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

Mohamed Farah Aideed, the Somali warlord who became Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States in the early 1990s, received arms and other aid from one of Saudi Arabia’s leading charities, according to a recently discovered Defense Department intelli...   read more

When the federal government fired Franklin Kameny in 1957 for being a homosexual, it unknowingly launched the young astronomer into a new career as a leading gay rights activist. After losing his civilian job for the U.S. Army’s mapping service, K...   read more

Even after decades of public discourse on the inequality of the criminal justice system, the United States continues to punish minorities, especially African Americans, who are arrested at rates far higher than Caucasians who are arrested. A new s...   read more

It’s time to end the practice of pharmaceutical companies paying competitors to postpone the introduction of generic drugs into the market, says the new head of the Federal Trade Commission. For example, Bayer paid almost $400 million to Barr and ...   read more

President Barack Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to spread the wealth, and so far he’s doing just that, according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation. In its latest of a series of special reports on Obama’s fiscal policies, the foundation c...   read more

Between steady cost increases in the private health care market and a lack of willpower on the part of Congress with Medicare, it’s no wonder the United States is facing skyrocketing costs for its medical care. According to the Department of Healt...   read more

Some might call it politically ironic, while others just downright unfair, but Diane J. Humetewa is about to be out of a job. Humetewa became the first female Native American U.S. attorney in history during the Bush administration—the same adminis...   read more

In another demonstration of President Barack Obama’s preference for the tried-and-true ways of Washington, the new president has focused his domestic travel so far on those states that are likely to be battlegrounds in the 2012 election. Of the 16...   read more

Whoever heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is expected not to be shy about using the Endangered Species Act (ESA) so that plants and animals aren’t threatened by development. But President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the environment...   read more

After months of reviewing the cases of Guantánamo detainees, the Obama administration has reached the same conclusions as the Bush White House: Forget the courts (both military and civilian), forget Congress, and just keep suspected terrorists loc...   read more

Shortly after taking command of the military campaign in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal pledged American forces would be more selective and careful in the use of airstrikes against the Taliban in order to reduce the number of ci...   read more

Imagine spending $1.4 million every day since the beginning of this year to convince Congress to do right by you. That’s the amount the health industry has averaged with its lobbying expenditures from January to June on Capitol Hill, while lawmake...   read more

On Monday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin will decide if Bernard Madoff will spend the rest of his life in prison. Of the more than 1,300 individuals swindled by Madoff, one investor who can’t say he was victimized by the now-infamou...   read more

The battle is not yet over, insist environmentalists, following a decision on June 22 by the U.S. Supreme Court that allows mining companies to dump waste into lakes and waterways. The court case stemmed from efforts by Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. t...   read more

As with almost any agreement, there’s always the fine print. Iraqis making plans to celebrate the “victory” of American troops pulling out of their cities by June 30 might want to check out certain, little-noticed exceptions to the Status of Force...   read more

Regardless of the public declarations by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the Obama administration will bolster defenses to protect Hawaii from a possible North Korean missile launch on July 4, the United States has nothing to worry about. Nort...   read more