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

Many of the baby boomers who contracted the disease did so from blood transfusions administered before testing for Hep C became standard in 1992, while others were infected via intravenous drug use. The CDC recommends that all Americans in this age group be tested for the disease. Hepatitis C can lay dormant for years before symptoms appear, but even if a patient is asymptomatic, he or she can still spread it via blood or even sexual contact.   read more

The pay raises will take effect in January 2016, following a decision by the Obama administration to help those working in 13 urban centers. “The decision comes after years of deliberation, including tentative approval in May 2013. The cities will now receive unique locality-based pay adjustments, rather than being lumped in with the ‘rest of United States’ grouping." The pay for federal jobs in the affected cities is lagging that of jobs in local governments and the private sector.   read more

The low national rate belies the fact that two U.S. states have much higher rates of following through on capital punishment sentences. In Virginia, 110 out of 152 people put on death row were executed, or 72%. Baumgartner attributed Virginia’s high rate to the fact that it limits the time one can appeal a death penalty sentence to one year. The state with the second highest rate is Texas, which executed nearly half of its prisoners to receive the death penalty, 508 out of 1,075, or 47%.   read more

The “suspect”, now in police custody, was nabbed by villagers in the Bamial sector of Pathankot district, just a few kilometres away from the border with Pakistan. The bird, with a Pakistani seal and "Tehsil Shakargarh, district Narowal" stamped on it in Urdu, was spotted by Ramesh Chand of Manwal village who took it to Bamial police station.   read more

Sen. Ernie Chambers, the bill’s sponsor, said he has tried to repeal the death penalty 37 times and wouldn’t have accomplished it this year without conservative votes. The bill was passed by “winning the support of Republican legislators who said they believed capital punishment was inefficient, expensive and out of place with their party’s values, as well as that of lawmakers who cited religious or moral reasons for supporting the repeal,” reported The New York Times.   read more

“What this Court has seen along the way is a hopeful transformation of a school board which was initially tentative, recalcitrant, and partially uninformed regarding the depth of its responsibilities in the desegregation area,” wrote Judge Drell. “That board has now matured..." Officials must comply with adoption of a uniform admissions process and ensuring classrooms are desegregated. It must also change its policies resulting in blacks being suspended or expelled more than whites.   read more

The case involves the shooting of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, a Mexican teenager shot to death by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who opened fire on rock throwers on the other side of the border. An autopsy showed that Rodriguez had been shot about 10 times, mostly in the back. The boy’s family claims the agent, Lonnie Swartz, violated the Fourth and Fifth amendments by using “excessive and unjustified” force against the boy, whom they say was not involved in the rock throwing.   read more

Never before has a U.S. court considered granting legal protection to primates from being “unlawfully detained.” Plaintiff attorney Wise pointed out that detainees have won the right to use habeas corpus to challenge their indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay—a move opposed by some in legal and government circles. He even compared the fates of the chimps to African Americans held under slavery. “It’s not to protect human beings,” Wise said, referring to the writ. “It’s to protect autonomy.”   read more

It appears that the days are over when most of America wagged a disapproving finger at anyone who dared to engage in sex outside of marriage. As of this decade, 55% of Americans approved of premarital sex, compared with 29% who felt this way in the early 1970s, according to a new study. Among those 18-29 in age, acceptance of premarital sex has only grown. In the ‘70s, 47% of Baby Boomers felt sex before marriage was “not wrong at all.” By the 2010, Millennials’ approval registered at 62%.   read more

The Justice Department has indicted 14 people so far on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Conspicuously not mentioned in the indictments was FIFA President Sepp Blatter, whom some call the most powerful person in sports. He might not be out of the woods yet though. One U.S. law enforcement official said that Blatter’s fate would “depend on where the investigation goes from here.” Said acting U.S. Atty. Currie: “I want to be very clear: This is the beginning.”   read more

The oil giants “are pressing ahead with investments despite...that two-thirds of proven fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground to prevent the earth from warming above pre-industrial levels – a proposed temperature limit beyond which scientists warn of spiraling and irreversible climate change.” Shell's van Beurden received $32.2 million linked to delivering projects including oil platforms above deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Guinea and South China Sea.   read more

The politicians "received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000. On his return from Azerbaijan, Bridenstine sponsored an amendment to the defense bill that would have required the Defense Department to issue reports on the strategic importance of natural gas interests in the Caspian Sea area and the value of building a pipeline out of the region.   read more

The judges, Jerry E. Smith and Jennifer Elrod, agreed with Texas’ claim that allowing immigrants to remain in the state would force the state to incur costs of issuing drivers’ licenses to the undocumented immigrants. The court said that Obama’s plan, which was to defer deportation proceedings for undocumented immigrants and grant them work permits, went beyond prosecutorial discretion. The administration says the government is within its rights to set priorities for their deportation.   read more

USPS officials were preparing to close 82 locations this year as part of its “network rationalization,” or consolidation effort that saw 141 facilities eliminated in 2012. The closures have come under attack from Republicans and Democrats in Congress whose states and districts faced job losses as a result. More than 7,000 jobs are expected to be lost.   read more

It took 900 pages to create Obamacare as law, but it may take only four words of that bill to cost millions of Americans their healthcare subsidies and raise their health costs. Those four words opened the door to this legal challenge to Obamacare, but it seems to be something of a mystery as to how they got into the law in the first place. Former Sen. Jeff Bingaman said the words appeared to be a “drafting error,” while Sen. Olympia Snowe called it "inadvertent language."   read more

“The decline reverses a historical pattern, researchers say, with public sector employees typically holding onto their jobs even during most economic downturns,” The New York Times wrote. “Roughly one in five black adults works for the government, teaching school, delivering mail, driving buses, processing criminal justice and managing large staffs. They are about 30 percent more likely to have a public sector job than non-Hispanic whites, and twice as likely as Hispanics.”   read more