History Readings

The attack was years in the making, an AQAP leader said in a video, claiming U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was the mastermind behind it.

Al-Awlaki was the terror group's spokesman before a U.S. drone strike killed him in Yemen in 2011.

French security services have identified a suspected accomplice in that attack, according to the French newspaper Le Parisien. Police sources cited by the newspaper said one line of investigation is that the accomplice, a man from a Paris suburb, may have driven gunman Amedy Coulibaly to the kosher supermarket, where Coulibaly later shot dead four people.

One family, trying to keep food on the table

Over the past five years, America has quietly slipped into a hunger crisis.

hunger and food insecurity spiked across the country as a result of the financial collapse

House GOP intensifies immigration standoff

the task before Congress is quite simple: fund the Department of Homeland Security.

either President Obama accepts GOP demands to effectively dismantle his entire approach to immigration policy or Congress will gut Homeland Security funding when it expires at the end of February.

Protests continue as Holder pushes new steps on police shootings

As protesters from Boston to south Florida sought Thursday to keep attention focused on the fight for police and criminal justice reform, the Obama administration continued to signal its openness to the movement’s concerns.

highlighted the need for better data on police shooting

America and the Torture Debate

history shows that governments tend to overreact or act badly when they are attacked or threatened

It kept citizens perpetually in fear of known and unknown threats, and so in blind awe of the ever-expanding security state within a state.

'Not safe': French Jews mull Israel emigration

The grim and violent climax to the Paris hostage crisis was followed with horror wherever the news is watched. Israel's community of French-speaking Jews followed the unfolding drama with particular sadness but without surprise.

Israel's Channel 10 interviewed one of the survivors of the siege at the kosher supermarket who had hidden in a basement cold room

Islamic State 'beheads guerrilla' in eastern Syria

Islamic State (IS) is reported to have beheaded a man who they accused of setting up a guerrilla cell in eastern Syria that attacked its fighters.

His decapitated body was crucified in the town of Mayadin, in Deir al-Zour province, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

Romney 2016: The 'definition of insanity'?

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul probably captured the sentiment of most of Mr Romney's potential presidential adversaries when he said the prospect of the 2012 Republican nominee running again and expecting a different result is the "definition of insanity".

"I think he's had his chance, and I think it's time for some fresh blood,"

US-Cuba travel and trade: New rules start on Friday

New travel and trade rules between the US and Cuba are to take effect on Friday, US officials say.

allowing US citizens to use credit cards in Cuba and for US businesses to export some technologies.

Pope Francis has defended freedom of expression following last week's attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo - but also stressed its limits.

religions had to be treated with respect, so that people's faiths were not insulted or ridiculed.

The magazine was targeted for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It printed another cartoon of the Prophet on its front page after the attacks, angering some Muslims who say all depictions of the Prophet should be forbidden.

The bill's impact dramatically affects the fundamental regulatory process, so that nearly every type of protective regulation is vulnerable. As a result, the RAA is opposed by groups who advocate on a variety of issues, ranging from consumer safety and financial reform to food safety and worker rights.

Years pass between the time a rule is proposed and its implementation.

You might want to call this the first in what we expect to be a long list of "zombie bills" — retreads of bills which failed to become law in previous years, but have been resurrected one more time. These legislative proposals harm science-informed policy, jeopardizing public health, safety and the environment.

The president said he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation, including an Iran sanctions package.

Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress, promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes.

At the meeting, Obama, who has rarely used his veto pen in his six years in office, signaled he would do so repeatedly, including on GOP-sponsored legislation to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

"The public, and in particular the Congressional community, was never in danger during the investigation. The United States Capitol Police (USCP) remains in close coordination with the FBI and my office continues to monitor the situation," Irving writes.

The email comes just the day after the FBI successfully foiled a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol

"The real weapons of mass destruction today are unemployed 22-year-olds who fall for this radical ideology and we've got to figure out how to counter that," he said on CNN's "New Day."

Anatoly Aksakov, president of Russia's regional banking association and deputy chairman of parliament's financial markets committee, said firms were running out of cash. "Bankers believe that keeping the situation as it stands will cause a wave of bankruptcies, not only credit institutions but also a number of businesses and companies,"

The impact of Western sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine has sparked a cash crunch by shutting many companies out of international funding markets.

"Banks may need up to ... $45 billion in capital in 2015 to support lending and absorb credit losses, and another ... $11.5 billion to address foreign exchange valuation losses," wrote credit specialist Tatiana Tchembarova.

They had to justify their trips to a government agency, apply for licenses, sign up with a firm organizing “people to people” exchanges, or circumvent the law altogether by flying somewhere else first.

While ordinary tourism remains banned by law, new rules put in place by President Obama will make it easier for Americans to visit the island than it has been for most of the last half-century

The rules will usher in a new era of contact between neighbors that have been estranged for longer than most of their citizens have been alive.

Most Muslims say that pictorial depictions of the founder of Islam are forbidden - but has that always been the case in all of the Muslim world?

For most Muslims it's an absolute prohibition - Muhammad, or any of the other prophets of Islam, should not be pictured in any way. Pictures - as well as statues - are thought to encourage the worship of idols.

Muslims point to a verse in the Koran which features Abraham, whom they regard as a prophet: