downstream.   read more