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A series of attacks, including a coordinated assault on a private Shiite college in Baghdad, killed at least 18 people and wounded nearly 50 in Iraq on Sunday, officials said. Less than two weeks ahead of parliamentary elections, Iraq is struggling to keep a lid on a surge in sectarian violence that has sent bloodshed soaring to levels not seen since the country was pushed to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007. …

Israeli and Palestinian minors accused of crimes in the West Bank are subject to two different sets of laws. Israeli settlers are prosecuted under Israeli civilian law, while Palestinians are thrust into the military justice system. Critics complain that the conviction rate in the military system is higher and the penalties stiffer. …

BUNKERVILLE — A GMC pickup motors across a bridge over the Virgin River, kicking up a cloud of desert. The door swings open. This is my ticket inside the militia that’s become rancher Cliven Bundy’s fighting brigade. Brandon Rapolla, a 39-year-old concrete mixer from Oregon, steers the truck toward the militia camp that’s assembled to support Bundy’s battle with the Bureau of Land Management. There’s an assault rifle propped between Rapolla’s knees. A .338 Magnum rifle, designed to take down big game at a distance the length of three football fields or more, rests within arm’s reach on the back...

Explanation: Why did a picturesque 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash? Although the large ash plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly noticeable because it drifted across such well-populated areas. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in southern Iceland began erupting on 2010 March 20, with a second eruption starting under the center of a small glacier on 2010 April 14. Neither eruption was unusually powerful. The second eruption, however, melted a large amount of glacial ice which then cooled and fragmented lava into gritty glass particles that were carried up with the rising volcanic plume....

It’s about a life-altering discovery that Disbrow made – 77 years after she was raped. It’s not the type of thing you talk about, so Disbrow never did. But the crime – committed by a stranger during a school picnic – resulted in a child whom Disbrow was forced to give up. And that child, well, Disbrow never stopped thinking about her. Disbrow wrote her letters, prayed for her. And, for decades, every May 22, Disbrow would pull out a small photograph and silently wish her daughter a happy birthday. Disbrow married and had other children. By 2006, she had...

<p>On one tour we joined, smoke wafted out windows. Strangers shared pipes and exchanged samples of weed and wax, a concentrated form of marijuana. Canisters of buds bearing names like "tangerine haze" and "strawberry cough," were passed around to smell. Nutella pancakes came up in conversations at least three times.</p>

A prominent black member of Congress and a longtime civil rights leader accused the Clinton White House of racially profiling him when he tried to meet Vice President Al Gore in 1993. As documents the Clinton Library released on Friday revealed, an October 5, 1993, memo noted that the Secret Service asked Rep. Louis Stokes (D-OH) "for identification, although his white driver was not." Stokes, who served in Congress for 30 years and was a Clinton ally on domestic initiatives, was "understandably furious." "Furthermore, before Rep. Stokes was allowed in the gate, a K-9 detail searched his car," the memo...

WASHINGTON – Political and military elites are seizing protected areas in one of Africa's last bastions for elephants, putting broad swaths of Zimbabwe at risk of becoming fronts for ivory poaching, according to a nonprofit research group's report that examines government collusion in wildlife trafficking.

For two decades the US government has tried to get Cliven Bundy to remove his cows from federal land, and for two decades the Nevada rancher has steadfastly refused, defying court orders and attempts to negotiate a settlement for the $1.1 million he owes in federal grazing fees. Finally, last week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took matters into its own hands and started seizing cattle that had been illegally grazing on government property. Things went downhill from there. What began as an arcane land dispute rapidly escalated into an armed standoff in the desert. A ragtag band of...

. Is it possible that the people in Washington D.C. who sell their influence and the rest of the people in Washington D.C. that are buying that influence don’t want to solve the problem? Senators and Representatives often talk about simplifying the tax code but it never happens. The very complexity of the tax code creates an enormous opportunity for special interest lobbyists in Washington. Given the large campaign war chests amassed by incumbents from special interest lobbyists and the companies they represent I think that we can correctly surmise why the tax code exists as it does.

A couple who held hands at breakfast every morning even after 70 years of marriage have died 15 hours apart. Helen Felumlee, of Nashport, died at 92 on April 12. Her husband, 91-year-old Kenneth Felumlee, died the next morning. "We knew when one went, the other was going to go," she said.

Joey Giardello, a former middleweight boxing champion who won a decision over Rubin Carter in 1964 and then sued over how the fight was depicted in the 1999 film "The Hurricane," has died. He was 78. Giardello died Thursday of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Cherry Hill, N.J., the International Boxing Hall of Fame announced.

BEIRUT - Syria´s embattled president marked Easter with a tour Sunday of an ancient Christian village recently recaptured by his forces, an important symbolic prize for his government ahead of coming presidential elections he appears poised to contest. President Bashar Assad´s visit to Maaloula, some 40 miles northeast of Damascus, serves a propaganda victory for his government in its quest to be seen as protector of religious minorities as its civil war grinds on. (Snip) Rebels, including fighters from the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, seized Maaloula several times late last year, most recently in December.

Do the Fed’s Really Own the Land in Nevada? Nope! Posted on April 19, 2014 by Martin Armstrong Nevada-Protest QUESTION: Is it true that nearly 80% of Nevada is still owned by the Federal Government who then pays no tax to the State of Nevada? This seems very strange if true as a backdrop to this entire Bundy affair. You seem to be the only person to tell the truth without getting crazy. Thank you so much HF REPLY: The truth behind Nevada is of course just a quagmire of politics. Nevada was a key pawn in getting Abraham Lincoln...

Sevierville — U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander said Thursday that even if Republicans retake the Senate this year, it “is going to be very divided. It’ll take a bipartisan coalition to pass anything.” Last year, Tennessee tea party and conservative groups criticized Alexander in an open letter, telling him that the country “can no longer afford bipartisanship and compromise.” “I learned to count in the Maryville city schools,” the Tennessee Republican said. “We have 45 Republicans, and it takes 60 senators to pass anything that’s important. So you have to work with people on the other side to get a result....

A dozen wedding guests were beaten, tased, pepper sprayed, and arrested. GALVESTON, TX — More than a dozen wedding guests were brutalized by police officers during a raid on a wedding party at a hotel. Cops fired tasers, used batons, and generously applied pepper spray to the guests of a bride and groom hours after their wedding. Among them was former pro-baseball star Brandon Backe, who said the shoulder injuries that he received from police caused his pitching career to end. After causing a gaping head wound, bruises, hair pulled out, a broken nose, and pepper spray on numerous individuals,...

WASHINGTON — The United States is said to have disclosed that Saudi King Abdullah was dying. (Snip) The sources said the photograph was taken by White House personnel during Obama’s meeting with the Saudi king outside Riyad on March 28.“The Saudis specifically did not want any photograph that showed Abdullah with the tube,” a source said. “But there was a White House photographer that took the picture for what he said was history.” The photograph was said to have been relayed to members of the White House press corps. Within a day, an image of the Saudi king with the...

Despite major changes in public opinion in recent years, Rev. Franklin Graham, son of perhaps the most famous American preacher of all time, Billy Graham, reiterated his strong opposition to gay marriage and gay adoption today on ABC's "This Week." As a part of a special Easter week discussion on religion, Graham told ABC News' Martha Raddatz that gays could go to heaven if they repent.

BUNDY RANCH | You saw his proof. (below) Now meet BLM Whistleblower Rusty Hill who uncovered the corporations and shady land deals connected to Reid Bunkerville LLC, Zion Bank Corp, and BLM lands surrounding the Bundy properties.(TWO-VIDEOS-AT-LINK)Since the Bundy Ranch story broke last week and culminated in a tense standoff with Federal agents on Saturday resulting in the release of the Bundy Ranch cattle we have been following the money. On the 10th we reported the Militia arrived in the area and cited a former BLM volunteer and Nevada Land Broker who revealed to us the true value of the...

Conservatives slammed the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College's role in presidential elections, saying that the National Popular Vote Compact circumvents the Constitution, saying it resembled President Barack Obama's abuse of the law through his extensive use of executive orders. "It is pretty startling," Bill Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV this week. "If they want to make the case for the popular election of presidents and a Constitutional amendment, they should make the case.