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

Only two years ago, the cost of the antibiotic tetracycline in generic form was only $1.50 for pharmacies. But by 2014, the same drug cost $257.70 … a 17,080% increase. Another antibiotic, doxycycline, went from costing $1.20 to $111 in just six months. That’s an increase of 9,150%. One of the big players in the generic field is Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals. Teva has bought up competitors and as it has done so, it has raised its prices. The company now controls 22% of the generic market.   read more

The astronauts planned to eat half of their harvest and save the rest for packaging, freezing and sending back to Earth for testing. “Tastes good. Kinda like arugula,” astronaut Scott Kelly said. And just because they are hundreds of miles up from the nearest Whole Foods, they didn’t have to eat plain lettuce. The astronauts dressed their salad with extra virgin olive oil and Italian balsamic vinegar. The plant experiment, called Veg-01, was designed by Orbital Technologies Corp.   read more

The breach resulted in three million gallons of orange-colored waste spilling into the Animas River. The rate of the leak out of the mine was calculated at 1,200 gallons per minute. As of Sunday, discolored water had traveled 100 miles reaching municipalities in New Mexico. Testing of water collected at sample stations along the Animas showed increased levels of arsenic, lead, aluminumr and other potentially toxic heavy metals. Two Colorado counties have declared states of emergency.   read more

Not only are “mega-fires” occurring more often, but the fire season itself has gotten longer—by 78 days since 1970. Additionally, the total number of acres burned each year has doubled since the 1980s. Things are expected to get only more challenging for the agency when it comes to forest fires as a result of climate change. The worst fire seasons on record have all occurred since 2000, and last year the country’s 10 biggest fires cost the Fire Service $320 million, according to the agency.   read more

The Post determined that black men are seven times more likely than white men to die by police gunfire while unarmed. In terms of actual numbers, the total of unarmed black men killed by police stands at 24 in 2015. “In many of the 24 shootings of unarmed black men…the threat was not readily apparent, raising questions about the officers’ use of deadly force,” said the Post. “In each case, the situation rapidly spun out of control. In some cases, police have not said why they opened fire."   read more

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed Planned Parenthood with a 45% positive rating among Americans. Thirty percent viewed the organization negatively. None of the presidential contenders came close to 45%. Hillary Clinton managed a 37% positive rating. But that was outdone by her 48% negative rating. On the Republican side, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump got a 26% positive score. But their negatives, too, were much higher (40% and 56%, respectively).   read more

“Barack Obama deserves the ‘Gun Salesman of the Decade’ award,” said Erich Pratt of Gun Owners of America, “People have been rushing to buy firearms because they’re afraid that Obama will take away their Second Amendment rights.” In fact, the gun boom is the result of scare tactics employed by the gun industry, says gun safety advocates. “The gun lobby seizes on those fears and uses scare tactics and doomsday rhetoric in order to sell more guns,” said Mark Prentice.   read more

If you watched the Republican presidential debate on Thursday, you learned one thing: The GOP is a man’s world. The last time a majority of women voted for a Republican presidential candidate was 1988…seven elections ago. The 10 candidates on the stage seemingly tried to outdo each other on taking away women’s abortion rights. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker repeated his view that abortion bans should have no exception for the health of the mother.   read more

A Pew study showed that 59% of respondents believe there are changes needed to ensure that black people have the same rights as whites, while only 32% said enough had been done. According to a similar survey in March 2014, only 46% thought more work was needed, compared to 49% who said there had been enough changes. A Washington Post poll released Wednesday had similar results; 60% thought there was more work needed, compared to 37% who believed enough had been done.   read more

Law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant to get tracking data from mobile phone companies, according to a decision by a federal appeals court. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (pdf) Wednesday in a 2-1 decision that just because a third party holds information, it does not mean that it can be made freely available to police. The case is now likely to go to the Supreme Court.   read more

Sixteen states that rely heavily on coal-generated electricity have asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to delay its Clean Power Plan, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 30%. The plan requires the states to submit plans by September 2018 that spell out how they will begin cutting emissions in their jurisdictions by 2022. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that the EPA plan represented an “illegal power grab by the Obama administration.”   read more

Raised by her mother, who cleaned houses for a living, Roth grew up in the Anacostia neighborhood of southeast Washington D.C. “There were times,” she has said, “when it was five of us in a two-bedroom apartment and there were times when there were just two of us. There were times when the lights were on and times when they weren't. I know what it means to have the food truck come and get cheese and bread.”   read more

Roosevelt was a particular target of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who believed she was a Communist sympathizer. He amassed a 3,000-page file on Roosevelt, most of which has been released. However there are still 12 pages of the file, dealing with Roosevelt’s trips to the Soviet Union in 1957 and 1958, which the FBI has not made available.   read more

Among the findings of the study of 2014’s 100 top films: --Females 13 to 20 were as likely as those 21 to 39 to be shown in “sexy attire.” --No women over 45 were portrayed in a lead role. --Seventeen had no black speaking characters and more than 40 had no Asian speaking roles. --Out of 4,610 speaking characters, only 10 were gay, 4 were lesbian and 86 of the top 100 had no LGBT characters at all.   read more

A new report (pdf) from the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) says that more than 10,800 domestic violence victims could not be helped last year out of more than 78,500 victims overall who contacted programs. NNEDV said 28% of the programs were unable to provide the necessary resources because of cuts in government funding. Another 18% blamed cuts from private funding sources, and 14% reported reductions in individual donations as the cause.   read more

In 2008, Hawkins was named a deputy chief of mission again, this time in Luanda, Angola. He returned to Washington in 2010 to be director of the Office of Near East and South and Central Asia in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, where he managed human rights programs. In 2012, Hawkins was sent to Lagos, Nigeria as consul general.   read more