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

Drug abuse and mental illness are challenges officials face everywhere in the country, but for some states certain problems are more acute than others. Utah, for example, leads the United States in the rate of “serious psychological distress,” but...   read more

Five years ago the federal government gave American corporations a one-time tax holiday on profits made overseas so that they would invest the savings in the U.S. operations and create new jobs. A new study has found, however, that few companies u...   read more

If you’ve wondered how life would be different if John McCain had won the 2008 presidential election, here’s one example of McCain supporting a policy that Barack Obama opposes.   At the urging of President Obama, members of the U.S. Senate are ...   read more

Meriwether Lewis, one half of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition that mapped vast stretches of the unexplored American West in the early 1800s, was said to have committed suicide only a few years after completing his journey. But current descend...   read more

On November 12, 2008, in Chesapeake, Virginia, two Allied Terminals storage tanks collapsed, releasing two million gallons of liquid urea ammonium nitrate fertilizer into the surrounding residential area and seriously injuring two contractors work...   read more

Assuming the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki can maintain stability once the U.S. withdraws its forces next year, Iraq has ambitious plans for expanding oil and natural gas production, with the first big contracts to be due to be awar...   read more

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have joined consumer advocates in calling for the Obama administration to move quickly and close a loophole in federal law that bill collectors are exploiting to seize veterans benefits and Social Security pay...   read more

A member of a humanitarian organization dedicated to helping migrants survive their treks across the Arizona desert was convicted in federal court on Wednesday on charges of littering on public lands. Walt Staton faces up to one year in prison and...   read more

Cows could become a greater threat to global warming than cars or SUVs, scientists insist, which has prompted farmers in the U.S. and Europe to experiment with the diets of bovines. At issue is the tremendous amount of methane gas that cows expel ...   read more

Conservative writer and scholar Max Boot was not entirely displeased with President Barack Obama’s address on Wednesday in Egypt, pointing out several points in the speech that he supported. But Obama “twisted history” when it came to his discussi...   read more

Was it a serious breach of national security that could end up helping terrorists, or just no big deal? That was the range of opinion among experts following the revelation earlier this week that someone in the federal government had accidentally ...   read more

The Secretary of the Army is a civilian-led post responsible for overseeing all matters pertaining to the U.S. Army, including procurement of weapons systems and other equipment used by soldiers. Given this responsibility, the defense industry was...   read more

Ordinarily the U.S. government doesn’t give out a lot of information about spy satellites its puts into space, but it does at least reveal which agency or branch of the military is behind a scheduled launch. But so far military officials are being...   read more

A convicted drug offender who was forced to live in a religious-oriented facility is suing a county in Oregon, claiming his civil rights were violated. Jason Dwain Davies is arguing in his lawsuit against Lane County that officials violated the Co...   read more

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has set its sights on the world’s largest capitalist market: India. Teaming with Bharti Enterprises, the parent company of India’s biggest mobile firm, Bharti Airtel, Wal-Mart has created the joint venture: ...   read more

Despite the serious problems the U.S. ran into by relying on Blackwater to help provide security in Iraq, the Obama administration has decided to significantly increase the number of private contractors in both wars the U.S. is fighting. According...   read more