ISIS controls 50 percent of Syria after takeover of Palmyra, monitoring group says

The Islamic State terror group controls over half of Syrian territory after seizing the village and archaeological site of Palmyra in the central part of the country Thursday, activists monitoring Syria's civil war said.
Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the Associated Press the extremists overran the archaeological site, just to the southwest of the modern settlement on Palmyra, shortly after midnight local time.
An activist in the central province of Homs who goes by the name of Bebars al-Talawy also says that Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS, now controls the ruins at the UNESCO world heritage site famous for its 2,000-year-old towering Roman-era colonnades and other ruins and priceless artifacts. Before the war, thousands of tourists a year visited the remote desert outpost, a cherished landmark referred to by Syrians as the "Bride of the Desert."
Both activists said Thursday that ISIS had not damaged the ruins so far. ISIS has previously destroyed major archaeological sites in Iraq that predate the founding of Islam. Sky News reported that hundreds of statues and artifacts had been taken to safety ahead of the ISIS advance, but larger items, such as stone tombs, could not be removed in time. 
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that ISIS had also seized control of Palmyra's military air base, prison and intelligence headquarters. The Associated Press reported that the prison, known as Tadmur, is where thousands of Syrian dissidents have been imprisoned and tortured over the years.
An amateur video posted online showed ISIS fighters, allegedly inside the prison, burning a giant poster of Syrian President Bashar Assad and cheering as flames rose around them against the night sky. The video and its location could not be independently verified, but appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events.

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Clinton breaks media silence, answers reporters’ questions on emails and more

Hillary Clinton, having faced weeks of criticism for ducking the press since entering the presidential race, finally broke her media silence Tuesday, fielding multiple questions from reporters during a stop in Iowa -- addressing, albeit briefly, the two controversies dogging her campaign.
On the controversy surrounding her use of a private email address and server while secretary of state, Clinton insisted: "I want those emails out."
On questions about the transparency surrounding foreign-government donations to the family foundation, Clinton said she's "proud" of the organization, and the donations just show that others are supportive of the work it does.
While the Democratic presidential candidate's responses may not have been surprising, her engagement with the press marks a departure from the way she's run her campaign since entering the race a month ago.
She largely has kept to low-key, tightly orchestrated campaign events, eliciting concerns from reporters and criticism from Republicans that she's staying inside a "bubble."
Clinton has done no formal interviews since entering, while occasionally fielding a question bounced at her from the press corps.
Tuesday's back-and-forth was one of the most extensive Q&A's since she held a press conference addressing the email scandal -- before declaring her candidacy.
On the email controversy, Clinton on Tuesday insisted the matter is in the State Department's hands and said she wants them released as soon as possible.
"Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do." Asked if she would demand their release, Clinton said of the emails, "They're not mine. They belong to the State Department."
Clinton reiterated her push to release the emails shortly after a federal judge rejected the State Department's proposal to disseminate portions of the emails by next January and said the agency must instead conduct a "rolling production" of the records.
The court ordered the department to produce the schedule for that rollout by next week, and a department spokesman said they would comply.
Clinton spoke after a small business event for her campaign in Iowa, the home of the nation's first presidential caucuses. The disclosure that she conducted State Department business on a private email account has been a controversy from the very inception of her campaign this year and raised questions about her commitment to transparency.
More questions were raised Tuesday after The New York Times published emails showing she may have had a second personal email address, despite claims she only used one as secretary of state.
During the Tuesday court hearing, a federal judge gave the State Department a week to craft a schedule for releasing the records, according to Vice News lawyer Jeffrey Light.
The agency made its initial proposal in a federal court filing Monday night, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Vice News.
In the filing, John F. Hackett, who is responsible for the department's responses to FOIA requests, said that following a review of the emails, the department will post the releasable portions of the 55,000 pages on its website. He said the review will take until the end of the year -- and asked the court to adopt a completion date of Jan. 15, 2016, to factor in the holidays. That's just a couple of weeks before the Iowa caucuses and early state primaries that follow.
In Monday night's filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Hackett said the State Department received the 55,000 pages of emails from Clinton in paper form. Aside from those, Clinton's office has deleted about 30,000 emails deemed personal.

Louisiana religious liberty bill goes down in defeat as Republicans side with LGBT activists

UPDATE: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued an Executive Order late Tuesday to protect religious liberty and prevent the state from discriminating against those with deeply held religious beliefs.
“In Louisiana, the state should not be able to take adverse action against a person for their belief in traditional marriage,” Jindal said. “That’s why I’m issuing an Executive Order to prevent the state from discriminating against people, charities and family-owned businesses with deeply held religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.
Earlier story:
Louisiana Republican lawmakers sided with Democrats, big business and LGBT activists to kill a bill that would have protected individuals and religious institutions opposed to same-sex marriage.
In doing so, lawmakers defied the objections of an overwhelmingly majority of voters and handed Gov. Bobby Jindal a significant defeat for his legislative agenda.
A house legal committee voted 10-2 on Tuesday to shelve the Louisiana Marriage and Conscience Act – a measure that critics said could sanction discrimination against same-sex couples.
However, the proposed law clearly stated its sole purpose was to prevent the government from discriminating against a person or a non-profit because of their support for traditional marriage.
“These ten legislators voted today against freedom and against two-thirds of Louisianans who support the Marriage and Conscience Act,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a supporter of the bill. “This is a failure of leadership and goes to the heart of what’s wrong with American politics today.”
Perkins was referring to a WPA poll commissioned by the Louisiana Family Forum and FRC that indicated 67 percent of likely voters supported the bill. Even more shocking – 63 percent of Democrats supported the bill.
“These elected leaders effectively endorsed government discrimination against individuals and nonprofits simply for believing in marriage between a man and a woman,” Perkins said. “No person or nonprofit should lose tax exempt status, face disqualification, lose a professional license or be punished by the government simply for believing what President Obama believed just three years ago – that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”
Among those strong-arming the bill was IBM – which is building a technology jobs center in Baton Rouge.  An IBM executive penned a letter to The Times-Picayune warning that “IBM will find it much harder to attract talent to Louisiana if this bill is passed and enacted into law.”
Gov. Jindal scoffed at such threats in an April 23 op-ed published by The New York Times.
“I have a clear message for any corporation that contemplates bullying our state: save your breath,” he wrote.
He said he would not be deterred by corporations that were pressured by radical liberals.
“As a nation we would not compel a priest, minister or rabbi to violate his conscience and perform a same-sex wedding ceremony,” Jindal wrote. “But a great many Americans who are not members of the clergy feel just as called to live their faith through their businesses. That’s why we should ensure that musicians, caterers, photographers and others should be immune from government coercion on deeply held religious convictions.”
Equality Louisiana accused Johnson of trying to bring discrimination to the state through the back door. They partnered with Louisiana Progress Action and other groups to oppose the bill.
“I remain convinced that the bill is bad for Louisiana – bad for our state’s economy and bad for our state’s people,” Equality Louisiana’s Matthew Patterson said in a statement.
State Rep. Mike Johnson authored the bill. The Republican, from Bossier City, took a beating not only from the Left – but also from fellow Republicans.
A Republican city councilman in Baton Rouge called him a “despicable bigot of the highest order.”
“It’s shameful,” Johnson told me. “He never met me before he said that. He never read the legislation. People will say what they say – I can’t control that.”
However, it appears that Republican lawmakers bought into the lies and distortions propagated by activists and big business.
“This bill is a simple measure to protect religious freedom,” Johnson said. “A few well-funded activist groups have intentionally mischaracterized the bill – spreading fear and intimidation and misinformation.”
Johnson said he was not at all surprised by the survey that found even Louisiana Democrats supported his doomed measure.
“The people of Louisiana are at their heart very patriotic, very conservative – even in the Democrat party,” he said. “They understand that religious liberty ought to be protected.”
Johnson said he has seen the future of religious liberty in America – and it is grim.
He foresees a day when Christian churches could lose their tax-exempt status and Christian schools could lose their accreditation. He foresees a day when those who refuse to endorse same-sex marriage could be prohibited from practicing their profession.
That’s why he pushed the legislation.
“If society’s views on marriage are going to change – if the Supreme Court declares there is a right to same-sex marriage – we have to do all we can to ensure that religious liberty is not a casualty of that new and emerging idea,” he said.

House Benghazi committee subpoenas ex-Clinton White House aide Blumenthal

The House select committee investigating the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack issued a subpoena Tuesday to former Clinton White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.
Committee spokesman Jamal Ware confirmed to Fox News that Blumenthal had been called to give a deposition before the committee.
The subpoena of Blumenthal came a day after The New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton had received private intelligence reports from Blumenthal regarding the situation in Libya during the civil war that led to the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. According to the paper, Hillary sent some of those reports on to aides and State Department personnel.
At the same time that he was sending the memos to Clinton, the Times reported, Blumenthal was advising business associates who were hoping to win contracts from Libya's transitional post-Qaddafi government. The Times report did not make clear what, if anything, Clinton and the State Department knew of Blumenthal's involvement in any potential business projects in Libya.
Blumenthal served as a senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton between 1997 and 2001, but the Times reported that the Obama administration prohibited him from taking a job with Clinton's State Department team.
Late Tuesday, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the Benghazi committee's ranking Democrat, accused Republicans on the committee of heavy-handed tactics in issuing the subpoena to Blumenthal.
"There was no need for the Select Committee to send two U.S. Marshals to the home of Sidney Blumenthal to serve his wife with a subpoena, especially since the Committee never bothered to contact him first to ask him whether he would voluntarily come in," Cummings said. "These heavy-handed, aggressive, and unnecessary tactics waste the time of the U.S. Marshal service."
"Those who complain about the committee's speed don't get to complain when the committee cuts to the chase," committee spokesman Ware said, referencing previous claims by Cummings that the committee's investigation was politically motivated and designed to hurt Clinton's chances in the 2016 presidential election.
The Times report also indicated that Clinton may have used a second e-mail address to handle her official correspondence. Emails published by the Times show Clinton writing from the address, hrod17@clintonemail.com. This is distinct from the other address she has acknowledged using as secretary of state, hdr22@clintonemail.com.
Ware told FoxNews.com earlier Tuesday it was not clear whether the multiple e-mail addresses reflected a glitch or proved Clinton really was using two email addresses, contrary to what her office claims.
"There's only one way to know that for certain," Ware said in an email. "For Clinton to turn over the server for independent analysis."

New nuclear threat? North Korea claims it has miniaturized warheads

North Korea claimed Wednesday that it has manufactured nuclear warheads small enough to fit on the head of a nuclear submarine, an announcement that is likely to rachet up tensions in east Asia, particularly with South Korea.
According to Yonhap News, a spokesman for North Korea's National Defense Commission said that the development of the alleged weapons was part of an initiative to boost Pyongyang's self-defense capability.
"It is long since the DPRK's nuclear striking means have entered the stage of producing smaller nukes and diversifying them," the spokesman said, using the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "The DPRK has reached the stage of ensuring the highest precision and intelligence and best accuracy of not only medium- and short-range rockets, but long-range ones."
If the North's claim is true, it presents a fresh threat to the security of South Korea and Japan, as well as the United States. Pyongyang has previously claimed that it has the technology to build a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on an intercontinental ballistic missile, which could reach the U.S. mainland.
The statement comes days after North Korea claimed that it had successfully test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile earlier this month. South Korea had downplayed that announcement, characterizing the exercise as a test ejection, rather than a firing. South Korean officials believe the missile only traveled approximately 110 yards after it left the water, Yonhap reported.
The South Korean assessment was supported Tuesday by Navy Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told an audience at a Washington think tank that North Korea was "years away" from developing the capability to launch ballistic missiles from submarines.
The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore raised its own questions about the viability of North Korea's claimed test, saying that images released by Pyongyang may have been altered and raising the possibility that the missiles were launched from a submerged barge instead of a submarine.
However, U.S. and South Korean officials appear to have acknowledged that North Korea carried out a test of some kind. On Tuesday, Winnefeld said that if North Korea develops the capability of launching ballistic missiles from a submarine, "it will present a hard-to-detect danger for Japan and South Korea as well as our servicemembers stationed in the region."

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Supreme Court strikes down Maryland double-tax law, other states could feel revenue pinch

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Maryland tax that effectively double-taxes residents for income earned in other states -- a decision that could cost Maryland and other states with similar policies hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices agreed with a lower court that the tax is unconstitutional because it discourages Maryland residents from earning money outside the state.
"Maryland's tax scheme is inherently discriminatory," the justices wrote in the majority opinion. They wrote that the policy effectively discourages "interstate commerce."
The ruling said: "If every State adopted Maryland's tax structure, interstate commerce would be taxed at a higher rate than intrastate commerce."
The ruling could have far-reaching consequences beyond just Maryland. It also could affect similar laws in other states, including New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
At issue in this case is Maryland's treatment of money earned out of state.
Most states give residents a full credit for income taxes paid on money earned out of state. Yet Maryland, while allowing residents to deduct income taxes paid to other states from their state tax, did not apply that deduction to a local "piggy back" tax collected for counties and some city governments.
Maryland claimed it had authority to tax all the income its residents earn to pay for local services like public schools.
The challenge to the policy was brought by a Maryland businessman who earned money in multiple states, and complained about the double-tax.
In the near-term, the court decision could cost Maryland hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Duke rebuke: Professor defiant after school condemns racially charged remarks

A Duke University professor was defiant after the school last week condemned his "noxious" and "offensive" words in a letter published in The New York Times in which he compared African-Americans unfavorably to Asian-Americans.
The school's rebuke came after a student backlash against Political Science Professor Jerry Hough, 80, whose May 9 letter sought to address racism and the Baltimore riots. Hough said African-Americans don't try to integrate into society, while Asians “worked doubly hard” to overcome racism instead of blaming it.

“Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.”
- Duke University Prof. Jerry Hough

“Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration,” he wrote on May 10. “Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.”
Duke students and faculty blasted Hough last week, and the school told The News & Observer of Raleigh that he was placed on leave and that 2016 will be his last year at the school.
“The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse,” said Duke spokesman Michael Schoenfeld. “Duke University has a deeply held commitment to inclusiveness grounded in respect for all, and we encourage our community to speak out when they feel that those ideals are challenged or undermined, as they were in this case.”
But Hough, in an e-mail to an ABC affiliate, said political correctness is getting in the way of thoughtful and frank debate.
“I am strongly against the obsession with ‘sensitivity,'" Hough wrote. "The more we have emphasized sensitivity in recent years, the worse race relations have become. I think that is not an accident. I know that the 60 years since the Montgomery bus boycott is a long time, and things must be changed. The Japanese and other Asians did not obsess with the concentration camps and the fact they were linked with blacks as ‘colored.’"
Hough even played the "Coach K" card, referencing beloved and legendary Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski in his email.
"Coach K did not obsess with all the Polish jokes about Polish stupidity," Hough wrote. "He pushed ahead and achieved. And by his achievement and visibility, he has played a huge role in destroying stereotypes about Poles. Many blacks have done that too, but no one says they have done as well on the average as the Asians.”
Citing privacy, the university would not comment on the professor’s future at the school, the station reported. University officials say Hough has been on a standard academic leave for the 2014-15 school year.

State Department plans January 2016 deadline for release of Hillary Clinton emails

The State Department is planning to release 55,000 pages of emails stored on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server by January of next year, according to a court filing.
The department has asked a federal judge to approve a plan requiring the release of all of Clinton's emails by January 15, 2016. The request is related to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed this past January by Vice News and was first reported by POLITICO.
If the request is approved, the complete set of emails could be released just over two weeks before the Iowa caucus. Clinton is the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In the document, the State Department's acting director of the Office of Information Programs and Services, John Hackett, cited the "voluminous" collection of correspondence as the reason for the late proposed release date.
"Given the breadth and importance of the many foreign policy issues on which the Secretary of State and the Department work, the review of these materials will likely require consultation with a broad range of subject matter experts within the Department and other agencies, as well as potentially with foreign governments," Hackett continued. The department's filing claimed that 12 staffers had been assigned to review Clinton's emails and redact sensitive information.
The contents of Clinton's messages have been a topic of interest since The New York Times first reported in March that Clinton conducted all of her correspondence from a private e-mail account set up when she was nominated to become Secretary of State in late 2008. Subsequent reports revealed that the account was located on a server operating out of her New York home.
The reports raised questions about whether Clinton had attempted to circumvent federal recordkeeping laws in an effort to head off requests for official communications from government watchdogs and the news media. The use of a so-called "homebrew" server caused cybersecurity experts to question how much sensitive diplomatic correspondence was vulnerable to foreign hackers.
Clinton has said that she turned over the 55,000 pages to the State Department last year after her attorneys reviewed them and deemed them relevant public records. She added that she has since deleted all her emails from her personal server.
Earlier this year, Clinton turned over 300 pages of emails to the House select committee investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. There was no immediate comment late Monday from Republicans on the committee about the State Department's plan.
The Department has said it is planning a separate release of 850 pages of emails related to the Benghazi attack in the coming weeks.