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

For the first time in the U.S., a federal court has ruled that advances in DNA technology require that previously valueless forensic specimens must be viewed as newly discovered evidence, and therefore not subject to time limits established by law. This could lead to new trials for convicted individuals who have been claiming their innocence. The ruling came about in the case of a new trial sought by a man who, nine years ago, was convicted of attempted sexual abuse of a minor.   read more

A new program to be tested by the Justice Dept. will expand the Freedom of Information Act process. The six-month pilot program that will see seven federal offices and agencies publish all responses to FOIA requests. “If successful, the pilot could be implemented more broadly across the executive branch and increase public access to important information about government activity...a promising shift from present practice,” said the Sunlight Foundation.   read more

U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins ruled that Rodriguez has a Fourth Amendment right to challenge the shooting, which he said constituted a “seizure” on the part of the Border Patrol. Unreasonable seizures are a violation of the Fourth Amendment. “The Court finds that...the Mexican national may avail himself to the protections of the Fourth Amendment and that the agent may not assert qualified immunity,” Collins wrote. His ruling allows the lawsuit to proceed.   read more

“Efforts to further increase transparency, no matter how well intentioned, must avoid unintended consequences that could undermine the Federal Reserve’s ability to make policy in the long-run best interest of American families and businesses,” Yellen said. One bill would require the Fed to articulate how it sets interest rates and explain why it sometimes deviates from its own rules when doing so. Another plan would establish regular external review of the Fed’s policy-making process.   read more

The Sexuality Institute’s president, Rev. Ted McIlvenna, says that among the college’s holdings is a pornographic film library. He said he'd never want to get his school accredited through an affiliate of the Department of Education. “Accreditation is a bunch of crap,” he said. “They would never let me keep my library.” The Christ for the Nations Institute has received $310,000 to educate war vets. A museum operated by the school is based on the premise that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.   read more

The B61-12 nuclear bomb will have an adjustable yield and a tail section to allow the bomb to be guided to its target. Hans Kristensen, nuclear weapons expert at the nonpartisan Federation of American Scientists, said the bomb violates a 2010 Obama pledge not to produce nuclear weapons with new military capabilities. “We do not have a nuclear guided bomb in our arsenal today,” Kristensen said. “It is a new weapon.” He said the capability will make the bomb more useable in future conflicts.   read more

In Oklahoma, a GOP Facebook post compared food stamp recipients to feeding animals in national parks, where it can result in dependency. The state's Dept. of Human Services responded: “That was an appalling and uniformed comment. Obviously you did not bother to know the majority of the 604,000 people receiving food benefits in Oklahoma are people who are aging...with disabilities...the working poor who are raising children. ...Is that the kind of dependency you are suggesting we discourage?”   read more

The numbers showed that the poverty levels for white, Asian and Hispanic kids declined from 2010 to 2013. But the rate for black youths remained largely the same. Overall, the child poverty rate in the U.S. dipped slightly from 22% to 20% during this span. The Pew study also reported that black and Hispanic children are overrepresented when it comes to poverty. “Children make up 27% of the black population, but 38% of blacks in poverty,” said Pew.   read more

"I think members [of Congress will] realize they are being sold on a bill that doesn’t solve anything consumers are asking for...a mandatory labeling standard," said Colin O'Neil. Critics have called HR 1599 the “Mother of All Monsanto Protection Acts” after the company that opposes GMO labels. OCA's Ronnie Cummins characterized the legislation as “anti-democracy and anti-state’s rights.” Vermont already has a GMO labeling law, and Big Food has been fighting in court to get it overturned.   read more

Undocumented immigrants have until now been able to get birth certificates by providing a foreign ID if they don’t have a Texas driver’s license or a U.S. passport, as allowed under state law. The officials reportedly told the women they would no longer accept either the matricula consular or a foreign passport without a current U.S. visa. “Everyone born in the United States is entitled to the full rights of citizenship," said attorney James Harrington, who represents the families.   read more

The exodus of instructors has been blamed on education spending cuts, including low teacher pay. Gov. Brownback himself has led a charge to cut school funding. The Republican-dominated legislature’s attempts to do away with tenure, undermine teachers’ unions and even pass a law that would have allowed teachers to be criminally prosecuted for presenting material deemed harmful to minors have also been cited as reasons.   read more

Navajos are getting by on seven gallons of water a day while the average Californian in 2011 used 362 gallons a day. Puerto Ricans are enduring one of the worst droughts in their island’s history, forcing the government to ration water for the first time since the 1990s. For about 160,000 residents and businesses there, water is shut off for two days, then turned on for a day, then off again. About 185,000 others have water every other day and 10,000 more are on 12-hour rationing.   read more

The sentences are a relic of the “War on Drugs,” in which legislators wanting to appear to be tough on crime enacted sentencing laws that disproportionately affected black and Hispanic defendants. "The drug war has been a war on people of color,” said Michael Collins. One of the more prominent prisoners whose sentence was commuted was Katrina Smith, whose son, Demaryius Thomas, plays for the Denver Broncos. She has been locked up since he was 11.   read more

In the last four presidential elections 40 states plus D.C. have voted for the same party’s candidate in every one of those contests. Only four states have moved from solidly one party to the other. "The nation’s electoral maps are the most static they have been in history,” said Dr. Eric Ostermeier. In 2012, only two states switched their support from the previous presidential election: North Carolina and Indiana.   read more

Obama will travel Thursday to El Reno, a medium-security prison in Oklahoma. He’ll be accompanied by outgoing Bureau of Prisons chief Charles E. Samuels Jr. Obama will use the visit to draw attention to his plan for changing federal sentencing laws, particularly those that have resulted in black and Hispanic defendants being sentenced to decades behind bars for nonviolent offenses. There’s also talk that he might work to restore voting rights to felons who have served their time.   read more

Stolen information on so many millions of Americans will allow the hackers to determine who works for U.S. intelligence agencies and where they are in the world, said Paul Rosenzweig. “Short of real-time intelligence of U.S. activities, this is the intelligence equivalent of the discovery of the nuclear bomb,” he said. The data breach “really suggests that we should take the entire government offline” and offer “complete amnesty to anyone who is approached by the Chinese and comes forward.”   read more