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

While Congress oversaw ballooning federal deficits this decade, lawmakers also ramped up their expenses on overseas travel, the Wall Street Journal found. A review of congressional records revealed spending on foreign junkets by members of the Hou...   read more

If public officials are to be expected to cooperate with federal investigations, their testimony to government lawyers must be kept confidential, says the Obama administration. This argument is the basis for the Justice Department’s opposition to ...   read more

Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Barack Obama’s health reform czar, knows a thing or two (or four) about the dark underbelly of the medical industry, after serving on the boards of numerous companies accused of illegal activities. Following her resign...   read more

Violations of federal election law are likely to go unpunished these days, thanks to the partisan deadlock that’s hampering the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Divided 3-3 between Democratic and Republican appointees, the FEC has routinely fail...   read more

Despite President Barack Obama’s pledge not to hold CIA agents accountable for their participation in the torture of suspected terrorists, the Justice Department has quietly continued a grand jury investigation begun during President George W. Bus...   read more

Picking up where the Bush administration left off, U.S. officials have been claiming in recent months that Iran has been helping the Taliban in Afghanistan—an assertion not backed up by hard evidence and downplayed by others fighting the war.   ...   read more

As part of the government’s effort to create universal health care, Americans who don’t purchase medical insurance coverage would be fined more than $1,000 under a plan currently in the U.S. Senate. Similar to laws requiring motorists to carry aut...   read more

Federal law enforcement officials warned earlier this year that the election of the nation’s first African-American president might result in a rise of violent behavior by white supremacists. Accounts compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center in...   read more

In addition to facing multiple class action lawsuits by U.S. soldiers over its open pit burning of garbage in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense contractor KBR Inc. is being sued by National Guardsmen from around the country for allegedly causing their...   read more

Unlike most people his age who have spent the past seven years growing up and going to school, Mohamed el-Gharani endured the majority of his time as a teenager at Guantánamo Bay. Perhaps the youngest of all the detainees held at the U.S. prison, ...   read more

To handle U.S. interests in one of the most volatile and important regions of the world, President Barack Obama has turned to veteran diplomat Robert O. Blake, Jr., who has experience in the region and whose father was a prominent diplomat as well...   read more

No wonder the military in Honduras was so fast and efficient in overthrowing leftist President Manuel Zelaya last weekend. Two of the coup’s top leaders were trained at the infamous School of the Americas, which has a long reputation for training ...   read more

Critics of Sonia Sotomayor can knock her for her liberal views or rulings regarding affirmative action, but if there’s one thing the U.S. Supreme Court nominee can’t be criticized for it is her willingness to recuse herself. Based on her long reco...   read more

Despite a noticeable drop in cocaine-related overdoses, Florida law enforcement officials are not celebrating. Prescription drug abuse has now become the leading cause of drug-related overdoses, primarily from the powerful pain killer oxycodone,...   read more

Even though President Barack Obama followed through with his pledge to freeze the salaries of White House staffers making more than $100,000, Team Obama is making 15% more than what George W. Bush’s crew made in 2008. An analysis by National Journ...   read more

The American waistline continues to expand at an alarming rate, according to a new report, which found in 2008 not a single U.S. state reported a decline in adult obesity—while nearly half the country experienced an increase. The study, produced b...   read more