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 Army Corps of Engineers must foot the entire bill for restoring Louisiana wetlands destroyed by the improper construction of a canal. The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal (MR-GO) was completed in 1968 as a shortcut to the New Orleans waterfront from the Gulf of Mexico. But the canal, which had widened to 2,000 feet in some places because of erosion caused by ship traffic, allowed the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina to breach New Orleans’ levees and flood the city.   read more

The class claims Nestlé has tried to hide its involvement with human rights violations from the public. Nestlé reportedly contracts with a Thai company, Thai Union Frozen Products PCL, to import more than 28 million pounds of seafood-based pet food, some of which is obtained through slave labor. “By hiding this from public view, Nestlé has effectively tricked millions of consumers into supporting and encouraging slave labor on floating prisons,” Steve Berman said in a statement.   read more

Paul Paz y Miño told Courthouse News Service, “The impetus behind the investigation was to find out how much U.S. policy was directly responsible for helping human rights violators. They not only killed his lawyers, they killed the 17-year-old son of one of his lawyers, they killed people that worked on his ranches; there were a lot of innocent victims....There was a lot of collateral damage and huge human rights blowback to it.”   read more

Exelon is primarily a power-generation company with more nuclear plants than any other U.S. utility. The company has consistently fought renewable energy efforts and the rejection of the merger came as a welcome surprise to clean energy advocates. The commission’s decision in the high-profile pending merger was reported to have taken all parties by surprise, from the power industry to renewable energy advocates.   read more

The FBI had published a fake news story, purportedly from the Associated Press, in 2007 in order to entice a suspect to download it so the bureau could put surveillance software on his computer. The fake story, “Bomb threat at high school downplayed by local police department” was released on the Internet with the AP logo. The article, however, originated in the FBI’s Seattle field office. The sting resulted in the arrest of a 15-year-old who had made threats against a high school.   read more

Countless studies have demonstrated lead’s effect on the cognitive and emotional states of those exposed to it. Appropriately, landlords who allowed lead paint to remain in their buildings have been forced to pay their victims thousands of dollars to attempt to compensate them for the brain damage caused by peeling lead paint. These payouts are often in the form of “structured settlements” which provide the victims with monthly payments for the rest of their lives.   read more

Rent already takes a huge chunk out of Americans’ paychecks, with as many as half of renters paying 30% of their take-home pay for a place to live. High rents affect poorer Americans the most. Not only do they pay more for rent now, but they’re unable to save money to buy a home of their own. Part of the reason for increased rents is a shortage of available units. Last year’s vacancy rate of 7.6% was the lowest such figure in 20 years.   read more

Each crew member will have his or her own bedroom and there are common spaces. The habitat itself is a geodesic dome with a former shipping container attached. The crew members will have limited access to the Internet and will be able to leave the habitat only if they’re dressed in a spacesuit.   read more

Such milestone events as the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the U.S. Constitution could be completely ignored. Cutting out early U.S. history in 11th grade hurts the ability of students to “think historically” when they reach higher education, according to a letter sent to the state Board of Education by university educators.That, of course, might be exactly what the Republican-dominated state government has in mind. “It’s disabling their citizenship,” said DSU's Ben Jones.   read more

Data produced by Pew shows tougher sentencing laws for drug offenders, which began in the 1980s, helped balloon the federal prison systems’ population of drug-related criminals from 5,000 to more than 95,000. This pushed the federal budget for this operation to $6.7 billion annually. But these expenditures on longer terms for drug offenders and other anti-drug strategies have not produced a lower level of drug use. In fact, illegal drug use has increased, according to Pew.   read more

A new report shows the emphasis on hiring veterans has paid off, at least as far as getting them into federal positions. But keeping them there is another matter. The report by the Office of Personnel Management says 31% of all federal workers are now veterans. But the “bad news is that once veterans get into government, they don’t stay long. They’re more likely to leave their jobs within two years than non-veterans,” wrote Lisa Rein at The Washington Post.   read more

Researchers found that because of a mistake the Corps made during testing, they recommended that the levee walls be started at a depth of 17 feet. Original estimates would have started the walls at a depth of 31 to 46 feet. However the use of a tarp along some of the test walls that distorted the test results, along with cost considerations, caused the Corps to go with the 17-foot depth. As a result, the walls failed.   read more

On May 18, 2015, President Barack Obama accepted the credentials of Fayçal Gouia, a longtime member of his country’s foreign service, to be Tunisia’s Ambassador to the United States. It’s the second time Gouia has been posted to his country’s embassy in Washington. Gouia’s first assignment to the Tunisian Embassy in Washington came in 1995, first as cultural and press counselor, followed in 1997 as economic and commercial counselor and beginning in 1999 as deputy chief of mission.   read more

Lobbyist Bruce Burkett convinced lawmakers to amend HB 1328 so it allowed “less than lethal” weapons on drones, including rubber bullets, tear gas and Tasers--many of which have caused death. The ACLU argues that "police drones are a new kind of threat to that compromise between security and liberty,” wrote Pyke. “[It] supports laws to restrict law enforcement’s use of them, and makes a compelling case that absent such restraints the technology is fundamentally at odds with the Bill of Rights.”   read more

The Pentagon’s inspector general is checking on intelligence assessments coming out of CENTCOM. Suspicions arose after a civilian DIA analyst claimed to have evidence that officials at CENTCOM “were improperly reworking the conclusions of intelligence assessments prepared for policy makers, including President Obama,” the Times reported. The story added that the possibility of “skewed intelligence” could “help explain why pronouncements about the progress of the campaign have varied widely.”   read more

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has gone to court in Wichita to block the release of voting machine tapes from the November 2014 election. Those same records were requested by statistician Beth Clarkson to analyze statistical aberrations she discovered in electronic voting machines. The records, Clarkson says, do not contain any personal voter data, but Republican Kobach has refused. Clarkson's research into other voting records has revealed anomalies that tended to favor Republicans.   read more