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

All four statues have been targeted for removal by the New Orleans’ Historic District Landmarks Commission due to their portrayals of racist ideologies and qualifying as a site for potential violence. Jindal reacted by saying he would use the state “Heritage Act” to prevent the statues’ removal. However, it turned out there is no such law in Louisiana. However, South Carolina has a law by that name, which had kept the Confederate flag flying until just recently.   read more

Researchers found no defendants were acquitted when juries had two or fewer blacks serving on them. But when juries had at least three black jurors, the acquittal rate was 12%. With five or more blacks--19%. “Why do race-based peremptory challenges persist? Because race is an unfortunate but powerful basis for generalization,” wrote Edelman. "A prosecutor has reason to think that a black juror is less likely to side with the government against a black defendant than a white one.”   read more

Attorney James Montgomery from Chicago calls police brutality litigation a “cottage industry” where brutality claims and lawsuits are generating a billion dollars in settlements. Cities running the 10 largest police departments have paid $1.2 billion between 2010 and 2014 to plaintiffs, according to Montgomery. “In this country, that's $300 million in legal fees. So it's a great avenue to make money. And the police are feeding you new cases every day,” he told the Journal.   read more

The legal action is part of what is described as a “vast multi-district” lawsuit against hundreds of defendants who are claimed to have provided support for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. On appeal the litigation was restored, which put Al-Swailem back as a defendant. He again asked to be removed, as did the Saudi Royal Family, saying Al-Swailem’s position as head of the charities entitled him to diplomatic immunity. Judge Daniels granted Al-Swailem’s motion last week.   read more

When 3 million gallons of heavy-metal laced water first poured from the Gold King mine into the Animas River, it was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the spotlight. Now, it has come out that those working at the mine when the waste poured out worked for Environmental Restoration LLC, based in Missouri. Environmental Restoration frequently contracts for the EPA, collecting more than $350 million in business from the agency.   read more

Physicians have long prescribed drugs for “off-label” uses, but drug companies have been forbidden to market their products for those purposes. The case hinged on a 2012 New York City federal appeals court decision that found a pharmaceutical sales rep had not violated FDA rules in promoting off-label use for a narcolepsy drug, Xyrem.   read more

The Lead Inspector General for Overseas Contingency Operations’ reports are so lacking in content that Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies compares the group to Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks.” He added that the Lead IG report “reads more like a public relations exercise than anything else. It also follows a pattern within the Executive Branch of steadily reducing reporting that has any negative content…”   read more

Jeb Bush said Thursday that his brother George W. Bush’s efforts in “taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal.” The cost of taking out Saddam Hussein, who was found to have no weapons of mass destruction, was staggering. --More than 4,424 American lives were lost fighting in Iraq. Those numbers don’t include veterans suffering from PTSD who killed themselves after returning home. Thousands more American service members were seriously wounded.   read more

The percentage of black students in majority white schools has fallen to a level not seen since 1968, according to U.S. Department of Education statistics. In 2011, majority white schools had an average of 23.2% black students. That compares to a high of 43.5% in 1988.   read more

Dole and Chiquita used the pesticide dibromochloropropane (DBCP), manufactured by Dow Chemical and others, on their banana farms in Central and South America. The plaintiffs who had worked on those farms claimed in their suit that they were exposed to the chemical in the 1970s and ’1980s, but illnesses such as kidney problems, infertility and an increased risk of cancer did not appear until later. Their lawsuit also claimed that Dole has known about DBCP’s toxic properties since 1958.   read more

The EPA is supposed to acknowledge a claim within five days, decide within 20 days whether it will be investigated and complete any investigation within 180 days. But that’s not how it works in the real world. A list on the EPA website shows all the Title VI complaints and some of the claims are old enough to vote.   read more

Salmonella is another disease that will benefit from climate change. Extreme weather, particularly along coastlines, can lead to contaminated water and to salmonella poisoning. A study, published in Environment International, showed a 4.1% increase in the incidence of salmonella with an uptick in extreme temperature events, and 5.6% increase connected with extreme precipitation. In both cases, coastal areas had a higher risk of increased salmonella poisoning.   read more

Tamosaitis was one of the group developing a technique for turning toxic and radioactive sludge into glass, which theoretically could be buried for thousands of years. However, Tamosaitis began to believe that the process was flawed and would result in a buildup of hydrogen gas and clumps of plutonium which could start a nuclear reaction.   read more

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that there have been more than 650 reports by pilots of drones flying near their aircraft so far this year. That’s a huge increase from the 238 such incidents reported in all of 2014.   read more

Rents have risen steadily since the housing crisis, so much so that the share of income people spent on rent reached 30.2% during the second quarter this year. That rate is the highest recorded by real estate company Zillow, which has been tracking such data since 1979. The percentage was 29.5% during the second quarter of 2014. The median rent nationwide also is up from last year, by 4.3%.   read more

Georgia’s DeKalb County, near Atlanta, is struggling with its reputation after a top official was convicted of corruption and a special investigation found numerous misappropriations of taxpayer money. Interim CEO Lee May hired two independent investigators to audit the county government. The investigators, Richard L. Hyde and Michael J. Bowers, concluded DeKalb’s government was “rotten to the core.”   read more