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 those who experience poor treatment, they are “virtually powerless to hold accountable the health care system that treats them,” according to Sharon LaFraniere at The New York Times. “They are captives of the military medical system, unable, without specific approval, to get care elsewhere if they fear theirs is substandard or dangerous. Yet if they are harmed or die, they or their survivors have no legal right to challenge their care, and seek answers, by filing malpractice suits.”   read more

“There are at least three clear violations” of federal law that have been committed by the NRA, said campaign finance expert Brett Kappel. “First of all, they can’t be soliciting from the general public at their website. Then there’s the fact that the money is not being solicited in the name of the PAC; they have to say...what the political purpose of the PAC is. And then there are multiple missing disclaimers such as the disclaimer saying that contributions have to be voluntary.”   read more

Tribal leaders said the change was necessary to curb obesity rates, which are three times the national average. The junk food tax, said to be the first of its kind in the U.S., comes to a community where up to 90% of the grocery stores’ inventory qualifies as junk food. In fact, the USDA has described the entire Navajo Nation a “food desert” because of the lack of healthy foods. More than half of the residents drive up to 240 miles just to get to a store that sells fresh fruits and vegetables.   read more

The bill, sponsored by Senator Kelly Ayotte, would extend the ban already in place for bringing detainees to the U.S. for detention and trial, and it would forbid the executive branch from relocating them to other countries. Meanwhile, President Obama has instructed the Pentagon to work on moving as many of the prisoners out of Guantánamo as possible in case the bill passes. The goal is to move upwards of 57 of the prison’s 122 detainees to several countries before the end of the year.   read more

Because FBI agents and other law enforcement officers were kept in the dark about the source for some data, it couldn’t be used in prosecutions. The FBI in 2004 examined whether Stellarwind data made a “significant contribution” to identifying a terrorist, deporting a terrorism suspect, or developing a confidential informant about terrorists. Only 1.2% of the tips panned out, the review showed. In 2006, the Bureau looked at the leads produced from 2004 until then. None proved useful.   read more

Since drones have been employed to kill terror suspects overseas, at least eight Americans have died in such attacks, seven during the Obama administration. One American victim of a U.S. drone mission was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of al-Awlaki. He was killed in Yemen. The government claimed he was not targeted, but then-presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said at the time that the death was justified and “he should have had a more responsible father.”   read more

The Department of Defense refuses to detail what it did with $1.3 billion that was supposed to be used on urgent humanitarian and reconstruction projects. Most of the funding this year for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program will be used for condolence payments when civilians are killed or injured or property is damaged by U.S. forces and to increase security for communities that happen to be located near active U.S. military bases.   read more

Wildlife Services is an ambiguously named division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The name sounds benign enough—someone might assume that the agency somehow protects animals from harm. That’s not the case though. Wildlife Services killed 2,713,570 animals—mostly birds—in 2014. The largest number killed of a single species is 1.1 million European starlings, the overwhelming majority of their deaths accomplished with poisonous chemicals.   read more

Inhofe is now the chairman of the Senate’s Environment Committee. He celebrated the first day of his second shot at this position by speaking for 13 minutes claiming that human-caused climate change is a fake concept. He’s even written a book entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. But when it suits his purposes (or those of his financial backers), Inhofe is apparently willing to allow climate change into his worldview.   read more

There were only 11 major work stoppages—involving more than 1,000 workers—in 2014, equaling the second lowest total since the bureau began recording such information in 1947. There were also 11 in in 2010 and only five in 2009. That compares to 470 such strikes in 1952. In 2014, only 34,000 U.S. workers took part in work stoppages. The only year with fewer numbers was the recession year of 2009 when only 13,000 workers went on strike.   read more

Meaghan Keeler-Pettigrew and Stuart Bradin of the Global Special Operations Forces Foundation argued that more of our foreign military spending ($5.65 billion in 2015), the bulk of which goes now to Israel and Egypt, should instead be used to bolster other countries’ own special forces. They pointed out recent terrorist attacks in Kenya and the threat posed in Nigeria by Boko Haram. Those countries get no more than $1.2 million and $600,000 respectively in U.S. military aid.   read more

Zuckerberg’s plan, developed with manufacturers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Samsung, allows free access via mobile phones in developing areas only to certain parts of the Internet. Surprise—Facebook is one of the applications able to be reached by way of the Internet.org app. Wikipedia is also available as are weather and a few other sites. But if you want to go to a site not on the app, you must either pay a fee or you’re out of luck.   read more

Big fees for handling government pensions have gone to fund managers who supported Republican Governor Chris Christie’s election campaigns. In the five years since Christie took office, the International Business Times reported, fees have quadrupled at the same time Christie has said the funds don’t have enough money to pay all the benefits to which retirees are entitled. New Jersey pension trustees have announced an investigation of the funds.   read more

Menominee County, Wisconsin, which comprises an Indian reservation, has the most binge drinkers of any county in the United States. 36% of Menominee residents are binge drinkers. Binge drinking is defined as men consuming five or more drinks at a sitting, or four or more for women, during the previous month. The county with the smallest binge drinking rate, at 5.9%, is Madison County, Idaho, which has a predominantly Mormon population and is home to Brigham Young University of Idaho.   read more

President Barack Obama indicated two years ago that his administration would no longer employ “signature” drone strikes. A signature strike is one in which subjects are targeted based on patterns of behavior rather than intelligence about who they are. But the January attack in which two hostages, including one American, were killed shows the CIA has continued to employ the tactic.   read more

Those opposing the editing of human genes say the changes can be passed to later generations and have an unpredictable effect on those populations. There is also concern about dangerous or unethical applications of the technique. Even the Chinese admitted that the gene modification did not go as well as they would have liked. They changed the genetic material of 86 embryos, of which 71 survived. But upon testing those that did survive, the scientists found only 28 were successfully spliced.   read more