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

In a reversal of a common trend, a growing number of Americans are crossing the border south into Mexico to take advantage of economic opportunity. These individuals are seeking dental care at costs often 70% less than those in the United States, ...   read more

Demonstrating it has quite a half-life, a “nuclear pork” plan costing $50 billion continued its political emanation when the Senate adopted its version of the 2010 budget last week. The plan, which was slipped in without notice through an amendmen...   read more

A bill to help improve and expand health care services for women veterans, introduced in mid-March, is currently in the process of being referred to the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. According to Betty Moseley Brown, a Marine Corps vetera...   read more

Residents of Laredo, Texas are objecting to a recent Border Patrol decision to spray the Rio Grande river bank with pesticides, claiming that it has echoes of the Agent Orange scandal of the Vietnam War era. Border patrol officials proposed sprayi...   read more

Too little has been known for far too long about cooperatives in the United States, so the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has set out to conduct its own census of this facet of rural America. Cooperatives (businesses that are mutually owned a...   read more

Things are so bad with the Food and Drug Administration’s clinical trial system for approving new drugs that the country is “virtually defenseless” from preventing another Vioxx scandal. This finding, and many others regarding dangerous conflicts ...   read more

Next Wednesday is Tax Day in America—the day dreaded by almost everyone. Unless you’re part of the billion-dollar financial industry that has been lambasted for tanking the economy. According to The Center for Public Integrity, banks and other fin...   read more

Republicans in Virginia’s House of Delegates derailed attempts yesterday by state Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) to accept $125 million in federal stimulus money that would have provided additional unemployment benefits to many of...   read more

For all their qualms about modernity, the Taliban know how to use the Web. Last week, a blogger discovered that a website, Alemarah1.com, belonging to the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” was hosted in the United States. The Houston-based company...   read more

Of all the alcohol-related deaths in the United States, more than 50% were caused by binge drinking, which is currently defined as consuming five or more alcoholic drinks on one occasion for men and four for women. The U.S. Centers for Disease Con...   read more

An investigation by Salon has found that the U.S. Army is pressuring doctors to not diagnose soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and brain injuries out of concerns over the cost of treating thousands of returning veterans from Iraq...   read more

The Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Barack Obama has gone beyond anything the Bush administration tried to do in defending the government’s unauthorized wiretapping of American communications earlier this decade, according to legal sch...   read more

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that the social network has welcomed its 200 millionth user. That means that Facebook Nation now has a larger population than Brazil, and trails only China, India, The United States and Indon...   read more

Congress never makes a move regarding health care without first considering the financial costs involved. But the latest twist on the cost-benefit question raises the point of whether the nation would be better off—from a purely bottom-line perspe...   read more

Turns out “Buy American” does not apply to condoms. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has decided to end its contract with Alabama-based Alatech Healthcare Products for the condoms it distributes overseas, and instead will buy th...   read more

Consumer and civil rights groups are beside themselves over a decision by the Justice Department to pick up where the Bush administration left off in defending banks accused of having racist lending practices. Later this month, President Barack Ob...   read more