The Part of the Dennis Hastert Scandal That No One’s Paying Attention To

Washington has been rocked by the scandal of J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker in the history of the U.S. House, indicted on charges of violating banking laws by paying $1.7 million (as part of a $3.5 million agreement) to conceal prior misconduct, allegedly child molestation.

That scandal contains another one that’s received less attention: the fact that Hastert, who never made much money as a teacher or a congressman, could manage such payments because after retiring from Congress he became a high-paid lobbyist.

Pope Francis Is a Christian, Not a Communist

If you pay much attention to the media in the coming weeks, you might find yourself wondering whether or not Pope Francis is a communist. Bad-faith political mislabeling of Francis is, by this early point in his papacy, already distressingly common: Rush Limbaugh has accused the pontiff of espousing Marxism and socialism, a pair of claims that Fox host Sean Hannity later echoed. These feverish charges arose as a result of several of Francis’ statements about the failures of trickle-down economics and the ravages of inequality. But the latest round of McCarthy-esque red-spotting is due to conservative nervousness about Pope Francis’ upcoming encyclical on the environment, expected to be released June 18.

New anti-terror bill might avert shootings like Edmonton: public safety minister

OTTAWA - The shooting death of an Edmonton police constable may have federal policy implications, the city's mayor and the Conservative public safety minister both said Tuesday.

Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson suggested that the loss of the federal long-gun registry may be a factor in a spate of Alberta police altercations, including a shooting Monday that killed Const. Daniel Woodall and wounded Sgt. Jason Harley.

"I do have a concern with gun violence and I will say that the loss of the gun registry may be related to this," Iveson said.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon Sees No Peace With Palestinians In His Lifetime

HERZLIYA, Israel, June 9 (Reuters) - Israel's defense minister said on Tuesday he did not believe a stable peace agreement could be reached with the Palestinians in his lifetime - one of the bleakest assessments from a top-level cabinet member since talks collapsed last year.

Moshe Yaalon, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest allies, accused the Palestinians of having "slammed the door" on efforts to keep discussions going, and said they had rejected peace-for-land deals for at least 15 years.

How US Cluster Bombs Banned by Most Countries Ended Up in Yemen

On April 29, three adults and a child came across some fist-sized canisters on the ground outside of Baqim, a Yemeni town controlled by Houthi rebels. To the 10-year-old boy among them, they "looked like toys." Out of curiosity, they picked up the cannisters, which then exploded. All four were injured; a nurse told Human Rights Watch that the child was wounded in the stomach, and one of the adults received injuries to his face, torso, thigh, and crotch. Considering the kind of damage that cluster-bomb submunitions can cause, they're lucky to still be alive.

Harper Shrugs as Foreigners Snap up Canadian-Owned Companies

While many Canadians are distressed by the loss of iconic Canadian companies like the Hudson's Bay Company and Tim Hortons, the same can't be said of our governments. They have mechanisms at their disposal to stop the wholesale sell-off of our nation, but they fail to act. Under Stephen Harper, we have continued to bid goodbye to far too many of our home-grown success stories. How will we ever recover these assets when they are gone?

Apple Music Is Another Tech Company Attempt to Please Investors by Trapping Customers

On Monday, Apple closed its annual Worldwide Developer Conference with the star-studded reveal of its long-rumored music streaming service. Named Apple Music, it is a reimagined version of Apple’s billion-dollar acquisition Beats Music, and will require a monthly subscription to listen to most songs.

In the run-up to this announcement, Apple has allegedly engaged in alarming behavior. The Verge reported the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are scrutinizing the company after it pressured record labels not to renew their license agreements for YouTube and Spotify’s free streaming services. Apple hoped to cripple the offerings of other services to increase the value of its own paid service, which is likely to come pre-installed on future operating system updates.

How A Right-Wing Political Machine Is Dismantling Higher Education in North Carolina

On a Monday afternoon in April, a few dozen people gathered in a windowless room in Raleigh, North Carolina, to discuss the crisis in higher education. As they dug into plates of Tex-Mex, the featured speaker, Jay Schalin, ascended the podium and adjusted his notes. The crisis isn’t cost or access, he informed the room. “The main problem has to do with the ideas that are being discussed and promoted,” Schalin explained, those being “multiculturalism, collectivism, left-wing post-modernism.”

Israelis And Palestinians Would Gain Billions From Peace, New RAND Study Finds

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israelis and Palestinians would gain billions of dollars from making peace with each other while both would face daunting economic losses in case of other alternatives, particularly in case of a return to violence, according to a new study released on Monday.

The RAND Corp., a U.S.-based nonprofit research organization, interviewed some 200 officials from the region and elsewhere during more than two years of research into the costs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its main finding was that following a peace agreement, Israelis stood to gain $120 billion over the course of a decade. The Palestinians would gain $50 billion, marking a 36-percent rise in their average per-capita income, the report said.

Harper’s visit to Ukraine ‘pointless gesture’

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent visit to Ukraine was yet another counterproductive and pointless gesture of unwavering Canadian support for the current government in Kyiv. No doubt Harper’s anti-Russian rhetoric would be welcome words to the ears of President Petro Poroshenko, as he tries to drown out the shouts of protest from his own disenfranchised citizenry.

That’s right, folks. Once again, mass demonstrations in the streets of Kyiv are calling for an end to government corruption. Despite the ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 and the subsequent instalment of pro-Western oligarch Poroshenko last June, Ukraine remains gripped by its crippling debt and widespread unemployment.