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

The United States has controlled Puerto Rico for 110 years, yet American lawmakers have never bothered to ask Puerto Ricans what they want to do about their future. But a bill currently in Congress would do just that, by conducting a two-part refe...   read more

In a ruling that has major ramifications for government whistleblowers, an obscure federal employment review board decided this week that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was justified in firing a veteran air marshal for revealing ...   read more

There are two major flaws in the Obama administration’s plan for reorganizing the federal government’s oversight of the financial industry, according to Richard Posner, a judge on the seventh circuit court of appeals. First, the 88-page report pro...   read more

Within the nearly 90 pages of President Barack Obama’s plan to reform the government’s regulation of the financial industry is a recommendation to expand the role of a little-known international banking body called the Financial Stability Board. T...   read more

On June 28 New Yorkers will participate in the five-mile “Hope and Possibility” run, an event inspired by the recovery of Trisha Meili, a young woman who was raped and brutally assaulted in Central Park on April 19, 1989. In 2004, Meili finally we...   read more

For Jon and Kate Gosselin, stars of the reality TV show “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” the news isn’t all bad. They are still getting a divorce, but it just so happens that the Internal Revenue Service has just changed its rules that apply to claiming child...   read more

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, any community that averages less than 100 cases of cancer for every 1 million people is doing okay. Once the rate goes above a hundred, EPA considers the situation unacceptable. Which begs the...   read more

When is a tiny mysterious island bigger than just a “speck” of earth in the ocean? When that speck sits atop huge oil reserves, say officials in Mexico. The long lost Isla Bermeja has been the focus of an intense search by scientists from the Nati...   read more

Let the festivities begin! Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has declared June 29 a national holiday in Iraq to celebrate the withdrawal of American forces from Iraqi cities. In accordance with the security agreement Washington signed late last year ...   read more

Even if a lawsuit by families of those who died during the September 11, 2001, attacks is not successful in court, the effort may result in shedding light on long-alleged connections between al-Qaeda and the Saudi royal family.   Lawyers represe...   read more

A federal program intended to boost automobile sales and help reduce gas consumption is supposed to begin operation by the end of July, now that President Barack Obama has signed the legislation. After being known as “Cash for Clunkers” while Cong...   read more

Pop quiz time. Recently, the U.S. military banned a reporter from embedding with an Army unit because of his unfavorable coverage of the war in Iraq. Was the reporter from: A) New York Times; B) Washington Post; or C) Stars and Stripes? The answer...   read more

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has issued its annual report on illegal drug use around the world. Although national figures are hard to compare because of varying methods of research, there are some revealing statistics relating to t...   read more

“No Child Left Behind” is getting an extreme makeover. The controversial education reform plan created during the Bush administration had its red schoolhouse branding image torn down last Saturday outside the Department of Education building in Wa...   read more

At least 24 journalists and bloggers have been arrested in Iran since the contested presidential election on June 12, bringing the total to 33 locked up in prison, according to Reporters Without Borders. The media watchdog group, which calls Iran ...   read more

Of the hundreds of detainees imprisoned by the United States on suspicions of being terrorists, it might be difficult to find a case more unfair than that of Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al-Janko. The Syrian-Kurd was in Afghanistan in 2000 and wound up...   read more