Targeted killings of terrorists by U.S. questioned

NYTIMES

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.

The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy. [...]

Darwin's Theory of Evolution: Weapon against slavery?

BBC

What drove Charles Darwin to his extraordinary ideas on evolution and human origins? Adrian Desmond, with co-author James Moore, argue in a new book that the great scientist had a "sacred cause": the abolition of slavery.

"It makes one's blood boil," said Charles Darwin.

Not much outraged the gentle recluse, but the horrors of slavery could cost him a night's sleep.

He was thinking of the whipped house boy and the thumbscrews used by old ladies in South America, atrocities he had witnessed on the Beagle voyage

The screams stayed with him for life, but how much did they influence his life's work? [...]

Abuse - 'Starving mother' accepts plea bargain

YNET

Plea bargain reached even after the last moment – in the corridors of the court. A woman accused of starving her son accepted a plea bargain on Thursday after evidence was presented at Jerusalem's Magistrate's Court, including testimony from the doctor who cared for the child.

Dr. Michael Weintraub described the terrible state to which the child had deteriorated, and it seems this may have prompted the renewed efforts to agree to a plea bargain she had previously rejected on advice from her rabbis.

According to the agreement, the mother will be under house arrest for three years, and kept away from the children for five years except under conditions to be determined for visiting. She is also expected to undergo medical treatment. After two years, if she meets the conditions of the plea bargain, she will be able to see her children in their house under observation for a few hours each day.

Worm in fish Psak

Rav Sternbuch: Shavuos - A day of Elevation

Rav Sternbuch: Living with Bitachon

Bad Charity: Destroying with kindness

Time Magazine

In the history of foreign aid, it looked pretty harmless: a young Florida businessman decided to collect a million shirts and send them to poor people in Africa. Jason Sadler just wanted to help. He thought he'd start with all the leftover T-shirts from his advertising company, I Wear Your Shirt. But judging from the response Sadler got from a group of foreign-aid bloggers, you'd think he wanted to toss squirrels into wood chippers or steal lunchboxes from fourth-graders.

"I have thick skin, I don't mind, but it's just the way they responded — it was just, 'You're an idiot, here's another stupid idea, I hope this fails,'" Sadler, 27, tells TIME. "It really was offensive because all I'm trying to do is trying to make something good happen and motivate people to get off their butts, get off the couch and do something to help."[...]